Dimmo Digest: Semrush's Touch Point Play

Semrush bought Third Door Media (including MarTech), a piñata causes warfare, and what we want to set on fire.

Author

Sara Detrik
October 17, 2024

`We’re baaaack ~

Team, I’m tired. But hey, aren’t we all? Let’s get into it.

We’re all arsonists here.

Anyone have an extra hour in the day? I just need to sleep. So let’s get some time back today and look at what everyone’s up to in the B2B SaaS marketing space.

What’s new in B2B?

  • Semrush acquires Third Door Media, including the MarTech publications.

  • Sendoso and Reachdesk both had the same excellent idea, and it became the reign of the piñata on LinkedIn.

  • Laudable’s Scary Story Time product launch showed us all you can get creative without spending a dime.

Semrush Acquires MarTech in Content Expansion Play

Semrush continues their acquisition growth

The Company: Semrush

Semrush is a digital marketing platform that does SEO, content marketing, competitor research, PPC, social media marketing, and more. Initially, they centered around paid and organic search results but now are taking active steps to be involved in every part of the digital marketing experience.

The Segment: Marketing teams fighting for market share

“The addition of Third Door Media’s platforms to Semrush’s portfolio not only enhances our content and educational offerings for our customers, it also substantially expands the reach of our world class programming,” said Andrew Warden, Chief Marketing Officer at Semrush. “This is all part of our commitment to inspire and equip both current and future generations of digital marketers with the know-how to succeed in an increasingly competitive landscape.”

Why This, Why Now: Semrush will fully own their pipeline

Gen Z are on their way into the workforce just in time for an entirely new playing field. Their unique skills and understanding of the current internet landscape are perfectly timed for B2B’s stale repetition. (Insert “_____ is dead” here.) Semrush seeks to be present at every digital touchpoint for a fully-owned pipeline on a larger scale, especially for the new generation of researchers and prospective buyers are entering the job market.

How You Can Do It On a Dime: Fully explore tiny touch points for your target audience

Not all of us have acquisition money; if we did, life would be way easier. But we do have an ace up our sleeve that big companies don’t have the benefit of accessing: each other. The smaller you are, the more in touch with your community you get to be.

What personas do you share with others? What kind of collabs can you bring to get better outreach for everyone? We’re talking newsletters, resource partnerships, even workshops and courses. Help each other tap into touch points that will not only create visibility, but help us gain trust. A research program like Reveal AI does wonders for that kind of touch point decision making.

How Laudable’s Ryan Quindlen Turns Customer Privacy Into Strategy

You have to tell us if you’re a cop.

Laudable’s Director of Content and Founding Member, Ryan Quindlen, walked me through his process on how to take a use case and create a story that’s not only compelling, but values data privacy.

We had a pun but didn’t use it. You’re welcome.

So, right now, it's super difficult to get shareable data, things like screen grabs, etc. b/c all our testing is being done with real customers. SO what we decided to do was take a real customer use case (prepping for a case study interview) and then 'anonymize' their results.

Here's how I did it -

1. Took real customer data from a request they submitted in Slack (not safe to share as-is)

2. Replaced the names/added spooky themes to properly anonymize

3. Used the Slack block kit builder to recreate the original request but this time, with anonymized data

4. Screen grab and post!

So it's all an exercise in data privacy actually. We needed a way to protect customers while also showing off the cool shit they're doing. And with how much I adore Halloween (peep the prof pic) this was a natural step. We did this exact thing before to replace customer data with 'Michael Scott' etc.

It's all real data, but instead of just blurring out the names and #s which feels a little lame, I have fun with it. I'd rather make it "35,000 candies" than redact it completely.

Ryan Quindlen, Director of Marketing and Founding Member, Laudable

The Great LinkedIn Piñata War

Two piñatas, both alike in dignity…

Reachdesk and Sendoso, two gifting platforms for B2B SaaS, both have great products. And apparently, great ideas.

A bevy of influencers took to LinkedIn to hype their branded piñatas, but what you online saw depended on whose arrived first.

Reachdesk’s: Their logo
Sendoso’s: A Halloween theme

And honestly, it couldn’t have been better unless they did it on purpose.

The fact that both arrived within the same time as one another generated more buzz than either by themselves. It triggered marketing debates (who’s presentation was best) to leave behinds (should they go deeper, or is the gift enough).

Conversation and debate can be a powerful awareness tool, something we all learned by a happy accident.

Thanks for spending part of your day with Dimmo! See you next time — Sara

P.S. Have you seen the new Between Two Funnels? Will Aitken is on it and it gets weird. Enjoy!