Molly Ruland:

Let’s do this thing. Alright. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Camp Content, your new favorite podcast on content marketing and client acquisition in 2024. I am excited about our guest today, so I’m gonna jump right in. Where do we unravel the mysteries of the digital jungle with our guest today, Charmon Stiles. She’s a maestro of connecting brands to revenue. With a whopping 17 years in marketing and creative wizardry, this fractional CMO is the real deal. Charmon’s secret sauce lies in building, scaling, and leading marketing and creative teams to spearhead revenue growth for high flying SaaS and mid market champs.

Molly Ruland:

Brand storytelling? Nailed it. Creative bar rising? Consider it sky high. This marketing maven doesn’t just talk the talk, but she walks the walk. So picture this, a 133% AR boost ARR boost for a SaaS product, a 361 percent brand awareness spike, and a content hub that’s practically a magnet for new users. Some of her clients include Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone Culture Council, Fast Company Executive Board, Forbes Councils, Newsweek expert forum, Russell Athletics, Smashburger, and Shea Moisture, and that’s just really the top of the top of the, the, the iceberg there. There are so many more clients, too many to list. So, you know, Charmon means business with a client list like that. But here’s the cherry on the chop.

Molly Ruland:

Charmon’s personal triumph shines in forging unbreakable bonds with her teams, which I love. Trust, integrity, support, and a sprinkle of challenge, that’s the recipe for moving mountains together. So grab your marshmallows, and let’s get ready to roast some knowledge nuggets. I love this thing. With Charmon Stiles on camp content, welcome to this show.

Charmon Stiles:

Thank you for that awesome intro, Molly. I’m happy to be here. Excited to jump into the conversation.

Molly Ruland:

Me too. You know, we got to talk before, so we have a slight advantage to the listeners because we already got to hang out. So I am, legitimately looking forward to this conversation and and and really talking about brand versus, you know, marketing and content and all of that. I think you have a really great handle on that. So, let’s kinda get into, you know, let’s let’s jump right into it. So, how does brand strategy inform content marketing? Because I think people get a little bit confused about all of that.

Charmon Stiles:

A brand strategy is actually really important. And, you know, it’s something that I’m very passionate about because it can make such a huge difference for both internal teams and then, you know, externally how that brand is experienced. So a brand strategy is like a north star. I like to say that all the time. It is a north star. It gets into, like, who, you know, what’s your purpose? Why do you exist? What’s the vision for the company? And, you know, it helps internal teams understand that and get excited about it and buy into that so that it can be articulated externally. And so that would impact content marketing. Right? So, you know, when you’re writing content for a brand, you wanna be able to really tell that story in a meaningful way, both meaningful to the brand.

Charmon Stiles:

So something that you can be true to and follow-up with and act on, but then also in a way that matters, you know, to the people that you’re targeting. So, you know, identifying, like, your ideal clients or, you know, ideal target audience and their appropriate segments, you know, as part of what’s in a brand strategy. So it’s something that I like to actually have to hand to a content team to give direction and clarity.

Molly Ruland:

And where do you start with a brand strategy? Is it identifying the avatar of the ideal client, or is it about, like, the story of how that brand is like, where do you start with all of that?

Charmon Stiles:

So it really starts with, like, why do you exist? Why was this company formulated? What was the purpose? What was the intent? Like, what were you looking to solve? What value do you bring? What do you offer? And why do people care? You know? But, you know, both are equally important.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. Absolutely. So how can you give me an example of growth that you led using a brand strategy, to inform the content marketing. So can you give us a I mean, you have quite the list of companies you’ve worked with, so I’m sure you’ve got some success stories there.

Charmon Stiles:

Sure. So, yeah, let’s talk about the one where we will we’re able to increase the brand visibility by 361%. That was a huge win. Basically, I had a brand that, you know, there was marketing happening, they had a website, you know, the brand had been in existence for a few years. But we didn’t have personas. We didn’t have, you know, like a defined brand tone or, like, a messaging framework. We hadn’t done, you know, customer interviews to understand why they joined, or why they liked us, why they were there, you know? And so we did all of that, like foundational work, and it really helped us be clear on who we were marketing to. You can always, like, you know, just by looking at your audience, you can make guesses about what they’ll care about and why they might buy from you and why they might stay.

Charmon Stiles:

But then you can do customer interviews to truly understand all of those things. And usually there’s alignment, but there’s like nuances that, you know, you might not imagine unless you actually do the homework and the research to dig in, to find, you know, the right answers. And so we built the foundation of the brand, and that informed, you know, the messaging that was on the website. That informed our content strategy. That informs, you know, I know there’s been a lot of changes with Google and search generative experiences, but at the time, we were still looking for, you know, keywords. And that informed, like, our keyword strategy, which then informed topic ideas and, you know, just general content ideas for how to reach our audience in a meaningful way. So it really is a key piece to informing a content strategy. And through all of that work within, like, a 6 month period, we were ranking, like, our we were ranking for so many more keywords, increasing visibility.

Charmon Stiles:

Something else that happened as a result of all of that foundational work was, you know, we totally rebranded, redesigned the website, reworked all the messaging, and the content architecture of the website too. It helped us, like, okay. Like, x, y, and z are most important, so let’s put these, you know, this information, like, first on a page or, you know, closer to the beginning of the user journey. So it helped with that as well. And so holistically, those are all the pieces that contributed to that visibility lift.

Molly Ruland:

And I would imagine that also translated into increased revenue for that business as well.

Charmon Stiles:

Of course. Yeah. Yeah. The brand had really been struggling, because, you know, they were impacted by COVID, like so many businesses were. And, you know, part of their business, hinged on in person meetings, which, of course, you know, weren’t weren’t possible during COVID. So, you know, we had to pivot quickly. We had to, you know, do the work to figure out how to connect with the people, you know, that we were targeting and the people that were already in the community.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, it’s been a very crazy time. Everything’s changed so much, a lot of people had to pivot or at least pivot how they did business. You know, a lot of people pivoted their business, but I think the smart people pivoted how they did their business and not jumping ship completely. Right? It’s like recognizing that it’s a different time. Speaking of which, you can’t talk about a different time without talking about AI. So how is AI impacting the branding world? How is that playing into your business?

Charmon Stiles:

Oh, man. So many different ways. So to branding specifically, I would say that it’s absolutely impacting creative teams and content teams. Mhmm. You know, I build and lead both types of teams. And so I’ve been trying to carefully fold in AI in the areas that will support the humans doing the work and, you know, help them, I guess, create more space to be strategic. So, you know, maybe, you know, rather than like, let’s use content for example. This is camp content.

Charmon Stiles:

Right? So let’s talk about content. So, for the content side, we will use AI for, you know, generating ideas, helping us to maybe formulate, like, just the bones of, you know, a content outline. Never writing content. What I find is that anytime you give a piece of AI content to a writer, they essentially have to just start over and rewrite the whole thing. So it really has not been successful. But definitely, you know, for content, those other areas and and for, you know, brand, it can, you know, we’re we’re creative teams are obviously, you know, creating images. But it’s like learning how to do really quality inputs to get outputs that are usable. And then also, like, checking them, keeping an eye on them, making sure that, you know, maybe, like, reference checking them, resource checking them.

Charmon Stiles:

So, yeah. So for creative and content, we’re definitely folding an AI where it makes sense to do that, but really just in support of the creative process for both teams, not not replacing that creative process or, like, that human touch when it comes to tone and personality and things like that. Those little nuances are so important.

Molly Ruland:

For sure. Because I think AI can be really helpful, but it’s not a replacement, but it’s good bones. I think there’s some really good ideas and good stuff in there that you can expand upon, and sometimes you just need that push to get you going, and then you even if you have the rewriting at all, but sometimes you just need that push into action to get going. Can you show well, I’ve I think I’ve I’ve realized I have a double question here. I was gonna ask you to show me an example of how brand strategy works, but we already talked about that. So let’s talk about let’s talk about what is the craziest, strategy or idea that you’ve ever presented to a client that actually worked?

Charmon Stiles:

Oh my gosh. Okay. Digging back in the archives. There’s been a lot, you know, because I do have an agency background, and like you said, I’ve worked with a lot of brands. We actually, proposed some really fun ideas, for a sweatshirt or fitness clothing provider client that, you know, we’re gonna require us to travel. And there’s it: it was for Russell Athletic, I’ll just say. So the idea pitch was actually one of my favorite ideas. I was, you know, working with a content strategist that I have partnered with at the agency, and, you know, we just had all these ideas flying and we wanted to go to New York and we wanted to go resale shopping.

Charmon Stiles:

And it was to find some of the vintage authentic Russell brands or or Russell sweatshirts. And because there’s some out there that are actually not authentic, believe it or not. And so you can tell by looking at the logo and we were gonna it was like a video project. Right? And we weren’t able to actually do it, but it was one of the best ideas that I think we presented. And, you know, the result would have been really, like, creating a lot of, like, you know, community engagement and, like, brand advocates would, you know, be showing we wanted to do UGC with that as well. Like, have users show us, like, their sweatshirts and, like, where they found them. The reason why we picked New York is because there’s some really great resale shops there that really, like, just focus on, like, sports brands like that and sports clothes.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah.

Charmon Stiles:

And even jerseys and stuff like that. So For sure. That was my favorite idea that was presented. Like I said, it didn’t go through, but I wanted to share that one because I think that that was probably a mistake. Right? Like, that we should have done that because we would have generated user content. We would have engaged the community, you know, talking about content and, like, a customer experience. Right?

Molly Ruland:

For sure.

Charmon Stiles:

That would have created, like, a good connection. And at the time, we were also trying to launch a new product line for them to a new audience and expand their audience. And it was, like, just right within that, like, sweet spot. So, yeah.

Molly Ruland:

That’s amazing. I think they missed the boat on that one too because, yeah, people like taking pictures of the content and taking pictures of their sweatshirts and showing, oh, I have the OG logo and yeah. I mean, that really would have been super smart. Yeah. To to this day,

Charmon Stiles:

I still have a Russell sweatshirt that I got on Ebay that is real vintage. It’s, like, from the seventies. Like, it’s one of my favorite sweatshirts. I’m a brand advocate. Right? I’m a fan.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. I mean, it’s good stuff. It’s good quality stuff for sure. And people do get into that. They get they’re really proud of that and finding those things. So well, Russell, they missed maybe they’ll call you back and get it done. Alright. Alright.

Molly Ruland:

So we’re gonna move on to our speed round. And so I have 10 questions prepared for you . Some are fun and silly and some are pretty solid. So we’re gonna jump right into our speed round. Alright. Number 1. What is one word that best describes your approach to brand storytelling?

Charmon Stiles:

Strategic.

Molly Ruland:

I like that. That’s one of my favorite words. I love strategy because without it, what are you doing? Alright. Number 2. How do you recharge creatively when you’re facing a marketing challenge?

Charmon Stiles:

I walk or I water.

Molly Ruland:

The garden?

Charmon Stiles:

Yes.

Molly Ruland:

Not not your children. You’re like, get in the yard. I’m taking out the hose pits. I got stuff to think about.

Charmon Stiles:

Yeah. That’s actually a joke among my team. They’re like, go water the grass. We need ideas.

Molly Ruland:

That’s so fun. Literally. You’re literally and figuratively watering the grass. I love it. I’m just telling you, I love my treadmill. I get all my best thinking done on the treadmill, and I spend a lot of time in my garden too. So I’m gonna cosign those. Yeah.

Molly Ruland:

And number 3, top tool or software you can’t live without in your marketing and branding arsenal.

Charmon Stiles:

Oh. Oh my god. My toolbox is big. I would say Semrush.

Molly Ruland:

Oh, I didn’t see that one coming. Okay. Okay. I have that too. Number 4, define your leadership style in 3 words.

Charmon Stiles:

Human centric, approachable.

Molly Ruland:

I like that. I would agree. You’re a very approachable person. Okay. Number 5. Morning person or night owl when it comes to tackling creative projects?

Charmon Stiles:

I’m just, like, not a morning person. So let’s say night owl. Yeah.

Molly Ruland:

I think I’ve become a morning person. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but I used to be a night owl, but now I’m a morning person. Alright. Numbers. Well, you live in Costa Rica. You live on the equator, and so you wake up with the sun, you go to sleep when it goes away. It’s just, you know, if it’s dark, we’re in bed. That’s kinda how it goes around here.

Molly Ruland:

Okay. Alright. Number 6, best piece of advice you’ve received in your career?

Charmon Stiles:

Productize yourself.

Molly Ruland:

And you have done that with your brand and consulting business and everything else. So great advice.

Charmon Stiles:

Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely.

Molly Ruland:

Alright. Number 7, favorite social media platform for engaging with audiences.

Charmon Stiles:

For me, it’s been LinkedIn. And that is because even though I do both b two b and b two c, it’s probably more heavy, like, b to b.

Molly Ruland:

That makes sense. What’s your favorite guilty pleasure social media platform?

Charmon Stiles:

I probably spend the most time on Instagram, but I do get sucked into TikTok. Sometimes I get lost in there.

Molly Ruland:

It happens.

Charmon Stiles:

I know.

Molly Ruland:

It’s, like, 20 video stuff. I’m like, I didn’t even know this was my thing. I don’t know. I guess I’m into haunted houses or something. I don’t know. They show you weird stuff on those pages. You’re like, why do you think I’m into this? But then you watch 20 of them, and you’re like, well, that’s why you think I’m into this. That’s my own fault.

Charmon Stiles:

I know. It’s, like, 20 videos later. Help. Like, help me out.

Molly Ruland:

I know. I spend too much time on Instagram reels and golden retriever videos in particular. They’re just so wholesome. Can’t get mad at that.

Charmon Stiles:

Yeah. Minor cat videos. Instagram, same thing.

Molly Ruland:

It’s good. So, you know, sometimes you need a break from the doom and gloom that is the world that we live in, so I’ll take some golden retrievers any day of the week. Okay. Me too. Number 8. What is the one tip that you would give a company to revamp a stagnant content strategy?

Charmon Stiles:

Oh, well, that’s something you do have to look at periodically. You can’t, like, send it and forget it. So I would say check it against your brand strategy. Are you still in alignment, and does it need to evolve? Because brand strategies evolve. And content strategy should evolve too because here’s the thing. Our audiences, like users, us, humans, our behaviors are evolving at the pace of technology right now, So keep up.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. I mean and it’s happening so fast, all of it. It’s happening so, so fast, like the rate at which we’re adapting to new marketing techniques and styles and what people want and what they don’t want. It’s all changing so fast that you really gotta Yeah. You gotta stay on top of it. Okay. Number 9, coffee or tea to kick start your marketing magic?

Charmon Stiles:

Coffee, maybe 2.

Molly Ruland:

Maybe 2. Okay. Are you a cream and sugar kind of a girl, or are you a coffee black? Cream. I’ve become a black coffee person. Yeah? I don’t know. It’s good.

Charmon Stiles:

Bold or medium? I

Molly Ruland:

You know, I like dark roast. I want it to look like, really yeah. You can’t even see through it. That’s how I want my coffee. I think it’s a Costa Rican thing. You know? I don’t know. Who knows?

Charmon Stiles:

I don’t know. I like that. That makes me happy that you’re drinking bold coffee right now.

Molly Ruland:

I feel like I’m more of an adult when I drink black coffee because if it’s not black, then I want it to taste like ice cream. It has to have, like, lots of sugar and milk in it, and then it’s just it’s not even it’s just bad at that point. You know? So I Yeah. I convinced myself that I’m more of an adult when I drink the coffee black. Right? That’s what that’s what adults do. Okay.

Charmon Stiles:

Well, I never said I wanted to be an adult, so there’s that.

Molly Ruland:

There you go. That’s it. I didn’t check that box either, to be honest. It’s a valid point. Okay. This is a fun one. If you could collaborate with any brand, past or present, who would it be?

Charmon Stiles:

Virgin.

Molly Ruland:

Oh, how come?

Charmon Stiles:

I just don’t know. They’ve done some really cool things over the years. Actually, that list is fairly short. The other one would be Rolling Stone, which I have done, which is like a dream, but Virgin is a top brand for me up there. They’re doing some just some really cool things in the world, and there’s, like, so many segments of the brand. I just would love to dive into that, and, you know, there’s some personality to the brand. I like that.

Molly Ruland:

For sure. What’s the guy’s name? Richard? Richard?

Charmon Stiles:

Branson.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. Branson. That’s right. I don’t know why it was escaping me. Richard Branson, if you’re listening, hit her up. Let’s go. Let’s do this. Alright.

Molly Ruland:

So, that’s our speed round. That is it. So now we’re gonna move on to our next segment of the show, which is called real or fake. So I’m gonna give you some podcast names, and then you’re gonna tell me if you think they’re real or fake, and we’ll see how many you can get right. Alright. So number 1, marketing and margaritas. Real. It is real.

Molly Ruland:

Alright. Number 2. I know. I was like, I should listen to that. It’s probably pretty good. Number 2, more perfect marketing.

Charmon Stiles:

Oh, man. It’s probably real, but I’m gonna say it’s fake because no one should use that title.

Molly Ruland:

It’s real. Real bad news is what it is. Exactly. I knew it. Exactly. I’m like, more perfect. I can’t handle you. And what’s crazy is it has a lot of downloads per episode.

Molly Ruland:

So I guess people like bad grammar, but whatever. Alright. Number 3, party like a marketer.

Charmon Stiles:

Fake.

Molly Ruland:

It’s real.

Charmon Stiles:

Oh, god. Okay.

Molly Ruland:

Alright. Number 4, the Naked Leadership Podcast. It’s audio only. Don’t worry.

Charmon Stiles:

Yeah. Is that the oh, okay. Let’s go with real since I’ve

Molly Ruland:

It is. It is real.

Charmon Stiles:

I don’t

Molly Ruland:

believe it. Naked leadership.

Charmon Stiles:

So what’s the value prop of that one? Do you know?

Molly Ruland:

Let’s see. I can tell you right now. Leadership is often lonely. This conversation reveals the unspoken challenges at the top and creates resources for connected leadership. And shockingly, it has 282 episodes and publishes twice a week. So Okay. People like Naked Leadership.

Charmon Stiles:

Okay.

Molly Ruland:

Who knew? Who knew? Who knew? Anything is possible. Not

Charmon Stiles:

1. Yeah. True.

Molly Ruland:

I’m gonna listen to it. Maybe 280 2 episodes later. I mean, you don’t keep doing it if it’s bad. Right? Or they’re just suckers for punishment, but I don’t know. They’ve got some good listeners. 2,000 downloads per episode, so people like me have good leadership, I guess. Alright. And the last one is whiskey, jazz, and leadership.

Charmon Stiles:

That one has to be real.

Molly Ruland:

It is real. Good. It is real. Good. I wanna listen to that one. I’m actually intrigued by that one. Yeah. Alright.

Molly Ruland:

And so my last question, I kinda wanna go a little deeper on this one. Usually, I ask a wild card question, but I, you know, you’ve done a lot of work with all these big companies, and you’re really like, I love the team building, you know, the integrity, the trust, the support. I feel like 2024 is a difficult year for a lot of businesses. A lot of businesses are struggling. Like, it’s just not the same. Like, you know, we dealt with the transition of the pandemic, and then a lot of businesses thrived, and it was easier to get business, and some businesses didn’t last at all. But now we’re in a whole different world. It’s like a post pandemic, everything is being done differently.

Molly Ruland:

We’re looking at massive layoffs everywhere. What would you be? What would be your bit of advice to companies that are, like, in this space, and they know they need some help. They feel like maybe they can’t, they can’t afford it. They know they need somebody like you. Like, what should they focus on? Where should they start? Should they just say the hell with it? We’re gonna use our budget and go all in, you know, because this it’s a different time. What would you recommend to people?

Charmon Stiles:

So for team building and team structure, where I would start is to make well, first of all, make sure that your teams are structured correctly. Organizational design is a big piece of what I do. I often find that creative and marketing teams are like people are throwing things over the wall, you know, hoping they’ll get it back when they can. There aren’t a lot of, like, processes or or workflows defined, and that is because I tend to work with, like, younger companies like SMBs and mid market.

Molly Ruland:

Right.

Charmon Stiles:

And so some structure is really helpful, but also, you know, make sure the things are in place that empower your teams to be more strategic. Right? Like, not treating them like a drive through. And so make sure that they can move work. They know who, what, when, you know, what’s next so that they don’t have to think about those things, hunt those things down, you know, chase people down for reviews or, like, all of that type of, like, creative and marketing stuff. And then they can come to the table with more strategic ideas that will help a business more than them just, like, taking orders. Does that make sense?

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. For sure. For sure. I think when employees and team members, like, understand the bigger picture and they feel like they’re a part of it, they’re gonna be they’re gonna perform better. They’re gonna feel heard, valued, respected. I feel Yes. A lot of people you know, I have a very good friend, Liz Rudner, and she’s been in graphic design and working in the tech space in San Francisco, and it’s all committee by design or or just, you know, design by committee. And it’s like, you know, all these people who don’t know anything about design or or telling the designer what to do.

Molly Ruland:

It’s, you know, it’s very, soul crushing, right, you know, to go in, to be hired to be doing something, and then to not be given the space to be able to actually do it. And then people who don’t know what they’re talking about are telling you what you need to do, and you’re like, I don’t care how much money you’re paying me. This sucks. Right? This is not you know, you wanna be valued. You wanna be appreciated. You wanna be seen. You wanna see you want your talents and your experience to be validated. So, that team building, I think, is so important.

Molly Ruland:

You know? And as we move into this age of AI where a lot of people are just laying people off because AI can do it, It’s like, well, no. No. It can’t. Yeah. You know?

Charmon Stiles:

I yeah. No. I I I think it’s important to, like, ask your teams, like, what do you need to be successful? Something else that’s really helpful is assessing, like, what skill sets you have on the team, and then compare that to what they’re actually doing, like, are you utilizing their strengths? So all of those things are really empowering to creative teams. And, yeah, it is. It crushes creativity when, you know, things aren’t in place for them and they’re just churning out files, you know, without a creative brief. Like, they don’t know how something’s gonna be used, where it’s gonna be used, or what the goal is, you know. There’s just certain things that need to happen for those 2 teams to be successful, and those nuances are different from, you know, what other teams need. So it’s a common problem that I fix.

Molly Ruland:

Right on. Well, if anybody’s listening to this and they’re like, that resonates with me, what is the best way for people to get a hold of you? We’ll have all your links and everything in the show notes here, but what’s the best way for somebody to reach out and maybe talk to you about their problems with this stuff?

Charmon Stiles:

Well, I can go to www.charmonstiles.com forward/podcast. I’ve got a page there with my email, phone, social links, so, you know, please connect with me. I’d love to have a conversation about what challenges, you know, you’re having and and just see where there’s some synergies and where I can, you know, fill in the gaps, help connect the dots for you.

Molly Ruland:

That’s awesome because you are a fractional CMO. So, if somebody is looking for some interim help or clarity, then that’s exactly what you do, and so that’s a great place. I think, for businesses, that’s nice to have that option to not have to bring somebody on full time forever, but just in an interim to get some things done and get clarity, I think that’s a good place for people to be in. So if you’re looking for a rock star, you found her here on Cam Content. Let me know when you’ve hired her so I can celebrate with you guys. But, I would like to just say, yeah, thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate it. I love your background.

Molly Ruland:

I do. I love all the nature back there. It’s really nice for sure. Always nice chatting with you. Thank you for taking time to spend with us, and, thank you to all of our listeners and viewers for tuning in to Cam Content. If you found this information valuable, please consider commenting. You know, the algorithm loves engagement, so please leave us a comment. Maybe share it with your friends.

Molly Ruland:

And if you’d like to be on the show, let me know. And more importantly, go to Charmon’s website and look at some of the work she’s done. I mean and she’s got a laundry list of clients that she’s worked for, skills that she’s proficient in, and she can bring a whole lot to the table with all these decades of experience. If you’re looking for a fractional CMO, this is a great place to start. So thanks for your time. Until next time. Be excellent to each other, and we will see you on the Internet.

Charmon Stiles:

Thanks for listening.