Biggest lesson learned scaling Thrillist

Professional networks remain underutilized for B2B growth. Adam Rich, CEO of Known For and founder of Thrillist, shares strategies for turning executive expertise into consistent LinkedIn presence. Rich discusses using expert-in-the-loop AI systems to scale authentic content creation and explains when to boost LinkedIn posts versus relying on organic reach. He reveals how first-party audience targeting can increase impressions 6x and why frequency caps matter more than promotional tags for executive content strategy. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iHereEverything.com.

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  From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55% to 65% open rate.

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  Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

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  Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours.

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  If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  I'm Benjamin Shapiro, and today I'm joined by Adam Rich, the CEO of Known For, which turns professional expertise into consistent executive content using an expert-in-the-loop editorial system. Adam was also the founder of Thrillist, which he scaled to 300 million monthly users before its acquisition by Vox Media. And today, Adam is going to explain why LinkedIn Authority and B2B marketing is shifting from brands more to people. Let's move on to the next question. What's the biggest lesson you learned scaling Thrillist to 300 million monthly users?

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  It was really just about...

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  Consistency and quality. That was the name of the game. Thrillist for most of its sort of early days was a newsletter, barely a website. And that thing of showing up every day with something good, something we could recommend was really, really hard. And it was a tremendous executional undertaking and operationalizing a team around doing that in 21 different cities was the undertaking of my career. But it was what allowed us to grow and to earn the trust of as many people as we did. And it really was, you know, showing up every day, being consistent. You could count on us and we're going to show up with quality.

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  And we are going to, you know, have some relevance and some timeliness so that when you get that email, there's a reason why I'm getting it today.

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  When did you leave Thrillist? And I don't know if it actually closed, if the domain is still around, but in your mind, when did it wrap up?

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  I left in 2018 and I assume it became bad right after that. But it's, no, it's still around and they got some good people working there. You know, it's, it really feels like it had kind of a heyday in the end of the aughts, early teens. And, you know, it really felt like it was aligned with the zeitgeist around then of kind of the explosion of craft and all kinds of, of cities really kind of exploring their like culinary traditions and, you know, the craft beer thing happening and barbecue exploding and burger worship kind of peaking.

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  And, you know, all of these things really kind of were tailwinds for us.

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  It's funny that your answer was consistency. And when I assumed your response was going to be more about cracking into the zeitgeist and building the brand. And I think, you know, the most remarkable thing about Thrillist is you left in 2018. So obviously it was downhill from there. But it's still a brand that has that recall, right? When we were introduced and somebody said, oh, this is the founder of Thrillist. I'm like, Thrillist, know it, love it. It's still in my memory as a place to go find cool stuff to do. How did you do that?

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  I mean, look, that was, that's consistency. I'm sorry to say, Benjamin, it's, you know, you can have your brand want to represent all kinds of things, but it's only if you reinforce it 100 times in a row with zero variation or confusion that your average kind of distracted, overwhelmed consumer starts to have an association with it, much less any kind of real trust or affinity. You know, the zeitgeist part was a huge, a huge strategic element of creating a breakout brand and, you know, really kind of a sine qua non for existing and succeeding. But that intention wouldn't have meant anything if we weren't able to show up every single day and earn that trust kind of brick by

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  brick.

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  All right, Adam. Great to have you on the podcast. Thanks for coming on and being my guest. And that wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks to Adam Rich, the CEO of Known For for joining us. If you'd like to get in touch with Adam, you could find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes or on martechpod.com. You can always visit his website, which is getknownfor.com. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or on YouTube and we'll be back in your feed next week. All right, that's it for today. But until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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  Thanks for listening to the Martech Podcast, an I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit iheareverything.com.