Beyond the Agency Model: How Small Teams Can Build Scalable In-House Marketing with Kasper Sierslev, CCO at Zite | Ep 226

Dr Steve Day [00:00:00]:

If you\'re feeling like you\'re stuck in a rut with your marketing, then today\'s episode is one you should definitely check out. I had a fantastic conversation with Kasper Sierslev. He\'s a chief creative officer for Zite Agency and the author of amazing book called “Incredible”, which is all about building an in house marketing agency. However, I have my reservations about whether this type of model would work for me as a micro business owner. And as a result, we end up exploring so many different options and helpful tips and advice about how you can actually progress things forward even if you\'re on a limited budget and have limited needs for a big marketing team. We touched on how to use professional agencies to give you strategic support on a very limited basis to keep the cost down, and then utilize places like The Philippines or Vietnam to actually get some of the work done. Then we talked about how you can use professional agencies to help you manage those people, to allow you to have an ongoing relationship with somebody, to build and effect an in house marketing team, but without you having to be the one that is driving the creativity and the strategy behind the work being done. It was one of the most insightful specific tool for marketing, and one which is a cool AI tool which I\'ve never heard of before. And remember to hit subscribe so you don\'t miss out on future interviews, app reviews, and other top tips to make your life and business more systemized and make you more successful.

Enjoy. Hey, Kasper. Thank you so much for joining me today on the show. I wanna kick off really just understanding why you do what you do. Think it\'s always a nice place to start. And, obviously, you\'re very passionate about what you do. You\'ve written books on the subject. You write reports on this, which are massive well received in the industry.

But, like, why is it you decided to dedicate your time specifically into this in house agency model? Why is it so important to you? And what maybe challenges you saw or personal or things you\'ve seen in the bit in the industry that have made you think that this is where I need to actually focus on my efforts?

Kasper Sierslev [00:01:50]:

Well, first of of all, thank you for having me. Well, I think it started out, ten, fifteen years ago. I come from an creative, advertising, totally basic standard, background. And then I was just growing tired of the whole thing. I was very much in a pitch team, so we were invited in, the agency. And then me and my colleague, my partner, were always in the first frontline pitching something, then usually I wouldn\'t say usually we won, but we won a lot of times. And then the second chain took over. So I never really got to see things through, work on all the small details, and I really missed that.

And then I got an opportunity to move in house and work with, Maersk, a big, shipping logistics containerization company, oil company at that time as well. And it was just amazing to see how you could actually influence every bit of all this and also understanding the client, which was now my own company, way better. Understanding what really made a difference and not just some fancy headline and and that. So so that\'s really how how it all started. I was just, yeah, amazed by how you could influence a lot more by by knowing all the the brand details and the customer behavior. And if you had a question, you could just walk down and ask someone about it. And and so it was really about folding everything out and not just doing the the fancy TV commercial.

Alright. Cool. So I wanted to step back if you like. And, actually, just to put some background into what we\'re talking about here because we mentioned the word in house agency, and I will hold my hands up. The before you actually, requested to come on the show, I\'d no real idea about what in house agency is. And so maybe many of the people out there have no idea either. So let\'s just give a background information. What is it that you actually do? Like, what is it they help you help you with? What is this in house agency model? And and then we can go into the reasons of why and the benefits, etcetera, going forward.

Yeah. So so, I mean, there are totally a lot of different ways to to see in house agencies. But, basically, it\'s a it is, an advertising agency or a digital agency that just has just one company. So it lives within the walls of the company. It\'s usually, not in our model, but it\'s usually owned by the company. So they hire creative people in, and it\'s really something that\'s picking up. We we just talked about the reports before, that companies, they they feel that, you know also, there\'s a lot of different channels, all you have to be on, and you have to understand your website and everything. So that\'s that\'s really what is happening right now.

It started I mean, it\'s it\'s always been like this in the agencies from the fifties and sixties. Then you had some people in house, and sometimes it\'s not an agency. It\'s more like you probably have some graphic designers, web designers, copywriters, and so on working with marketing in house. But in the last couple of years, I think we had first That was the first wave, so to speak. That was having bringing in graphic designers and and and production because it was just cheaper and faster to do things yourself. Then we had the whole social media wave, second wave of of in housing, where you brought in social media managers because it was, again, too expensive and too cumbersome to to reach out to an agency every time you needed to do something. And I think what we\'re seeing now in the last three, four, five years is is the creative side, the strategy side moving in. So that\'s where you think that it makes in a lot of ways, you had this ten, fifteen years ago when you brought in brand managers because you thought you would need more control of the entire brand.

And now you bring in creative people who actually can work from the inside on on on crafting creative messages and and also working with external agencies. So I don\'t think I\'ve really answered your question, but I\'ve talked a lot about everything else. So but but that\'s an in house agency. The funny thing is we do this in house barometer report every year, and I\'m just writing it up. There\'s the 25 version right now. The funny thing is that I would say one third of the agencies we call in house agencies don\'t see themselves as that. So they have all the in house creative roles, but they\'re just part of a marketing team. So it\'s not really set in stone.

This is an in house agency. This is an in house setup. But it is about taking in some of the creative development roles because it just makes more sense that you can walk down the hall and talk to the product specialist, or or you have a better brand understanding or a better understanding of the website and all the tools you have. Sometimes, not always.

I mean, I as you\'re speaking as you\'re speaking then, I was just thinking of my experience over the years of working with different entities for marketing. And I\'ve worked with complete external agencies, and I\'ve tried to get them to understand my brand and speak in my voice, and that\'s been really challenging. And I\'ve on a couple of occasions, I\'ve spent, you know, a fair amount of money with them and then just not really use anything they produce because I\'ve just not felt it\'s actually hit the mark. And then, conversely, I\'ve also worked with I guess it is in a way a sort of an in house agency, but those people may have been working some of them part time, some of them full time for me. So graphic designers, web developers, copywriters, video editors, and but it\'s been me as the business owner that\'s been gluing all together and trying to organize and coordinate. And I think that when I was looking through your website and, and trying to sort of, understand exactly what you did before this before I kept you home on the show, I was really interested to see how, as a small business owner, when like, in my example, whereas I\'ve I experienced the external model, and I now have the budget, I don\'t think, to make that work or maybe I just have to it didn\'t work for whatever reason. So I did it, tried to do it in house and cobble these bits together, but then that became my entire world because I was just basically then, like, all the stuff, the leadership and the product development, all the other stuff, which I really need to do as well, got pushed to to the side to focus on coordinating this chaos. And so that\'s what I found most intriguing about what you do.

And if anyone interested in the website, is it is it zite.com or

zite.agency. Yeah. Unfortunately, Amazon had bought the .com. We We don\'t know what they\'re supposed to use it for, but but they won\'t sell it back. So

Oh, there you go. Well, it\'s like the agency if anyone should check it out. And, and I think the one one, one thing that really intrigued me was about okay. So if I\'m really, I guess, the creative director in the company, completely unqualified for the role, I have no experience in this, but that is as a biz as a small business and you end up going

That\'s absolutely true.

You know? Then then how how do you see me being able to still be involved in the creative process, but caught getting somebody else in or organize an in house team, but without a big budget? You\'re sort of trying to get this balance right so I can get my time back, but still have control, but without ending up bankrupting myself.

So yeah. If I can go a bit back because

Yeah. Please.

My my plan was never to build an in house agency at Maersk or any other places. It just it just ended up like that because we had agencies coming in, and they never quite understood us. They didn\'t hit the mark. They say, oh, it should be possible to to book a container online. And that\'s fine, but we sold, like, hundreds of containers or every week, 500 containers or something like that. So so they never really understood what we were about. It took a long time to onboard them. And so instead and try to understand all these different markets that\'s totally different from sheep produce sheep owners in Australia trying to sell lamb across the world, what their needs are in terms of changing direction half the way through through the way from Australia to to Europe or US or, or the automotive industry, how, you know, that whole conveyor belt of of subparts into building a a car.

All these small not small. All these commodities actually had their own ecosystem that you need to understand, and it took forever to onboard someone. So that\'s why we build it up. Then when I switched to a totally different company called Saxo Bank, which is an online trading platform, not really a bank, I I just realized that I could use 95% of all the processes that I build and all the systems and setups. And I think that\'s what we do today. So we really try to take all the fun out of of marketing and advertising. No. By, you know, by by building processes and and workflows around all the boring stuff.

You don\'t have to reinvent the wheel when you when you have to produce a social media post or a banner or or a campaign. You should spend a lot of time on getting the creative part right because that\'s what really matters. In but but rolling it out, scaling it to different languages, that\'s something you can pretty much copy paste. That\'s a process. And now I\'m getting to what you\'re saying. So I think what you should focus on is not trying to spread yourself too thin, not trying too many platforms and too many, different channels and and, and then figure out a way that you can actually do as little as possible on, you know, the whole production side. Maybe produce, two months of of content and assets at once because it\'s much easier that way to produce a bulk, figure out ways that you can collaborate with maybe great freelance creative people to create those a bulk of headlines or or images that you can that you can reuse, instead of trying to, yeah, coordinate. So so I think it\'s it\'s a lot about, you know, focus and narrowing it down, and then figure out a way that you can almost automate all the stuff that that keeps dragging you out of the, yeah, of of the things you really wanna do.

So I guess that\'s that\'s what we do. We we help companies in all sizes and scales doing all the boring stuff.

Cool. I mean, it\'s very interesting you you hear you say all that because, actually, like, now what I do as a for my podcast so this podcast, for example, and I\'m and what I what I was hoping to do is I I\'ll tell you what I currently do and then be interested to hear because I know there\'ll be other people out there that do similar similar stuff to me. I\'ve been interested to hear, like, where you would see that your your skill sets, your your strategies, and your system will come in complement of what we already have in place, and how and how then I could actually then have potentially scale what I\'m currently doing without actually doing much too much more work. That\'s my theory. So here\'s what I currently do. So right now, I basically have because I\'m a systems guy. You probably guessed by the name of the podcast. And I love, a, automation, b, systems to get other people to do so for me consistently, and c, not having to reinvent the wheel. So all those things that you just mentioned are, like, literally like, those are the things I am most passionate about. And so what I do now is I record this podcast, so it\'s now a Tuesday afternoon. And I\'ll sit here, and I\'ll do have this chat with you for thirty minutes or whatever. Yeah. And then that\'s it. It\'s automatically saved somewhere, and then the team will then pick that up.

They will convert that into some social media posts using some chat prompts and a bit of, doubling on the sides as well. We use various other AI tools and, image creation, things like Canva and stuff to actually just produce our thumbnails. And what we produce is, a email and a couple of, social media posts, a LinkedIn post. We, potentially should be doing a blog post, but haven\'t actually kicked that off, at the moment. Or sorry. I\'m actually doing that right now. But I just feel there\'s so much more that we should be doing. And you mentioned about getting freelancers in and stuff.

And, again, for me, it\'s like, I know this is all totally possible. I\'ve even done many of these things, but it\'s actually just the me putting the time and the effort into finding the right people and coordinating them without me having to handhold people through the entire process. So my dream would be that I\'d come to someone like you and say, look. This is what I\'m currently doing. Take it from here.

Yeah. But but it it actually seems like you\'re doing all all the things we normally recommend. Setting it up, having a system, processes, doing a lot of the variations of the same content at at at at once, because a lot of times we see that people are then they\'re doing one idea here, go to lunch, do something else. And and and and they\'re they\'re spending a lot of time on not getting anywhere or doing one ad or one post or something like that. But, but what I would recommend then, and I would probably recommend that for all small business owners, is to find someone great once a year and invite them in. Say, can we just do the idea session? I don\'t wanna see your final work. I just wanna see black ink on white paper, funny headlines, play around with things. And I wanna be in the room because I wanna understand the way that you\'re thinking.

That\'s really what, we do it with all our clients, big and small, when there\'s a campaign coming up. And it\'s it\'s really about, you know, picking people\'s brain, having the creative people coming in, but not paying for, you know, for the entire agency and something like that. That\'s another way of, I think, of of scaling, the creativity and just write everything down, write all the bad headlines. You can even feed that into your AI afterwards and and train that on on on their ideas. But it\'s it\'s I I think and then it\'s it\'s it\'s figuring out now you can build AI agents that can actually do a lot of these things, control itself, post somewhere, when you write the blog post, then do the five social media posts variations. You still have to be human in there and and and breathe through, but it it\'s it\'s it\'s really a process these days that I just had a talk this morning about AI tools and where we are going, and it\'s it\'s crazy. We prepared last week, and we changed it this morning because, I don\'t know, five or 10% of what we were saying seems like it was old news now. So but but, really, the automation thing is is is is amazing, I think, and the way that you can build a prompt library that keeps, you know, evaluating the the what the first AI is doing and then rewriting some notes.

So so that\'s probably what I would do more of.

And is that is that the kind of stuff you help people do as well? They\'re actually to Yeah. Yeah. Work with the AI rather than try to stay in the the old way of doing things and be purely human. It\'s actually Yeah.

Yeah. We had this scary talk this morning, with it was a a talking out with with our own employees saying, yeah. You know, some of you may you know, some of the jobs you have may be going away, but we actually wanna, you know, we wanna have AI colleagues or employees in a couple of months. Hopefully, you\'re you will still here, but you will be do something else doing something else. So instead of being a copywriter, you will be an editor. So you will read through what we\'re doing. You\'ll be better at prompting and asking and and and tweaking all those things that make it that takes it from good to great, but you will not be doing the the typewriting yourself.

The donkey work, so to speak. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I mean, yeah, from personal experience, that\'s exactly what we\'ve been using it for. It\'s like I mean, to be honest, a lot of, like, when I\'m busy, stuff will just go out. I mean, my my, marketing manager will look over, but she\'s not a copywriter. She\'s she\'s more logistics and operational, but she\'s, you know, she\'s been doing it for long enough to spot the really terrible ones, and and add some really I mean, she\'s actually quite good at doing headlines and things now.

She\'s she\'s learned the skill. But primarily, it\'s like like, the the way I see my role with the AI now is, a, improving the problems, and b, doing that final sweep and and then pushing it back to the AI again for more and more sort of, like, tweaks and tweaks and tweaks. Because I find the I find I I know what I like when I see it, but I sometimes find it very hard to put those what I\'m feeling in my brain into the words that I wanna say.

Yeah. But but but still, I mean, I I teach at the Danish School of Advertising. I have this one class, and I always say to people, even before AI, I used to say, it\'s it\'s diff it\'s difficult to come up with a hundred bad ideas in a row. So if you keep trying, you will get something that will spark something. And if I share my bad ideas or my not so bad ideas with you, it will probably spark something within you. And I think that\'s what you can use AI for. It can get you those 70 bad ideas that can spark something. Something oh, this this word and this maybe there\'s something in there, and then you can keep going.

So it\'s more like a a partner that you can you can bounce off ideas with. You can have brainstorms with. And then you could say, great. Write me five variations of this headline and so on. Yeah. And and when you get to that point, we have now a brand tone of voice agent that we use whenever we write headlines or copy and say, is this compliant with our brand tone of voice? And, unfortunately, a lot of times when I write something, I wrote the tone of voice, and now I\'m writing the copy and says, no. You\'re not really hitting it. But but still

You don\'t sound like you. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But but it is it it I think it\'s it\'s it\'s it\'s a great way to, you know, to involve and get get challenged, but it\'s also a, yeah, black hole you can get sucked into in terms of of just spending time on something that\'s not really getting better. So so it\'s it\'s it is the combination of of of of people who can actually help you, you know.

Yeah. And on that note, we something you mentioned before, I thought was really interesting. I\'ve never thought about it before. But you mentioned about getting, I guess, like, having a strategy session, like, with a periodic, six monthly, or whatever, yearly, whatever. A strategy session where you actually get in the room with a creative personal team and just brainstorm and just churn out ideas and and concepts. And that seems to me like a a super exciting thing to do because, like, as a as a business owner, I\'ve done that with coaches for other areas of the business. You know, whether it\'s, like, thinking about the just a business strategy, like having a strategy session, like, where should we be actually looking at growing the business or taking the business, whatever. But I\'ve never thought about it from a creator\'s perspective.

That\'s a really interesting interesting idea.

Yeah. And I think because I think we yeah. We started it even at Maersk, I think. Because one of the the the pitfalls of in house is that you get, you know, tunnel vision or you have this echo chamber where, you know, you invent your own words and you can\'t really see yourself from from from the outside. So so I think it\'s really worth hiring someone in to challenge you, but be in the same room. So it\'s not like an agency where you give them a brief and then they come back three weeks later with something. You\'re in the room, and if they say something, you say, oh, that\'s funny or that\'s the right direction. And then you you you work together.

And in reality, it\'s not that expensive. I mean, normally, you pay agencies for their time. So, I mean, it of course, pay them well for what they\'re doing and for picking their brains, but but it\'s not I mean, you don\'t get the whole entourage, whatever it\'s called, as you do when you when you when you brief an agency, then you get the client director and, every everyone. Here, you say, can I just hire two of your creative people to work with me for two or three days? Just bouncing off some ideas, but I want, you know, I want all the ideas afterwards. And maybe we can work together. But maybe not. Maybe I\'m just using it myself.

Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I think it\'s a great way to get to know if you\'re on if you see eye to eye or you connect like, see a connection with that that person. Anyway, I\'m actually, interestingly, doing a similar type of session, not with not for marketing at all, but really just for the business strategy with a with a, COO type roles. A bit you know, like a fractional COO. So I\'m actually having a day with that person in a couple of weeks\' time, where I\'m just basically gonna be saying, look. Get into my head.

Get into my business, and and help me see the things I can\'t see. Yeah.

And I think and and and I think yeah. That I think that works amazingly because a lot of times, you know, you\'re in your own room, in your own business, and knowing all the things you know, but you can\'t see yourself from the outside, and you also have all the things you know, sometimes the we tried that earlier or years ago is nice, but sometimes it\'s also something that you need to challenge. And and it\'s fine because sometimes you get people from the outside saying, what about this? Yeah. We tried that. So yeah. But but that was years ago, and you did this and that. Maybe maybe if you do it another way. And you wouldn\'t just and you wouldn\'t do it if you\'re on your own, then you would just scab that ideas, that idea, you know, before you even start thinking about maybe there\'s another way around it, so.

So I I tell you one one of my I get my my biggest fear about going down this route and why I\'ve held held off looking, you know, whether it\'s building a whole in a in house team or even just getting proper professional help in in looking at my marketing is is cost. Is my my thinking that, like, I can\'t afford to hire a team. I I can\'t afford a copywriter and a graphic designer and a video editor full time. I don\'t need that at this point in my business. I don\'t have that revenue or that size of business that needs that, like, that number of person hours working with me all the time. So, like, for me, like, the idea of going down this route is scary. I\'m worried about the cost and also about we\'re about the, I guess, the commitment for me to make it work. So if I was coming to you as a potential client, those are my fears.

Like, what would you say to me to help me get past my barriers and and actually move forward with something like this?

Well, actually, I would I would start with the calculator and the Excel sheet and figuring out how I mean, that\'s I\'m I\'m I used to be art director, but but so but but for me, it\'s a lot about doing the math, figuring out how much do you actually need. Does it make sense to hire someone? I don\'t think it makes sense all the time, maybe not even half the times. It depends on the size of the company, how much content you\'re putting out. Mostly, we recommend for smaller companies to figure out, you know, then set up your AI tool, set it up with a few freelancers. Maybe they are off short somewhere because you don\'t need them close by. And then it\'s it\'s also about not getting too tired of your own ideas and seeing yourself and seeing the same headline all over. I\'m part of a small start up in The US. We are four people now, I think, five people.

And it\'s called Data Classroom. It has nothing to do with what I\'m doing now. I just started out helping these guys building a platform to assist teachers teaching statistics and math and all that. And, pure out of, of of lack of money, we ended up saying, what about we just write some really funny, clever headlines, really big, and pick a color? So it\'s a lot about consistency. And, luckily, I can draw, so I made some illustrations. But that\'s basically it. And we have four or five of these not even four or five, three headlines that we\'ve been using all over that still seems to kick off. It\'s something like, imagine a classroom full of kids who love statistics.

What are the odds? For instance. Or the days of boring statistics are numbered. Something like that where you play with words, and and it still works. It\'s still whenever we do, we go to a conference and we just put those postcards or or that backdrop up, it\'s still those same three or four headlines that we use, and people come over and say, oh, that\'s funny. That\'s interesting. And that\'s all you need. That\'s basically well, that\'s that\'s marketing. Right? You need to have people to stop and come over.

So so it\'s not like yeah. We don\'t have a big big budget. I don\'t think we ever really probably never really had had a budget. It\'s more like we put in some money sometimes. So I think it\'s also about finding you know, putting some effort into building some kind of evergreen but really great content because I think great ads, great content, great creativity works better than just a lot of it.

I think it\'s a very interesting angle because in the day now of more, more, more on social media, more channels, more posts, getting out there, five posts a day, 10 posts a day, 20 posts a day. You know, if you look at some of the influencers they\'re talking about, yeah, this okay. Yeah. They\'ve got a billion pound revenue in in advertising or whatever, but they\'re doing 50 posts a day or whatever. And it\'s like so it seems like that\'s the way to go. But, like, if you look at if you take a top bands, for example, so, you know, music bands, like, they can produce hundreds and hundreds of hits over or thousands of hits or hits I mean, thousands of songs over the years. But we, as consumers, only remember the top five they\'ve ever produced.

And every single concert you go to, that\'s what you wanna hear. And so those the the bands get sick of just playing them, I\'m sure, but they still do it. But They probably

end up as a cover band of them of themselves, but it\'s sometimes almost.

But as business owners, we do the opposite almost. It\'s like, oh, yeah. We we we get bored with our own ideas. Exactly what I said. We got bored with our own ideas. We get bored with saying the same stuff. Even if it\'s worked in the past, so we think we need to create something new. Yeah.

And yeah. So I think that\'s a really interesting and and valuable lesson to actually take take, heed of. Yeah.

There\'s a company called System One who does a lot of, analyzing into advertising and what works, and they put out a report last year about consistency, which is I mean, it\'s probably the most boring thing to talk about in in advertising and creativity. But in reality, when you look at all the big brands, the big big big consumer brands like Burger King or Coca Cola or Apple or whatever, they\'re all been extremely consistent. They you know, in the way they they talk, they look and feel, it\'s not that often they change something. And when they do, it\'s like it\'s almost a shit storm when when Pepsi changed the logo, then they changed it back. So I I think consistency is really underrated in a lot of ways. I mean, you can put something on top of it. You can have, like, you have your Specsavers, campaign should have gone to Specsavers about it\'s been the same campaign they\'ve been running since the, I don\'t know, eighties or something like that. They keep doing new variations of it of people who can\'t see, but that\'s basically it\'s it\'s just a generic commercial for for glasses.

But still, they they keep building on this. I don\'t know any other optician. I probably do optician brands, but but but none that actually stands for something. So I think consistency and trusting that those few ideas are being that tone of voice is is is much better than trying to, you know, yeah, spread yourself too thin, come up with new ideas and new things to post every week. And so so, yeah, I think that\'s that\'s that\'s definitely a point. Not not try to to, you know, to do too much.

It\'s also it\'s also exhausting, especially especially, like like, with with me. It\'s basically, in effect, it\'s just me. And so there\'s only so much one can do, and there\'s only so much time I can think into being creative and and coming up with new stuff. So the less I have to do that, the better in some ways, even if it\'s a bit boring.

Yeah. But then, I mean, I always say to to people, if you see your your own ads too much, then you\'re doing it wrong. You shouldn\'t be your target group. You should filter yourself out. So so so, it\'s it\'s probably fine. So so then you have to do something if you see yourself your own ads all the time then, or your own content.

Cool. So I wanna just throwing things to a close, what\'s the one piece of advice that you would love to have told you or maybe yourself or that you like to share with, business owners? For me, especially small business owners, like, when they\'re thinking about going down this route or they are stuck in a trap, like, what do you see that is, like, a common problem that you just feel or you wish you could just fix that and it would the whole world would get better?

So I have two things. One of them is really trust in creativity. I think there\'s been this misconception that you could buy social media ads and banners, and you could get a lot of attention. But in reality, I it it\'s not that it\'s not working. It\'s just it\'s not as cheap as it seems. So sometimes TV is actually cheaper in terms and and I\'m not saying that to small business owners. I\'m just saying it it seems because you\'re only paying micro payments all the time. But in reality, you often end up paying hundreds of thousands of of of dollars or maybe not hundred thousand, but but a lot of money, on small ads and small posts that you boost and some and you\'re not really getting, the effect of it.

I saw a a number the other day where they said, you know, the whole attribution problem where you think you\'re getting your your leads from is 190% overrated for paid search and 60% for for for social media and something like that. So so one of the things is to trust too much in the whole social media platform banners and not trust the creativity enough. So really trust. Spend time on making one great ad, one great headline, doing some one fun thing out in reality instead of spending that I think that would be the the my best advice.

I promise you to Yeah.

But Can I ask you just a very this is a very simple question just running off the back of that? Have you come up with something that\'s working? And I I I\'d argue I probably haven\'t got this thing just yet, but if I did. And then you have your social media accounts. Are we talking now about pushing out that same concept just onto paid, or actually, is this something you just use regularly into your general, whatever it is, stories and themes or whatever, like, continue just repeating yourself almost.

Yeah. I would say the last one, repeating the same message. So, I mean, when we had that data classroom headline with a class rule of classroom of kids who love statistics, I mean, that sparked ideas for three or four other headlines in the same direction. So it\'s not like we\'re only using that what, headline, but it kind of gave us an idea. And then we could see when we put that up on the on the wall behind us at a at a fair or event somewhere that people stopped. So when you put that on a just the headline of a social media ad, we could also see that it works. So it was then you start playing around with it, come up with variations or something like that. So it\'s not like just that one, but it\'s more like

Yeah. No. I got it. Have a theme. Yeah.

But instead of trying a billion things, I would say.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. You said there was another one. Can you remember what that was? Is there was

Yeah. But the other one is more for creative people because that\'s something I struggled with for years. So and that\'s really that, you know, creativity is really a habit. It\'s not something that happens while you\'re in the shower or it\'s it\'s something you can train. You can learn creative methods to come up with ideas and something like that. And I really encourage everyone who works with marketing to read books, read my book. You can have it for free if you want.

What was your book called?

It\'s called Incredible. So you don\'t have to read everything, but there\'s a part in there about different ways to get ideas. I can put a link up and and people can get a a a PDF version for for free they can download.

Can you get can you get it through your website?

As a as an audiobook, actually. Yeah. Okay. But I\'ll I\'ll I\'ll I\'ll

Yeah. Well, the link is in the show notes. Just can you get it to zite.agency? Is there a link in that somewhere? Yeah. Cool.

So if you wanna find it, just easy because because Yeah. Like, whoever goes to the show notes after the show. Yeah. But I\'m not saying you should if you\'re listening to this, by the way, head to the show notes.

Yeah. Yeah. But I really think so so so that\'s the whole thing, that it\'s it\'s you can actually learn to be creative. You can learn to come up with ideas. Some people have easier access to creative skills or but but but everybody could probably learn this, learn to write better headlines, learn to, you know, find these ticks tips and tricks that actually make ads stands out and and something like that. So and I wish I knew that because I was struggling with that for for years when I was younger.

Yeah. I mean, I I am by no means in any which way an expert at this, but I\'ve done extensive reading from many marketing, coaches or whatever, and I\'ve been through lots of trainings and whatever with different different marketing avenues over the years. And and just from doing that, I come from background of computing and science. I now feel that, like, I actually understand it. I can see your headline and go, oh, that\'s good. Or I can actually think I can create something that\'s that\'s okay. And and that is definitely something I have. It\'s a skill that you that I\'ve learned, and I completely agree that I think we can learn.

I\'m a true believer that, basically, our brains are pretty fabulous things, and we can actually train ourselves to do pretty much anything we want given enough time and effort and energy. So Yeah. Yeah. And we do that.

So that was the the the two main things I would I would sell. And then you could do it yourself, then you don\'t hire have to hire anyone. You can just, yeah, work on your headlines yourself, and you can keep the in house team very small to just Yeah.

In the in house team of one. Then we\'re then we\'re back to the problem of having no time. So no. No. We\'re good at managing. Cool. It\'s been absolutely fabulous talking with you, Kasper. I do like to wrap up with a few signature questions, if I may.

First off, what are your favorite apps or browser plug ins, either specifically for marketing or just stuff you love playing with?

So right now, my favorite thing is, Lovable, which is, it\'s called wipe coding. Right? So I don\'t know to write code in I actually do. My dad\'s a programmer. But but but but prompt coding, and we build some amazing small web apps just by prompting. It\'s it\'s kind of Yeah. Lovable.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Lovable. That\'s that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So I I spent way too much time on that trying to, you know, create small games and just by prompting and asking, doing front end things for our our own platform. So so I think that\'s really fun. Then I I drive a lot, so I have a lot of different podcasts that I I love to listen to. And then right now, we have a tool that we just introduced called Neurons, which is Swedish, Danish. It it\'s not a start up anymore, but it\'s an AI tool built of, I think, his Swedish professor at Stanford who did eye tracking studies since 02/2002, something like that.

And he put all those all that that data into his AI prediction model now. So it\'s it helps us when we create websites, TV ads, social media to understand, is this cock too cognitive demanding? Where\'s the focus? What are people looking at? Will people remember the headlines and so on? And right now, I\'m just spending too much of my spare time testing things that we\'ve done ourselves to see, oh, maybe we could have done this better or we could learn from that. I\'m not trying to sell it.

Like that. neurosinc.com.

It\'s called yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But it\'s it\'s neurons inc oh, neurons inc dot com.

Yeah. Dot com. Yeah.

Yeah. neuronsinc.com. That looks pretty cool as well. Yeah. Alright. Awesome.

It\'s a bit on the expensive side, but it\'s it\'s it\'s it\'s really it\'s really interesting to see how you can and I think they\'re still using humans to validate the results, but it\'s just, it\'s just interesting. I come from a analytic background before I started all this marketing nonsense. So I I have a I have a nerd hidden somewhere inside of me

A deep geek in you somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Same same here. Don\'t worry. Cool. Another question for you. Who else do you think would be a great guest on this podcast?

So I don\'t know if you can get him, but, I\'m a big fan of, I mentioned System One earlier. It\'s a British company who does a lot of ad testing, and they also have a a tool not in another way like Nekel Neurons analyzing TV. And their chief innovation officer, Orlando Wood, it\'s probably difficult to get hold of, but but you could try. I think he\'s

Kasper, I\'ll say that you recommended me. I\'m sure he\'ll I\'m sure he\'ll join.

We we actually connected. I was totally starstruck when he approached me on LinkedIn. No none of my friends knew who he was, so they didn\'t quite feel the same. But,

If if you if you fancy giving me a general a a soft intro, I\'ll be very grateful. So,

Yeah. No. He\'s really, really, really cool and have some really, really cool insights into whole marketing, not just in house, but but marketing and and neuroscience and and what\'s really happening. So

Thank you. And, finally, the title of this podcast is systemize your success. But what does success mean to you and why?

Oh, for me, it\'s like so I have the double bass behind me. I used to play in a in a jazz club way before all this, and I\'m not that good. But in reality, you could probably learn to play, I don\'t know, sixty, seventy, 80 standards. And that\'s all you need to know. So that\'s the the standard jazz songs. And if you know those, then you don\'t really have to think a lot. And I think that\'s the whole system thing. So for me, it would be that that the agency, all the in house agencies that we built, that people are using the same systems that we develop, the ways of working the processes, so they would have more time to do the fun stuff, the creative stuff.

That would be a success for us if they actually don\'t, you know, reinvent the wheel all the time. Was that a decent answer, I guess?

That\'s a a brilliant answer because it\'s so close to my heart because that is exactly what I my dream is for people with operations. So I help people exactly that\'s what you just described for marketing. What I do is to help people with their operations, so their staff hiring management, their task delegation, their systems creating systems, etcetera. And I want people just to use what I create and not have to reproduce it all from scratch. So I totally am, like, massively, massive look. That\'s probably the best answer I\'ve heard actually for that reason.

Yeah. Well, I I kind of pulled it out of thin air. But Yes. But but that is actually what I\'m what I\'m hoping for. That\'s the whole idea of of side of what we\'ve been building is to replicate and build boring processes that people don\'t have to, yeah, do it.

Fantastico. Cool. Kasper, if people wanna find you, get a hold of you, what is the best way for them to, find out more about what you do and maybe get in touch?

So they can find me on LinkedIn. I\'m the only one with that last name. So it\'s Sierslev. Or they could go to site.

Do you wanna just spell that for us?

S i e r s l e v. So,

And that will obviously be in the show notes.

It\'s in the show notes. Yeah. And I\'ll leave it on and I\'ll go to zite.agency and and and and now also there. And it\'s And just reach out.

Zed, isn\'t it? Zite with a zed. Yeah. zite.agency. Perfect. Kasper, it\'s been absolute pleasure. I\'ve had a lot of fun today. Hope you enjoyed it too.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was really fun.

Cool. Thank you so much, and I\'ll see you again soon. Cheers. Bye.

Beyond the Agency Model: How Small Teams Can Build Scalable In-House Marketing with Kasper Sierslev, CCO at Zite | Ep 226

That’s exactly why I had this conversation on the Systemize Your Success podcast. 🎙️

Here’s what you’ll walk away with:

KEY TAKEAWAYS: How In-House Marketing Empowers Small Teams to Scale with Clarity

BEST MOMENTS: Real-World Wisdom on Building Smarter In-House Marketing Systems

TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW: Building Scalable In-House Marketing for Small Teams

Episode Transcript

LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE GUEST

ABOUT THE GUEST

LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE HOST

ABOUT THE HOST

Most business owners feel overwhelmed because they don’t know how to create systems or get the right help.

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