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Welcome to Volume 68!
What part of your work week do you look forward to the most?
I have several, but one of the most anticipated parts of my week is the 1:1 with my manager. Our conversations always leave me feeling hyped and eager to do better.
I also look forward to bringing the latest B2B news and insights your way every week.
This week, there have been lots of surprises in the industry. For me, the most shocking of all was Brian Dean’s update a few days back.
Missed it? Well, we have you covered.
Before we dive in to read the full story, here’s a peek at what’s to come in this piece:
- Semrush Acquires Backlinko
- The Most Anticipated IPOs of 2022
- The State Of Remote Work
SEMrush Acquires Backlinko
Last week, Brian Dean made a shocking revelation:
After almost ten years of reliable SEO and content advice, Brian Dean sold Backlinko to Semrush. The goal of the acquisition is to “create a tailored and comprehensive online, self-service training platform to set the standard for digital marketing education globally,” according to Business Insider.
Brian and his team built an SEO moat and distributed in-depth content that earned the company tons of organic traffic, backlinks, and subscribers.
Here’s what Backlinko’s search scorecard looks like:
While this might feel like the end of an era, it is the start of a potentially rewarding opportunity for Semrush.
The acquisition is another feather in its cap. But not just any feather, one that instantly doubles its traffic value.
Currently, SEMrush has about $1M per month in organic search traffic value.
Adding Backlinko’s content to its arsenal means it’ll gain an additional $800K+ new traffic value. With this new traffic value, SEMrush now outranks direct competitors like Moz and Ahrefs who have $1.7M and $1.4M in traffic value respectively.
But that’s not all.
SEMrush also gained:
- Over 173K newsletter subscribers
- Backlinko’s well-established brand
- Backlinko’s 467K YouTube subscribers and its rich content library
- The Backlinko team, to strengthen Semrush’s Academy’s training offerings
Whatever the price of the acquisition, it was certainly a good deal for Semrush.
An interesting thing about this acquisition is that it wasn’t one large brand acquiring a smaller company to boost their distribution capacities, like the acquisition deal between Hubspot and The Hustle.
Rather, it’s one competitor buying out the other. Backlinko and Semrush competed for over 25k keywords, most of which were high-volume keywords.
Take “Link Building” for instance.
Over 48k people search for this keyword every month, and Backlinko outranked Semrush, appearing in the second spot of the SERP.
With this acquisition, Semrush now can “control” the #2 spot on that keyword and in turn outrank Ahrefs. And there are hundreds of other keywords just like this.
It’s like Ross says, “If you can’t outrank ‘em… Buy em.”
Instead of directly competing with Backlinko, Semrush saw buying the company as an easier way to achieve their goals—two forces merging their content moat to build something revolutionary.
In the months to come, we might see more B2B companies acquiring niche sites, brands, newsletters, and media companies. Or more direct competitors buying each other to reinforce their authority and dominate their niche.
Whatever it is, grab some popcorn and stay tuned.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Brain Dean sold Backlinko to SEMrush for an undisclosed amount.
- With this acquisition, Semrush will double its organic traffic value and gain the brilliant Backlinko team to help strengthen its SEO Academy.
- More B2B companies will start acquiring niche companies, newsletters, and media companies to expand their organic reach and add more value.
The Most Anticipated IPOs of 2022
Between 2000 and 2022, there’ve been 5,782 IPOs.
The number of companies going public has been on the rise over the last few years. Just in 2021, 1058 companies went public, almost tripling the previous year’s record.
With investors’ appetite becoming more voracious, and startups’ desire to hit sky-high valuations, there’s a high likelihood that we’ll see more groundbreaking IPOs in 2022.
Some companies to watch out for their IPOs in 2022 include:
- Reddit – $10 billion valuation
- Discord – $15 billion valuation
- Chime – $25 billion valuation
- Instacart – $39 billion valuation
- Stripe – $95 billion valuation
Notice how these companies all have one thing in common: They are way past unicorn status. Stripe in particular is a few steps away from a $100 billion valuation, making it one of the biggest companies to ever go public. The company serves startups, growth-stage, and enterprise companies like Amazon, Shopify, and Salesforce.
If you’ve purchased something on any of these platforms or sold something online, you most likely used Stripe.
Two things that make Stripe so valuable are its knack for innovation and thoughtfulness towards its target audience.
First, the company invests time and money in creating a quick, non-complicated way for developers and non-developers to perform transactions online.
The other thing is how Stripe targets, attracts, and converts prospects into paying customers.
Stripe serves businesses of all sizes—early, growth-stage, and enterprise—in different niches. For each niche, Stripe creates use cases that make it easy for prospects to see how the solution is going to help them.
For instance, a SaaS company looking for a payment solution can see how Stripe can help them directly on the use case landing pages. The landing page also features case studies from real brands that have used the product and achieved impressive results.
Using a blend of use cases and detailed case studies helps build trust in prospects.
You can make this strategy work for your brand by creating specific use case landing pages tailored to your customer needs.
Use these landing pages to educate prospects on how your product solves their problems, and use in-depth case studies to show customer successes.
You can also replicate Stripe’s marketing strategy by:
- Understanding the value your product offers
- Creating a solid support system for your customers
- Identifying who needs your product and who can afford to pay for it
- Finding out where they hang out, and why they think they need your product
- Building an SEO moat that attracts and converts your target audience into customers
Ross wrote a full case study on Stripe’s content marketing strategy. You can read the detailed breakdown to get the full picture of what you can do right.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- In 2021, 1058 companies went public, almost tripling the previous year’s record
- Companies like Reddit, Stripe, and Discord are planning on going public this year.
- Stripe is a few steps away from a $100 billion valuation, making it one of the biggest companies to ever go public.
- Stripe serves businesses of all sizes from different niches. For each niche, Stripe creates use cases that make it easy for prospects to see how the solution is going to help them.
The State Of Remote Work
More and more companies are allowing their employees to work from home or anywhere in the world. Since 2020, the number of people who work remotely at least once a week has increased 400%.
Late last year, Owl Labs’ released its annual report with insights from over 2000 employees that show the current state of remote work and what lies ahead.
Here are some critical insights from the report:
- 74% of those employees said working from home is better for their mental health.
- 38% said they would be willing to take a 5% pay cut to work remotely at least part of the time.
- 83% say they are at the same productivity level—or higher—working from home compared to the office.
- 55% say they work more hours working remotely than at the physical office.
- 48% said that if they were no longer able to work remotely, they would start looking for another job that offered more flexibility in when they worked.
These insights reveal that remote and hybrid work is here to stay, and flexibility is critical now more than ever for a brand’s continued success.
Employees want more control over their work schedule and location.
Remote work presents them the opportunity to work from home or anywhere in the world, without losing productivity and consistency. Sure, it can get lonely sometimes, but nothing beats having flexible working hours and increased productivity.
If you are a creator, marketer, strategist, or leader who:
- Doesn’t need someone looking over your shoulder
- Is growth-driven, place significant value on your time
- Is excited about creating content that shapes culture
We have a place for you on our team. You can check out our Careers page to find a position you know you’d be a good fit for.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Since 2020, the number of people who work remotely at least once a week has increased 400%.
- 48% said that if they were no longer able to work remotely, they would start looking for another job that offered more flexibility in when they worked.
- Remote and hybrid work is here to stay, and flexibility is critical now more than ever for a brand’s continued success.
OTHER NEWS OF THE WEEK:
💰The media startup, Workweek, raised $1.5 million in funding to support emerging B2B content creators who deliver high-demand content to niche audiences.
👥JD.com collaborates with Shopify to help more brands expand into the Chinese market as well as help Chinese merchants sell overseas.
📰Substack is testing a new video feature designed to help newsletter publishers to keep their subscribers engaged.
HIRING BRILLIANT B2B CREATORS, MARKETERS, AND LEADERS:
BRAIN FOOD OF THE WEEK:
For some weeks now, our team has been hitting an emotional fitness gym every week to boost our EQ, understand each other better, and collaborate more effectively.
One key lesson that stood out for me was the one on Empathy.
Before now, I used to think Empathy was only about being able to feel what others are feeling and help them work through those feelings.
Beyond “feeling the feelings of others”, empathy also means taking your time to review your actions at work, how they affect your teammates, and what you can do better to eliminate stress for your teammates and boost productivity.
The best way to develop empathy is to be present and ask questions. Questions help you learn more about your team than assumptions. It also helps you uncover unmet needs and unresolved issues.
You can ask questions like:
- How can I support you better at work?
- How do you prefer to receive feedback?
- How would you like me to support you during a rough time?
- How do you prefer to be appreciated?
- How will I know if you are upset or bothered by something?
Questions like these give you a chance to get to know your teammates better. It’s especially necessary for this era of async communications, as emojis and GIFs sometimes mask our true feelings.
Give it a try this week. Reach out to your teammates and learn something new about them that would help you collaborate better.
TWITTER THREAD OF THE WEEK:
12 Google Sheets formulas guaranteed to boost your productivity today by Blake Burge
IN CASE YOU MISSED SOME OF OUR GREATEST HITS:
- How Grammarly Built A $13B+ Brand Targeting Simple Typos
- How Snowflake’s SEO and ABM Strategy Led to the Largest Software IPO in History
- 26 Marketing Experiments That Brands Can Use To Unlock New Insights
- The Most Important Marketing Frameworks
WHAT WE’RE WIRED INTO THIS WEEK 🎧:
These round-ups are brought to you by me, Jessica O., every week ✌!
