Nathan Baugh

Consultant → writer. I study the best storytellers ever and share with you what I learn. Writing fiction and writing to 77K storytellers every Saturday. Join us 👇

Founder

If you want to improve your writing and storytelling, I urge you to read some fiction.

Not necessarily for the prose but for the structure required to move you through a story.

- Cause & effect
- Intention & obstacle
- Hooks & cliffhangers

The internal logic builds the foundation of a great story, and it’s worth reverse engineering and trying to apply the ideas to your work.

PS. I talk about this stuff every week with 112k readers: nathanbaugh.substack.com

Ghostwriter. Exploring the art and science of storytelling. Debut fantasy novel sometime ~soon.

Here’s the problem with attribution:

1. I know of a business because I’ve followed the founder for years on twitter

2. Convo with friends around the topic

3. I don’t have link, so go to google to get link - accidentally hit sponsored link

4. Send link anyway

5. Friend applies for membership - it’ll be a low five figure a year thing

6. Business will see he clicked through Google ad

7. Attribute lead to Google ads

Reader, the Google ad did nothing, the twitter account did everything, and attribution will show the opposite.

Wonder how often this happens

I'm the founder and CEO of Zmist & Copy. Here is how I got here.

Decided I wanted to be a writer. Got hired to write content for Yalantis, a software development company. That was before content marketing was all the rage in this industry.

Got promoted to CMO at Yalantis after a couple of years. The company tripled in size during my time there.

Left Yalantis to co-found Kaiiax, a content marketing agency. Helped dozens of software development companies generate leads with SEO.

Wrote a book "From Reads To Leads" to help writers create high-quality content – key to success in content marketing.

Launched a course "How to Write… and Design a Sales Page" to teach writers how to write copy that impacts the business's bottom line.

Realized that SEO is not the holy grail in content marketing anymore. And that for a B2B business, an audience is far more valuable than a lot of site traffic. 

Founded Zmist & Copy, a company that is focused on creating in-depth, high-value content that differentiates companies, helping them build an audience. We strategize, write, repurpose, and optimize must-read content to help businesses in the software industry succeed.

Kateryna Abrosymova

I keep seeing companies running the same "good-old-days SEO playbook"... and it's not working. To cite Ethan Smith latest research, AI search sessions are already 56% the size of traditional search. So what gets cited by AI? Here are our observations. (More in my newsletter this Friday).

👉 Not sure if your content is built to get cited?

Send me your website, and I’ll run a quick audit using our framework. I’ll share the 3 biggest gaps costing you AI citations and what to fix first.

Founder @ Zmist & Copy. Content marketing for B2B tech companies. Wrote "From Reads To Leads," a book for content writers.

What actually works for AI search (we checked)

A few years ago, when companies wanted to “do content marketing,” they’d look for an SEO specialist.

SEO defined keywords and writers were hired to “cover” them. Content writers were coordinated by SEOs.

Now that's been changing. More and more clients (at least those coming to us at Zmist & Copy) start from a different place: Who are we? Who are we for? What do we believe? What do we want to say that others don’t? What role does content play in our growth?

SEO is still there. But it’s not the brain anymore.

You need SEO to:
- make sure your ideas are discoverable
- spot opportunities and challenge assumptions
- strengthen distribution

But SEO shouldn’t be the thing that creates the thinking. When strategy leads, content is better.

And I think it’s beautiful.

Are "Best X" listicles a gold mine? If you read the latest Ahrefs research, cited by Ryan Law, feels like it: 

"Best X" blog lists make up 43.8% of all page types cited in ChatGPT responses. 35% of those lists come from low-authority domains.

But here is another observation by Lily Ray: It works, until it doesn't. 

Her data suggests that these self-promotional "listicle tactics" may be contributing to performance declines in SEO.

The takeaway: Too much is not healthy.  

A link to Lily's post on this in the comments.

I used to think ranking and converting were the goals of content. Now I think they're just the baseline.

The companies that dominate their markets aren't just producing content that ranks. Their content makes people think differently about their category.

That's a much harder thing to do. And it starts before you pick a single topic.

So now, at Zmist & Copy, we build content strategies that include the roadmap (clusters, topics, goals, formats, buyer journey stages), plus the company’s positioning goals and a POV. 

That’s the part that excites me most. And this is how we can help our clients build authority and become top of mind.

If you’re thinking about how your content can differentiate you, my newsletter this Friday is exactly about that.

Comment POV, and I’ll send our strategy template.

What the POV-based strategy does differently

Writer for B2B service & SaaS tech companies

An anxious introvert cold-pitching themselves? That's some peak yikes. Thank goodness, the first time I did it landed me a job.

(Fair to say, that pitch had been brewing for 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘴) 

Before I got my first content writing job, I panic-read everything I could on the topic. Among it was the book by Kateryna Abrosymova, From Reads to Leads. I bookmarked half of it. 

Then, during the interview for an in-house role, I’m introduced to a content manager.

“Where did I see you??” I can’t stop thinking.

After the call, something tells me to check the author of that book again.

And there she is, Kateryna! 

I felt *giddy* starting that job. But sadly, Kate and I barely worked one-on-one — our team was just collaborating with her agency.

I felt like I needed closure :D

Fast forward to my second in-house job. Marketing team at a software engineering company. Who do I learn had been the CMO there, building the content-first culture we were now pursuing?

Yep. Kate.

“This HAS to be some sign,” I think — then tuck that thought away in the back of my mind.

After a little over a year there, I took some time off. When I was ready to work again, I knew three things:

– I don’t want to go through the usual job-hunt hell.
– I want to text Kate on LinkedIn and ask if she has any openings.
– I need a pitch (yes, as much as the mere thought of it made me twitch).

To my delight, she suggests we hop on a call.

Shortly after, I start agency work and end up loving it. Still do, year later.  

That pitch got me my closure — and opened a new chapter (pardon my theatrics) with this dream team: Kate, Yuliia Kostik, Diana Bashta, Olesia Paskhalna, and Yurii Bilokobylskyi. Olesia and Yura didn’t make the photo, but I hope we’ll fix that soon :)  
  
Appreciate you, guys.

AI changed everything. But did it change how content and SEO teams actually work and think about content? Or did it just make us faster?

We decided to find out.

If you're a CMO, Head of Content, Content Lead, or work closely with content operations, could you please share your answer in this short form? It takes only 2 minutes.

taplio

The Battle

Nathan Baugh

Kateryna Abrosymova

Followers

Posts

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Performance ScoreNathan Baugh's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreKateryna Abrosymova's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Nathan Baugh

Kateryna Abrosymova

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Nathan Baugh's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreKateryna Abrosymova's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreNathan Baugh's LinkedIn Performance