In this interview, Sam Dunning, founder of Breaking B2B, shares his journey from co-owning an agency to launching his solo venture, B2B SEO agency, focused on B2B SEO and marketing.
Sam discusses his decision to prioritize revenue-driven SEO, the challenges of growing a niche brand, and insights from his years running a successful podcast, newsletter, and consultancy. He also offers valuable advice for those looking to start their agency and reflects on lessons learned from building a business in the competitive B2B space.
1. In Jan 2024 you exited from the agency where you were co-owner for 3 years. Why did you decide to do that?
I wanted to be a solo founder for a bunch of reasons – worked with 2 other founders that had different visions to myself and after running a b2b podcast interviewing fast growth b2b/SaaS marketing leaders for 4+ years and 400 episodes… I knew I wanted to branch out and fire up a SEO company focused on helping these folks drive more sign-ups/demos/sales calls for their b2b tech orgs.
2. Instead you launched the “Breaking B2B” brand that includes podcast, newsletter and consultancy for B2B brands. Why did you decide to focus on this niche and how has your journey been so far?
If you visit the Breaking B2B homepage you’ll see front and center:
B2B SEO & Websites For REVENUE Not Vanity.
Why?
I got sick of folks posting reports on LinkedIn and elsewhere of crazy upward trend rankings and traffic to keywords & pages that get a tonne of traffic…
But drive zero leads (because they are top of funnel informational high volume queries).
Most of the time great B2B SEO focuses on lower volume “MONEY” keywords. AKA long-tail bottom of funnel, commercial intent queries.
That your dream clients will only search on google when they are wanting to speak to a salesperson, take a demo or compare you to alternatives.
And as a founder I know how frustrating it is to run marketing programs that don’t drive a steady stream of qualified sales leads over time.
So, we focus on revenue not vanity metrics for B2B/SaaS clients at Breaking B2B 🙂
I love running experiments and unusual content ideas. Some recent ones include:
- Asking the public B2B marketing questions (LinkedIn/YouTube shorts videos)
- Cold calling CMOs and VPs marketing at SaaS orgs
- Ranking various B2B sites in 90 days for revenue-driving keywords
3. I often see that niche expert content gets very few views on YouTube. You have been working in a fairly narrow niche for 5 years now. Are you still sure that creating and promoting such content is worth it?
I think of our weekly podcasts for Breaking B2B as an eco-system for pillar content. Each episode goes on Youtube / audio podcast / website page / short video clips for socials / newsletter. So we get a decent bang for buck.
Most of the audience listens to the Breaking B2B audio podcast right now and YouTube is a tough nut to crack in B2B (we are near 2k subs at the moment).
Some of our YouTube eps do well and others do rookie numbers…still learning the video game.
We do get a trickle of leads from our YouTube, podcast and newsletter and helps us stay top of mind with our educations /actionable / weird / funny SEO and B2B marketing content 🙂
4. How do you measure the success of your podcast and newsletter in terms of driving business for your agency?
Get DMs most weeks from our audience, replies to newsletter, upticks in downloads/views and of course booked sales calls.
5. What are the main mistakes you made when developing your YouTube channel and podcast?
I made the mistake when I first started my show of naming it Sam’s Business Growth Show and having no real strategy for guest interviews. I was interviewing all sorts of people e.g. sales leaders, marketers, entrepreneurs and more.
It was great fun and I learnt a tonne from guests but it didn’t drive any business results. I also spent too long on guest background stories and the beginning of shows instead of getting straight to the point and focus of the episode.
Some time later we renamed it to: Breaking B2B – B2B Marketing & Demand Generation Podcast and got more intentional with the focus of guest and solo episodes… I started to see an impact over time on show growth, feedback from listeners and inbound leads.
Niching down with your show title helps get found on audio podcasts and likewise for Youtube a searchable episode title and a solid hook and then diving straight into the good stuff seems to help on video.
6. What are the key differences between SEO for B2B versus B2C companies?
B2B is more complex (for higher ticket solutions). Nobody wakes up and spends 5 figures or 6+ figures on your offer.
- They have a problem for a decent amount of time, it reaches a tipping point, then they may search to fix it on Google – check out your blog post or comparison page.
- Then they might speak to their exec team.
- They listen to your podcast.
- Then see your LinkedIn ads.
- Then search again for your brand on Google.
- Then do some other tasks.
- Then eventually book a demo.
SEO is a piece of the B2B buying journey to capture demand, build mind-share, brand and drive revenue.
7. How do you see SEO evolving for B2B companies in the next 3-5 years?
More focus on revenue and product focused content that is from thought leaders on the niche (can’t be replaced by AI).
More companies focusing on brand and co-partnerships on content / link building / video + YouTube.
8. What challenges do you face when onboarding new B2B clients who are new to SEO?
We prefer to work with B2B / SaaS orgs who already know the value SEO brings (see above points on B2B buying journey for higher ticket offerings).
They usually have a small or growing marketing team or a founder with a marketing background. Or they are tired of seeing competitors above them in Google organic search stealing traffic, mind-share and inbound leads 24/7 and wanna fix it.
9. What are some of the most challenging SEO problems you’ve solved for your clients, and how did you approach them?
- Lack of a revenue-driven content strategy – we fix by focusing on what dream clients search when ready to speak to sales or are comparing alternatives and exhaust these topics / keywords / pages first.
- Lack of a writing / content team – we extract subject matter expertise from clients to craft landing pages / blogs / listicles that rank, resonate and convert.
- Lack of website authority – we build niche relevant links with our trusted platform of sites or partners to start ranking for competitive commercial-focused keywords.
- Leaders don’t buy into SEO – I show them the Breaking B2B podcast or my Linkedin content…if they still don’t buy in I cry and move on 🙂
10. What advice would you give to someone looking to start their own SEO-focused agency for B2B clients?
Listen to those who have actually done what you want to achieve. Not talking heads. Building and growing an agency isn’t for everyone. But the flexibility / fun / learning outweigh the negatives.
I’d recommend slowly getting some freelance or consulting clients on the side first to see if you enjoy the work.
Then when you have some cash reserves go for it!
