Branding After .com - Rachel Sterling

0:28Hey, welcome to the CMO Whisper Show. at Identity Digital. Rachel leads global marketing with a focus on driving awareness and adoption of Identity Digital's portfolio of top-level domains. Now, before stepping into her current role, she held senior leadership positions at Instagram, Twitter, and Google, where she built and scaled strategies across product marketing, integrated content, and events. From shaping how some of the world's most iconic platforms connect with audiences to now redefining digital identity, Rachel brings a unique perspective on marketing's evolving role and culture and technology.

1:03And this just in, I just found this out. Rachel is the only person to be the head of product marketing at both Instagram and Twitter. Wow. Rachel Serling, welcome to the CMO Whisperer Show. Thank you so much for having me. You are very welcome. There's a lot I want to get to, but I think it's going to help my audience. If you give us kind of the high level, tell us about Identity Digital. I'm going to make a leap of faith and say that nobody listening has heard of Identity Digital. And that's okay. We're going to talk about it today. We are an internet infrastructure company that ensures web addresses work safely and seamlessly.

1:39If we do our job right, we are invisible to the user. And so within our portfolio, we have nearly 300 top-level domains. And a top-level domain is what exists to the right of the dot. And so top-level domains that we have in our portfolio include.pro,.world,.bio,.studio. Domains that really clarify the value and the purpose of the website that you're building. Interesting. When you were saying about when you do your job right, no one notices you. So I'm a big sports fan. And you and I talked a little bit about sports. The best officials in sports are ones you don't notice at the end of the game.

2:18A thousand percent. If you're talking about the refs when the game is over, that game went really awry. Right. So it's the that's the analogy I just got about identity digital that no one knows who you are. And that's and that's how you like it. Well, sure. I mean, people within our industry know who we are clearly. But the average Internet user, you would never hear of us. I want to there's so much. Gosh, I can't wait. Starting with branding, what you call branding beyond the dot com world. So startups and global brands are rethinking digital identity like everybody in the AI world. So how are you seeing companies approach domain strategy differently than even, say, five years ago?

2:54Oh, that's such a good question. I'm so glad you asked it. So the first piece of it is recognizing that your domain is your first impression. When people are approaching your website, the first thing that they enter into the browser is the name of your company. And the name of the company is usually your domain. That's how this works. That's how you get that connection between the brand of your company and the address in which you live on the internet. And what we've seen over the last 5 years is that, particularly around younger people, is that they are gravitating towards top-level domains that are more descriptive in use.

3:31So I'll give you an example. During the tech layoffs in 2022, when people started getting laid off, I started seeing a lot of tech employees who were just embracing the absurdity of losing their jobs and creating personal branding sites. But instead of buying their name and then something like a dot com, they would buy their name and then dot pizza. And it was just like, oh, this person, all of a sudden, you know that this person doesn't take themselves that seriously because they're not selling pizza. That's an isolated example of personal branding as a like for job hunting. But what we've seen that businesses are starting to do is recognize that there is value in that right side of the dot.

4:15And that is particularly in the space of artificial intelligence. And so we're seeing a great number of people lean into dot AI as a top level domain using that on the right side of the dot. We're also seeing it particularly with one of our TLDs,.pro. Using a.pro connotates the fact that you are providing professional services. And so it becomes that badge of credibility for folks when they're first getting to you. And then there's just the simple fact that the internet has been around for 40 years, 40 plus years. And there are hundreds of millions of domains that have been bought and sold. And as you're looking to land on the name that truly represents either who you are as a person or what you want your brand of your organization to be, there's an availability issue.

5:05And so as you start pursuing newer top-level domains, ones that are more descriptive in nature, there's typically more availability to get your exact brand match name. So let me put the layman's hat on. Is any dot domain available? No, no, you can't just make one up. Right. Otherwise, there'd be some truly funny domains out there. So the way that this typically works is if you're going to look for a domain, you would go to a registrar, which is a company that sells you domains. So within the Identity Digital family, we operate a registrar, name.com. So you could go to name.com. You could enter into the search bar what it is that you do, what it is that you're looking to accomplish.

5:46And then you would get a full list of all of the top level domains that are relevant to your search. And so those are the ones that are available based on the search that you've entered. Gotcha. Okay. Very interesting. Now, I know you definitely believe domain strategy is really central to long-term brand equity, right? Correct. And discovery. It's not just a technical, because I think back in the day, it was more of a technical decision, right? But why do you feel so strongly that it's got to be part of a long-term brand equity? Well, think about the forum in which we're talking right now. This is audio only, correct?

6:18Yep. Thank God, because my hair looks terrible today. And if somebody is listening to me describe the name of my company, doesn't it have to be memorable? They're not seeing it. So my web address for my company is identity.digital. And so I'm very clearly articulating that this is a digital property. We're focused on identity. And that is the whole brand name of my company. And so you could remember that as identity.digital for search and for memorability and short. People's attention span is very short. And so the more you can leverage both sides of the dot, the shorter your domain can be and the easier it is to remember that brand name.

7:00Will dot com not go away, but is it going to lose value? Is that the right way to phrase this? Absolutely not. Dot com is the OG of domains. Dot com is not going anywhere. People still love dot com. I still love dot com. But what we're talking about is opening the aperture to start exploring non-traditional top level domains and really say, OK, I can leverage that right side to tell the story about who I am. Super niche. let's say you're a dentist and you've decided that you want to open your own practice, you can use a dot dentist. So you can get your name dot dentist. Let's say you are a tradesperson, like a plumber or HVAC, and you know that you've invested in an LLC accreditation.

7:48You can use dot LLC as a badge of honor when people are a badge of credibility, when people are searching for you to indicate that this is a real business, even though you haven't invested a lot of money or time in building up the brand equity of your name. Right. How is it determined who makes the decision when a new top level domain is brought into the world? Steve, Steve, the books are only open every couple of decades in which people participate in what's called the next round of new TLDs. And it is a very long process, which I will not bore your readers with or your listeners with, excuse me.

8:26And, um, but it entails applying, uh, for a top level domain. And then there is a global organization called ICANN, um, which manages all of the assigned names and, uh, of the internet. And they go through a very extensive review process to ensure that those top level domains will work as intended. The DNS, which is the backbone of the internet over 40 years old, People have to have immense trust in the DNS. When you enter a web address into your browser, it has to reconcile. It has to lead you in the place that you want to go, because that is the safety underpinning of the entire internet. If all of a sudden you entered cnn.com into your web browser, and you went someplace else that maybe had nefarious purposes, you would be afraid to search the internet.

9:17Is that fair? Very. So I think we take it for granted. We do. Remember when Blue Sky launched and there was a lot of talk about decentralized social or decentralized platforms? I said that the DNS is the original decentralized platform. It's not owned by any one company, and it can be used across the entire globe regardless of language. And there's multiple different browsers in which you can engage with the DNS. And so we think about something, we just take it for granted, but it is the original decentralized protocol. We really do. I mean, we do it so much subconsciously today. We don't even realize it.

9:54No, it's the entire global economy is pinned on the DNS working. By the way, this has gotten really nerdy. I apologize. No, are you kidding? I love this. And I know my listeners will as well. I'd love to. Can you share a couple of examples of a brand domain that, you know, that really gave it competitive advantage? Well, can I share a use case instead? Okay. So one of the top-level domains we have is.bio. Now, here's a funny story. Sometimes the purpose, the original purpose of the top-level domain does not actually equal the intended use case of the top-level domain. And so.bio had originally been created as a tool for biology or organics companies, right?

10:36But what is bio an abbreviation of? Biography. Biography. And as we've seen on social media, content creators often say, check out my link in bio for more information. The reason for that is because platforms like Instagram and TikTok don't want content creators putting a lot of links into their content because it pulls traffic away from the platform. And so the hack has been this verbal link in bio solution. And so what we've seen is content creators starting to adopt.bio as their link in bio solution on social. And so I'll reference a very popular publisher on social, BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed is obviously BuzzFeed.com.

11:22We all know BuzzFeed.com. But BuzzFeed on their Instagram profile uses BuzzFeed.bio as their link in bio. And so on that page, what they have on that BuzzFeed.bio page is links to all the stories that they've referenced in their Instagram feed or on their reels. And so it's a new use case, leveraging the same brand, but in a different capacity. Right. That's really interesting. Again, it's something I hadn't thought of. I know most people hadn't either. No, no, but we're seeing, we have a partnership over at name.com with Beacons, which is one of those platforms that allows content creators to create their own dedicated landing page.

12:06And they've been selling so many dot bios because like content creators intuitively recognize that this use case is different from like the historical use case of publishing content on the web. Okay. I'm going to ask you to put your CMO, not your CMO, I wasn't on, but I want to talk about just marketing a company that really most consumers never think about. So what's it like leading to my listeners who are CMOs of B2C brands, for example? This has been one of the most fascinating jobs I've ever had. And I am extraordinarily lucky that I sit in the seat that I do. So the way that I market identity digital is twofold.

12:46On the B2C side, obviously, we don't go to market direct to consumers. We're back in an infrastructure company. And so what I do is I invest in B2B2C co-marketing investments, meaning I look at partners that are selling domains direct to their customers. And then I work with them to merchandise our top-level domains to their end customers. Meaning like if GoDaddy wants to merchandise one of my TLDs, I share with them our product marketing, our audience, our positioning, all of the different research that we've done that would adequately merchandise this TLD to the right audience. We share that with that partner.

13:22We also work with other registrars to ensure that our top level domains get adequate placement in their search results. It's sort of like a version of AdWords, but within the registrar space. So that's on the B2B2C side. And it's very much about product marketing, audience targeting, and then channel, retail point of sale marketing through those partners. On the B2B side, this is very different. And this is where we spend a lot of time. It's probably where you came in contact with my team, which is we spend a lot of time thinking about communication strategies, which is how do we educate and encourage partners to want to sell our top-level domains to their customers.

14:07And so this could be anybody from the actual channel, the domain channel. But we're starting to think more and more about what it looks like to sell domains outside of the channel or even creating new retail channels. And so, for example, I assume you're familiar with vibe coding. Your audience is aware of vibe coding. I would think so. I mean, vibe coding is unlocking web production using natural voice to the layman who does not know how to code and who does not want to spend their time trying to figure out templates or whatnot. And it's truly transformational for how we're going to see content developing on the internet.

14:45And so these vibe coding platforms are allowing people to build natural language web development websites. But then that last mile is connecting to the domain because you obviously don't want to publish a production level domain. There's no brand equity in that. And so we've been going out to market with website platforms, like web builder platforms to say, how do we help you institute that last mile connection between the production site and the publication mechanism? And so our team at Name.com has just launched this amazing API that allows for that seamless integration. And one of our partnerships with Purcell, they announced yesterday, where you're going to be able to buy domains right through the Purcell platform.

15:34And so it's just really interesting how we can increase the shelf space or the surface areas where people can buy domains. I envision a future where maybe you can buy a domain anywhere, which would be really exciting. That actually was going to be one of my questions. What do you think is going to happen 3, 5, 10 years from now? And you kind of touched on it already. Well, Steve, I mean, nobody knows anything. Let's be honest. I go to conferences. I listen to podcasts. I listen to people say, oh, in three years, we're going to be doing this. In five years, we're going to be doing that. I think the only thing I can confidently say is that I have no idea what's going to happen three to five years from now.

16:11What I do know is that the more places people are exposed to new TLDs, the more places people see them, and the more places people can buy them, the more people will understand how valuable they are. And so as a CMO, it's my job to increase the surface areas where people come in contact with them and where they can purchase them. You've been at Twitter, Google, Instagram, right? Where they're flashier than this, right? That's fair to say. Storytelling, of course, is at the heart of any disease. It should be for marketers. I got to imagine this is radical too strong of a word, but the way you apply storytelling to identity digital compared to your other jobs, to myself or to the product that identity digital, how do you use storytelling to promote a product that's really foundational, but not flashy?

17:01Well, it's hard. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Part of the reason I'm just going to be very transparent. I worked at very big brands. And those big brands provide you with a halo effect where regardless of what you do, you're going to get coverage. You write a blog post, you go speak at an event, you launch a product. Somebody is going to pay attention to what you're doing. I think as marketers, we never really know how good we are until we go work someplace where you don't have the benefit of brand equity. And so then it comes down to, okay, can I tell a story? Can I really connect the dots between product positioning and the right audience?

17:45Can I change behavior? Can I change hearts and minds? And that's one of the reasons I absolutely love this job. because every day we come to work, we're starting from a place where people have no idea who we are. And when we can convince them to take a chance on partnering with us, it's based on the value of the work we're putting in front of them, not based on the halo effect of the brand in which we work. And so there's no better test as a marketer than going to work for a place where nobody has ever heard of you. And so that's awesome. Yeah, no, look, I love a good challenge too. I can see why you're so passionate about it.

18:21It's great. With regards to how we tell stories to customers, I think it's primarily through example. I can't tell a customer and end customer, oh, you should totally try the.world top level domain because it's totally cool. Nobody cares what I think. What they care is what other people in their space think. And so the more we can show reputable businesses doing compelling things or reputable content creators doing amazing things where they're leveraging our top level domains, the more we build trust, the more we build credibility, the more we build awareness. Okay. So we touched on the.ai explosion, if you will.

19:02I think you might even use it or boom, but I want to get your thought on what does this all tell you about how emerging technologies can really reshape and affect consumer behavior? I think that there's a lot of conversation right now about whether AI is going to hurt or help the internet. So let's talk about that. I was at a conference in New York last week for Webflow. And one of the topics that kept coming up was the proliferation of AI search engines is creating this challenge for content publishers where they're having discoverability issues. People are not finding their content anymore the way that they used to be able to optimize for SEM, they have not figured out how to optimize for AEO, Answer Engine Optimization.

19:51And so tons of conversations about how to create environments that are optimized for AEO. And the secondary part of that conversation is the introduction of slop, which is the more AI tools that we have, the more slop people are creating, this low quality content that's generated by tools that doesn't really have human interaction and it's worthless to the end customer. So those I think are the two challenges that we're facing today. Can't talk about three to five years from now, but like today, we have lack of discoverability and tools that are lowering the bar of what good content looks like.

20:32I would say probably the third challenge is the fact that the original sin of the internet is that it is ad supportive. And as a subset of the discoverability challenge, if people are never clicking through to your website and you're never getting paid for the eyeballs that are seeing your ads, what is the vested interest that people have in continuing to publish content? Right. And so all those three things represent a moment of disruption, which means that people have to start thinking differently about how they create content and engage with the internet. And so I'm an optimist, even though I'm originally from New York, where I have deep pessimistic roots.

21:13I have spent the last like 14 years living in the Bay Area. And so I am deeply optimistic about tech's ability to make things better. And what I think is that we're at this disruption or this pivot point, but I anticipate that once people stop being so enamored with the tools, human involvement will come in. And the more tools we have that allow humans that don't have the technical ability to create content, but have the strategy and the wherewithal and the smarts to understand what their customers are looking to hear, you're going to see this explosion of high quality content. And so the more you have high quality content, the more you remove the barriers for people to be able to publish that content, whether it's through vibe coding, whether it's through other templatized solutions, the more you're going to have more websites.

22:07And if you're going to have more websites, you're going to need more domains. You just reminded me of, remember when big data came into Vogue and everybody was talking about big data, big data. And then somebody realized that that's all great, but not all of it is good data. And when you were talking about all this content that's coming, the bad content is going to be weeded out. And those who don't get rid of the bad content, like you don't, who use bad data are going to suffer the consequences. That's as bluntly as I can put it. You're 100 % right. I think that we've been living in an engagement baited economy for the last 10 years and like through the social media platforms and people just will not engage with crappy content.

22:52And so there'll be very clear feedback loops that you have to improve the quality of your content in order to get to discovery, in order to get to clicks, in order to get paid. So what should marketers, brand leaders, I know I'm going to ask you to look at it, even though it's hard to say, but hey, Rachel, what should I be on the lookout for if I'm a CMO of a B2C company or CPG company or brand leader? Oh, I love that question. I think it's really important to have a right... It's really important to have a good understanding of the tools that are available that can help improve efficiency. And so attending conferences and walking through demos and really understanding what are going to be the right tools that can round out the capabilities of the folks on your team.

23:40As a CMO, I think that that's going to be hugely important. It's going to allow you to get to market faster. It's going to allow you to spend more time on strategy, less time on execution. And to me, that's where CMOs become effective is more strategy, less execution. Now more granular when it comes to domain trends, what should they be looking for? Let me rephrase that. Should they be aware of when a new domain gets announced or accepted and go, Oh, should I jump on that? Yes, absolutely. So if I'm a CMO and I'm looking at domains as part of my brand strategy, one of the things I would look at is I would return back to that BuzzFeed example, which is the use case for your domains.

24:24So let's say you have a corporate website and it's a dot com, but you have different goals with that content. Let's say you are doing a climate initiative and you don't want to bury that within your corporate website. You should take your brand and buy a dot green. And then use the dot green domain as a consolidation vehicle for all of your climate governance work. The bio example that I gave earlier, you should use that for social media. What's another one? Obviously, with answer engine optimization, there's a great need to set the record straight about who you are as a business to ensure that people are pulling in the right information about you.

25:07So should you be using a.fyi as a new version of your Wikipedia page that you control? Here's everything that you need to know about our company or about us as individuals. And so I think that if I'm a CMO and I'm thinking about my domain strategy, you have all of these different use cases to the right of the dot through the top-level domain, but you can maintain the brand equity to the left side of the domain. And then really create this environment where you're speaking directly to the user who's visiting that site so that they can get the information that they're looking for. It's really fascinating, the potential to incorporate.

25:47And I guarantee you a lot of people listening have not even thought about the benefit or just.com. What's the difference? .org. What's the difference? The difference is that we're now in a new era of discoverability. Right. And so we've talked a lot about AEO, but there's also the bifurcation across social. like 15 years ago you were just like oh i'm on facebook i'm on twitter and like people will find me people are not going to find you anymore and the reason that they're not going to find you anymore is because there's more platforms and then within the platforms the feeds are completely different it's not chronological feed anymore where you're just going to see the same people or see the same things every single day and so you and i could both be on the exact same platforms and have vastly different experiences based on our graphs, our social graphs.

26:33And so it's more important than ever for brands to recognize that the front door to their business is much wider than they think it is. Fascinating. It really is. I could keep talking and I already get, I see a part two coming because I know there's brands who have no idea what this means, how to use it, what should I do? So let's just get this penciled in right now. We're going to do a part two. Sounds great. In the interim. Let's wrap it up as I always do with my random five. So buckle up. No, I'm just kidding. These are fun questions. Number one, when you think back to your early career, what's one experience that still shapes how you lead today?

27:11I think that it's having, and this is maybe counterintuitive. I had a couple of really terrible bosses and especially earlier on in my career. And I made notes of all the things that they did that just like sucked the soul out of my body. And I recognize that the number one reason people leave jobs is bad manager. And so I'm consistently trying to not replicate the mistakes of people who were my managers of the past. Now, that being said, I've had some wonderful managers, but sometimes we learn more from the bad than from the good. I'm so glad you said that because I am a big believer. You learn from every experience and doesn't mean it's always a good one.

27:50Correct. So I love that. Okay. Number two, what's the most underrated skill a marketer needs right now? Video editing. Really? Elaborate. Yeah. I am a former professional video editor. So there's definitely that. I think that video content is where most people are at this point. And if you have the capability on your laptop to get out a quick video, that's going to be your best opportunity to meet a cultural moment in real time. Interesting. Okay. Next question. What's one brand outside of tech operative that you admire for how it approaches identity or storytelling, branding outside of tech? What's one brand you admire?