Your company blog isn’t working anymore. The “helpful content” playbook that worked five years ago has been commoditized into oblivion, and the barrier to content production is now basically zero. So how do you stand out?
We sat down with Sylvia LePoidevin, former CMO at Kandji (now Iru), to chat about the unique way she’s navigated this frustrating challenge in her own work. Having started as employee number four at the company and seen it grow to 300+ employees, she has experienced every hurdle in content marketing over the last few years. But her biggest success has come from her boldest move: ditching the company blog and creating a content sub-brand. What started as an experiment to reach buyers who weren’t ready to buy turned into an unexpected masterclass in LLM optimization.
Here’s what she did it, and what you can learn from her approach.
1. Audit your company blog.
When was the last time you got genuinely excited about a company blog? When was the last time you actually subscribed to one?
That’s the question Sylvia and her team kept coming back to. “We wanted to create something people would actually follow,” Sylvia says. “And we felt like the company blog was just not good enough anymore. The helpful content was not good enough anymore.” The answer? A standalone content hub called The Sequence, which features a weekly collection of articles, podcasts, videos, and data reports designed to keep IT & security teams ahead of the curve.
The Sequence wasn’t just a blog with a different name. It was a legitimate content brand with its own domain, its own look and feel, and its own editorial approach. They structured it like a journalism site, with multiple contributors from inside the company. And each piece was published under an individual’s name, not the corporate brand.
This gave the team something crucial: creative liberty. When you’re working within the confines of a corporate blog, everything has to fit the brand guidelines, the legal review process, the executive sign-off chain, etc. But with a sub-brand, you can experiment. You can take risks. You can sound like actual humans. In a world of AI-generated fluff, these types of unique takes, real-life experiences, and transparent sources make people far more likely to engage with (and trust) your brand.
But to do this well, you need to put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Ask yourself, “Would I personally subscribe to what we’re currently publishing?” If the answer is no, you need to make some changes.
Tip: Start by auditing your last 10-20 pieces of content. Do they sound like they came from a person, or do they sound like they came from a marketing committee? Are the topics interesting? Are the takes original? If your new publication is going to be more of the same, it won’t be worth the effort.
2. Build for the 95%.
Most B2B marketers are obsessed with the same 5% of buyers—the ones actively looking to buy right now. Everyone’s fighting over those people. But Sylvia realized something important: If you’re only focused on that segment, you’re leaving 95% of your potential market on the table.
Sylvia laments neglecting that 95% for as long as she did, but she built The Sequence for that exact segment—not to drive immediate conversions or generate MQLs but to build relationships. By creating content that people actually want to read, share, and remember, the brand would stick in buyers’ minds. And when they are ready to buy, whether in three months or three years, Iru will be the first brand they think of.
Tip: Look at your content strategy and honestly assess what percentage is aimed at immediate conversion versus long-term brand building. If it’s heavily skewed toward the former, you’re missing a massive opportunity. Start creating content that serves people who aren’t ready to buy yet. Think educational content, industry insights, and thought leadership that highlight your brand’s expertise, credibility, and relevancy.
3. Create a separate domain for LLM citation.
Here’s where things get interesting. About one to two months after launching the publication, Sylvia and team noticed The Sequence was being heavily cited when people searched for the company in ChatGPT and other LLMs.
Sylvia’s hypothesis? “The LLMs are looking for external third-party sources as well as the first-party sources of data when they’re being asked about a certain company. I think the LLMs were treating The Sequence as a third-party source because it was on its own domain. So it was almost like we were writing about ourselves, but from a third-party source.”
Will this advantage last forever? Maybe not. LLMs are evolving rapidly. But that’s exactly why Sylvia’s approach is so smart: She wasn’t optimizing for LLMs in the first place. She was creating genuinely valuable content for humans. The LLM optimization was just a bonus.
“If we would’ve waited for a way to measure the impact of The Sequence before we launched it, we probably never would’ve launched it,” Sylvia says. “And so I think sometimes you just have to ship it and experiment and put something out there in the world and see what happens.”
4. Ship with conviction (even when no one knows the rules).
Although LLM optimization is crucial, the models are changing so fast that what works today might be obsolete by next week. Sylvia notes that everyone is generally making things up as they go amid so much change, but that instability also provides space to experiment and try new things.
For Sylvia and her team, The Sequence worked so well because they weren’t trying to game an algorithm. They weren’t chasing the latest SEO hack. They were focused on creating content that real humans would actually value.
The lesson? Don’t ignore LLM optimization, but don’t let LLM optimization dictate what you create.
- Write for humans first.
- Make content that’s genuinely valuable.
- Build something people would follow even if there were no search engines at all.
“If I had to pick one, I would write for the humans,” Sylvia says.
Tip: Build a culture of experimentation on your team. Give people permission to try new content formats, new distribution channels, new editorial approaches—without requiring a complete business case upfront. The fastest way to learn what works in this new era is to actually ship stuff and see what happens.
How to Launch Your Own Content Brand
The good news? You don’t need a massive team or a huge budget to try this approach. Here’s how to get started:
- Audit what you have. Look at your current content with fresh eyes. Is it truly followable? Would someone subscribe to your blog if it stood alone, with no company name attached?
- Define your vision. What would make your content subscription-worthy? What unique perspective can you bring that no one else can? This is where knowing your audience deeply becomes crucial.
- Consider the structure. Does this need to live on a separate domain like The Sequence? Does it need its own visual identity? Does it need to be bylined by individual contributors? The key is creating something that feels distinct from your corporate marketing.
- Target the right audience. Remember the 95/5 rule. This isn’t content to drive demos next week. This is content to build relationships with people who will eventually buy.
- Ship with conviction. You won’t have perfect data. You won’t be able to predict every outcome. Launch anyway. The worst thing you can do is wait so long that your competition beats you to it.
The Old Playbook Is Dead, So Build Your Own
All the old tactics—backlinks, keyword-stuffing, paid ads—they just don’t work like they used to. Now, it’s up to you to recenter, rebuild, and reconnect in meaningful ways. Although the mediums are always changing, remember that one thing stays the same: people want genuine, helpful, and relevant information that stands out. It’s your job to create that content and get it in front of them. Whether it’s a standalone publication like The Sequence, a new podcast, or a thought leadership series, focus on value. Focus on transparency. And focus on building relationships through content. That is how you build an audience and ensure that when they’re ready to buy, you’re their first choice.
Of course, a few insider tips can help along the way. If you want to hear more from Sylvia about building content brands, structuring marketing teams for the AI era, and what she’s learned from being a zero-to-one marketer multiple times over, check out her full episode of Best Story Wins.
And if you’re looking for a partner to help you build a content strategy that actually stands out, we’d love to chat.
