Jonathan Bland is an incredible marketer whom I got the chance to meet in a webinar a while ago.
It fascinated me how despite facing challenges like after being let go from his previous job, failing with his Saas venture due to the pandemic, working on gigs on UpWork, he was motivated to start a new business and became an incredible B2B Creator.
He’s fully motivated and focused on continuing to build his audience of 20,000 people on LinkedIn educating them on everything he knows about paid media.
All this while bringing in news clients for Omni Lab due to what he creates.
TL;DR:
- One topic – one channel – one platform – one service.
- Prioritizing education over selling.
- Be the content – don’t create the content.
Who is Jonathan Bland?
Jonathan Bland is the Co-founder of Omni Lab, a demand gen agency for Seed to Series C B2B SaaS companies.
For the last 14+ years, he worked for 4 VC-backed SaaS companies, consulted with more than 50, and helped all of them generate millions in net new revenue.
One of the businesses he helped got acquired, while another even reached unicorn status.
Jonathan has also seen a handful of those startups go out of business, including his own SaaS business.
All his past experiences brought him new perspectives and lessons, so he knows what type of mistakes businesses make and how to avoid them, and he’s freely sharing his knowledge on LinkedIn.
Jonathan Bland’s Timeline
Jonathan Bland started being more consistent with his content on LinkedIn during the pandemic.
In the beginning he wasn’t so specific with his content, posting about marketing, car dealerships, sales, job seeking, and more subjects related to these topics.
One important post on his LinkedIn was about how he was let go at his former job, which made him start a B2B SaaS company but which failed due to COVID.
Even though he faced a lot of challenges, those did not stop him from pushing forward and creating something new.
He started a new agency supporting a growing base of B2B Saas and services brands across the globe.
A company which he started with only two customers. Customers he acquired on UpWork.
And that was the start of Omni Lab.
Omni Lab now has more than 100 brands in their portfolio helping them create and capture demand through paid channels like Google Ads, Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, Display, and more.
Since Jonathan and his partner co-founded Omni Lab, his posts shaped into the niche of B2B Saas around paid marketing campaigns.
Now he managed to create a following of almost 20,000 people on LinkedIn actively commenting and sharing his posts.
Because he saw people are drawn to educating content, eight months ago he created a weekly newsletter for Omni Lab saying that it will be similar to his LinkedIn posts, only more profound.
“Just imagine one of my posts, but deeper with more examples…and a template or two that you can actually use.”
What makes Jonathan Bland a successful B2B creator
For this, I’ll use Jonathan’s LinkedIn and Omni Lab’s newsletter which are his main channels of communication.
What contributes to his success are the following sections:
- Being consistent
- Prioritizing education over selling
- Jonathan is the content
- The success of having a partner.
A. Being consistent – Keep it simple, stupid
If you’ve been following Jonathan then you know his favorite subject and expertise is paid media.
He talks about lead gen, paid advertising, paid strategies, plus little insights of his life, so following him you’ll be learning about these topics and get into interesting conversations with his community.
His main channel of interaction is Linkedin and for the past years he created his brand around colorful visuals to make him stand out.
His profile image has a bright pink background and the same color is used in his posts, along with a lighter green.
You can see that the same colors apply to Omni Lab’s webinars and webinar shorts.
The same thing you can see in his webinar presentations as well like he did in Creatopy’s webinar about creating zero-click ads.
Why does he use the same colors in everything he does?
Similar to Kate Bourgoin, these bright colors create a memorable brand that automatically associates Jonathan Bland with his company Omni Lab which has the same brand colors.
Plus, he writes the company’s name on every presentation, webinars, and LinkedIn posts with images attached.
Besides having a consistent brand, Jonathan also has a consistent brand messaging with a similar pattern to his posts.
Most of his posts begin with a hook that’s usually a problem that needs to be solved, and then after he writes down what can you do to solve the problem.
As an example, let’s take one of his LinkedIn posts. He talks about how people inefficiently promote their webinars which eventually end up forgotten on their website.
Then he presents a solution to this problem and most importantly presents a real case scenario of what his company did for one of their clients showing the impressive results as well.
B. Prioritizing education over selling
Most smart B2B Creators don’t promote their services. They educate, showing the solution for the problem and connecting with their audience.
Even their ads are not “Work with us” type with a hands holding person in the right and a text in the left. They educate through their ads too.
Omni Lab’s ads are purely educational not mentioning at all to buy their services.
Jonathan is using the same strategy for his personal brand as well. He educates his audience with his newsletter and content on social media.
LinkedIn Posts
His posts on LinkedIn always have valuable insights about paid advertising and similar topics.
He shows problems and offers solutions as we mentioned above.
Webinars
When invited in webinars he tries to constantly teach about paid media, zero-click ads like he did on Creatopy’s webinar, or teaches about how to generate leads.
Summits
He’s often seen at virtual summits, where obviously, he continues to educate the audience. He was invited to Demand 2022 by Metadata.io.
Here he shared actionable tips based on real data from real ad creative to help the audience understand how to create ads that perform better.
Podcasts
Even when he is invited to podcasts he doesn’t stop educating people on different aspects of paid media. At The Juice Podcast he talked about how SaaS companies use organic and paid media together.
Educating the audience about the topic has a much higher impact than simply selling your services.
Showing solutions to problems builds trust and credibility and wins you over to an audience of people interested in learning what you have to say and ultimately brings more customers.
Some other famous B2B Creators are applying the same strategy when it comes to growing their customers list.
This is what Justin Welsh is doing with his newsletter and content.
He helps people take the steps to be a solopreneur. Because he does this, the audience knows who he is and what he does. People are following him to get a deeper dive into the topic he’s presenting, knowing that there are other types of content they can get from him.
That’s what Codie Sanchez is doing with her social media content.
She helps people get financial freedom. She helps people understand that they don’t need to rely on someone else to pay their salary. They can build or buy their companies which will help them make more money.
C. Jonathan doesn’t create content – He’s the zero-click ad for Omni Lab
Content builds audiences.
Content builds brands.
Content connects audiences with the brand.
Content attracts, maintains, and converts attention.
That’s how important content is these days.
Jonathan understands that he doesn’t just create content – he is content. The way he writes his LinkedIn posts, the way he communicates in webinars, and the way he positions his agency shows me only one simple thing – Jonathan is the content for the Omni Lab.
They don’t sell sponsorship in their newsletter.
They don’t sell paid recommendations in their LinkedIn posts.
Jonathan’s content is what brings new clients.
Jonathan’s content is what makes him position the agency.
He created a 20,000 following interest to find new information about paid media. He shared all that he knew associating his name with his company’s brand colors, he shared real cases with results from Omni Lab, and that led to bringing more clients.
Want to know something interesting?
Omni Lab creates their ads only on LinkedIn.
Why?
Because that’s where their audience is and that is where Jonathan’s content is.
We can say that he’s not just educating on zero-click ads, he is the zero-click ad for Omni Lab.
D. The success of having a partner
Smart B2B Creators always have a few partners that help them.
That’s what Jonathan is doing with his co-founder Jason Steele. They are both engaging with each other’s work, promoting each other’s content and just making sure Omni Lab will get all the exposure it needs.
And not only that, but they also show their friendship.
What Are the Lessons B2B Creators Can Learn From Jonathan Bland?
1. Keep it simple
Our minds go through more than 60,000 thoughts a day, so when it comes to creating content, it’s hard to focus on one thing.
Jonathan’s managed to concentrate on:
- One topic (paid media)
- One channel to attract audience (Linkedin)
- One channel to maintain audience (Omni Lab newsletter)
- One channel to convert audience (Omni Lab agency)
This along with consistency helped him grow his channel, his audience, and ultimately convert viewers into clients.
The key lesson is to be focused and consistent. Think about what you know best or what you wish to know and start creating from there.
Great marketers never sell
And especially not B2B creators.
They don’t market the audience – they entertain it, educate it, inform it.
B2B creators are seen as someone from whom you can learn something and apply it to what you know. They offer you shifts in perspective, they market what they know in such a way that you’ll be carving to learn more.
Jonathan is educating with what he knows about paid media, Joseph Hill does the same educating on how good ads are created and how you can replicate them.
And this is how you gain trust.
It’s by giving free advice. It’s about the zero-click content that Amanda talks about.
“Success is best when shared”
This is a famous quote by American businessman Howard Schultz, and it’s so true.
If you’re planning on starting a business it’s much easier to go along with a partner. A partner can have your back on things you have no clue about.
Just like Jonathan has Jason who has deep knowledge about understanding market trends and consumer behavior, coupled with leadership skills.
Or similar to how Michael Sikand had Simran Sandhu when he started Our Future.
Final Thoughts
Jonathan Bland is an example of a successful B2B creator.
His focus, consistency, and ability to educate have helped him build a loyal audience and attract clients for Omni Lab.
His journey to become a B2B creator was not easy, but with a lot of dedication he cut through the noise and created an impact in the paid media industry.