Building Revenue Through Content: Q&A with Elliot King, VP of Marketing at Turtl

In a world where content is everywhere but attention is scarce, Turtl is helping marketing teams flip the script—turning static content into revenue-driving experiences. At the helm of that mission is Elliott King, VP of Marketing, who’s championing a smarter, more strategic approach to content that doesn’t just get read—it performs. In this interview, Elliott shares how Turtl is reshaping the way marketing teams think about content, how alignment with sales is key to ROI, and why personalization and performance must go hand-in-hand. We also touch on how Elliot’s team manages the behind-the-scenes workflows—like digital asset management—that help power consistency, creativity, and results.

Can you tell us a bit about your journey to becoming VP of Marketing at Turtl?

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Yeah absolutely, so I've always worked in tech and was lucky to work with some really exciting brands and learn a tonne about great marketing, creativity and leadership. And in the last 6-7 of years I've been working with startups more exclusively. It's a space I love: the pace, the innovation, the need to execute at a high level but especially the opportunity to achieve great things with incredible people. I led the marketing team at Cognassist, a pioneering start-up in the neurodiversity space, then the content and ultimately the marketing function at Unmind, the UK leader in workplace wellbeing and now I'm at Turtl: helping B2B marketers close the gap between content and revenue.

What drew you to Turtl, and how does its mission resonate with your own marketing values?

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One of the lessons I've learnt from my years in the start up space is that categories make brands - and you have to equally invest in product, brand & category to be really successful. So I know for my next role I wanted to find a company that had a real opportunity to define & own a category. But I also wanted a role that saw marketing as a strategic driver of the business - more ownership of the 4Ps rather than just a lead generation function - and that was exactly what I've found. I think Turtl's mission is an inspiring one one - how to help marketers get more revenue from their content sounds simple - but it's really about helping marketers reclaim their seat at the table. And that resonates with me personally and professionally.

How has your approach to marketing evolved over the past few years, especially with the rise of data-led content?

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Hot take (maybe): as we've got more and more data I've actually been coming more and more intuitive in my decision making. We've got more data in marketing than we can shake a stick at - but data without action is futile. So of course you have to make data your ally, you have to understand it and see the full picture of your performance. But if it doesn't help you make better decisions, faster and move the needle in a big way - what's it for? And that's where I think my approach has evolved - my teams spend a lot more time in creative development and insight synthesis to develop big bets rather than incremental performance improvements. You always need that - experimentation and optimization are a big part of what we do - but not at the expense of getting a really clear understanding of our audience and how to shape content that engages them emotionally and compels them to action.

Turtl emphasizes revenue content. How do you define that, and why is it different from traditional content marketing?

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B2B marketing has a big problem: the revenue gap. Dollars go into the marketing engine - but what comes out? And how do you tie your investments back to pipeline and revenue? For many it's vanity metrics - clicks, downloads etc loosely attributed to deals in your CRM. But what makes Turtl special is that our platform generates 1st party engagement data on which content most engages our customers' audiences. And we use that rich behavioural data to evidence the impact on pipeline and revenue. That change makes a significant difference: the platform helps you create better content faster but also understand it's impact from a revenue perspective and then double down on what's driving success. And that's revenue content as we see it.

What are the top mistakes you see companies making when creating content that’s meant to drive revenue?

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I think when it comes to creating any content it's easy to get lost in the weeds. To be successful you need to balance creative differentiation + unique value. But you also need an excellent brief, creative insight to shape your work, super sharp execution, distribution and reach and then you go again. So to be honest, the biggest mistakes tend to fall into one of those buckets. No creative differentiation, no unique value, bad briefs, no insights, poor execution, limited distribution or not taking the right next action. But if you get all these things into a good place: the content soars and your revenue impact does too.

How do you ensure alignment between marketing and sales when building a content strategy?

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I think great alignment comes down to relationships & perspectives. I love working closely with sales. The right relationship there can give access to insights that help create better briefs and wonderful perspectives into your audience that shape your work. But you also need strong alignment on expectations to nail distribution and commercial execution - especially in B2B. A little empathy goes a long way to understanding your sales team's perspectives - what is their definition of success? What do they see as being integral to buyers in your market right now? What hook/proof/offer is going to compel the buyer to action? How do you equip your sales team with the right intent signals from your content to prioritize their time and make sure they have the most impact? And then it comes down to relationship contracting - we support each other to be successful - but there's always a contract. Marketing can create an amazing ABM campaign with AI generated rap songs & sales are going to follow up with every lead. That's where the magic happens.

What metrics or indicators are most important to you when evaluating the success of a content campaign?

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I think it's important to track both leading and lagging indicators and make sure you've got a clear path to revenue contribution. I think about this sometimes as 3 buckets: reach, performance & impact. Reach: impressions, views, clicks, time spent, %read, dwell time, bounce rate etc. Performance: new contacts, leads, conversion rates etc  Impact: pipeline and revenue influenced and attributed. We have a really clear picture of our growth levers (highly recommend that book by Matt Lerner) and map that out clearly in advance in the brief and that shapes the work - knowing what you want to achieve and why is 1/2 the battle.

Turtl has a unique format for content—how does that structure impact engagement and conversion?

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Turtl's format is really powerful. It's based on the psychology of how people read and retain information and we've seen amazing increases in engagement and conversion as a result of using the platform. Double and sometimes triple digit improvements in engagement, leads generated and revenue impact. (find out more at Turtl.co)

Can you share a recent campaign that saw strong performance thanks to Turtl’s content platform?

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One of the customer stories we're most proud of is Kantar Worldpanel's journey with Turtl. They saw 550% increase in marketing attributed revenue from using our platform which is bananas. Their big flagship campaign brand campaign in APAC was superbly executed - but the Turtl platform helped take it to the next level. We recently released a webinar with Jane from Kantar where she talks through the campaign and the playbook - well worth a watch.

How is your marketing team structured to execute and optimize content for revenue impact?

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We have a typical structure: brand & creative, product marketing, demand & ops. A key difference is that we've got shared goals around business growth. Our goals aren't just marketing KPIs, they're based in the reality of our impact on the business. Leading measures of growth and then pipeline and revenue targets. We review this data regularly and often and that supports our direction of travel. I have amazing leads in my teams and they really understand the detail and nuances of their functions and how they ladder up to our growth model and our goals.

What internal processes help your team stay agile and experiment without sacrificing quality?

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I'm a big proponent of agile marketing teams - an operating model that runs on 2 week sprints to manage demands, resources and maintain quality but also the wellbeing, productivity and performance of the team. A great bonus of agile is communication and alignment - you build really tight teams that share expectations around pace but also quality & impact. So you ship good work, fast. You've definitely got to have your black belt in strategic prioritization- but I love that. I think the best teams have that balance right.

How do you handle personalization at scale while maintaining brand consistency across content?

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Personalization is becoming a must-have in a volatile and uncertain marketing world. But personalization is really about relevance. And you've got to have a programmatic approach to personalization that's grounded in audience insight to get relevancy right. Which elements of your content are you personalizing? Why? What is going to resonate with your audiences and stand out? In my view this is much more important than brand consistency. We're swamped with 2/10 level content that is consistently shite - that's a much more important problem to solve to me than making sure you're sticking to your brand guidelines. We often forget the value of brand consistency (other than when people botch visual design) is almost entirely about recall - can someone recall your brand when it comes to purchase time. Well they won't recall anything if your content looks, feels, sounds and smells like every other piece of generic B2B slush out there. But if it's relevant, if it speaks to them directly, if it moves them! Magic.

What does your current marketing tech stack look like, and how does Turtl fit into it?

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I try as much as possible to keep tech stacks simple and effective. I saw a stat at B2B ignite this year that I really felt: 93% of marketing leaders would've chosen different careers paths I've they'd known how complex marketing would be & how technology would shape marketing. So we've of course we've got Turtl for content and our incredible AI agent for analytics & revenue recommendations. Hubspot for our CMS & CRM. Clay for FETE. Ads. But we try to keep it simple.

Are there any specific tools or platforms you can’t live without in your day-to-day marketing operations?

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I mean I would say Turtl. But I really couldn't live without our AI agent Hatch. It sits across our platform but is especially powerful with insights and action. Hatch helps us understand what content drives the most revenue and pipeline and gives recommendations on what action to take and where to invest next based on our goals. The AI creation features have transformed our content creation process. But it's also really good for ideation too - you can prompt it to give you 3 effective strategies for driving pipeline this quarter for example. Game changer.

How do you choose the right platforms to integrate into your strategy, and what are your priorities when doing so?

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We have a tech as is / to be - and really it's about capability more than the tech itself. Are the team able to achieve X, or do Y. And then from there we'll look for gaps and then figure out the right path to close them.

Where do you see content marketing heading in the next 3–5 years?

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I think we're heading to a place where marketing is on the hook for revenue in B2B. Where we've go beyond just having the receipts for our content investments but where we're seen as a strategic driver in growing our businesses. But also we're going to see big leaps in our need to differentiate. The volume of content being created is growing more and more but at the same time the bar hasn't really moved as to what it means to create something truly great. To understand and unlock the fundamentals of creativity in your marketing processes is going to become paramount.

How is AI or automation influencing how you think about content creation and optimization?

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I think AI is an incredible vehicle for accelerating value. GPT for deep research, Runway for image/video generation, Turtl for optimization - there are a huge number of tools out there to help you evolve your processes, workflows and outputs. The "Ai Is CoMinG fOr YoUr JoB" thing is getting a bit tiring - the faster we adopt it - the faster we'll succeed in my view.

What advice would you give to marketing leaders who are trying to build a stronger link between content and revenue?

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Buy Turtl? Yes. But also... learn to speak the language of your other leaders. Your CRO, your CFO. What do they care about? How do they make decisions? What are they optimizing for? Once you've got that shared understanding of what's required to drive the business forward you can create a unified view of how marketing impacts that picture. A lot of the time, that involves educating stakeholders on the 95/5 and share of search but it should also be about setting clear expectations for the 5% of your buyers that are in market - how are going to capture that demand? And what is a reasonable expectation for doing so?

In what ways could platforms like BrandLife help companies like Turtl maintain brand integrity while scaling content creation and distribution?

Empowering teams with real-time collaboration & productivity tools. Love what Brandlife does - we hope to be joining the ranks of your customers soon!

Elliott King’s vision at Turtl makes one thing clear: content should be more than just beautiful—it should be measurable, intentional, and impactful. As brands continue to push for results, platforms like Turtl and tools like BrandLife play a crucial role in building smarter systems behind great content. Whether it’s aligning global teams or keeping assets streamlined and on-brand, digital organization is now a strategic advantage—and we’re excited to be part of that transformation alongside leaders like Elliott.

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