We recently connected with Olivia Barrow and have shared our conversation below.

Olivia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Alright, let’s jump into one of the most exciting parts of starting a new venture – how did you get your first client who was not a friend or family?

I launched my content strategy and writing business after leaving my job as a newspaper reporter. While working at the newspaper, I had built up a sizable following on LinkedIn, where I wrote about my perspectives on work-life balance as a Millennial. When I quit my full-time job, I wrote about it on LinkedIn and announced that I was now accepting freelance projects. My first client was someone who saw that post and inquired about having me write a CEO letter addressing the team. That was my first paid writing gig outside of my previous full-time roles!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a B2B content marketer with a focus on content-driven SEO, which means I help companies develop and execute content marketing strategies that get more leads from search engines.

I launched Olivia Barrow Communications in 2016 after working as a newspaper reporter for four years, where I honed my ability to interview experts about topics I know very little about — and get meaningful, in-depth insights from them. Now, as a content marketer, I put those skills to use constantly. The thing that sets me apart as a content writer is my ability to quickly get up-to-speed in new industries and begin speaking the lingo of folks who have been in that industry for decades. I’m able to grasp the big picture and spot the pain points where solutions are needed without getting bogged down in the nitty-gritty details that might take years to fully understand. This means that my interviews often feel like a conversation with a colleague, instead of a 101-level lecture, even if I only had a few hours to prepare.

With SEO getting more competitive every year and with AI Overviews now dominating a lot of the SERP, it’s not enough to produce 101-level articles about basic concepts in your industry. Those articles stand very little chance of ranking in search engines, and even if they did, they wouldn’t impress your target audience. To have success with SEO in 2025, you have to offer original insights that you can only get from talking to boots-on-the-ground experts. So, for example, if you’re writing about construction accounting software, you need to talk to the people who spend 40 hours a week designing and implementing accounting software for construction companies. They can share the real stories about the struggles construction companies face when trying to figure out which projects have the highest profit margins or stay in compliance with the million safety regulations they’re subject to.

But I’m not just a writer. I’ve always brought content strategy to the table, keeping a keen eye on the overall marketing goals of all my projects. And in 2020, I deepened my content strategy expertise by taking several courses on B2B SEO. Now I offer both SEO strategy services and content creation services, and I’m very flexible in how I work with companies — I can provide end-to-end SEO strategy & execution, including all of the writing, or I can partner with in-house writers and provide coaching and editing to level up their SEO skills. I see the biggest need for my services at B2B companies who have in-house marketing teams but lack SEO expertise — especially if those companies work in very complex industries and sell products or services that are very technical and require precise language when writing about them. Those companies are often not served very well by larger marketing agencies, who rely on junior copywriters and are only able to provide those writers a surface-level overview of the industry and target audience.

I’m proud to have been able to sustain a good living as a solopreneur for more than eight years, and I look forward to continuing to grow my expertise as a marketer and help more companies achieve their marketing goals.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I recently discovered two online communities for content marketing professionals, and joining them has already helped me grow my network and level up my skills. The first one is called Superpath, and it’s a community for content marketers of all kinds (in-house, agency, and consultant), and the second is Women in Tech SEO, which is a community for anyone who identifies as a woman and works in SEO in any capacity.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

One of the most unexpected gigs I ever landed came from my impulse decision to attend a conference in San Francisco being put on by a tech & startup newsletter I enjoyed at the time (The Hustle, which is now owned by Hubspot). During one of the conference sessions, I happened to sit next to someone from the Madison area, who worked for a large manufacturer. We bonded over something Wisconsin-y (I forget what) as well as our mutual love for the edgy tone of The Hustle, and after the conference ended he introduced me to the marketing director at his company. They ended up hiring me as the copywriter for a major overhaul of their website, which never would have happened if I hadn’t attended that conference.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://oliviabarrow.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/obcomm/

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