Marketing To Win: Recent Episodes

Michael Roberts

There is a lot innovative work being done by marketers everywhere, and it's important to find that work and share it.

In the Marketing To Win podcast, Michael Roberts (a small team start-up "do it all" type marketer) chats with the marketing practitioners that implement tactics that drive the results they are looking for. Along the way they discuss the strategies and process it took to reach these results, which will hopefully jumpstart your creativity and lead you to exciting new solutions within your own work.

You need a framework.

To source content. To create content. To distribute content.

So here's a the framework for building frameworks 😁

Dedicate time. You have to be committed to it, which means get time on the calendar that you know you can dedicate to it. Me? I've got an hour every morning scheduled to get my personal content work done. Doesn't always take that long, but I've scheduled it, and I don't miss.
Turn it into a machine. I mean make it a process, with steps that you know you can do within your time frame. Set yourself up for success. Make so if someone were to come in your place you know they could pick up where you left off. This often makes it easy to collaborate and work together to get it done.
Document it. DON'T spend mental energy thinking through all the steps. Once you have the steps down, write them down and reference those steps every time you hit your process. Relieving that mental burden helps you execute and focus.
Let results take care of themselves. Don't over think it, be patient, but also set up measurement in a way that means you can adjust your process as you learn more. Don't spend too much time measuring, because you don't want that to take you away from executing.

marketing

You may have noticed I missed some days on the podcast, and moving forward there may continue to be some days I miss. Some of it has been unintentional, but moving forward much of it will be intentional. I walk through my thinking on this episode, how it's built around a new content strategy I'm testing, and what I'm trying to accomplish with it.

You get more experience on a small team. Especially a start up.

No, come on, I did not say BETTER. But yes, I did said MORE.

And that's still important. 👇

Gaining experience comes from, well, doing things.

And in start up/small team land, there is LOADS to do, across lots of different areas.

Plus, in start up world done is often much more important than perfect, which means you incentivized to move quickly.

So you get MORE done.

Trust me, I worked within a larger org before. And I've worked now in a start up for two years.

The difference is pretty crazy (in my experience).

The 3 tiers of content and the type of engagement they drive:

Entertainment. It's witty, clever, really funny, and relatable. It's typically short and can be consumed without too much in depth thinking, but drives a quick emotional reaction with the consumer. That emotional reaction leads to a high level of literal post reactions, which amplify the post and give you a large amount of reach.
Educational. In depth, helpful, thought provoking content that gives consumers "value" in the traditional sense of which we think of it. It teaches a principle, concept, or maybe even a specific task that someone can take back to their work. Requires more reading, but if consumers read through will deliver a higher level of trust than content in level 1. Of course, because of the mental load and time it takes to get that value, not as many do. So if "valuable" will deliver a medium level of reactions and comments, although those comments will typically be more meaningful.
Everything else, the content where we try and do 1 or 2 but it is not received that way. Where we try and fail. The bulk of what we write lands in here.

What do you think?

A subject matter expert will always create better content than a writer.

Someone in the space. That actually knows what they are talking about.

EVERYONE hires out writers and marketers to create the content they need for their site.

But only a few companies mix in generated content from the people that actually live in the industry they are selling to.

And if you aren't including that kind of content in your mix, you're probably missing out on the greatest value you can give to your audience.

marketing

Think about email as a content distribution platform as opposed to a sales channel, and good things happen.

It's the whole reason there are entire businesses built on an email newsletter.

And it can be a critical way to get momentum on your new content.

The best marketing orgs are creating lots of content, and there should be plenty of value.

But SEO takes time.

And social is dominated by personal brands.

Email though? Still the world where business content rules.

Which is why email isn't dead.

Create really good stuff, and send it to your audience. Often.

They look. They like. They learn. They share.

They trust.

So rather than always asking for something in email, give.

And give and give and give and give. Then ask.

trust

What you think you need:

A massive contact list for your email distribution so you can get quick sales.

What you really need:

A ton of content that people trust and want to receive more of so they sign up for your newsletter.

Audience first. Business will take care of itself.

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3 things the few great emails newsletters have in common:

They are content driven, not sales driven.
They are not afraid of delivering ALL the value in email, not making their contacts click to a site
The send out OFTEN. Like really often.... daily?

Simple reasons I've seen that separate the elite from the rest of us.

marketing

Should you really gate your content?

3 principles to guide your decision 👀:

Does acquiring information from my contacts actually help them consume the content? Think live webinar... By getting the contacts information they have a better chance of actually attending.
Am I gating it to hit a metric? Putting a form just in front of content so you can fulfill a number is a sign you're not thinking audience first.
Are you promising to deliver over time? Forms that gate a single piece of content have fleeting impact. However, asking someone to sign up for a newsletter that delivers consistent value? That's a completely different mindset from the contact's perspective.

In most cases, gating content will not help you distribute it, will not help your users consume it, and is a transactional way of thinking.

So use gates appropriately.

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I'm surprised.

I thought people would all agree with me.

That long form email content gives the most value for folks.

But several people in the comments of my post said they liked shorter form newsletters, with a bunch of summaries with links to blog posts.

It acted as a filter for them to see whether or not content was worth their time to read or not.

And this makes sense.

We consume content in different ways.

Just another lesson that one size does not fit all :)

Stop over complicating what it takes to get to know your prospects/customers.

Here are 5 ways I do it:

Take friends that work in that space that live close to you out to lunch.
Create content with your prospects and customers... Provide them with exposure if they help create content for that segment
Go read reviews on your company
DM people on Linkedin, clarify it's no sales pitch, you just have one question about their work (respect their time and stick to just one question)
Get in the middle of communities. Go see what folks are talking about, participate in the conversation.

It's not hard.

Just takes focus🙂

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You will probably only read one, maybe two posts on Linkedin today that actually bring you value.

You'll likely "react" to 5-10 posts.

This true?

Why is this? Why "react" to posts that the end of the day don't provide that much value?

The most valuable posts don't always get reactions. I'm seeing this gap in a lot of people's personal brands (my own included).

There are a few marketers that are ELITE writers. They can put together copy that all but forces you to hit that like button.

But the content gets stale.

Overtime, it doesn't do much for me.

And yet I still come back, because the nuggets of wisdom from people that ARE giving me value are worth it.

For the record, I don't think I'm quite in that full value space, but I'm trying to get there.

marketing

I know that a lot of people say small companies shouldn't worry about building brand.

That you need to just get the lead motion going.

Sure but.... like... how else are you getting leads?

The only possible explanation I can imagine is ads.

Sure if you have tens of thousands of dollars give to you by a VC firm to throw at advertising, I guess you can do that.

But some small companies don't have that kind of money.

So how else you gonna do it?

SEO? Well that takes a bit of time, and not all your content can be high intent search terms...

And when your new site content is created, how are you gonna distribute it?

How else will you build trust, that encourages people to look at you, know your product, and then come to you when you're ready?

So unless you're talking about advertising, the "lead motion" IS building brand.

Please, tell me why I'm wrong.

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You don't need any kind of complex attribution software to give you enough information.

I've built all of CloudApp's attribution without it.

Here's what I did.

I made sure there was a "Lead Source" field and a "Lead Source Original" field on contact records. Original is updated when the contact is created, "lead source" is updated with every new key marketing engagement.

Opportunities are created off the contact records (think Salesforce CRM), and when that happens both the values in the lead source fields are mapped to equivalent fields on the opportunity.

Our sales cycle is pretty fast, so Lead Source becomes last touch and Original becomes first touch.

In order to make reports work, when an opportunity is created I have automation to make sure that the contact record is automatically added as a role to the opportunity.

This is necessary because the activities from those contacts can now be tied to opportunities.

And now I can split the funnel.

I build reports on opportunities with contact roles that have the marketing activities that define our MQLs (high intent form submissions and chat).

I can then get total MQL activities generated, number of opportunities generated after those activities, and opportunities won after those activities.

And I now have split the funnel with probabilities and values for each of my forms.

I know how much they're worth, and the probability I have that a new submission will lead to revenue.

We're small and growing so we don't want to get bogged down with complexity.

With this information you've got more than enough to really start executing.

Would you agree?

marketing

When I think about metrics that matter to marketing (in a PLG company), here is what comes to mind.

Net new pipeline (marketing sourced):

As a marketer, I want to make sure that whatever I'm sending to the sales team is leading to pipeline. This is obvious. Yet the focus on this number rather than leads or MQLs is critical. Keeps me focused on the right stuff.

Net new self serve revenue:

This number is extremely important to me. This fuels a lot of the B2B motion, and so working closely with the product team to improve of how much self serve revenue we drive (Signup -> Purchase) is something I'm always thinking about

MQLs:

Look, MQLs get a bad rap. And they should honestly, because they are too often manipulated to show big numbers. MQLs should have a strict definition.... Buyers with admitted high intent (meaning they filled out a form or chat or call that says they are ready to talk to sales) that match your ICP. This is the precursor to pipeline.

You have a different metric you focus on?

marketing

One of the hardest things about content marketing is, well, actually creating the content.

We all like to think about strategy, ideas.

But when the rubber meets the road and we actually have to create it... many of us fall short. (Or is it just me? 😅)

It requires a lot of writing.

Sometimes about topics that aren't particularly your favorite.

It requires a lot of design.

It requires a lot of editing. Like, a ton.

It requires a lot of process, and dedication, and discipline, and consistency.

And so while it's fun to create ideas, think of content types and strategies, dream up amazing possibilities of virality in certain channels...

You still gotta create it.

marketing

I've been an email marketer for a decent amount of time now (6+ years)

And I take most email metrics lightly.

Here's how I think open rates, click rates, and other email metrics should be analyzed.

Open rates: Taken very very lightly... At face value, the difference between an 18% open rate and a 30% open rate don't mean much to me. There are lots of determining factors like size of the list, outcome desired, type of content in the email, etc...

The open rate anyways is pretty inaccurate, likely under stated. As inbox providers block more of that information from return to email senders, it will be less reliable.

So you should be looking at trends, comparisons to make your evaluation. If an automated email has a 22% open rate, that's not a red flag. But if it used to generate a 30% open rate and now it's at a 22% open rate... that's a red flag.

Click rates: This I also take lightly... because what you probably want to look at more closely are visits to the page you are sending people to. You'll learn some very interesting things like if your site is slow and people are dropping off before they get there, if the content you have on the page was worth the extra time (time on page), etc.

Spam Rates: Whatever is in your email tool is also understated. Gmail does not provide a user specific feedback loop for spam, so in order to see spam rates with gmail included, you need to set up Post-master tools

Bounce Rate: I again would look at trends here. You can use it as a measure of whether or not your incoming contacts are high quality or not (first email).

Any unique ways you approach looking at email metrics?

marketing

I'm thinking about building a digital product. (I've actually already kinda got it built)

Not a course, or guide, but a template to basic attribution reporting, without much of a tech stack.

It gives you first touch, last touch, and split out funnel conversion metrics.

The sheets would all be pre built, with instructions on how to build the reports to fill them in.

All you'd have to do is load in your own data, make sure the pre-built formulas reference the right sheets, and BOOM, you've got it all.

Would anyone be interested in this?

marketing

The Marketing Lifecycle:

Building awareness. Introducing your brand to people that never heard of you through valuable interactions, which encourage them to engage with your brand repeatedly (may very well not be directly related to your product)
Educating. When awareness is captured, delivering value while simultaneously educating consumers on pain points that they have.
Trust. Showing potential customers that if anyone knows their problems, it's you, and that if they ever want to solve their problems that you have the solution for them.
Capture. Make it as EASY as possible to start, buy, engage with the company.
Experience. Make sure everything marketing can control makes the product experience as delightful as possible, so that if anyone were to ask them what they use, they'll mention you.

What did I miss?

marketing

Someone asked me last week whether email was a good channel for their business.

Part of me wanted to say yes.

Part of me wanted to say no. And that triggered a thought:

People will likely consume content in whatever channel delivers them the most value.

Certainly, people have preferences to certain channels, but over the course of the last 15 years we've all adopted new channels of delivery.

So I'm not convinced that if something good is in a channel I don't consume now, that I wouldn't in the future.

For example, there are very few email newsletters I read with consistently

It's not because I hate email.

But it's just that I haven't found someone that delivers content that really impacts my work in that medium.

I've found much more of that on Linkedin. If someone was able to put the same quality together, and deliver it through email, I might very well adjust my content consumption.

You agree with this?

Are people willing to adjust which channels they consume content on?

marketing

Forcing attribution into everything is probably a bad idea.

I'm more and more convinced of this.

So how do you strike the balance? I'm not sure, but here's how I approach it:

Attribution is a beautiful thing. It can give you great insight into what works best and how much you influence.

Which provides the data driven insight you need to make things even better.

But it's not bulletproof.

Attribution models can be manipulated to show what you want.

And attribution models naturally assign value to certain activities more than others even when it's probably not the reality.

Like organic search (when they actually heard about you from a friend).

And some channels make much more sense for attribution. Like high intent paid search.

So, I think, you build it where it makes sense.

Make it good enough.

Don't force it where you can't.

And focus on execution.

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IN INFOMMERCIAL VOICE: Do you find yourself in the marketing rat race? (Most of us are at some level)

Always trying to hit numbers that in your heart you know won't actually improve the business?

If you are unsure, here are some ways you can tell:

Management asks you to change your definition of a "Marketing Qualified Lead" often
You end up running campaigns that lead to low intent leads, even though in meetings everyone just calls them leads
Your sales team follows up with every inbound contact
You know what you have to do but doubt you'll ever get it approved because it "just won't show the ROI"
You feel like you're constantly chasing a quota

If you have experienced any of these scenarios, know there is a better way.

No, you CAN'T call 1-800-GET-MQLS to sort this out, but you CAN take small steps to change the culture.

Focus on revenue, not leads.

Talk to customers, help them inform you what you should do.

Understand attribution is important but cannot be forced into all channels.

It's small, baby steps, to better marketing at work.

Good luck.

marketing

This week I've been talking just about content process.

Because as I look back at my career the past 6 years, I've now seen the difference with it, and without it.

And the difference is NOT small.

Especially as an entry level or individual contributor to a team, one of the best ways to make an impact is to make things happen.

And things like email, SEO, content, etc... can all see dramatic improvement in results through process.

Process allows more to happen.

Process allows better to happen.

And it puts the focus in the right place, and the results should take care of themselves.

marketing

Here are several ways you can evaluate if your content process is "good enough" over time:

Has the "floor" of my content been raised. Meaning, when you look at content metrics like views, reactions, and your comments of your WORST performing posts, are they higher than what they were before? Here's where I'm at... at the beginning of the year, my "worst performing" posts had around 600 views each. So far in August, my worst performing posts are around 1,250. So my "bad content" has doubled it's impact
Have I been able to do it for a month? If I've come up with a new variation of my process, I want to make sure I've been able to roll with it for a month before I can decide whether or not it's sustainable. That takes patience, but waiting that long also helps teach discipline.
Does the process help relieve a burden? Processes should be enabling, and a good content process allows you to feel like you are "getting it done". One of the dangers in marketing is you feel like you could always just write one more post, send one more tweet, make one more comment... That's a big burden to carry if you feel like you need that to do a good job.

These are just ways I've used to evaluate my own process.

Do you have any questions about it?

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An effective content process is your ticket to great quality.

When I've got an email campaign ready, I have a checklist I've created myself that I go through.

I pull it up every time. I don't have it memorized, I don't skimp a step. Here it is:

Do the images load quickly?
Have I added in the correct subscription filters?
I click on all the links and images, and make sure they go to the right page with the correct utms
I read through the written copy, paste in Grammarly as a spot check to make sure I don't miss simple things
I check my subject lines (there are invariably several we're testing)
I check my preheader text
I make sure images have alt text
I make sure the email looks good on both desktop and mobile (I send a test to myself and look at my phone)
I check the "from" and "reply-to" addresses
For big segments I make sure the campaign throttles sends over a period of time
I send test versions to coworkers as a final qa check

I don't even have to think about this anymore. I just pull up the list, go through my check, and it saves me so much headache.

And when you've got the quality down, your audience won't be distracted from the value you're trying to deliver.

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Here's how I've built a process for generating content.

Both for myself, and my team.

Start with something you know you can execute. One of the biggest hurdles of an effective process is biting off more than you can chew. Process is about execution, about momentum, and there is nothing wrong with starting small so that the habit can be made. So look at your schedule and how you're spending your time, and figure out how much time you KNOW you can dedicate each week, then come up with the activity you KNOW you can accomplish in that time (you should be left with a little time left over)
Start. Test it. Make sure that you really can execute on the content you need to create within the time window you've allotted. If you planned well, you will have been able to do it. If not, then GREAT, you learned something about yourself.
Adjust. If you were left with a lot of time left over, then you know you've got the capacity to fit something in. Were you short on time? Then either you need to open up more time or cut down on the amount of content you're trying to produce.
Optimize. The great thing with a process is it can always be improved. As you gain momentum, you'll start seeing ways you can be more efficient. You'll also fine ways to improve your quality without adding too much time.
Stick with it. One month isn't gonna cut it. You have to carry through for much longer.

Any ideas you'd like me to expand on?

marketing

Process eats creativity for breakfast. Probably because good process actually feeds creativity. Here's what I mean. I would imagine very few of us, especially in the US, love a tight process.

Processes can be boring, they repeat themselves, they are the same every time. Americans love the idea of spontaneity, freedom, creativity, and innovation.

But in an ironic twist, my belief is doubling down on a process yields those outcomes much better than any spontaneous moment of creative thought.

The fundamentals are key. They are the most important thing in sports, and they are the most important thing in marketing. What're the fundamentals of marketing? Building awareness of, and creating demand for, your brand. The basics of doing this is creating content people want to consume on a repeatable basis, and distributing in places where they can do so. The tactics are simple, there really isn't an edge in any place... and if there is it's short lived. The magic is in the process. Building a process to consistently build content over time. To consistently distribute it in places where people will consume. Time and time again. And THAT's why good marketing is hard to come by. Everyone's got the ideas, but we have the discipline to execute over time? Often, the answer is no. So turn that answer into a yes. #marketing

I love small teams.

I've always worked on small teams, so it's hard to say what it's like otherwise.

But working in a small group has led to so many experiences, including:

Getting to wear loads of hats, I've touched almost every aspect of marketing outside of maybe putting together a billboard 😅
I've learned (and keep having to learn) to move fast, because well, I have to
I've had to get a keen eye for something that is "good enough"
I've really learned that prioritizing my work is super super super important

If you're on a small team, what else have you learned?

marketing

I'm not sure great "strategy" is already knowing what you're supposed to do.

I think it's building a humble process that allows you to learn it quickly along the way.

Setting yourself up to act, learn, iterate, then act again.

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What makes a great marketing team?

There are plenty of success stories out there from companies achieving exponential growth.

But often, those teams are fueled and funded by lots of money from investors. 😬

Is that the reason, as much as anything else, that the growth happens?

I mean, if you hire enough sales reps and spend enough advertising in marketing, you're kind of bound to end up creating the demand.

It just forces it. You add fuel to the fire and it's going to burn bigger.

So where does the bulk of growth come from... funding? Or really great marketing/sales/product?

Both?

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I'm finally doing more of what many marketers say you need to do.

Getting to know prospects by actually talking to them.

Here are 5 big level things I learned:

We make plenty of assumptions we make about our audience that probably aren't true. In my case, I may have over estimated the amount of content that our ICP consumes related to their job... Which presents greater challenges as we build that content out.
People are willing to help, especially when there's no sales pitch involved. Even though the person I talked to doesn't use CloudApp, I made it clear I was not there to make any sort of pitch about our product. I was genuinely only interested in understanding their professional life better. Doing that helped, hopefully, break down some barriers so I could get the truth of how these professionals actually work.
Our efforts to "personalize" might show how out of touch we are with the market. What do I mean? I'm spending time learning more about customer success teams, and one of my bad assumptions (see point 1), was that most success teams would be rolled up in with support. But the org chart and responsibilities can vary SO much from company to company, that if I write content like that when the success team is actually rolled up under the sales org... my positioning could be way off, and my personalization would show that.
People really do spend time doing things that they think are valuable, and if there isn't enough value, they aren't going to do it. (see point 2)
The dynamics of my first point actually go even further than I thought... so in the case of customer success, many professionals are using that as a stepping stool to get to another organization at the business, like sales, marketing, product... whatever. So they actually might not even have a full interest in the type of work they're doing because they're focused on a different path.

Fun challenges to discover, think through, and figure out the answers for.

So take the time to talk to prospects and customers.

marketing

So my new content process broke down last week.

Didn't stick to the process I needed to.

But it's ok, it's testing me on a few of the following things: 🤔

First, do I maintain the habit now that it's been broken?

I didn't get videos uploaded, podcast episodes created, or tweet threads scheduled.

I was too busy, there were too many things at CloudApp and home life that I ended up prioritizing over content distribution.

So do I bounce back and get into the groove again? Or does the lost momentum continue?

Second, am I aware enough to understand why I fell short?

Sure, the easy answer is that I was busy, but really it just came down to how I prioritized my time.

Maybe there really were things that were more important than distributing the content... or were there?

Did I actually just make excuses to myself because there were other things to do?

That's something I have to decide.

Third, depending on how I analyze why I fell short, do I make adjustments that set me up to succeed better in the future?

Was it just bad prioritization? Or have I bitten off more than I can chew?

Whatever the answer may be, now I've got to figure what I DO about it.

And that's where the adventure continues.

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Ask me anything today. 👇

I want to see if I can spur some ideas, provide some insight, help people out.

Anything marketing related. You put something in the comments, then I'll respond.

(so long as the volume doesn't get insane... but I don't think it will 😁)

marketing

The most difficult discipline in marketing is understanding what tactics will drive the most demand even when you might not be able to tie direct attribution to those tactics.

Agree?

marketing

Chris Walker always talks about splitting out the funnel.

It's a simple exercise. Here's how I did it:

I made sure all of our key form submissions were logged as activities in the CRM
I made sure those activities carried over to an opportunity when it's created off that contact
I pulled the total number of forms submissions for each different form within a quarter
I then pulled the total number of opportunities created within that quarter from contacts that submitted that form submission
I then looked at how many of those opportunities qualified
I then looked at how many opportunities from that source were won in the quarter (this allows for the sales cycle to complete from previously generated quarters)

Bam, funnels for every key interaction.

I can now see which forms lead to the most opportunities, the largest opportunities, and the fastest sales cycles.

And now I know how much they're worth, and can start researching how people got there.

Which is going to directly impact what I choose to do each day.

marketing

What do marketers do too much?

Try and prove their impact rather than IMROVE their impact.

So here's how attribution models can bring you down:

Let me preface this by saying, attribution models are necessary.

Executives need high level numbers to understand how well marketing is influencing revenue.

However, as marketers begin pulling that data for executives, they find that there are plenty of creative ways to pull that data.

Marketing attribution models are inherently ambiguous, and are prone to marketers choosing activities they prefer to weight the most.

If you're an SEO manager, you'll always be pull for a first, early touch weighted model.

Running events and field marketing? You're likely wanting your team to pull last touch.

Soon, you might realize that neither tells the full story, at which point you start looking at martech vendors for multi touch.

But multi-touch can be manipulated even further....

How granular are your activities you're assigning revenue to?

Which activities are your favorite, or that you think personally influence the buying decision more?

There are dozens of out of the box MTA models, and you can even build custom ones to add endless possibilities.

Sure, there IS value in this. HOWEVER, the motivation and principle behind coming up with that number eventually leads down a bad path.

Because you're just trying to prove, not improve, your work.

Sure, put together a model of some kind together (none of them are perfect) so that your executives have a number that you can reference.

Then INSTEAD, spend most of your time splitting out your funnel, looking at data and rates that give you information to change your work and improve your conversions.

You do that, then regardless of whatever model you choose, that overall pipeline number is gonna go up.

And that's really the whole point anyways.

marketing

The biggest mistake early in my career:

Not understanding how to model the impact I'm driving for the business.

Real impact, not some fluffy marketing metric.

If you think through it right, almost all of your actions can be tied to business outcomes (revenue) in some way.

This doesn't mean that there is direct attribution, plenty of marketing isn't going for the immediate conversion.

But the understanding of the impact can still be there.

Here's an example:

If you are writing content for a blog, you can certainly estimate how much traffic you can capture after you write and get your post to rank at a certain point.

You can then make estimates on what % of that new traffic might convert.

And those conversions (however you define them), can likely be tied to an eventual purchase point.

Which then you can bring back to the original post and assign an estimated value to that activity.

Then all you have to do is execute.

Many of us are probably using the right tactics, but our inability to understand their real impact on the business limits our ability to innovate and focus on the things that really matter.

marketing

I used to be just a consumer of content, and I had plenty of reasons that kept me from posting online everyday. I wanted to share what some of those reasons were for me and how I overcame them as I made the commitment to build a personal brand.

There are plenty of reasons you SHOULD post every day, and I walked through those on a previous episode, but today I wanted to share one of the big reasons that led me to post every day, and it might not be what you think.

On my pseudo anniversary of making it a year of posting content on Linkedin every day, I wanted to walk through the simple principles it took for me to start posting every day. Don't be underwhelmed... while the ideas are simple, the magic is in the discipline.

There are plenty of skills marketers can learn as they build a personal brand, not to mention plenty of additional opportunity. I walk through some of those reasons on this episode.

In this episode, I walk through my new process I've put in place to create content every day. I used to just put content out on Linkedin, but I've expanded that and we're going to see how it goes.

4 things we might still get wrong with email "nurturing"...

I'm not sure people get an email think to themselves "Oh, I'm so glad I got this, and I can't wait for the next one to get to me in 4 days that tells me the next steps."
I'm not sure people get branded emails from a company and think "Oh, I'm so glad there's someone over there that really understands me."
I'm not sure we understand how much email our customers are willing to receive if the content is good enough.
I'm not sure we build our email experiences in ways that help create relationships

Have anything to add?

marketing

Quality vs quantity when it comes to creating content?

It's quantity.

Because quality goes beyond how good the individual post is.

When you show up everyday, there is perceived quality in that.

When you show you can be trusted to share new ideas often, there is quality in that.

And when you create, and create, and create, over time you'll learn how to create better quality.

Focusing too much on "quality" first can lead to inaction.

So nail down the quality of your process to deliver quantity first.

And the quality of the posts will eventually improve.

Are the expectations you set with your content a little misleading? Just a little?

It's something I've noticed many companies do... it's a small thing. (I've done it)

But I'm really really really starting to not like it, it's not effective.

Here are some examples:

You have a gated ebook. A user downloads that ebook, and they get a call from a sales rep not long after.

A prospect signs up for your newsletter, but they get more than just your newsletter.

You commit to only sending your database 2 emails a week, but you end up sending 4.

This stuff is small. It likely doesn't have a very big impact on your business.

But.... it's just missing that differentiated level of trust.

So I'm trying to change.

What do you think about it?

4 amazing lessons you can learn (but probably can't match) from a masterclass in email marketing, The Morning Brew

They show up. Every single day. They don't miss, and the high frequency they create and deliver their content is a differentiator. Think about your brand, how often does your newsletter go out? Once a month? Once a week maybe? Well good luck, they are out there every single day.
They have won the war in branding the coffee emoji. Every single email they send out has the ☕. So if you come to your inbox and you're looking for their email, you're not looking for the sender, you're not looking for the subject line, you're looking for the ☕
It's looooong content. There's a ton of content, I went back and looked at the 5 latest emails (dating July 10-14) and the average word count was 1,971 words. We talked about consistency of every day, but every day at 1,971 words of content?! (And I'm not even talking about all the website content)
The design is functional. It delivers what is promised. It's built to handle 1,971 words of content. Could I create an exact copy of it using a drag and drop builder in an email tool? Probably. That's a lesson you CAN probably implement... there are higher priority issues in email than design.

Email is dead. No, wait it's not dead... (I've seen both these posts this week. 😂) So here are 5 reasons why email is both dead and not dead 😁

Email is dead because

New professionals, GenZ or whatever you wanna call them, hate it
It's so noisy that it's hard to stand out
Having that giant number of unreads brings stress that people hate
Can get "opted into" emails from brands you've never interacted with before
You are forced into conversations you don't need to be in, and can't really get out of

Email isn't dead because

It is the most highly curatable channel out there
Entire businesses are built on email newsletters, so it can be done right
Many people are willing to receive emails for certain reasons
It's one of the best ways to distribute content (the algorithm won't penalize you for links)
It can deliver the most personalized content out of any of the channels

Mckenzie Bauer and her husband have founded a successful wallet lifestyle brand called ThreadWallets. Their story is extremely fun and full of lessons for marketers.

Mckenzie and I talked through two key pieces of their marketing, how they balance the difference between brand and performance marketing, and the experience they had as they identified their primary audience and focused on them.

Most B2B sales cycles are long. They have a large annual contract value, require buy in from multiple individuals, and require plenty of education.

But how often do we marketers think we have "great content" when the reality it is doesn't meet the user's expectations of what they want from our brand.

Joel Acevedo and I talk about that and several other aspects of lifecycle nurturing and marketing in this week's episode.

Martech has convinced all of us that MQLs, lead scoring, and all of that stuff is completely necessary to have a successful marketing org. But what's happened is we've over emphasized the metrics, we've over-complicated the lead scoring, and it's making us LESS effective at what we're actually trying to do.

And that is to generate and capture demand (the right way).

Loved this chat with Kyle, where we talking about some of our experiences with lead scoring, how we managed that in marketing automation, the goods and the bads of it, and more.

Ah yes, marketing attribution. If there ever were a marketing topic that we love to tout as really important but don't actually do very well (I'm certainly included in this), it would be marketing attribution.

Over the past 12 months I have changed a lot of my views of what a good marketing attribution model looks like. I have simplified my answer, I have allowed a certain level of complexity to be optionally added if it makes sense, and I've made it so it's a LOT more actionable than the models that marketing automation vendors love to show, in my semi-humble opinion.

If I'm wrong, please tell me.

Kim Brokling joins me for the 12th episode of Marketing to Win, and it's a good one.

If you are like most people, chances are you started a new position in the past 4 years. If you've done that recently or are planning on doing it, Kimberly does an excellent job outlining her approach to understanding the current data environment, navigating the relationships at the new job, and more.

I met Andy not too long ago and so I figured a podcast episode would make sense!

Andy comes from agency life with marketing automation, which I think helps him keep his skills honed in because he has to apply automation appropriately to completely different business models and products. That's no easy thing to do.

So listen in while we talk about learning your tech, the importance of being empathetic, and much more.

We all want to be that marketing team right? The marketing team that can look back at the Black Friday or Cyber Week campaign we put together and see that we totally crushed it.

Well, Tanner Charlesworth (and his group), are that team.

I found out about his success through a Linkedin post, and knew I had to get the details of how he did it. There was a lot of prep work involved, and you'll see what it took and how well Tanner knows how to tap into his audience with this story.

Abel is an award winning marketing automation guy, he and his team have built some stellar experiences at MACU, and so when he's got things to say about automation, it's worth a listen.

We explore the mindset it takes to tackle automation in a B2B and a B2C world, with a greater focus on B2C.

We also explore the place of SMS within marketing, when to use it, some bad + good experiences, and much more.

In this episode, I chat with Brandon Carter about lessons he learned from the transition of PR, to content, to automation.

He shares lessons about writing in ways that connects with your audience, how strategy evolves as the market changes, and more.

Darrell supports a marketing team of over 700 marketers (crazy!) and he shares the lessons from automation and operations that have led to their success.

News flash, if you're looking for some brilliant unique campaign, that's not what drives the real business results, we talk about organizing the marketing team in ways to support and enable them to do their best work, the importance of database health and maintenance (it's important!) and more.

Momentum is a real thing. And sometimes you just have to buy into a small process, be disciplined and stick with it to get results, and then state your case.

That's exactly what Benyamin Elias did at Active Campaign. He knew what it would take to drive real results for the business, but as a new employee was given specific parameters to work under. He was a good employee, worked under those, but took the flexibility he was given to do things that he knew would really move the needle.

Soon, he was able to show his work and how a shift in strategy would lead be a great idea (and how it had already been a great idea!)

This episode brings a fun chat with the dynamic AJ Wilcox, an expert in Linkedin ads. We talk about what happened with advertising over the course of 2020 and the pandemic, what the trends look like now, as well as a separate little case study with campaigns he was running with his shop that didn't work.... until they did.

Lot's of good stuff!

If there were ever a real world experience that encompasses the idea of ABM, it would be responding to an RFP.

Ironically, most firms come back with a document that lists the requirements they can meet, and then want to hop on a sales demo. Garrett Erickson took an opportunity to differentiate his firm from that, and deliver a multi channel ABM experience for a deal that they ultimately won.

My first guest in the series is Talmage Egan, who shares his experience coming to OC Tanner, a well respected brand in the employee recognition space, and discovering the lack of online brand awareness needed to maintain future growth. He explains how he approached the problem, got buy in from leadership, and improved their online presence so that branded search was no longer the main search term driver for their traffic.

In this episode, I walk through the thinking and changes we made to one of our weekly email campaigns, a recap of activity that we send to our users.

We updated branding, copy, added additional information for our users, and were able to drive up open rates by more than 33% (from 15% to over ~22%), and increased conversion rates from 7.5% to 9% (a 21% increase!)

Welcome to Marketing That Works!

This podcast will be focused on real experiences. Stories from myself and others on tactics, campaigns, and practices they've implemented and what they learned from them (both good and bad!). I'll share many of my own experiences, but hope to get stories and cases from every day marketers doing unique and innovative things.

So listen in and see what you can learn from the marketers around you. And thanks for coming!