42/

In this episode, we chat with Ronnie Higgins, a content marketing professional with decades of experience. Among the many topics we discuss, we discuss the importance of Content and Media and how it has evolved in the last few years. We also discuss

• Ronnie's background and journey. (0:30)
• Media vs. Content? and how SEO impacted the transmission of information online. (6:30)
• Media and the new chapter of content marketing. (20:05)
• The importance of media to influence users' purchase behavior. (24:20)
• Content marketing is a branch of Media marketing. (26:30)
• Media marketing plugs directly into the habits of potential users (30:05)
• What type of formats are Content and why? (32:20)
• The importance of industry-related media content for your audience and how to strategically connect it to your brand (38:00)
• Example of a tangent industry-related content piece that works (40:30)
• What's next for Ronnie? What's next in the media world? (45:00)

From war to climate change, from Ukraine to Yemen, different parts of the world are hurting right now. 42 Agency is asking our community to consider donating to registered charities that help those affected by these unfortunate current events (Red Cross Canada, UNICEF, etc.)

In this episode, we chat with Emily Kramer, the co-founder at MKT1. Among the many subjects we touch upon, we discuss the fine line between free being "too good" or "useless," how looking at category leaders for inspiration may not be the best for early-stage startups, her transition from operator to consultant, and much more.

• Emily's time in Asana back in 2013. (1:00)
• Features vs. Benefits. (3:50)
• Asana going upmarket. (7:10)
• Free to paid, packaging, and the importance of triggers. (9:00)
• The fine line between free being "too good" or "useless" (11:10)
• The relationship between marketing and product. (13:30)
• Emily's experience at Carta (17:00)
• Her transition from operator to angel consultant. (24:03)
• Her newsletter and her writing process. (32:50)
• Top 5 marketing pet peeves. (35:18)
• Brand vs. Performance Marketing. (37:40)

Are there any definitions in the marketing space that bother you? Drop it in the comments.

From war to climate change, from Ukraine to Yemen, different parts of the world are hurting right now. 42 Agency is asking our community to consider donating to registered charities that help those affected by these unfortunate current events (Red Cross Canada, UNICEF, etc.) If you donate and send us your receipt at hello@fourtytwo.agency by March 18, 2022, we will match your donation dollar-to-dollar, up to $2,000.

In this episode, we chat with Katie Paterson, VP of Marketing at Nudge. Among the many subjects we touch upon, we discuss the importance of aligning sales and marketing to push revenue forward. We also discuss attribution and how caring about setting up the right data collection systems is paramount, gating content, and much more.

Timestamps:

• The relationship between sales and marketing. (1:05)
• Outbound at Nudge. (8:00)
• The importance of aligning sales and marketing. (9:00)
• Attribution and why it matters. (11:10)
• The importance of understanding data beyond attribution. (16:10)
• To gate or not to gate your content. (18:00)
• Why gating content is not the same as buying leads. (23:00)
• Sales cycles in enterprise and why data is crucial (27:15)

Are there any definitions in the marketing space that bother you? Drop it in the comments.

From war to climate change, from Ukraine to Yemen, different parts of the world are hurting right now. 42 Agency is asking our community to consider donating to registered charities that help those affected by these unfortunate current events (Red Cross Canada, UNICEF, etc). If you donate and send us your receipt at hello@fourtytwo.agency by March 18, 2022, we will match your donation dollar-to-dollar, up to $2,000.

In this episode, we chat with Janessa Lantz, VP of Marketing at dbt Labs. Among the many subjects we touch upon, we discuss the importance of understanding communications and their role for organizations. We also discuss several GTM approaches: community-led, product-led, and much more—a fantastic episode to learn more about how to strategize and harmonize your marketing and communication efforts.

Timestamps:

• Her career and some of the things she has learned along the way. (1:30)
• What are communications? And what do people get wrong about them?. (5:25)
• The relationship between PR and brand. (9:40)
• How to balance customer acquisition. (13:30)
• How the PLG commercial motion works at dbt Labs. (15:45)
• The importance of community for dbt's GTM strategy. (17:50)
• How to properly manage communities. (21:00)
• Community dept and Marketing dept. (22:40)
• Why pushing communities does not work and might hurt your brand. (25:00)
• How does their GTM change as a result of marketing to developers? (32:00)

We hope you enjoy it.

In this episode, we chat with Dave Bunce, CEO at Morphio. Among the many subjects we touch upon, we discuss the importance of understanding financial metrics as a marketer. Making sense of attribution in the ad-blocker scenario and how an agency business differs from a SaaS business.  

Timestamps:

- A little bit of the early days of his work at Arcane. (0:15)
- The moment he joined the Arcane team. (3:25)
- The importance of delegation for agencies. (5:35)
- The importance of getting the structures for growth in place when you are small. (7:20)
- The moment they started building Morphio. (9:25)
- Operating profit on Arcane to fund Morphio. (11:25)
- The importance of separating the agency business from the product business. (15:40)
- Financial metrics marketers should 100% keep in mind (24:20)
- The attribution dilemma. (34:00)

We hope you enjoy it!

In this episode, we chat with Amrita Gurney, Head of Marketing at Float. Among the many subjects we touch upon, we thoroughly discuss the tension of brand and performance to drive recognition and revenue. Marketing departments and functions are evolving, and as Amrita argues, brand+performance is a much better equation than brand vs. performance.

Some of the topics we discuss are:

- What is Amrita currently doing at Float. (1:25)
- The Coinbase ad and the importance of brand marketing. (4:10)
- Salesforce ad in the Superbowl. (6:30)
- Superbowl mass-market advertising and how it works for brands. (8:15)
- Positioning and brand in B2B SaaS. (14:15)
- The link between brand and product marketing. (17:10)
- How to balance brand and long-term goals vs. direct response efforts and short-term goals. (18:30)
- Brand and demand. (21:00)
- Shopify and its branding strategy. (23:00)
- Product marketing is more than functional stories. (25:50)
- What do marketers get wrong? (26:35)
- Building personal brands vs. a company´s brand. (28:00)
- Attribution and why do marketers get it wrong. (30:30)

We hope you enjoy it!

In this episode, we chat with Stella Garber, former Head of Marketing at Trello. This episode is fantastic to learn more about bottoms-up adoption, what worked for Trello, what changed when Atlassian acquired them, and how Stella led the team to build a fantastic product.

• Why is messaging important in marketing strategies? And how did Trello manage to become such a horizontal product? (4:30)
• The importance of focusing your marketing strategy on verticals. (8:00)
• How did Trello monetize with their bottoms-up strategy? (10:10)
• Brand vs. Demand at Trello? (12:40)
• Content at Trello (14:00)
• Acquisition by Atlassian and what changed (16:30)
• How did the marketing team at Trello operate (18:50)
• Blockchain, NFTs, and new tech (20:30)
• Stella´s experience as an investor/advisor (25:50)
• What is the one thing people get wrong about marketing (26:30)

In this episode, we chat with Tukan Das, CEO at LeadSift. We discuss intent, what works and what does not with intent data, and his overall experience and journey as an entrepreneur.

Some of the topics we discuss:

• Leadsift and the way they pivoted to an exit. (1:00)
• The untold story of Leadsift and how $10.83 is a symbolic number for them (3:05)
• What is next for LeadSift? (6:20)
• What is data intent? And why is it more than you may think? (10:30)
• Why first-party intent is also relevant when you think about the category (14:10)
• Intent leads and how warm are they (15:50)
• Intent is not a silver bullet (18:10)
• Other ways to think and measure intent (20:00)
• Customer churn and why inaction of the data is the main problem with intent (23:00)
• Intent by itself will not work (25:50)

We hope you enjoy it!

In this episode we chat with Jillian Dixon, Director of Demand Generation at Sprout Social, about Marketing Ops.

We discuss attribution, brand vs. performance, managing revenue teams, product-led growth, and the fallacy of "dead" things in marketing, among other subjects.

• Brand vs. Performance. (2:10)
• Sales and marketing and the lead scoring process at Sprout Social. (4:05)
• Lead scoring model at Sprout Social. (7:00)
• Are MQLs dead? (8:50)
• Brand and Performance teams at Sprout Social. (12:10)
• Trial funnel vs. Sales funnel and how to balance them. (15:40)
• What does attribution look like at Sprout Social? (17:40)
• How going public changed marketing at Sprout Social. (19:10)
• Controversial marketing conversations on socials (20:35)
• Sprout Social's evolution from self-service to outbound efforts. (23:40)
• Conversational forms and why forms might be enough. (26:35)
• What is the actual job of marketers? (30:30)
• Is ABM a buzzword? (32:30)
• What is Product-led growth? Does it make sense? (35:30)

We hope you enjoy it!

In the episode, we chat with Tara Robertson, Demand Generation Manager at Chili Piper, about attribution and how complex it has become. We also discuss how jumping into the new marketing trends and getting over the gated content accessible via email is crucial for companies today.

• Attribution - and how tracking everything may not be possible (and why that is not necessarily bad).
• How to qualify leads (and why lead scoring is not always the right way to go).
• What to do with all of the leads that interact with your product but are not ready to buy.
• Why does talking to people who do not have high intent make sense for demand generation?
• Should SDRs be part of the sales of the marketing team?
• Market saturation and branding vs. building up the funnel?
• The marketing bubble and why marketers need to go outside the bubble to focus on their product.

In the episode, we chat with Rob Sobers, VP of marketing at Varonis. We discuss high-level marketing strategies, funnels, content, PLG, brand vs. performance, and a lot more.

Listen to this ep if you want to learn more about:

• Why do the traditional marketing funnels still work today?
• The importance of understanding your ICP and how to reach them.
• Brand vs. Demand - and why doing both is probably the best route.
• Showing up where your potential buyers are and providing value is key for growth. (This might not even be online).
• Being careful in tracking digital behavior is critical for attribution systems.
• Funnels are messy on enterprise clients and mature markets / the importance of post-purchase service.
• Product-led growth. Is it a reinvention of freemium?
• Why picking fights with the status quo is better than picking fights with your competitors.

In the episode, we chat with Georgiana Laudi (aka Gia), co-founder of forgetthefunnel.com, about growth. We also discuss some of the myths, truths, and hard truths growth leaders face to take their SaaS to the next level.

Some of the topics we touch upon:

• Why is paying for leads a mistake when you don't know why your existing customers chose you?
• What does talking to your customers mean?
• Why is there such an intense addiction to lead acquisition? Is it a positive way to grow?
• Buying leads vs. fixing the product?
• Is category creation a good idea?

After chatting with Clair Byrd from Wing.VC we were inspired to create this entry (originally an article on our blog).

There are all types of takes on what Bottoms Up (BU) & Product Led Growth (PLG) is. It seems to be such a loaded concept that if you ask ten different people what PLG means, they will probably come up with ten definitions and some matching keywords in between. In this episode we deep-dive into what PLG is, how it is not a GTM strategy, and why it does not contradict sales driven motions. 

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