The Revenue-Driven CMO

Today's guest is a marketing leader and creative idea-generator. They have a strong background in communications and brand development. Jordan Sher is the Vice President of Corporate and Brand Marketing at Gainsight and an advisor to AudiencePlus. Jordan broke down the benefits of earned media, the best practices for writing press releases, and what ChatGPT could mean for SEO. Takeaways: Brand marketing and earned media can help performance marketing teams accelerate the pipeline to reach their goals, both tactically and strategically. From a tactical perspective, earned media is one of the biggest contributors to a website's SEO. The quality of the links to your site plays a big role in SEO and earned media, such as a press release, that links back to the website can boost performance. When trying to raise your site's SEO metrics, a press release is a great tool for building links and providing longtail results. Wire services are interconnected so issuing a release to one will result in increased organic…

Every marketer has heard how vital differentiation is to success, but today's guest has a different point of view and the data to back it up. Bryan Law, the Chief Marketing Officer of ZoomInfo, joins this episode to provide his marketing expertise which he has built over two decades of leading marketing teams at companies like Salesforce, Google, Tableau, and Deloitte. Bryan explains why being distinct is more important than being differentiated, why your brand's messaging should be the same across segments, and how to discover the category entry points for your brand. Takeaways: For marketers, it's much more important to be distinctive than differentiated. Being distinctive means your company stands out from the noise and is noticed. Differentiation conveys how your company and services differ from a competitor's offering. B2B buyers are bombarded with messaging and don't have time to compare competitors. Most buyers start with a list of one potential vendor and most buyers don't look beyond that list. To…

Today's guest is an amazing marketer and leader that has spent over a decade in education marketing and sales. Lia Davidson is the CMO of EAB and the creator of the CONNECTED conference. Lia shares her framework of the Marketer's Compass which can be used to evaluate individual marketers and marketing teams. Takeaways: The north and south ends of the marketer's compass are the opposite ends of thinking strategically versus tactically. The east and west axis on the compass represents the left and right brain thinking that marketing requires. Great marketers are able to easily switch between long-term vision-setting and getting their hands dirty by working in the trenches and getting in the weeds of a project. Marketers need to be able to look at things from both 4 feet and 40,000 feet. The problems that marketers have to solve demand a mix of both analytical and creative thinking. There is a lot of math involved in certain points and lots of creative thinking in others. When creating and managing marketing…

Today's guest, Devang Sachdev, is the Vice President of Marketing at Snorkel AI. Devang started his career engineering hardware and managing products before transitioning and developing his expertise in strategic marketing planning, new product launches, and identifying emerging opportunities. Devang shares how he uses generative AI models to conduct market research, keep a consistent tone throughout his messaging and content, and create content that wins snippets on Google. Takeaways: Generative AI models are extremely effective when used to conduct market research and understand the positioning of competitors in a certain space. Start with basic questions about who are the main companies in a niche and then refine your prompts. To learn about competitors, you can ask tools like Open AI's Chat GPT4 to go to a competitor's website and break down their lead, differentiation, and positioning. Ask for the competitor's shortcomings to uncover great opportunities. A great way to keep your messaging consistent and…

This special guest has spent over 25 years of international experience championing Fortune 500 brands and articulating their vision through marketing and advertising initiatives. Through her career, she has earned over 100 advertising awards from AdAge, Adweek, Brandweek, Forbes, and The New York Times among many others. Suzanne Darmory is the VP of Integrated Marketing & Creative at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. Suzanne discusses the importance of balancing a thick skin and a warm heart, how to track attribution when running omnichannel marketing, and how marketers are managing the pressure to do more with less. Takeaways: To have a long and fruitful career, marketers need to have thick skin along with a warm heart. Treating everyone with the same level of respect regardless of standing is also important, especially as marketers advance in their careers. For those working on creative content, it's important to resist taking criticism of your work personally. While this can be challenging, remember that…

Today's guest has been mastering their marketing and advertising skillset since they started their career at Proctor & Gamble, and they've kept learning ever since, even while serving as the CMO for Microsoft US. Grad Conn is the CMO of PROS and is a prolific producer of amazing B2B & B2C marketing content. In this episode, Grad shared career advice for new marketers, why knowing the history of marketing and advertising is so valuable, and how to never stop learning. Takeaways: The freedom offered by start-ups and smaller firms is appealing to young marketers that are fresh out of school, it's better to start out working at a larger marketing company so you can establish a strong marketing foundation. Treat everything you do as a learning engagement and never let yourself stop learning. If you don't keep up with the context of each iteration, you won't be able to understand how to interface with whatever great innovation is eventually created. Advertisers and marketers need to study the history of their own…

Today's guest is a longtime marketer that has been recognized as one of 2021's Most Outstanding Women in Business and is flipping marketing's position within organizations on its head. Esther Flammer is the CMO of Wrike. Esther discusses the role of marketing, how to get a seat at the table to make strategic decisions, and why you should highlight your customers. Takeaways: Marketing is not just a support function, marketing can and should be a strategic driver for any organization. Marketing should have its finger on the pulse of the market and understand how the organization needs to position itself to capture the market. For marketers to earn a seat at the table and be able to make a bigger impact, they need to understand the organizational priorities and build relationships of trust to ensure that they can have the appropriate conversations if they disagree with the priorities. Marketers need to build their point of view based on data and their analysis of that data in order to properly evaluate…

Today's guest is a serial entrepreneur, B2B marketing thought leader, frequent podcaster, and U.S. Marine Corps Veteran. The Ringmaster, Casey Cheshire, is the Founder & Podcast Architect at Ringmaster Conversational Marketing, the author of Marketing Automation Unleashed, and the host of The Hard Corps Marketing Show & Creating The Greatest Show. Casey shares how B2B companies can use podcasts to listen to and learn about their customers, generate an endless source of marketing content, and create stronger relationships. Takeaways: Marketers have a tendency to get overly creative with their copy, but unless they represent their ideal buyer, they're appealing to the wrong person. Instead of trying to invent the words that drive action, listen to your customers to find the right words. A great way to engage and listen to your customers is to invite current, past, and potential customers onto a company podcast and ask them about their successes, their challenges, and what keeps them up at night. Listen back to…

Marketers need to tie their efforts to revenue. This episode features an outstanding revenue-driven marketer with almost a decade of experience in the industry. They are a renowned strategic leader and thinker with extensive expertise in lead generation and direct response marketing. Today's guest is Patrick Manser, the VP of Marketing at GoHealth. Patrick discusses how to lead a team of marketers in implementing a direct response funnel, why your team needs to be immersed in direct response, and how to find the leaks in your customer journey. Takeaways: Marketers can turbocharge their consumer acquisition engine by creating a direct response marketing engine. It's all about tying your marketing activities to revenue. Direct response allows you to share the results of a campaign in concise and precise ways that people outside of marketing can understand. This way, you can share what exactly you do with your marketing budget and what revenue point is attached to it. Because direct response marketing is…

Today's guest is a strategic marketing thought leader and has held roles at Fortune 100 companies as well as start-ups delivering profitable growth. He speaks insurance and digital fluently and has a deep understanding of MarTech.David Drotos is the Vice President & Head of Marketing at Equity Trust. David discusses where to start with your marketing strategy, how to reach conclusions using micro-testing, and why direct mail is such a tantalizing channel for marketers. Takeaways: Before deciding on the marketing tactics you're going to use, you need to really understand who your customer is and what your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is. You need to know what you're looking for before setting out to find it. Once you know your customer, start micro-testing your marketing. This means you need to iterate rapidly by making small changes which allows you to learn and fail fast. Don't let great get in the way of good. Focus on changing one variable within each iteration of micro-testing, such as ad creative,…

Today's guest is a serial entrepreneur with 3 successful exits, an Angel and Impact Investor, and a digital performance marketing pioneer. They are also the former Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of CARCHEX. Jason Goldsmith is the Chief Consultant & Strategist at Goldsmith Consulting and he has a wealth of marketing knowledge to share. Jason delves into how both B2B and B2C marketers can use conversational AI in their funnels, how to stay ahead of your competitors, and why you should be prioritizing customer experience. Takeaways: Marketers need to make sure their companies stay ahead of competitors by effectively communicating how their company is learning and using that insight to provide value to their customers. Marketers also need to be on the look out for unsaturated markets. Always look for ways to innovate around the problems your face in your industry because ther will be others facing those same problems. For example, when mortgage brokers were relying on direct mail, digital marketing presented a…

Today's guest is a beloved and renowned B2B brand marketing thought leader with over 40 years of experience. Drew Neisser is the CEO at Renegade Marketing & CMO Huddles and the author of Renegade Marketing: 12 Steps to Building Unbeatable B2B Brands. According to Drew, the top five mistakes that B2B marketers make are The Peanut Butter Effect, backward targets, rebranding without changing the product or service, spending too much on MarTech, and retreating in a time of crisis. Takeaways: Mistake number 1 B2B marketers make is called The Peanut Butter Effect which happens when they try to do too much in their messaging to different target personas. Simplify your brand to under 8 words and then find new ways to tell it. Mistake number 2 for B2B Marketers is when the targets are backward. Most marketers think Prospects>Customers>Employees. Reverse that order to Employees>Customers>Prospects. If your employees don't buy your brand story, you're toast, but if they do, they can be your greatest ambassadors. The…

Today's guest is an energetic and passionate marketer and leader with decades of experience on the cutting edge of marketing. Andrew Kling is the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Cognition Financial. Andrew explains the keys to optimizing your funnel, why you need an open mind when exploring channels, and how to collect more accurate data to base your decisions. Takeaways: While it's easy to get focused on front-end metrics like CPL (Cost Per Lead), it's crucial to look at your entire funnel from a data perspective to test, learn, and optimize so you can reach your long-term goal. Because of data privacy concerns, there is a shift in marketing from generating leads to building relationships. Those relationships are built on keeping people engaged and nudging them through your funnel. Don't fall into the trap of testing a channel once and moving on from it. Most channels deserve more exploration, even if they might have higher a CPL. Marketers need a source of truth that they can constantly…

Today's episode is special because we're highlighting an amazing guest who shared some amazing knowledge on the show way back in 2021. This special guest is a longtime marketing leader and innovator that has been instrumental in his current company reaching its multi-billion dollar valuation. Udi Ledergor is a B2B marketing thought leader, the CMO of Gong, and the author of The 50 Secrets of Trade Show Success. Among Udi's top secrets are why strategy must come before tactics, how to forge great relationships between sales and marketing, and why making your marketing human is so critical. Takeaways: Tip #1: Strategy before tactics. Figure out your strategy before you send out your first email or do your first social post because, in marketing, it's very easy to get busy with activities and campaigns that are usually a huge waste of your time. Tip #2: Don't Produce anything that you wouldn't want to consume. Think if you would want to get that next email, if not start over. Create something that you would be…

Today's guest has led sales teams for many international brands and is now helping SMEs get Enterprise clients. Barry Moroney is the Founder & CEO at Leadable. Barry shares why so many marketers think they're using ABM but aren't, how to approach ABM based on contract sizes, and what a good ABM campaign looks like. Takeaways: Many marketers genuinely believe they are using Account-Based Marketing (ABM) in their outbound marketing, but in reality, very few are. For example, your company is not really using ABM if you are only splitting up accounts based on territory, splitting up sales reps by vertical, or creating industry-specific collateral. No two companies are the same, and if you are going to use ABM, you need to tailor your approach to each company and its specific needs. Going one step further, you should identify the key stakeholders within the company and what each of them needs. ABM is great for companies that have a relatively small Total Addressable Market (TAM), but large contract values. The…

Getting in front of your target audience is crucial but the future of how marketers can target their audiences is changing. Here to get you up-to-date is a top-tier marketing thought leader that loves helping companies drive revenue by developing the proper systems and strategies. Zack Wenthe is the Senior Technical Product Marketing Manager and Product Evangelist at Treasure Data. Zack is also the author of 76.5 Ideas to Kickstart your Marketing. Zack reveals the secrets behind why data platforms don't want you to have your own data, how to collect 1st-party data, and what is possible when you use your own 1st-party data in your ad targeting across platforms. Takeaways: Platforms like Facebook and Google don't want companies to create their own 1st-party data strategies, they would rather those companies be dependent upon them for crucial data. This means they can charge more and limit what marketers can do with data. Building out your 1st-party data strategy follows the same concept as growing and owning…

Today's guest is a master of data science, marketing & adtech. They are a performance-focused digital marketer that specializes in paid search. Curtis Correll is the Director of the Performance Marketing Innovation Team at HealthCare.com. Curtis shares why Google and Meta are removing features from their ad platforms, why marketers need to feed data back into Google to see great results, and how to stop seams from appearing in your data. Takeaways: Ad platforms like Google are trying to automate parts of digital marketers' jobs, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for them. Google has taken away a lot of the granular nuances that used to be the key to digital marketing success. There are two main groups of thought toward Google's automation, the first trusts the platform's suggestions and the second is wary of any loss of control. Generally, newer marketers are in the first camp while experienced marketers fall into the latter. Google's updates provide benefits for both groups. Veteran marketers should…

Gathered together in this special episode are some of the best insights from some of the greatest leaders in the marketing world. These four women share their most valuable marketing knowledge which has helped them in their roles as CMO at four great companies. Kristi Melani, the CMO of Telesign, explores how and why marketers can replace dead benchmarks. Anna Griffin, the CMO of Intercom, shares how sales and marketing are merging and what it means to the future of your company's growth. Stephanie Moritz, the CMO at the American Dental Association, discusses how curiosity can be your competitive advantage. Amy Barzdukas is the CMO of WiTricity and breaks down why your brand is so important to every part of your marketing. Takeaways: Marketers need to figure out what they want to measure and then the equation to measure that. This should encompass more than just one aspect for marketing success to be measured on. With the enormous growth opportunities opened by the rise of the internet, the lines between…

This is a special episode because we are featuring segments from 4 brilliant, industry-leading performance marketers that were previously on the show! You'll hear incredible insights from Larry Kim, the Founder & VP Marketing at MobileMonkey, Jay Abraham of The Abraham Group, Dennis Yu, the CEO and Co-Founder of BlitzMetrics, and Eric Carlson, Co-Founder and CEO of SweatPants Agency. Get a pen and paper ready, because there are so many great ideas coming from these marketing thought leaders! Takeaways: The #1 reason someone will click & buy from you is whether they've heard of you before — brand-aware cohorts are 3-5X more likely to engage with your ads, organic listings & emails. The algorithms have evolved to quantify traditional brand signals as measured by peoples' propensity to trust, open, click & buy, then reward those signals. The best way to drive conversions is to never talk about yourself, instead, you should only have your clients and friends talk about you. This is how you build credit and…

The world of digital marketing and hyper-targeted ads is always changing, but today's guest has some insight into what could be around the bend. Alex Kukich is a uniquely experienced sales and marketing leader and the CRO at WITHIN. Alex shared what the landscape of digital advertising could look like in the future, the advertising alternatives to Google, and what a world without cookies would look like for advertisers. Takeaways: No one really knows where the future of cookieless digital advertising is going. Even those at Google and other data giants aren't sure of what's next which leads to their constant iterations and delays. Cookies are used to track the activity of internet users across websites to build out a profile of each user's interests. Companies can then pay to serve targeted ads to specific profiles based on their past search activity. For example, if someone was searching for Ford pickup trucks, Ford could serve them ads not just for Ford, but Ford pickups, and even Ford dealerships with…

This episode is a little special because we are featuring segments from 4 amazing, industry-leading CMOs that were on the 3-Minute Marketing Podcast! You'll hear amazing insights from Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot's CMO, Udi Ledergor, Gong's CMO, Grant Johnson, Emburse's CMO, and Kevin Alansky, Jedox's CMO. Buckle up for this blast from the past and get ready to learn! Takeaways: The advent of Web3 opens so many avenues for the future of marketing. With technology like Ethereum, the offers that marketers will be able to provide prospects for things like completing demos can become incredibly enticing. Udi Ledergor's 5 Tips for Marketing success are: 1) Strategy before tactics, 2) Don't produce anything you wouldn't want to consume, 3) Don't wait for Inbound to come in, start outbound your first day on the job, 4) Never compromise on the people you hire, 5) Don't obsess about measurement, do what's best for the brand. While CMOs have a seat at the table, they often lack the influence that they need to do their jobs…

Today's guest helps the most prominent brands and celebrities make their content go viral through organic social media. The brands they have worked with include MTV, IKEA, and Vice Magazine. They have also worked with celebrities like Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and Adriana Lima on their digital strategy. Brendan Kane is the Managing Partner of Hook Point and the author of OneMillionFollowers and Hook Point: How to Stand out in a 3 Second World. Brendan reveals how you can increase your social traffic, tell better stories through your content, and what social media algorithms actually want from your content. Takeaways: There are over 200 billion messages sent daily through social media platforms. The only way your content won't be swept immediately is if you understand how the algorithms work and create great content. Social media algorithms are designed to increase user retention so users will remain on the platform longer and are served more ads. Algorithms are looking for content that can grab people's…

It's too easy to get disconnected from the core processes of a company as it grows, but it's imperative that you stay in contact with that baseline and the people carrying out the processes. Today's guest is a master performance marketer and entrepreneur who had built and sold multiple companies by the age of 33. Josh Harris is the Founder of Agency Growth Secrets and a veritable fountain of knowledge. Josh explains the importance of establishing your baseline, what effective management looks like in scaling companies, and where the future of marketing is headed. Takeaways: It's crucial to establish a strong baseline understanding of what your role is in order to become competent enough at something to excel beyond the standard. When you move away from this competency, issues arise from a lack of competency or process change. When you become disconnected from the processes and operations of the company, the best way to learn about how to fix problems is to go and work directly with the people involved in the…

The world is full of neatly crafted messages, fine-tuned for specific personas but the reason so many marketers have trouble getting their message across is the vast amount of other noise they have to compete with. Today's guest not only knows how to cut through that noise but is also a creative and tactical marketing leader. Alex Kelly is the Director of Digital Marketing at Ceros and an expert in his craft. Alex shares why your message isn't getting the traffic it deserves, how to improve your campaigns overall, and what your events need in order to stand out. Takeaways: Your message is not the medium. While crafting your message is very important, marketers should also focus on making sure that message is being seen. It's crucial to make your message grab your target's attention and part of that comes down to exploring new mediums to deliver your message. Part of the strategy to create an attention-grabbing campaign is to invest time into the design and visuals. This will make help break through the…

Too many B2B companies are missing out on 360-degree search-based affiliate marketing, however, today's guest knows all about how to find success with affiliates. Charles Groome is a marketing and advertising leader and the Vice President of Marketing at Biz2Credit. Charles shares how to start working with affiliate partners, how to double your performance without doubling your costs, and how to uncover new marketing opportunities. Takeaways: Affiliate marketing is an extremely profitable channel for marketers because it is completely performance-driven. The new crop of affiliate marketers have built on what came before them and are now able to achieve great results. One of the reasons many brands don't utilize affiliate marketing is because it is not talked about as often as something like search. However in certain spaces, especially in B2B, it can be very effective. When set up right, your affiliate marketing can build brand reputation, drive direct traffic, and have the affiliate partners bidding based…

Your company could be using the 1st party data it already has to uncover incredible insights into its customers and what they actually want. Elise Berger is the Head of Performance and Direct Marketing at Earnest and a performance marketing badass that has led marketing efforts for other great companies like GE and Showtime. Elise shares how to make better use of your 1st-party data to drive your marketing, what resources are available to performance marketers regardless of their budget, and what lies at the core of performance marketing. Takeaways: Marketers need to use 1st party data for more than just reporting or attribution. By starting with the consumer, you can use that same 1st party data in your segmentation, analysis, and decision-making. In order to really learn and discover insights from your 1st-party data, you need to invest the time and money into your Customer Data Platform (CDP) infrastructure along with other data such as demographic and psychographic data. Using Dstillery is the first step…

This week's episode is a little special because it's an excerpt from The Growth Clinic, WebMechanix's weekly community call where they feature marketing leaders and cover the most important topics in marketing. This week's expert is the Paid Social Manager at WebMechanix, Ben Lisca. Ben came from the world of affiliate marketing and has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to using TikTok in your advertising. You'll hear about optimizing your ROAS, how to make great TikTok ads that convert, and what tools to use to inform your ads. Takeaways: TikTok has surpassed Facebook and Instagram for the most time on the platform. TikTok also outperforms all other social media platforms in driving engagement and spontaneous actions, such as unplanned purchases. Compared to other platforms, TikTok provides extremely engaged traffic that's more likely to approach and spend higher amounts of money while also being it's cheaper to get in front of. Because of the way TikTok's algorithm works, you can hyper-target ads to…

You need to protect your brand, which costs money but you're overpaying! Matt LeBaron is the Founder and CEO of Revvim and the CEO of New Day Consulting, LLC. Matt is a database architect turned growth marketer that has been involved in Online Startups since 1997. You'll hear about how to protect your brand better while spending less, how to combat conquest campaigns, and what new martech tools can be doing for your company. Takeaways: Companies are spending way too much money on brand search. While you do need to protect your brand from competitors, because of the current technology available, you don't have to spend as much. There is a large gap between the new marketing tech that is available and the solutions that marketers know are available. Competitors can and will run conquest campaigns at random times against your brand and you need to have a way to detect and combat them with your own ads. While your competitors can't use your brand's trademarked assets in Google Ads, they are still able to bid on…

Revamp your traditional sales strategies by evolving to the fast-paced digital world which runs on word of mouth. Dennis Yu is a marketing thought leader, CEO and Co-Founder of BlitzMetrics, and co-author of both The Definitive Guide to TikTok Advertising and Facebook Nation. Dennis shares what sales teams need to do to become more effective in today's market, how to handle inbound and referral leads differently, and what marketing needs to amplify the company online. Takeaways: The best way to drive conversions is to never talk about yourself, instead, you should only have your clients and friends talk about you. This is how you build credit and establish authority through a 3rd party. Your salespeople should not have "Sales" in their title. This will immediately make prospects shut down anything from that person because they don't want to be sold to. When inbound leads and referrals come in, they need your expert help diagnosing and fixing their problems. They don't need to be told how great you are! You…

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I'm speaking with Erik Huberman. He's currently Founder & CEO at Hawke Media, a full-service Outsourced CMO that helps businesses realize their potential. His firm works with some impressive logos, including Red Bull, Verizon, Evite, Planet Blue, Stories by Kelly Osbourne and many more. He recently released his book, "The Hawke Method", which reveals the marketing framework he's used to help over 4,000 brands soar to new heights. So I asked him to break it down for us — "What's the secret that's allowed you to help 4,000+ brands be successful with digital marketing?" Show notes: Awareness, nurturing and trust must be the "tripod" of your marketing strategy. Awareness means creating new attention and customers for your product or service. Over time, you lose your existing audience so you need to constantly be refilling this "bucket." Nurturing is what you do with the awareness you generate. What most marketers miss is that there's a consideration period for any purchase. If you're…

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I've got badass CMO Christian Campagnuolo (CMO at Revature) back for round 2! You can check out my first episode with Christian here. This time, Christian shared his thoughts on a big topic for marketing leaders right now: staffing and retention. Specifically, "How do you find and keep great marketers, especially with all that's changed in the last couple of years?" Show notes: Competitive salary and benefits is still #1. But it works best when there's a plan and strategy you can justify it against. This gives employees a clear path to progress on in your company. #2 is flexible work location. Post-COVID, talent is not restricted geographically anymore. Hire one or two people that are really good, then hire an agency to support them and turn them into badasses. #3 is stability. Potential hires want to know that the company will be around for a long time. While a "startup environment" seems fun, it's also risky. To mitigate that risk, let your potential hires peek under the…

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, we're trying something a little bit different. In this solo episode, Chris is going to talk you through a 3-Minute Marketing "growth hack" that you can take and apply in your marketing straight away. The hack for this episode is all about how you can build the perfect list of prospects or accounts using technographics. Chris is going to show you a Chrome extension you can use to find out what technologies your best potential customers are using and what they have in common so that you can build perfect list of dream customers to go after. If you're a marketer at a business that wants to grow faster, you're going to love this episode... especially if you're a B2B company. Show notes: Best practice: whenever you're building a list that's based on technographics, you can't just rely on data sources like ZoomInfo. Always check the websites to confirm they're running the technology you're targeting. There's a really cool ad blocker Chrome extension called Ghostery that allows you to…

Anna Griffin (CMO of Intercom) is back for a second round of 3-Minute Marketing! We're talking about a topic that's very near and dear to my heart, based on Anna's TEDx talk called "The Blank Page." It's all about how changing the stories we tell can make a dramatic impact on the trajectory of our lives, careers and the companies we grow. I was excited to dig in and understand how it could benefit marketers in particular. So I asked her, "Can you summarize your TED Talk for me and explain how can it impact brands and marketers?" Show notes: For one instant in your life, we're all created 1,000% equal. As time goes on, you become the product of the stories you're told -- by your parents, community, leaders, etc. This shapes your belief system. The reason some people achieve more greatness and success in life comes down to the stories shaping their beliefs. If you don't like the trajectory you're on, the answer is to change your story to a bigger and better one that serves you. This will change your belief…

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I have the pleasure of sitting down with Leigh Caldwell, a cognitive and behavioral scientist turned marketer. He's the Founder of Irrational Agency, an award-winning author of "The Psychology of Price" and an avid blogger at his site, knowingandmaking.com. He's also a successful entrepreneur, having built and successfully exited 3 firms in the tech and economics consulting space. Leigh's behavioral economics background has helped him yield some surprising insights on what does and doesn't work when it comes to understanding your market. My question for Leigh is: "What are the counterintuitive secrets to performing GOOD market research?" Show notes: Secret #1: People don't tell you the truth. Your customers want to tell you all the great things about your product. But you want them to tell you the truth. So you need to ethically "trick" them into being honest with you. Leigh built a simulated web store for his CPG client. While 60% of their panelists said they would buy their…

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I'm speaking with Angela Earl. She's an accomplished marketing executive, currently CMO at RFPIO — the industry leading software for response management. Before joining RFPIO, Angela was the owner of a B2B marketing agency which she successfully exited in 2019. Angela shared an impressive (and maybe controversial) content marketing case study on LinkedIn recently that I've been dying to ask her about. My question for Angela was: "How can ungating your content actually drive MORE leads?" Show notes: Content is made to be engaged with, but marketers somehow lost sight of this as we went down the "MQL rabbit hole". We became more revenue-focused, but forgot we're creating content so people can read and watch what we're making. Instead, we're adding friction to the experience by asking personal questions. But really, our audience just wants to read what we wrote, engage and respond. When you start surrounding your content with "wrappers" like forms, chatbots and popups, you make it…

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I'm speaking with the one and only Dave Kerpen — bestselling-author, speaker & serial entrepreneur. He's currently Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Apprentice, the platform that connects entrepreneurs and business leaders with smart and motivated college students. Dave and his wife also successfully exited his agency Likeable Media in 2021. Dave joined me to answer the question, "What's the one ability or trait that separates 'okay' leaders from great leaders?" Show notes: Great leaders are effective because they know how to delegate. Leaders struggle to delegate because they either are afraid to give other people the work, or they're wired to micromanage. To delegate effectively as a leader, follow the SHARE model. The leader's job is to do 3 things: Set the strategy and vision (S), Hire the right people for the right seats (H), and Assures access to resources and capital to get the job done (A). When a task comes a leader's way, if it's not "SHA" they Remind themselves to delegate it…

Short description: On today's 3-Minute Marketing episode, I'm speaking with serial entrepreneur Richard Lau. He's currently Founder & CEO at LOGO.com, the logo design platform that allows you to create a great logo for your brand in minutes. One of Richard's passions is sharing what he's learned in his journey as an entrepreneur that can help other leaders be more successful in their careers, particularly mistakes made or opportunities missed that others can learn from. Richard told me a networking story (one of the keys to his success) and I was intrigued to learn more. So I asked him, "If I were your protégé, how would you tell me to maximize the power of my own network?" Show notes: Facebook and Instagram are NOT your business network. LinkedIn is your business networking tool. Make sure you're over the 500+ connections threshold. Be useful. Don't go out there selling and pitching. Instead, make connections between people in your network. When you do this, you're helping 2 or more people in your network…

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I'm sitting down with Alex Morrison. He's currently CMO at PearPop, an on-demand creator collaboration platform. Prior to joining PearPop, Alex has had a remarkable career agency-side, serving in leadership positions at firms like Grey Group, R/GA, AgencyNet and J Walter Thompson. Alex has first-hand experience seeing the impact of great influencer marketing and is stoked about how brands can benefit from partnering with creators at scale. So I asked him, "What is the future of commerce and why are creators the core of that engine?" Show notes: Creators who have influence can engage audiences from their unique worldview and perspective. This is particularly enticing for eCommerce and D2C brands, who are trying to reach consumers in an increasingly noisy and competitive environment. Creators can add credibility and authenticity to a brand while showing real use cases of a company's product. You can create a "surround sound" effect by having 100's or even 1000's of influencers…

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I'm chatting with all-around badass CMO, Christian Campagnuolo. He's currently CMO at Revature, the largest employer of entry-level technology talent in the U.S. Prior to Revature, Christian has had a remarkable career in marketing — he found his roots in brand marketing at Disney, then transitioned into agency life and built his own agency. He eventually found his way into the tech world, heading up marketing for renowned tech brands like Blackboard, Logi Analytics, MicroStrategy and most recently EVERFI. Christian has so many gems, we could have fit five episodes into our conversation! But we got some particularly good nuggets when I asked him, "What's the playbook for how a new CMO can take their company's marketing from startup to grown up? Show notes: Start off by observing what's wrong, not working or absent in the current marketing programs. Do you have individuals that fulfill the core functions of a world class marketing team? Identify those talent gaps and build up the…

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I'm chatting with Kristi Melani. She's currently CMO at Telesign, an industry-leading Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) that's relied on by the world's most trusted brands. Prior to Telesign, Kristi headed up growth marketing efforts for technology brands like Anaplan, Poly & Plantronics. Kristi has a contrarian perspective on evaluating marketing performance that piqued my curiosity. So I asked Kristi to tell us, "Why is the benchmark dead in marketing... and what should marketers use instead?" Show notes: Then pandemic shook up the tradition of reporting YoY benchmarks dramatically, because everything changed (including the traditional channels marketing and sales teams relied on). Marketing is often measured on SQLs, but not all SQLs are measured the same. For example, some SQLs may have a higher deal value or close at a higher rate. Come up with what and how you want to be measured. Then come up with the equation, such as, "I want to be measured on MQLs, SQLs,…

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I have the great pleasure of chatting with Bob Armour. He's currently CMO at M1 Finance, a leading all-in-one money management platform that helps self-directed investors achieve long-term financial wellness. Prior to M1, Bob has had an extensive career in the financial services space, heading up marketing efforts for notable financial brands like Jellyvision & Guaranteed Rate. Bob came to share his wisdom on one of the biggest challenges facing any CMO or marketing leader: building trust and credibility with your market. Specifically, I wanted to learn from Bob, "How can you use your website to build trust?" Show notes: Can you demonstrate "heft"? Is what you say you can do actually being accomplished by lots of other customers like them? Use data to back up your narrative: how many clients do you have? Assets under management? Reference real numbers. Satisfy the left side of someone's brain ("Is this right? Can they do what they say they can do?") and the right side of…

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I'm pleased to be speaking with Marc Ginsberg. He's currently CEO at CallRail, a marketing and call recording platform we use here at WebMechanix that helps 175K+ businesses market smarter, drive more quality leads, and turn them into customers. Prior to CallRail, Marc headed up growth marketing efforts for notable financial brands, including American Express and Cardlytics. One of Marc's biggest secrets to success throughout his career has been his ability to build powerful partnerships. I invite Marc to dig deeper into how he's done this by asking, "How can you create more effective partnerships?" Show notes: When you can find a great partnership that unlocks value for your joint customers, it's an amazingly powerful growth lever. Ask, "What type of capability or offering can make our product or service better for our customers?" Start by understanding the needs of your customers and build partnerships accordingly. If you're striking out on partnership deals, it's probably…

My guest today on 3-Minute Marketing is Narine Galstian, CMO at SADA Systems. Before SADA, Narine headed up growth marketing efforts for technology brands like Instant.ly and Nero AG. Narine is veteran tech marketing leader with an impressive track record, so I wanted to understand how she knocks it out of the park so consistently. My question for her is, "What are the top 3-5 powerhouse secrets for marketing success?". Show notes: Being first is more important than being perfect. Don't spend months trying to perfect your campaigns — test, launch, iterate and gather feedback. Approach marketing with a mindset of serving, not selling. Customers won't forget it and will become customers for life. What others say about your brand becomes your brand. Make sure you're treating your customers/partners right and amplifying what they're saying about you as a result. Develop a marketing strategy that aligns with your business goals. Don't live in the marketing silo — think and report out with the whole business…

Welcome to another episode of 3-Minute Marketing, where we interview the world's top growth marketing leaders and distill their knowledge into 3-minute TED talks for your binge-listening pleasure. Today's guest is Brian Chevalier-Jordan, VP of Marketing at Bond, a super hot fintech brand that enables organizations from any industry to embed next-gen financial products into their existing customer experience. Brian is a self-described "fintech nerd". So my question for him is, "What are the top growth secrets of leading fintech brands?". Show notes: At LendingClub, their superpower is direct mail, which sounds bizarre because it's so old school. But it's really powerful and has allowed them to become the largest personal lender in America. They've loaned out $1 billion dollars every month because of direct mail. You probably get a dozen pieces of email a day in your personal email inbox, but only one letter in your physical mailbox. When you get an offer for a loan of up to $40k in your mailbox it really…

Welcome to another episode of 3-Minute Marketing, where we interview the world's top growth marketing leaders and distill their knowledge into three-minute blocks of genius for your listening pleasure. Today's guest is Gabi Zijderveld, CMO at Smart Eye, the global leader in human insight AI. Prior to Smart Eye, Gabi headed up marketing efforts for tech and software companies like Affectiva, IBM, Segue Software, and Centra. While at Affectiva, Gabi's team was able to effectively create a category of motion AI and did it in a scrappy way. So my question for her is, "What are 5 ways to drive marketing impact on a shoestring budget?". Show notes: When Gabi joined Affectiva in 2014 they were already making cool technology using computer vision and machine learning to analyze human faces and their reaction to content, situations, and emotional states. But they were describing it in a clunky manner. Gabi and her team realized they had to take credit for the machine learning and AI-based work they were doing, which…

Welcome to another episode of 3-Minute Marketing, the world's only podcast that interviews today's top growth marketing leaders and distills their insights into three-minute blocks of brilliance for your listening pleasure. Today's guest is Anna Griffin, CMO of Intercom, an awesome SaaS company that breaks down the sales and marketing divide. Anna is a seasoned marketing leader with previous stops at CA Technologies and Juniper Networks. As business technologies evolve, so are the ways that companies go-to-market. As a result, we're seeing the "silos" that separate what used to be discrete business functions (particularly sales and marketing) starting to break down. So my question for Anna is, "Where do you see the blurring lines between sales and marketing going in the next few years?". Show notes: There's been enormous growth opportunity since the rise of the internet for businesses, but particularly in the past five years with so many new business models and innovations. In that quest for growth, the line…

Welcome to another episode of 3-Minute Marketing, where we interview the world's top growth marketing leaders and distill their knowledge into three-minute blocks of genius for your listening pleasure. Today's guest is Eric Carlson, Co-Founder and CEO of SweatPants Agency, a growth marketing firm that does paid media, CRO, email, and copywriting for subscription and e-commerce businesses. Eric is a good friend of mine and an expert marketer. Whether it's Facebook Ads, TikTok, YouTube, or any other platform, Eric always seems to have the answers. So my question for him is, "What are the 5 traits of a highly skilled and unstoppable marketer?". Show notes: Think of marketing and sales in terms of conventional and unconventional thinking. Conventional thinking lowers your risk and involves looking at what other players in the industry are doing (how their websites are set up, how their ads look, etc.). Unconventional thinking is what actually gives you an alpha. In marketing, there are a lot of things that are…

Welcome to another episode of 3-Minute Marketing, where we interview the world's top growth marketing leaders and turn their insights into bite-sized TED Talks for your listening pleasure. Today's guest is Jeff Biesman, CMO of National Debt Relief. National Debt Relief is the number one provider of debt relief services in the country, as well as the most trusted. Jeff has an interesting background. He started on the brand side of things with stops at Sony, Disney, and Bank of America before transitioning to performance and demand generation roles. Jeff's unique background in both brand and performance makes him the perfect person to ask, "How do you align your brand and performance marketing teams?". Show notes: Performance marketing is what keeps the lights on, puts food on the table for everybody, and grows the business. When you're doing a brand strategy, it has to be concrete and connect the shared interests between a customer and your business in a way that filters everything down. When you're filtering…

Welcome to another episode of 3-Minute Marketing, the world's only podcast that interviews today's top growth marketing leaders and distills their insights into three-minute blocks of brilliance for your listening pleasure. Today's guest is Tom Kuhr, CMO of Greenfly, a digital media monetization platform for sports teams, leagues, and associations. Tom has had a wonderful career helping multiple software brands grow over the years. Tom is a big proponent of the idea that "the sale never ends", particularly in SaaS marketing. So my question for him was, "As marketers, what can we do to not only retain our current customers but also turn them into advocates for our brand?". Show notes: The sale never ends at a SaaS company. The initial sale is just the start. It's the introduction to the customer and it gets you into their environment, but you're really there to continue growing. The first sale is always going to be much less than that customer is worth to the company in the end. Create a sales overlay…

Welcome to another episode of 3-Minute Marketing, where we interview the world's top growth marketing leaders and turn their insights into 3-Minute TED Talks for your listening pleasure. Today's guest is David Wachs, CEO and Founder of a unique outfit called Handwrytten, a company that allows users to write and send automated, handwritten notes. David has been running Handwrytten for eight years, but prior to that he was the founder of a text messaging company that sent over one million texts a day for brands like Abercrombie & Fitch, Sam's Club, and OfficeMax. I've wanted to get in the habit of sending handwritten notes for awhile now. So my question for David was, "How can marketers use handwritten notes to drive more revenue?". Show notes: While building up his text messaging company, David realized he was part of the problem. Everyone started getting thousands of text messages a month. The average person gets 100 emails a day and spends 24% of their time managing their email inbox. Emails and text…