Podcast appearances and mentions of katie martell

Out with the old and in with the new! For ANNUITAS' Adam Needles and Martin Schneider, it's time to rethink your go-to-market strategy. They join Ignite USA Co-Host, Katie Martell, to explain how you can take the next big step through a Converged Growth Lens. In this episode, they explore why sales and marketing alignment might actually be unattainable, the Balkanization of customer data, and much, much more. To find out more about taking your GTM strategy to the next level, make sure you attend Adam and Martin's session at Ignite USA on May 23-24 in Chicago. Podcast listeners can save 20% on Ignite USA 2023 tickets by using discount code PODCAST at checkout here: https://events.b2bmarketing.net/igniteusa/tickets?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=cta&utm_campaign=ignite_usa&utm_term=episode_102:_how_to_transform_your_go-to-market_strategy Ignite USA is where the B2B marketing industry comes together to connect and be inspired by B2B pioneers and game changers. Join us for two days of inspirational talks, interactive workshops and roundtables to discuss your pain points and challenges in depth and help move your marketing forward to new frontiers.

In the run up to Ignite USA, Gravity Global's Global Brand Insights Director, Steve Cheliotis, joins co-host Katie Martell for a sneak peak into their keynote session on driving sustained growth. The pair discuss what Gravity's Fame, Admiration and Belief (F.A.B.) means for you, how to be strategy-led but data-informed, setting aside the ‘convenient' marketing and how to adopt an always on approach for maximum momentum. To find out more insights from industry leaders, make sure you secure your spot at Ignite USA on May 23-24 in Chicago. Podcast listeners can save 20% on Ignite USA 2023 tickets by using discount code PODCAST at checkout here: https://events.b2bmarketing.net/igniteusa/tickets?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=cta&utm_campaign=podcast&utm_term=episode_101:_driving_sustained_growth_with_steve_cheliotis Ignite USA is where the B2B marketing industry comes together to connect and be inspired by B2B pioneers and game changers. Join us for two days of inspirational talks, interactive workshops and roundtables to discuss your pain points and challenges in depth and help move your marketing forward to new frontiers.

Influencers. No, it's not all ‘use my discount code', get ready with me, daily vlogs, trying out the latest viral hack or jumping on TikTok trends. For Ashley Zeckman, influencers can take your marketing efforts to the next level – without breaking the bank. She joins Katie Martell, co-host at Ignite USA, to unpack why you need to get serious about influencer marketing. They discuss what getting it right (and wrong) looks like, how to bring influencers into the mix, and much more. To find out more about influencer marketing, Ashley will be speaking at Ignite USA on May 23-24 in Chicago. Podcast listeners can save 20% on Ignite USA 2023 tickets by using discount code PODCAST at checkout here: https://events.b2bmarketing.net/igniteusa/tickets?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=cta&utm_campaign=ignite_usa&utm_term=episode_98:_making_the_case_for_influencer_marketing_with_ashley_zeckman Ignite USA is where the B2B marketing industry comes together to connect and be inspired by B2B pioneers and game changers. Join us for two days of inspirational talks, interactive workshops and roundtables to discuss your pain points and challenges in depth and help move your marketing forward to new frontiers.

Set the silos to one side, sales and marketing. On this week's episode, Empire Selling's CEO Dan Swift joins Katie Martell, co-host of Ignite USA, to explore how to get your teams singing off the same hymn sheet. The pair walk through how misalignment is costing you an average of 10% in annual revenue and how you can change that. They explore creating a connected and empowered enterprise to break through the noise, why getting alignment is easier than you think it is, and why momentum is the name of the game in ‘23. To find out more actionable insight from the best in class, secure your spot at Ignite USA. Over two days, you'll hear from inspirational peers and pioneers, moving you forward to new frontiers. Take your marketing to the next level here: https://events.b2bmarketing.net/igniteusa/tickets?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=cta&utm_campaign=ignite_usa&utm_term=episode_93:_stop_the_silos_%E2%80%93_dan_swift_on_(finally)_aligning_your_sales_and_marketing_teams

Media Volery LLC's president and chief strategist, Zontee Hou, joins Katie Martell, co-host at Ignite USA, to discuss how to get your marketing pipes singing in unison. They discuss why time's up on not creating personalised, resonant content, why a great marketer is a curious one, the importance of creating agnostic communities à la Reddit (yes, Reddit), and setting the confirmation bias to one side to make informed decisions. To find out more actionable insight from the best in class, secure your spot at Ignite USA. Over two days, you'll hear from inspirational peers and pioneers, moving you forward to new frontiers. Take your marketing to the next level here: https://events.b2bmarketing.net/igniteusa/tickets?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=cta&utm_campaign=ignite_usa&utm_term=episode_92:_connecting_the_marketing_dots_with_zontee_hou

With over two decades at the helm of digital marketing innovation, it's safe to say that Andy Crestodina knows his stuff. The co-founder of award-winning marketing agency, Orbit Media, author of bestselling handbook, Content Chemistry, and Website Wizard (we couldn't resist the alliteration) joins Ignite USA's co-host, Katie Martell, to share some of his wisdom. The pair track how the digital landscape has changed since the early noughties, explore why your platform is the foundation of marketing, and discuss why trust should be on your agenda in ‘23. To find out more actionable insights from Andy, join us at Ignite USA. Over two days, you'll hear from inspirational peers and pioneers, moving you forward to new frontiers. Take your marketing to the next level here: https://events.b2bmarketing.net/igniteusa/tickets?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=cta&utm_campaign=ignite_usa&utm_term=episode_90:_everything_you_need_to_know_about_digital_marketing_with_andy_crestodina

The robots are taking over! The copywriter is dead! Long live ChatGPT! Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've heard it all before. Set aside the scifi, dear listener. Paul Roetzer joins us for your AI reality check. He speaks with Katie Martell, co-host of Ignite USA, to demystify some of the biggest AI BS you've been hearing. They discuss why what you (think you) know about AI isn't the case, moving the conversation from ‘cool tools' to the application and implication of new tech, and why the marketer of the future doesn't fear change, but is willing to experiment and explore. Join us at Ignite USA to hear Paul speak more on the dawn of the next gen B2B marketer. Over two days, you'll hear from inspirational peers and pioneers, moving you forward to new frontiers. Book your discounted three for two tickets with the code 3for2. Hurry, your offer ends on 24th March, so secure your spot today: https://events.b2bmarketing.net/igniteusa/tickets?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=cta&utm_campaign=ignite_usa&utm_term=episode_88:_the_%E2%80%98brave_new_world%E2%80%99_of_ai_with_paul_roetzer

For this week's guest Jon Russo, if one word defines success in 2023, it's efficiency. He joins shenanigan-filled host Katie Martell (her words, not ours) to unpack how to make your account-based strategies more effective. They discuss getting your team singing off the same ICP hymn sheet in order to scale, what you're getting wrong about measurement (and how to get it right), translating marketing-speak for sales and the c-suite, and why change isn't a one-on-one conversation. You can find out more about finessing your account-based strategies at Jon's session at Ignite USA – the leading state-side event on all things B2B. Over two days, you'll hear from inspirational peers and pioneers, moving you forward to new frontiers. Book your discounted three for two tickets with the code 3for2. Hurry, your offer ends on 24th March, so secure your spot today: https://events.b2bmarketing.net/igniteusa/tickets?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=cta&utm_campaign=ignite_usa&utm_term=episode_68:_how_to_make_your_account-based_strategies_more_effective_with_jon_russo

It's June, which means it's pride month, which means we're all being bombarded by rainbow-festooned corporate logos. But does that really help? Or is it just another example of “woke washing,” the brand pandering that occurs when marketing and social movements collide. The amazing Katie Martell is back with some brilliant insights as we look at alternatives to rainbow logos — alternatives that could make a much bigger impact on individuals, corporations, and communities. https://www.katie-martell.com/ https://www.copernicanshift.com/episode-194-how-to-really-celebrate-pride-month/

Ignite USA - our hybrid event taking place in Chicago - is fast approaching. In the run up to the event, Lucy Gillman sat down with this year's co-host, Katie Martell, to give you a taste of what you can expect at the conference, which this year has a heavy focus on brand. Katie and Lucy discuss why brand needs to be on the top of any marketer's agenda, where you're going wrong with brand and, most importantly, how you can fix it. Click the link to find out more about the actionable insight you'll get at Ignite USA - and make sure you use the code IGNITEKATIE for 25% off tickets: https://www.b2bigniteusa.com/?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=cta&utm_campaign=ignite_usa&utm_term=episode_58:_katie_martel_on_unlocking_the_power_of_brand_at_ignite_usa

Katie Martell (she/her) returns to interview me (Derek) for a special Season 1 finale episode. We discuss my journey over the past year, including the creation of this very podcast, how empathy could help us conquer many of the challenges facing society, body image standards and how they were impacted by lockdown, and unpack the very idea of uncertainty. Derek J. Horn is a designer and podcast host. He works remotely as a Senior Designer for New York City-based agency, Beardwood&Co., where he has contributed to award-winning global design projects. His writing has appeared in publications including Dieline and Ad Age and he started a podcast, In These Uncertain Times, in Fall 2020. Derek is a longtime volunteer and now brand advisor for Out for Undergrad, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping LGBTQ+ students reach their full potential. He lives in Orlando, FL with his fiancé Joey and Shiba Inu pup, Luna. Follow Derek on Instagram Connect with Derek on LinkedIn Check out Derek's original HCD podcast interview and article that inspired it And in case you missed them the first time around: Follow Katie on Twitter: @KatieMartell Subscribe to The World's Best Newsletter at Katie-Martell.com

In this episode, Dave talks with Katie Martell about how Contact Centers and Marketing Departments can not only get along, but help each other accomplish their goals.  Dave and Katie talk about:1. How can the marketing department and customer service co-exist?2. What is the fundamental role of marketing?3. How has our understanding of the voice of the customer changed over the last 10 years?4. How call center data makes marketing more effective, and vice versa.If your contact center struggles in communication with the marketing department, this episode is for you.  In fact, send it to your Marketing leader and discuss!

Can Mortal Kombat, Sunday Night Football & Poetry help you to bridge a gap with your kids? Is structure overrated? Josh and Katie Martell talk through what it looks like raising their kids.

Cause marketing. Purpose-driven marketing. Brands across industries are hearing these phrases more frequently as consumers seek to align with brands with similar beliefs. But brands that simply create one-off campaigns based on social holidays risk looking like performative allies. To help organizations navigate through this exciting (yet inundating) era of “woke marketing,” Katie Martell is studying the intersection of marketing and social issues. During this episode of Retail Remix, Katie shares her research from her documentary and book, both aptly called Woke-Washed, including the brands that are tackling this movement successfully.

Today we talk with Marketing Truth Teller, Katie Martell, about Woke-Washing, Branding, and how companies fib during the job search. Learn more about Katie at https://www.katie-martell.com/ and follow her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiemartell/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This isn't one of those "thought leadership-y" type of conversations because what really happened was Katie dropped knowledge for 32 minutes and Bridget and Sara just kind of sat there, mouth agape, writing down every little thing Katie taught us during this time. There's something to be said about people who have accomplished so much in such a short period of time. Are they legit? Can I replicate what they've done? What's worth it and what isn't when it comes to growth? All of those questions, and a BUNCH more are answered in this conversation. We loved it, we love Katie, we think you will too. --- Make sure to leave a review and subscribe so we can keep making dope ass content for you. Follow us on twitter: @selfcontrol_chz Check out our website, join our email list, be the first to know when we have shit to say: selfcontrolandcheese.com/join-us kloveyoubye

The search for authenticity drives many of our decisions, including our brand choices. We're all hoping for those elusive, authentic experiences. In Part 2 of my discussion with Katie Martell we dive deep into performative brand allyship, the dangerous illusion of progress, and the unexpected benefits of an alien invasion. We finish up with a look at how brands can best demonstrate true authenticity. Spoiler alert: it's more than feel-good ads and woke-washed social media posts.  Learn more about Katie here: https://www.katie-martell.com/ https://twitter.com/KatieMartell

We're living in an age where buyers (both B2B and B2C) want a personal relationship with brands. And more than that, they expect those brands to share their values. Katie Martell, unapologetic marketing truth-teller, joins me today for Part 1 of a rollicking discussion about “woke washing.” It's the collision of social movements and marketing in an era where brands are being looked to as stewards of societal values. Learn more here: https://www.katie-martell.com/ https://twitter.com/KatieMartell

Derek chats with Katie Martell (she/her) about the vital responsibility of marketers during this time of public health crisis and racial justice reckoning. They discuss the power of saying "no" to make room for the most important things in life, and wrap up with an unexpected conversation on what makes for a lasting relationship. Katie Martell is an "unapologetic marketing truth-teller." She is currently working on Woke-Washed, a documentary and book exploring the collision of marketing and social movements. Named “one of the most interesting people in B2B marketing" and a marketing voice on LinkedIn 3x, Katie has been a startup CMO, SaaS entrepreneur, communications consultant and served as Executive Director of Boston Content, New England's largest community of content professionals. Follow Katie on Twitter: @KatieMartell Subscribe to The World's Best Newsletter at Katie-Martell.com

The coronavirus pandemic and Black Lives Matter movements shone a spotlight on a wide spectrum of brand responses: Some nailed it, while others dropped the ball. Marketing expert Katie Martell talked with Ahava about which organizations showed real allyship — including Microsoft and Rent the Runway — and how exactly they succeeded.Listen to this episode of What Did You Learn to hear more about Katie’s marketing learnings and observations during the coronavirus pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement — as well as what she hopes will last for years to come.

Marketing and social movements have collided like never before. How do we pivot our marketing strategies amongst these global narratives in a way that is genuine and authentic, and not be seen as pandering or offering empty promises? Join Samantha and her guest Katie Martell, Author of “Trust Me, B2B”, and soon-to-be-released documentary, “Pandermonium”, as they dive into the risks of performative allyship and what organizations must do to successfully align with social movements.

Historically, taking a stand on political and social issues was considered a risky move for marketing and brand executives. In the current climate, however, it's risky not to take a stand. In a world where many judge a company's alignment (or misalignment) with these issues based on how quickly they respond, how can organizations (even those in B2B) ensure that they're not only taking the correct measures, but developing a strategy that can make a tangible impact? It's a lot for even seasoned executives to navigate, and that's why, for this episode of the B2BMX Podcast, we sit down with Katie Martell, marketing truth-teller and an expert on the cross-section of marketing and social movements.

In the episode #60 I had a pleasure to meet a real brand builder, former marketing CMO and a marketing consultant Katie Martell. We talk a lot about marketing, influence and PR, but the underlying theme of the conversation is building your brand. Here are 3 main aspects we cover in detail: Why you should be building your brand regardless of your role Why Katie stayed in consulting after being a CMO What she’s looking for in ideal client to work with More about Katie: – One of the top 10 marketing writers on LinkedIn – #3 Most influential B2B marketer on Twitter – A “marketing expert to follow” by CIO Magazine – One of 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management – Top 100 influencer in content marketing Katie has been invited to speak at a variety of marketing industry events including TEDx, FutureM with MITX, MarketingProfs B2B Forum, BMA, DX Summit, B2B Summit, Young Women in Digital, and universities including Emerson, Northeastern, BU, and Babson College. Sign up for Katie’s newsletter Check out Katie’s work on her site Books mentioned on the show Writing the Mind Alive: The Proprioceptive Method for Finding Your Authentic Voice Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content Find out more at https://sergey-ross-podcast.pinecast.co

How can brands stand out and drive incredible customer loyalty? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Katie Martell talks about what it means to find your "exceptional truth" as a brand, and why that should be the guide for everything you do as a marketer. As Katie says, "the only thing in the middle of the road, is roadkill," and brands that fail to speak their truth get lost in the crowd. In our conversation, we wade into the controversial waters of whether and when brands should speak out and take a stand, and how to do it in a way that keeps you tightly aligned with your customers. Highlights from my conversation with Katie include: Katie says it is the job of the marketer to understand what is happening in the world. Marketing controls brand perception, and brand perception influences whether someone will buy from you. If you're in marketing, you have to understand where your brand fits in the world of your buyer's identity. When you know what your buyers care about, you can align that with your brand values, and you have an opportunity to take a position that will strengthen your place in the market. Katie says that brands that don't take a position get lost in a crowded marketplace and are not a part of the conversation. By taking a stance about what you believe, you can change the conversation in your market and, in doing so, become a market leader. Katie says brands need to find "exceptional truths" - little kernels of truth that get buyers to stop, pause, and rethink the way they see the world. When you've created that seed of doubt, buyers are open. They're leaning in, they're listening to what else you have to say. And that is when marketing works at its best. That's when they're more receptive to your pitch. This takes knowing buyers so well that you know where they're misinformed or what they don't know or what they don't understand so that you can challenge that. This approach is based on the concepts outlined in the book The Challenger Sale, which is typically used in the sales world but has a lot of application to marketing. Marketers need to be confident to convince the organizations they work for that this type of challenge is the right approach. This can be hard because marketing is a "voyeuristic" profession - meaning that everyone can "see" marketing so they think they are an expert and know how it should be done. As a marketer coming into a new company, its important to determine what your exceptional truth is and then find ways of rolling that out across your marketing in a way that makes your brand unique and different. Resources from this episode: Visit Katie's website Follow Katie on Twitter Connect with Katie on LinkedIn Listen to the podcast to hear Katie's take on why it is so important for brands to find their exceptional truths, and how to use that in your marketing to gain a competitive edge. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is Katie Martell, who is an on demand communications strategist based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Welcome Katie. Katie Martell (Guest): Hi Kathleen. Thank you so much for having me. Katie and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: I am excited to have you here. For everyone listening, I heard Katie speak at Marketing Profs B2B Marketing Forum in, what was that? September or October? October of 2019. Back in the days when we still went to conferences in person. And I was just so blown away. She gave such an amazing talk on Rabble Rousers and it really not only struck me for the content of the talk, but also, you were just an amazing speaker. We can have a separate conversation about that. But anyway, that's why I wanted to have you on and share some of your amazing wisdom with everyone who's listening. So I could go on and on about you. but before I go down too much of a tangent, I would love it if you would explain what an on-demand communication strategist is and what you do, and also a little bit of your background and how you wound up doing that. About Katie Martell Katie: I would love to, and I have to start by saying thank you for the kind words about that talk last year. So the title of that talk was something like "Market Like a Rabble Rouser" and it came from this fascination I have with the world of politics and persuasion mixed with what I do as a marketer. So I've been a marketer in the B2B realm for 11 years now. And what's been interesting is, I've been marketing to marketers for the majority of my career. And that was first at a B2B data services company. We were an early sponsor of the Marketing Profs event. That was a startup that I grew up to acquisition. And then it was a PR firm, an analyst from my own MarTech startups. So I've kind of lived multiple lives, worn many different hats, but always marketing in this world of B2B tech, and MarTech specifically. So I've been a student of marketing in a time when it's completely changing from what was the kind of capital M marketing that we've known it to be. And so this talk was just honestly, they had asked me what I wanted to talk about, which is a moment in time where you go, "Oh, that's a dangerous, that's a dangerous ask of me." And I was honest. I said, "Let's talk about what's happening in the world of misinformation, persuasion." I'm talking Russian trolls, I'm talking campaign interference. I'm talking all the stuff that, you know, you read on the headlines, on whatever news outlet you choose to follow. And let's talk about what marketers can learn from it. So I get up on stage. I give this talk. It went over a little bit of time because that's, hello, it's me. Well, people were absolutely polarized in the audience. We had half the room, a little more than half, I will say, who were like, "Yeah, we got the takeaway. This is great. Thanks so much." And the other half that I just think, I don't know what, didn't go across as well for many, because I presented a lot of information about Russian trolls and some of the exact campaign ads they used and it was pretty incendiary stuff, but that was the point. I was trying to get people riled up and hey, achievement unlocked. Kathleen: But I also think, isn't that polarized response just such a perfect reflection of why that talk was needed in the first place? Katie: I hope so. I was encouraging folks to really, you know, rouse the rabble, you know,? Create emotional responses, shake things up, and that's kind of what I did on stage. Kathleen: Well, and to be clear, just to interject, your talk was not an inherently political talk in the sense that you weren't taking sides, you were presenting facts, right? And people can take that and do with it what they want, but I just wanted to put that out there. Marketers need to pay attention to what is happening in the world Katie: Well, I appreciate it. And let the lesson and the takeaway here be that we need, as marketers, to pay attention to what's happening in the world. I mean, the world around us, look at this past week and today's date. I don't know if you're going to give the date here. It's June 1st. So we are coming off of a weekend of civil unrest, Black Lives Matter protests. It is a time where, if you check social media, you're bombarded with hashtag activism and names and everybody from brands to individuals getting involved in this current conversation. We as marketers should be watching this and learning. Kathleen: Yes. I mean, actually, it's interesting that we are having this conversation today because I literally, just this morning, was online on social media and I saw one person saying something about how you have to speak out and you have to make your positions known. And another person's literally saying "I'm not going to support businesses that don't say anything." It's interesting. There's so many different sides to what's happening right now, but it really doesn't matter what you believe about the current situation. The fact is that the world around us is going to make judgments and make personal buying decisions. And they could be different ones, person to person, but they're going to be made based upon what you do and or do not say right now, right. So if you're not paying attention as a marketer, you're not doing your job Katie: Because this is our job. It is our job. Marketing controls brand perception, right? Brand perception is the reality for consumers. They make a decision about us before they engage with us by the way we act through marketing. That's the kind of inherent "duh" that we know about our jobs, but what that means at a time like this and what it started to mean over the past, I would say, decade or so as the world of social movements, identity, and brands and corporate world they've started to intersect. And so what that now means is, if you're in marketing, you have to understand where your brand fits in the world of your buyer's identity, whether they believe in the Black Lives Matter movements, right? These kinds of areas that were kind of gray areas before of, we don't want to get political. It's not appropriate for every brand to have a comment on what's happening. For example, we're talking about the treatment of African American individuals in the US, if your brand happens to live values that embrace diversity and inclusion and have large representation from that community and you take steps to make sure that their employee experience is great and yada, yada, yada, you might as well leverage that in marketing. You might as well show the world that you're on the same side as the giant movement that's now building in States and cities around the world. My God, this is a great opportunity for marketers, which I know sounds dirty to say out loud, but it's absolutely a time to take advantage of the global zeitgeist right now, and be part of the conversation, be part of the narrative, earn trust. It might help you differentiate. It is a way of saying to the world, "This is where we play, this is what we believe, this is who we are as a brand" that may go well beyond what your product or your service does. That is an opportunity. Kathleen: I agree with you. This is such an interesting conversation. In the past year, I had a conversation about this with someone who I've always considered to be very much a professional mentor/idol/role model. I've come to realize as I've gotten to know this person better that they feel very strongly about keeping all politics, all commentary on social issues, completely out of business. And that is their personal belief. It has come into focus, I think, with this last election cycle, and we had a big debate where the person was saying companies should never post about politics. I personally don't believe that, nor do I think every company should post about politics. People will disagree with me and that's fine, but I think that it all comes back to really understanding your brand. And in this case, especially for privately held companies, brands are very inextricably interwoven with the person that owns the company. This is going to come right down to the owners of the company and what they personally believe in. There are some companies where the person that owns it is never going to talk about politics because that person, as an individual, doesn't talk about politics even in social settings. But then you have companies, and there's some examples I'd love to cite, like Penzeys Spices. They are a spice company out of the Midwest. I had discovered them years ago because I was looking for some really niche spices. I like to cook and I had followed them, and then I started seeing this stuff on Facebook and they come out really, really strongly. This is a long story, but I got into a really big debate with this person. And the person was saying, you are going to lose customers and that's not good for your business. And you're going to alienate people and that's not good for your business. And my feeling is, that might be fine. If you're somebody who believes that you want to live your beliefs and you want your business to live those beliefs, you may lose customers, but you will probably have the ones you keep drive tremendous loyalty and you may gain as much, if not more, than you lose. So, diatribe over. You're the guest, not me! Katie: Oh, please! I love your point of view. I'm honored to be here because I think you are just brilliant and I love your work. You hit on something really polarizing right now which works at multiple levels. It also kind of hearkens back to the fundamental truth that not all marketing advice is going to apply to every company. And I feel like that's an important disclaimer, because we tend in marketing to say, brands should do this, they shouldn't do that. It's really, to your point, what is right for your business, your customers, and most importantly, your goals. Now that spice company, I don't know them, but I guarantee their goal is not to be the spice for everyone. It sounds like they know exactly who their buyer is and they know exactly what that buyer wants from them. They want a spice company that stands for more than spice. Great. Not all car companies are going to be a car for everybody, right? Just like with Patagonia, right? If you're buying a jacket to go skiing and they have a set of brand values that they know aligns with the subset of the total market, but that subset will be inherently loyal to them because Patagonia is an example of a brand that's been consistent against their values. For years, they've always been kind of counterintuitively anti consumption. They sell retail products. They need to drive consumption. Remember that famous ad that was like, "Don't buy this jacket"? You don't know it. You have to Google it. And it's Patagonia saying "We cause too much waste in our industry. We build products that may cost you a little more, but they're sustainably made and we want you to wear them for longer. We're going to help you repair them. We're going to give you some tools to make sure that you can make sure you get the most out of them. They're longer lasting." These are brand values that the buyer can relate to because the buyer also shares those values. So this really isn't a new marketing problem. We like to think it is because of social media and hashtag activism and all the propaganda that's happening. But this really isn't old school marketing best practice. Know your buyer, know where you fit in their world. Bill Bernbach has a great quote that's like, "If you stand for nothing, you'll find some people for you and some people against you. And if you stand for nothing, you'll find nobody for you and nobody against you." Which is worse for a marketer? To be completely out of the conversation or to be clear about where you sit and stand and who you're intended for? I love old time radio. There's a great Sirius XM station about the radio shows from the era of when that was entertainment. Somebody had this quote in the old timey accent. They were like, "The only thing you find in the middle of the road is roadkill my dear." Right now, today, brands do not have to have a comment on who should be president. That is politics. That is up to the individual. We each have a right to vote. Stay out of it unless you're relating to the campaign or you're lobbying for a certain group. Honestly, we need to have a say about issues that matter for our buyers. That's it. If it doesn't matter to your buyers, it shouldn't matter to you and your marketing. If you're a founder, I'm going to kind of disagree with you on this, but if you're a founder trying to lever your organization for your own political, personal views, that's a mistake because not everyone in your company is going to agree with you. Just like not every one of your buyers is going to agree with you. You have to find middle ground. That's what this is about. When you canvas for a political campaign and you're going door to door for, I don't know, Bernie Sanders, you don't open the door and knock on the door and say, let me tell you why you're wrong about insert political candidate. You find common ground. You say, what do we share? What are we aligned on? And how do we then move forward together? It's not about polarizing. It's about recruiting people to see the world the way you do. And those people likely bring the same set of values that you do. Kathleen: To be clear, I should say because I probably didn't explain this, I'm not advocating that businesses come out and say "Vote for so and so." I'm more coming out and saying that the context that came up when I talked about it with somebody, was that there were things happening politically that impacted other issues, whether that's the environment or social issues, et cetera, there was like a trickle down. And there were businesses that at the time were coming out and standing for or against those environmental or social issues. That was what sparked the conversation. It's very interesting to me because the things that swim in my brain when I get into this conversation are, there is an increasing amount of data that started to come out, particularly with younger generations, that they are actually much more likely to buy from businesses that are willing to say what they stand for. Again, I'm not talking about politics, I'm talking broadly about things that you stand for. And I loved your statement about the only thing in the middle of the road is roadkill. Because you know, you look at social activism and business today and you see companies like Tom's shoes, which stand for something, and Patagonia, which stands for something. These businesses are doing very, very well, particularly amongst a younger demographic. And so I think part of it is knowing who you sell to, as you said. Part of it is also recognizing that over time, things are going to change as this younger demographic ages and people follow them, who knows? I don't know what will happen with the next generation, but today's 20 year olds are going to be the 30 and 40 year olds of tomorrow and the next decade, et cetera. And so as our customer populations age, their preferences come with them as they do. It reminds me of the conversation that I've had with people about niching down as a business. I used to own a marketing agency and agencies talk about this all the time. Should we be the agency for everyone? Or should we declare that we are serving this one niche? And the fear that everybody always has when you get into that conversation is the fear of having to say "no" and turn people away. What most data shows, and most people find when they do it, is that when you niche down, you actually thrive. You make more money because you really find the right fit customer and they have a higher perception of you. They stick with you longer, et cetera. And so, there's an echo of that going through my head as I listened to us talk about this. Understanding your brand promise Katie: Absolutely. And again, it comes back to branding basics. You have to know the promise that you're going to make to anyone. That's what brand is. Brand is a promise. When they engage with you, they want to know that they're going to get something that you've promised them. You don't have to take a stance around hot button issues. Stay away from hot button issues, unless you're ready for that, unless that's really core to your business and your values and live throughout the organization. There are many examples, from our history, of B2B companies that stand for something in their industry. This is where this needs to be applied to B2B. B2B listeners might be thinking, this doesn't apply to me because I sell, I don't know, refrigeration. And I'm here to tell you, there is, within the world of refrigeration, a company called Stirling Ultracold, that was kind of a smaller player within this world of refrigeration. They would sell to pharmaceutical companies, and we're talking commercial grade keeping stuff cold, right? That's the extent of my knowledge, but they are ultra low temperature freezers that companies need. This is a great example of a company in a world that we would think, what is controversial about this space? The way they were disrupting their own industry was just with this idea of sustainability and energy costs and carbon footprint -- these things that their product enabled companies to decrease. They saved something like 70% of energy costs. Energy and sustainability and carbon footprint was never a consideration point for this buyer before. They just didn't look at it along that list of criteria that they're making their decision against. It didn't matter. Suddenly, here's a company who comes forward with a great PR program, really strong thought leadership, a leader who says, "I believe we have a responsibility to have a smaller carbon footprint. And guess what? My products enable you to have it." It suddenly changed the entire perimeter of an industry. That is the exact same advice that you and I are preaching right now. Just take a stance in what you believe in your own market. That's how you're going to change the conversation in market. That's how you're going to find buyers that are aligned with you around this value that now matters, and in a broader sense, you know, to the world, but really in this industry. And that's how you're going to differentiate and earn that trust, is when you declare "Here's what we're about." And you do that with confidence, because that allows the buyer to look at you and say, "I know exactly what I'm signing up for." Change the conversation in your industry Kathleen: I love that. And it reminds me of a talk that I heard by April Dunford. Katie: Love April Dunford, high five. Kathleen: I heard it at HubSpot's Inbound conference. April Dunford is an expert on positioning and she gives this talk about the four different ways you can approach positioning for your business. And I don't remember the nickname she has for it, but the example that she gives for one of the ways is about changing the conversation. And she talks about Tesla and how before Tesla, the leader in the electric car market was the Prius. And the whole conversation in electric cars was about battery life. How long could you drive before you needed to recharge? You could substitute refrigeration, but the bottom line is that, as a new entrant, if you think about coming into an established market, you're not going to have the first mover advantage. You're not creating a category per se. So how do you catapult yourself to the head of that market? You do it by changing the conversation. And so she talks about how Tesla came in and totally changed the conversation by saying, "Yeah, whatever. Battery life. Of course, we all have battery life. It's really all about how sexy is the design and how fast does the car go?" And now, you see a completely different dialogue happening in electric cars. You see Tesla as a front runner. And you see a lot more electric car manufacturers focusing on design and speed because they made it sexy. And that's the new conversation. And it sounds like that's exactly the same thing this refrigeration company did. Finding your "exceptional truth" Katie: They had to. And this is really where I think, and I know I'm a little biased. I come from a communications background. I've seen the power of content marketing and PR and all of that working in tandem to lift up brands. I mean, I'm a startup girl at heart. When you can't be the loudest voice in the room and you can't be the dominant player of which, by the way, there's only one in every industry. So the majority are not dominant players. All of us need to figure out how to get more strategic with the way we leverage PR and content. I think we've fallen into a bit of a trap, and I'll use that word gingerly because of the rise of inbound marketing, because of the rise of the tools and tech that allow us to publish a lot of content. What we've sacrificed are the kernels of little ideas that we're using to seed the market. We've become really good at publishing education tips and best practices, which are great and necessary. This podcast is a great example of one. The issue is that we've lost sight of what creates movements, what creates change in people. It's that little kernel of truth. I call them exceptional truths that get people to stop, you know, pump the brakes and go, "Wait a minute. I've been thinking about things all wrong." And when you get a person, a human being to stop and kind of pause, you've got them, that's it. When you've created that seed of doubt, the way that they saw the world may not be that capital T, truth, they're open. They're leaning in, they're listening to what else you have to say. And that is when marketing works at its best. That's when they're more receptive to your pitch, to your ideas and your path forward, but it takes knowing the buyers so well that you know where they're misinformed or what they don't know or what they don't understand so that you can challenge that. This is drawing from, everyone knows, The Challenger Sale. Applying The Challenger Sale to marketing Kathleen: I was just going to say, I used to be in sales and in the sales world, this is The Challenger Sale. Katie: Yes. I don't know what happened. I mean, how can The Challenger Sale extend its way to marketing? Not to say that it hasn't, but you know, is that a puppy? Kathleen: Yes. I have two who are laying at my feet and every now and then they lift their heads up and say, "Wait, there's a world out there!" They're getting excited about The Challenger Sale. Katie: They probably are just as confused as I am as to why The Challenger Sale didn't work its way into the world of PR and content marketing. To me, we need to challenge the way the buyer sees the world. I think very few brands do that. Kathleen: It's very true. I have worked in sales before and when I was in that job, I read The Challenger Sale. I used that approach in sales and it made me very successful. And you're spot on. That has so much applicability in marketing. I owned an agency for 11 years and I worked with a lot of different companies and there is, in marketing, this lemmings syndrome where we see the lemmings running ahead of us and we want to follow them off the cliff. If they're doing it, it must be the right thing to do. And it extends from everything, from messaging and the way we talk about what we do, to things like brand colors. I used to do websites for attorneys and they all wanted forest green and maroon and these very stodgy, old attorney colors. And I remember I had one client and I was like, "Let's just do something crazy." And they were like, "But nobody else did that." And I was like, "Precisely." There's this inclination both amongst marketers and within the business world to play within the lines. And I think that does hurt us. There's a sea of sameness out there and it's the content we create, it's the colors on our websites, it's the way we message. It's, you know, "Hey, you should or should not talk about this in our industry. We don't talk about that so I'm not going to" and I really think that that has tied our hands behind our backs, Katie: I have a lot of empathy. I mean, I'm a Pisces. I'm gonna look at every situation from both sides. And it's empath to the Nth degree over here. But I do have a lot of empathy for the modern marketer. And this comes from being one, but also selling and marketing to them for 10 years. I've been on the megaphone side of MarTech vendors back in the day when there was a hundred of us, marketing solutions in a world of digital marketing that was now starting to shift. Don't forget, 10 years ago, we now had to be good at becoming top ranked on Google. We now had to start using social media to develop a two way dialogue. We then had to automate everything. Then we had to start measuring everything. Now we're trying to leverage AI. It has moved at such a pace. It all happened in nine years. It has moved at such a pace that the marketer, the poor beleaguered marketing ops person and lead gen new roles that are being created because of this ecosystem in MarTech have inherent uncertainty, an inherent doubt and inherent fear because thinking about it, you and I work, we do marketing for a living. This is our income. How are we going to support our families? This is more than a job and an industry, buyers and marketing. I always had this kind of point of view when I was marketing to marketers. The buyer is more than a director of marketing at an IT company. They are an individual who's just trying to figure it out. And a brand like a HubSpot who comes out right at the turning point of an industry in flux to say, we have 10 ways that you can do this better. And five tips for this and seven strategies for success in that, that brand is going to win. That fearful buyer who's like, I just need a job, and I need to keep ahead. The biggest fear for the marketing buyer is falling behind. If we fall behind, we're no longer relevant. If we're no longer relevant, guess what? There's some 23 year old who's going to come up and take our spot because they know Tik Tok. I'm being hyperbolic, but that's constantly on our minds. And so we have to have empathy for that marketer who's like, we are going to do the things that work and copy the things that work because they work and we need a win. It's really those organizations that can allow their marketing team to do what they do best. That means leave them alone. Let them understand the buyer and the market, the way that they're supposed to. The challenge of being a marketer Katie: Somebody else said to me that marketing is a very voyeuristic profession. Everyone can see it. Unlike finance, unlike R&D or engineering, or even sales, to an extent. Everyone can see marketing. Everyone in a business thinks that they're an expert in marketing because they see marketing all day. They see billboards. They see ads. They feel like they know the science and the practice of marketing. That creates a lot of pressure on the marketing team to kind of do whatever everyone else thinks they should be doing. So we have a department that's not only fearful of falling behind, but also facing pressure from the business to do things that may be counterintuitive to what marketing should do. To your point, the lawyers with the maroon versus doing something different. The telling of exceptional truths, the disruption, the rabble rousing, it works on teams that allow marketers to operate with confidence and hire marketers that are allowing them the space to push back and say, "No, this is what marketing does. Our job is to understand who the buyer is, what they need and why we're uniquely fit that market. And that may look different than what you expect, but that's why you hired me." If you're listening to this and you're young and you love marketing, but you're unsure of the path ahead, that's the strongest thing I think you can do is to hone this sense of what marketing does for business and the sense of confidence that you need to bring to every meeting. You almost have to defend your job at every go, but the more you do it, the more resilient you get, the better you get at it. Kathleen: Well, I think it also points to what you should look for in a place of work. I completely agree with everything you just said, and, and I don't often talk about where I work now, but I'm at this company Attila Security, which is in cybersecurity. I knew I had landed in the right place and I had this sense when I interviewed. When I got into the company and I met with the CEO and I presented him with my 90 day plan and strategy, this was about 30 days in, he said, "Yeah, just do it. I hired you because you know what you're doing", you know? "You don't need my permission." And I was like, "Wow, what a great feeling". When you're interviewing, that's a thing to really watch for and to dig into and to see if that's a trait that you're going to find amongst the leadership team of the company that you go and work for. Katie: I wonder how to ask that in an interview. I'm a startup girl who's just been at companies where inherently, there's no one to tell me what to do. What would you ask if you were interviewing? Kathleen: As somebody who hires a lot, I've always been a big believer in behavioral based interview questions. Those are basically, you don't ask people "What would you do?", you ask, "What did you do?" And you ask people to talk about actual experiences. So I would probably ask something along the lines of, you know and it depends on if it's a company that's had marketers before. I would say, "Tell me about a time when a prior head of marketing proposed something that you weren't sure about or didn't necessarily agree with, what did you do?" And if they haven't had marketers before, if it's a startup, I would probably ask them something about being at a prior company. Or I would say, "Tell me about a time the head of sales proposed something," or somebody else in the company presuming that there are other leaders. Because I think past behavior speaks better than hypotheticals. Everybody can come up with the right answer, hypothetically. For what it's worth, that's kind of the approach that I've taken, but some of it is also just a feeling that you get from talking with people. And I think that's something that you hone over time as you work in more places and you're exposed to more different types of people. Standing out in a world saturated with marketing content Kathleen: But one of the things I was thinking about as you were talking, you mentioned HubSpot and how they solve for something very specific at a time when it was a real need. And, it got me kind of circling back to a little bit of what we started with here, which is this need to tell exceptional truths and should companies go there? Should they not go there? One of the things that I started thinking about as you were talking is that the interesting unique moment that we live in right now is that content marketing has become so commonplace. And there are so many companies creating content that there is this saturation. There's just a lot out there. There's a lot of blogs. There's a lot of newsletters. There's a lot of video out there. We're all busy. Nobody has the time to read all of it. So how do you choose what you're going to consume? And this applies to anybody, any buyer out there has this dilemma whether they're actively searching for something or not. And it seems to me that one of the factors that's really affecting what works now in marketing is that one of the most effective ways to stand out amongst a very saturated world of content is to have a point of view. We've talked a lot about in the marketing world about authenticity, and a hot topic lately has been email newsletters and getting really real in your email newsletters and showing personality and individuality, even in company newsletters. And the reason that that's working so well, I believe, is because it is different. Just the fact that it's different and just the fact that it doesn't sound like everybody else, people gravitate to that. So I'd love to know kind of what you think about that. Katie: I a hundred percent agree. Mic drop because you said it yourself. This idea that everyone is a publisher, everyone can produce content - it makes it more important than ever to do what we were suggesting 20 minutes ago, which is to know exactly who you're talking to, what they value, the ways you share that value and just be confident that that is the niche that you have decided to own. You cannot be all things to all people. I'm hearkening back to my marketing undergraduate. This was a long time ago now. It's the one thing I learned. This is not new, right? We just have a proliferation of information now available to us. It makes it more important than ever to have not only a clear point of view, but first a very clear intended audience. You cannot be the solution, in your case, for all CIOs. You're the solution for all CIOs that are extremely risk averse or something. There's something about your buyers that you are really aligned to. Well, many companies fail to understand what that niche looks like and where that alignment happens. I have a newsletter. I call it the "World's best newsletter." I started it when I started consulting, frankly, honestly, truthfully as a way of reminding the world that I wasn't gone. I was leaving a startup at that time that I had co-founded and I was the public face of, and I needed a way to take that momentum and transfer it into my consulting, speaking, whatever it is that I do, practice. So I started a newsletter. I had no intentions with it. I had no best practices around it. I probably break every rule in the book. People love it. And what I do with it is what I've done from day one. I collect the things that hook my attention throughout the week, that I believe more people need to read, and I send it out weekly. And I say, "Here's what is important to me". I am a human being with other other interests outside of marketing. I'm a fierce advocate for feminism, and I'm a fierce advocate for human rights. And I have a documentary coming out about the intersection of marketing and social movements. And all of that is jam packed into this little newsletter, seven links and a quote of the week. It makes no sense. If you were to tell me, as a marketing consultant, it wouldn't make any sense. There's a lot of marketing stuff in there, but sometimes there's a really important New York Times cover story about racism in America. It works for me because people know what they want from me. It's neat. I have been really reticent to do that. It feels wrong. It goes against everything I'm taught as an email marketer, but you know what? It performs. It might be because it's real. I think it's because it's honestly what people want from me. I think that's really what matters. And they come back to it week after week because it serves that need and it's fresh. They don't get it from other people. Finding your unique brand voice Katie: If you're a business, trying to figure out what to send in your newsletter, think about that first. Just like a product and the way that you develop a product, look at the consideration set. What are you up against? What are the other emails looking like from your competitors or even others in the same general industry? Do something different. Maybe it's just doing it shorter. Maybe it's coming at it from a totally different angle, right? Content and thought leadership should be treated like product development. Not only is it something new and different, but it's like this muscle that you have to work on. You've gotta be really good at coming up with the processes to uncover those insights from inside the business to say, "This is what we believe, what we know." And then really, really good at delivering that in a fresh and new way. That's what makes the job of content fun and hard. But it's not what most people do. Most people opt for the easy ebook, the 10 tips, best practices. And then they wonder why isn't this performing? How to find your exceptional truth Kathleen: So true. So if somebody is listening and they're a marketer, who's come into a company and they're thinking about - and let's talk about startups because I think that's the best way to illustrate how this works. If you come into a startup as the first head of marketing, it is a green field, right? You get to shape the clay. If you're coming into an established company, that's a different story, but it's still, the challenge is still there. It's just how you navigate. It might be different. Putting on my hat as head of marketing at a startup, I'm coming in, it's the first time we're going to have a marketing strategy. If I wanted to come in and really mine the richness of what you talk about as exceptional truths, what is the playbook for doing that? Katie: Well, good luck finding a playbook. The place to start, in my mind, is to ask yourself the question, just like you would if you were starting a movement and activism, "What is the change that you want to see in market?" What is that end result that you're hoping to get people to switch? It could just be, you want them to choose you instead of a competitor. Great. So what does that mean? What belief do you need to shift? What misinformation do you have to correct? What new insight, to quote the Challenger model, do you have to bring to the table to get them to see the world a bit differently? I'll give you an example from HubSpot again, because I think HubSpot did this so well. And it's an example that we can all relate to. Your podcast. The name is a great example of the power of what they were able to do, how this came to market. I hate to say it, they were just a blogging, search engine optimization, social media, and eventually an email tool mixed into one. They were not the only player doing this at the time. However, they thought about this brilliantly. They needed people to see the way they wanted things to change. They were advocating for us to use these tools instead of cold calling, billboards, et cetera. The way that they got people to make that shift was to create a dichotomy or create an enemy. I actually presented on this at their conference two years ago, create an enemy. You can find it on their inbound library. And they saw the world in two ways. There's inbound and outbound. There's the new way forward, Mrs. Beleaguered marketer, who doesn't want to lose her job, the way that you're not going to fall to irrelevancy. And there's the old way that you're going to fall behind if you keep using it. They were extremely polarizing with this perspective. It was just one article that started all of this, right? They were like, "Here's the way forward. This inbound and outbound. One is good. One is bad. White, black, right? Devil, whatever it is." And 80% of the market was like, "Oh man, there's no way I'm going to go there." They were pissed because HubSpot is over here, challenging the existing status quo, the way they sell. 20% saw that and went, "Oh, you're right. Let's opt into this." And so HubSpot now of course built an entire movement around inbound marketing. It is a practice. It is a job title. It is a category in and of itself because they started with that kernel of what changes do we need to create. We need to figure out a way to get people to move from A to B, to go from what they think they know to what we want to advocate for. And then they brilliantly built a movement around it. And they did so with a ton of content ideas, a community of people that were proud to call themselves inbound marketers and this kind of repetitive, consistent muscle they use to push the movement forward, now extending years and a $125 million IPO and19,000 people at their conference. It just has ballooned because they were smart about this kernel of truth that they've never deviated from. Are you going to be the next HubSpot? No. This is right place, right time, right conditions and market. But, you do have to find and be willing to provoke, with purpose, the existing beliefs of buyers, and then be consistent about that. If you can do that, your startup is going to make a lot of noise. You're going to punch well above your weight. Even if you don't have the biggest budget, you're going to make waves and you have to be willing to do that or risk falling into irrelevance. Kathleen: It's a really incredible story, that story of HubSpot and it's certainly not the only one. You have Mark Benioff at Salesforce who famously picketed outside with a sign that had a big red X through the word software. And he similarly named the enemy and it was software and his solution was move to the cloud, software as a service. That is an approach that absolutely works. I would say to go out and read The Challenger Sale. So many sales people read it, but so few marketers do, and I love that you brought it up in this conversation. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: We are going to run out of time soon so I want to make sure I ask you my questions. I could talk to you forever. My first question that I always ask my guests is of course, this podcast is all about inbound marketing, and is there a particular company or individual that you think is just a great example of how to do inbound marketing in today's world? Katie: I think Rand Fishkin and his work with Moz and now with SparkToro which he actually details really well in a book called Lost and Founder. It's a great book. If you're thinking of starting a company read this first. It may scare you away, but he always was the example for me of somebody who was again, challenging white hat versus black hat, giving away all the industry secrets to become a trusted industry resource, to ranked the highest, but it really builds trust in his company and him as an individual. And I think it's just his consistency, Whiteboard Fridays, he was writing five days a week. That's still the best example of consistent inbound marketing. Kathleen: You know, it's so funny because I could not agree with you more. He is somebody that I have followed really closely. I read his book. I read everything he does at SparkToro. I follow him religiously. And I have been very surprised. I think you might be the first person that has mentioned his name. I ask this question of every single guest and that has baffled me because I think he's amazing. So I'm really happy that you said that. Katie: He's also the world's nicest guy. We both spoke at the SpiceWorld conference in, I want to say, 2018. Both of us were speaking in the marketing track and I'm sitting here backstage fan girling because I love him. Who hasn't read his stuff? He comes off stage with the mustache. He's the nicest guy. He's just, you know, very down to earth. And I think that's the secret. He wrote this content to truly help others. And I think that genuine purpose behind the content is really what sets him apart. More people should have mentioned him. Kathleen: Yes. I agree. And maybe they will now because we'll turn them on to his stuff. All right. Second question. You mentioned earlier that the biggest fear of marketers is falling behind. And the second question I always ask everybody is exactly that. It's like every marketer I talk to says, they feel like they're drinking from a fire hose. There's too much to keep up with. So how do you personally stay up to date and keep yourself educated? Katie: 100% LinkedIn. I'm a huge advocate for using LinkedIn appropriately. I have a big following there, so I love it as a platform, but I also use it to consume a lot of best practices. I ask a lot of questions. I'm constantly looking through comments. It's become a resource that just, I find invaluable. It's a mess. Sometimes now people take advantage of LinkedIn to post some really nonsense stuff, but at the core of it, it's there. Can I give two answers? There's a lot of Slack communities that are being built around specific topic areas. I'm not in marketing, but I'm part of a great marketing operations Slack group that keeps me knowing what's going on. I work with a lot of MarTech vendors still as an amplifier now and a community evangelist. I need to know what's going on. And so even on that, in the practice, these Slack groups are hidden sources of insight. So if there's not a Slack group for your world, your community, build it, invite people. They will come. This is not field of dreams. They're desperate to connect, one-On-one, sometimes outside of the loud world that is LinkedIn. Kathleen: That group would not happen to be the MoPro's would it? Katie: No, but now I want to join that one. Kathleen: I'll send you a link. A guy I interviewed once for this podcast has a marketing operations Slack group that I am in. But I agree with you. I have a ton of Slack groups and there's only like, let's say, two or three of them that I'm religious about checking every day. They're just insanely valuable. But, love all of those suggestions. Again, I could talk to you all day long, but we're not going to do that because we both have other things we need to do. Great conversation. I'm sure people will have opinions, both ways, about what we said here today, but that's okay. That's why these conversations are important to have. If you listened and you disagree, tweet me. I would love to hear your perspective. This is all about learning and listening and I'd love to hear what more folks think about this. How to connect with Katie Kathleen: But Katie, if somebody wants to learn more about you or connect with you online, what is the best way for them to do that? Katie: They can Google me. I'm very, very, very Google-able. You can LinkedIn me. You can find my website. I'm just, I'm everywhere. Kathleen, congratulations on over 150 episodes of this. This is a service to the community and we are grateful for it and it's a lot of work to put these together. So thank you for doing what you do and thank you for having me, really. Kathleen: Well, I very much appreciate it. And I will put links to your personal website as well as your LinkedIn in the show notes. So head there if you want to connect with Katie, and she does produce some amazing stuff, so I highly recommend it. You know what to do next... Kathleen: If you're listening and you liked what you heard today, or you just felt like you learned something new, I would love it if you would leave the podcast a five star review on Apple podcasts, because that is how other people learn about the podcast. And finally, if you know somebody else who's doing amazing inbound marketing work, please tweet me @workmommywork, because I would love to make them my next guest. That's it for this week. Thank you so much, Katie. Katie: Thank you, Kathleen. Everyone take care.

"Unapologetic marketing truthteller" and on-demand communications specialist Katie Martell talks about the power of cause-aligned marketing as opposed to "pandering," and explains how to avoid the latter.

In this week’s episode, Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose is wondering if we’re bouncing back – or forward. He offers his fresh take on how (or whether) to plan for an economic bounce back. Robert talks with “unapologetic marketing truth teller” Katie Martell about the intersection of marketing and social movements. And he shares an article about the disruptive change we need now. And that’s a wrap for the week ending May 29, 2020. NEWS ITEM OF THE WEEK Marketers should be planning for an economic bounceback https://www.marketingweek.com/marketers-planning-economic-bounceback/ INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK This week I talked with Katie Martell, a self-described “unapologetic marketing truth teller.” A whip-smart B2B content marketing strategist, Katie was the executive director of Boston Content, a community of content practitioners, and the chief marketing officer and co-founder of Cintell, a Boston-based B2B content marketing provider. A writer, speaker, and emcee, she hosts the live social-platform-based Exceptional Truths https://www.katie-martell.com/exceptional-truths Learn more from Katie: Follow her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiemartell/ Visit her website: https://www.katie-martell.com/ OUR CONTENT MARKETING IDEA OF THE WEEK Content Management and Strategy: A Disruptive Change We Need [New Research] https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2020/05/content-strategy-research/ SPONSOR SiteCore Organizations all over the world are being forced to reevaluate their business plans and marketing strategies. The luxury of being able to take a leisurely approach to a digital transformation is no longer an option. Making human connections with customers in our suddenly digital-heavy world should be a top priority. And that means putting your digital transformation on the fast track. Recognized by analysts as a leader in digital experience platforms, Sitecore can help you create memorable customer experiences that build brand trust and loyalty. Learn more at http://cmi.media/sitecore_weekly_wrap_2  

What's the best way to develop a content strategy that reflects the reality of today's buyer journey? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Ashley Faus, who is the Content Strategy Lead for Software Teams at Atlassian, shares why she thinks a playground provides a better analogy than a funnel for marketers looking to develop their content strategy, and how to use the concept of a content playground to provide your customers and prospects with a better buying experience. Highlights from my conversation with Ashley include: Many marketers use the concepts of the linear funnel and the looping decision journey to develop their content strategies, but Ashley says that those don't reflect the reality of how people buy. Much like in a playground, where there isn't a singular goal (get to the top of the jungle gym!), your prospects aren't always ready to buy and may have other interests. For this reason, a playground offers a better analogy. Rather than forcing prospects to follow a specific journey that we as marketers have determined is ideal, Ashley recommends focusing on creating strong content depth that allows your prospects to follow their own journey, wherever it takes them. For smaller teams that are just getting started, Ashley recommends identifying your "hedgehog principle" - that one thing you do better than everyone else - and creating a very in-depth piece of content on that. Then, you can use that content to repurpose into a variety of assets that can be used on social media, for your trade shows, in the sales process, etc. The key is to find a topic that is substantive enough to support the development of this amount of content.  In terms of how this content gets presented on your website, Ashley recommends ungating it, and then being very explicit with your CTAs so that your website visitors know exactly what they will get if they click a button.  She also suggests adding a related content module on your site to encourage visitors to browse through your content. The best way to begin measuring the impact of your strategy is to use simple tools like Google Analytics in combination with UTMs. As you grow, you can use more sophisticated marketing automation software like HubSpot or Marketo. Resources from this episode: Visit the Atlassian website Connect with Ashley on LinkedIn Follow Ashley on Twitter Check out Atlassian's Team Playbook and Agile Microsite Listen to the podcast to learn why envisioning your buyer's journey -- and their interactions with your content -- as a playground is a more effective way to approach the development of a content strategy. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week my guest is Ashley FOSS, who is the content strategy lead for software teams at Atlassian. Welcome Ashley. Ashley Faus (Guest): Nice to be here. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so happy to have you here. Ashley and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: And, and for those who are listening, you can't see it. But Ashley has an awesome virtual Zoom background of the golden gate bridge. That's one of my favorite things about the pandemic is that it is revealing people's personalities through the Zoom backgrounds that they choose.  Ashley: It's been interesting. I actually think didn't have the latest version of Zoom. I got scared that if I upgraded and something went wrong, I wouldn't have access to it. So for a long time I was the lame person that didn't have a background and it was just my kitchen the whole time. So yes, I finally upgraded. Tell any of the listeners that are hesitant, you can upgrade. And it's not going to ruin your computer. And you, too, can have a nice virtual backgrounds. Kathleen: Oh yeah. For our all hands meetings at my office. We've been having so much fun with just seeing the backgrounds that people come to these meetings with. It's, it's awesome. It reveals so much about their personalities. About Ashley and Atlassian Kathleen: But so we have so much to talk about. And the first thing I want to talk about is really have you explain to my listeners what Atlassian is, and then also your background and what led you to your current role as Content Strategy Lead. Ashley: Sure. So Atlassian is a collaboration software maker. A lot of people are very familiar with JIRA, Confluence, Trello, Bitbucket, Status Page. We have a number of different products that people use all the time. JIRA especially is a staple for software teams. So I actually started at Atlassian two and a half years ago and I moved among a couple of different teams. My background is primarily marketing, but I actually started on the corporate communications team, moved over to editorial, doing a mix of content strategy, social media, thought leadership for the corporate side, and then just recently made the move over onto software teams. One thing that's kind of interesting and great is having that diverse background has given me that ability to move across different areas and go where my skills can be most useful. So I'm excited to dive in. I'm fairly new to the role, so it's been an interesting transition to try to onboard from home and then also start to get up to speed both from a content standpoint and a strategy standpoint, and then also from a tactical standpoint of where are all the different boards, where's the JIRA tickets? Like what's the process, what are the meetings? So, um, it's been fun. It's been fun. Kathleen: I will definitely say as far as Atlassian is concerned, I've been a user of so many of the company's products. I've used Confluence and JIRA. I'm currently using Trello. I know our dev team uses a number of products as well. It's a great company and a great suite of products, especially for anybody who's practicing agile, which I have done a few times. And so that was another reason I was excited to talk to you. But one of the things I think is really interesting is, you know, you mentioned you're relatively new in the role and we were just talking before we came on and you were explaining how your fiscal year, it's going to change over pretty soon. And so not only are you relatively new in the role, but you're being thrust into the situation of having to plan and strategize for a whole new year in the middle of the pandemic, no less all of these things happening at once. Your current focus is on content and I was really fascinated by how you think about content and content strategy planning and this concept of the content playground. So could you talk a little bit about that and what do you mean when you say a content playground?  What is a content playground? Ashley: I started thinking about it because I needed a new metaphor. Everybody that I talked to was talking about primarily the linear funnel. And you know, you've got your three phases with your editorial calendar and you say, "I need three content, three pieces of content per phase. I'm going to do one per month. Cool. Now I have nine months of content strategy, if my math works out". Most of your listeners are probably sitting there going, "That's not how you do content strategy. You can't just say one piece of content per phase and then call it". Kathleen: Wouldn't it be nice if you could though?  Ashley: You bought a calendar, write three articles and you're done. Then, you know, I know a lot of people have moved on to the looping decision journey where you basically add a fourth phase in there. And you're kind of almost recycling these people, but now there's a cross sell or upsell, but somehow you're dumping them back into that awareness phase from the linear funnel. If you look at the Google results for both the linear funnel and the looping decision funnel, it's kind of terrifying. It's very confusing. It basically just shows that we all agree that humans don't work this way. Nobody just goes politely down our little funnel. The 10-3-1 conversion was kind of the standard for a long time. You get 10 people in awareness. A certain amount of drops. So you get three into consideration to be able to get one to that kind of purchase decision. I was really wrestling with this because I was like, how do you create content in a way that allows people to do what they actually do, which is enter and exit and go sideways and all of that? So I had originally come up with this idea of a jungle gym. But there's two problems with that -- mainly that there's only one objective. It's either to get to the top or, if you're my three year old nephew, it's to go across without touching the lava below that. It's still me as a marketer forcing you into what I want you to do and it's taking all these touch points and saying, what's the fewest number of touch points that I can use to get you to a purchase? And yes, ultimately we need to sell products. Ultimately we have to make money as businesses, but it feels bad to everybody to just constantly be like, are you just trying to sell me something? Like what's the catch? I don't really trust you because I know you're trying to sell me. So if you look at an actual playground though, what's the point of the playground? Is the person who's sitting on the bench just enjoying the sunshine? Are they enjoying the playground the wrong way? No, actually perfectly acceptable. Sit on the bench. Again, you know, thinking about what the right way is to play on the playground for the adults and the playground designers, going down the slide is the right way. Three year old nephew, every time wants to go up the slide. If you translate that to content strategy, I recently had an example of this where in the traditional funnel, pricing is considered a very bottom of funnel action. If I'm asking you about price, man, I'm ready to buy. Well, in my case, I needed to go ask for budget before I could even do the RFP and I had no idea what that budget should be for. It was going to be a SaaS product. So understanding, you know, the subscription, SLA, the licensing tiers, all of that. And so I started reaching out to some vendors in the space asking them for just ballpark pricing so I could go get budget. And so many of them were like, well, allow me to send you a white paper about why this matters a lot and you know, Oh, you need to do a demo. And I'm like, Nope, I don't want to waste my time going through your traditional funnel when I don't even know if I have a budget yet. Kathleen: I have to just interject there and say amen because this has been a frustration of mine for so long. I had this recently with a marketing software product. It was exactly what you're talking about. It was last November and I was working on my budget and I knew that I was not going to purchase this product until halfway through 2020. And that was even before all this craziness with the pandemic hit. But I needed a placeholder number for it in my budget. So there's no chance I was going to engage in, like multi meetings and demos and hours long calls with people to pitch me what I know I'm not ready to buy yet. I just needed a price. There's nothing more frustrating than companies that make it that hard and it wasn't a one time thing. I just found myself doing this yesterday. Somebody started talking about email signature software and they mentioned the name of a new company, and I literally Googled the company name and pricing because I was like, I don't even want to waste my time looking at everything else and getting excited about it if I can't afford it. Ashley: Yeah, well, and it's interesting too because once I got the budget approved, I was already completely sold that this problem needed to be solved. I just needed to get management on board that yes, we are committed to solving this problem. So then I actually got into the sales process and you know, I started kind of at the top of that and I just said, look, I'm bought in, draw me all the way down to the bottom of the funnel and I want you to just pitch me. Kathleen: Yeah.  Ashley: It blew the sales people's minds. And they're like, well, let me just go through the deck. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I don't know how many slides you have, but I'm telling you I'm bought in, I agree with you. This has impact. It solves a problem that I have. I have money, here's what my budget is. I'm BANT qualified. I need you to drop me all the way in and I need you to sell me. A majority of them just froze because they didn't know how to go through there. They only know how to do this step by step. And that's where I think the content playground comes in. Obviously there's a sales component to this too. When you do get people who just want to jump right in, I wouldn't send them to play on the swings. That's what we're doing right now. We're spending all our time on the swings. Let's just do it. Quit trying to force them to go down the slide. It's so funny because people have this idea that there's a specific way that you're supposed to build the relationship and you're supposed to, you know, okay, let's get you through the marketing funnel and get you through MQL and then SQL and then a sale. And it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes you meet somebody and they come at you and they're like, no, I'm literally ready to sign on the dotted line, whether it's you or one of your competitors. So why should it be you? Kathleen: Yeah. And not only is that an issue, but it's like I'm going to sign and it's going to be fast. So if you can't meet my fast timeline, just get out of my way. Exactly. That's so interesting. I love that concept. How to use the concept of a content playground to develop your content strategy Kathleen: So give me an example of, conceptually, how does that play out in terms of developing and executing your strategy? Ashley: I've done this at a number of different companies and then we also, you know, do this similar type of thing, whether you see whether you recognize it and call it a content playground or not. When you start to recognize companies that do it because you go through and there's a nice experience to say, Oh, I've kind of landed in this problem space or solution space and now I have the ability to go explore. So we've done that quite a bit in it last year and moving into this content strategy role on software teams, I'm getting exposed to some great ways that they've done it. So for example, we have this agile microsite and then we paired that last year with this agile coach series. This is all work that has been done that I'm excited to come in and kind of optimize and see how can we replicate this across other content types. And it basically says, you know, yes, JIRA helps you run in an agile way, but if you don't have the right practices set up and you don't have that mindset in those processes, a tool is not the thing that's going to fix it for you. And so sure we can sell you JIRA, but if we don't show you the right way to set up the workflows, if we don't help you have acceptable standups, if we don't help you improve your retros, having these things on a board is not going to solve, you know, your agility problems. And so putting that together, if you look at it from a content depth standpoint, instead of organizing around specific phases of the funnel, organizing it around content depth. So from a conceptual standpoint, what the heck is agile? Why does it matter? What kinds of success, you know, have people seen with it, what are the problems from a strategy standpoint, what are the practices and rituals? So that's where you get into some of the standups. That's where you get into some of the retros. And then from a tactic standpoint, how do you actually do those things? And so we have a number of things from the agile coach series, from the agile microsite and also our team playbook, which talks about things like my user manual. So how do you work together as a team? Um, putting together project coasters for kickoffs. And then yes, there's some product demos in there. There's some guides in there, there's some tutorials, there's here workflows that you can set up to do that in JIRA or to do that in Trello. But it's really that full content experienced to say, I just need help figuring out how to run my standups or my retros. And then, cool that I can do that in JIRA as well. So I previously worked at Duarte, if you're familiar with Nancy Duarte's work. Um, she wrote Resonate, which was, you know, a big game changer for a lot of people. They do workshops, they do presentation design for tons of big names and Fortune 500 companies. So we did this in a number of ways. When we launched her slide decks book for example, we put that as a free, ungated version on SlideShare. And then we linked over to this kind of more traditional inbound strategy page where you've got a landing page with a form, you give away a free piece of content, show good faith that this is good quality, and then you've got a form fill out to download some templates that people could use that would then drop people into a drip campaign where we would showcase more templates, we would showcase some use cases that we had built and give them more content to ultimately lead them to say, "Hey, if you want to buy a workshop to learn how to do this at a pro level, here's how you can do that." Getting started with your content playground Kathleen: So if I love the whole concept here, and I love the notion of content depth because I do think that there are so many marketers that almost try to cover too much and they skim the surface on everything and it doesn't work. I think the thing that could be challenging about this is hearing that, like, where do you start and how do you, how do you get there? Because you can't snap your fingers and have a lot of depth in all these topics right away. And also, how do you know what those top level topics are? If you were teaching this to somebody, how would you walk them through that? Ashley: So there's a couple of ways that, uh, we've been able to do it at Atlassian. Obviously we're fortunate we have a large team and a ton of experts that have complimentary skills. So for example, we have done a ton of keyword research to understand both search intent and the specific wording of that. From a market standpoint, agile came in and changed the game, and it turns out that JIRA was actually a really good fit to run agile. So we already kind of were keeping a pulse on the market and we started to see that agile is becoming this very mainstream thing, that our tool and our technology is really useful in helping people run. So let's focus on agile. Okay, where do we focus? And that's where things like SEO and keyword research, that's where focus groups, that's where digging through the feedback that your customers are giving you and asking like, what are the top questions in terms of workflows? How do those map to things like running scrum teams or running Kanban boards? How does that now map to workflows and guides and onboarding tutorials that we would share with somebody who starts with your product or working with Trello products, for example? So I would say I'm doing a listening exercise and there's a number of tools. You could do it on social media as well, particularly for software devs, which is one of our core audiences. They hang out on Hacker News, they hang out on Reddit. And so go look there. That's, that's another core tenant I think as marketers is loving the whole human and not just who are you as a buyer? I only care about you as a buyer or user. How do I get you to engage in the product every day or buy more of the service? Okay, these people have lives. And so if you can figure out what do they love, what are they passionate about outside of the one thing you're trying to sell them, that also gives you an entire new space to explore for thinking about what topics could you engage in. And so, when you think about engineers, efficiency, optimization, clean and concise process is something that's very important to them. Well what are some of the frameworks or what are some of the topics that deal with optimization that could potentially lead you to lead you to something like Six Sigma or manufacturing for example, right? There's a lot of ways that you could think about it if you just know what do engineers generally like? And it's like, they really like efficiency. They like optimization, they like tight, elegant solutions and just jump off from there to see, okay, what are the specific topic areas that would coincide with your product offering? And with the things that they generally care about, what does that mean? Kathleen: And if you don't have an enormous team and you want to take this approach, how do you do it? Because I imagine you'd have a choice of like, okay, I've identified 10 areas that I want to go deep on, you know, and I could either take area number one and fully play it out and develop all the content. Or I could do one article for each of the 10 areas and then go back and do the second article. Like how would you tackle it? Ashley: Yeah. So one of the things that Nancy Duarte actually talks about a ton, from Jim Collins book Good to Great is this concept of the hedgehog principle. And that's if you can do one thing and be the best at it, just do that one thing. So instead of trying to spread yourself too thin across all of those 10 topics, I would be ruthless initially in what is the thing that we actually have the ability to talk about without having to spend a ton of time and energy going and finding that expertise? What's the thing that leads most to the product market fit, or the service market fit, whichever of those that you're selling? And then what's the thing that has depth? This is something that I see a lot, is people start throwing topics on the board and you're like, okay, but how many words can you actually say about that thing? And for the most part, people were like, "Whoa". And it's like you can't even say one sentence about it. How are you going to write a full article? And then that also gets into, it's not just one article, it's okay, how do we also turn that into a video? How do we turn that into an infographic? How do we turn that into a social media post? Because this thing has to live for a lot of time. Nobody has time to keep creating net new content all the time. And so if this piece can't be repurposed or broken apart, it probably doesn't have enough depth to chase. So I would say if you're very first, starting from scratch, to limit it to probably two, maybe three topics that are related to each other and that you know, have depth. And I would say especially if you're dealing with a small team, like you're at a start up and the founder is kind of the only person who could talk about this, I'm definitely limiting that to two topics that you know you have in house expertise and then doing a good job to capture that from a conceptual, strategic and tactical standpoint the first time. And then go with the repurposing strategy. So instead of saying, "Oh my gosh, we have to cover it, a thousand words or a 20 minute video every single time", think about it as, no, nobody wants to read that, nobody's going to scroll through all of that. So let them pick their journey of how deep they want to go. Repurposing your content Kathleen: So can you dig in a little bit more to that repurposing topic because I was interested to hear you discuss all the different ways that the content can manifest, because I think a lot of people might hear this and think it's a bunch of blogs, but it's, it's really not. Ashley: One of my favorite campaigns that was super successful, there was a startup that I worked at that got acquired by Oracle called Palerra. Palerra was a cloud access security broker, which, you know, doesn't matter as much to the majority of the audience if they're not in tech, but, basically they're kind of a complimentary security product to a lot of cloud offerings. We were primarily an enterprise solution. Technology is a really heavy topic. And so what we did, when I came in, there was this raw word doc of just random customer interviews, and problems that they had faced. And so for example, we all know on a personal level we should update our passwords regularly. A lot of companies have that installed where it's like 72 days time to change your password. So at an enterprise security level, there's a similar concept for your keys to your different cloud services. And so we had a scenario where there was a customer that hadn't rotated their keys in like two years. It blew our minds. So our product actually found that. So we actually were talking about cautionary tales and focusing specifically on AWS because that cloud offering is quite ubiquitous among our customers and these are a lot of common pitfalls that our products can help solve. So we called it a cautionary tale. We turned it into an ebook first that then became the basis for our booth graphics at AWS Reinvent. And then we had a booth giveaway. We put an Amazon Tap in a clear box and then we had a bowl of keys sitting next to it and they looked identical. And so you drew a key and if it unlocked the box, you won the Tap. And so that was able to lead us into, "Have you rotated your keys? How are you doing password management?" But not just those basic tactical issues, but also like how do you know there's even a working key in the bowl? How do you know that Kathleen is supposed to have the key and not Ashley? What happens to the keys after the show? So let's say Kathleen and Ashley both leave and the bowls just sitting there. Now what happens to the keys? Right? And our product can help with that. And from a security standpoint, those are a lot of blind spots that at the time people were missing. And then the nice thing about that being at a security conference, people were very skeptical that there were any working keys in the bowl. Right? There's no keys. Yeah. So every time someone won, we took a picture and then we put it on the company Twitter feed. And then if they had a Twitter handle, we tagged them and ask them to retweet. And so there were people, and I mean we had people, well, again, they're very methodical about this. They're like, okay, it looks like roughly once an hour people are winning. So the last time somebody won, they just won. Okay, well I'm going to come back and try again later. Kathleen: Like people play slots.  Ashley: Yeah. It's like slots. But that was a great way. And then we were also able to share that ebook on Twitter as well to say, "Hey, if you're curious why we're taking pictures of the food, you can read this ebook." And then we were able to send that as well with some deeper case studies to anybody that we had scanned at the booth. So it was a really nice integrated online, offline and social media experience. That's another one of my pet peeves is people who are just like, come to booth 123. I'm not at the conference so you're just going to spam me for three days. So making sure that you have content that tells a story to your social media audience, whether they're attending the conference or not. Kathleen: That's great. That's a really good point about the shows too. Because yeah, you do so much marketing. And if somebody is not going, it's just annoying. How to share your content on your website Kathleen: So if you've created all this content, what does that look like on the website from an experience standpoint? Are there content hubs? Is it a resource center? How do you organize this all for presentation to your audience? Ashley: I think it really depends on the audience. I think HubSpot, obviously from the hub and spoke model that they've done, is amazing so that you can kind of see, you can dive in deep per topic, you could dive in deep from an integrative marketing standpoint, you can dive in deep from a tech stack standpoint and obviously they have solutions for that. So the way that they've organized it is actually really great because it allows people to kind of slice and dice how they want. One of the things that we've done that I think is really great and it lasts and is, for example, on the work-life blog, which is like a corporate level, so deals with things like teamwork, practices, leadership, et cetera. We've got a related articles function. And so when you get to the bottom of the article, yes, there's a CTA. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, you want to um, go talk in the community. Or in some cases where we're doing product focused content, it's go to the product tour or something like that. But then at the bottom there's related content. And so we have a mix of collections, a mix of tags, and then those get fed into the related content. And so there's always a next step for people to take. I think that's the biggest thing, whether you organize it as a hub, whether you organize it as a resource center that's done by topic filtering or content tagging, that ability for somebody to always take the next step and to, to only force that next step to be a buying action if they're in a head space for buying action. So if you're on a product tour, the request a demo or the sign up for free, or the do an evaluation for seven days or 30 days, whatever it is, that makes perfect sense. But if you've just read an article about productivity, it's a really hard landing to talk about five tips to manage your time and then all of a sudden be dropped into, you know, by the way, you need to buy Trello. It's like, why would I do that? So making sure that there's always a next logical action that either takes them deeper toward a purchase or deeper tool, words and practices that will help them or allow them to say, I don't know how I landed here. How do I get back to the first thing that I clicked so that I can get back on the path where I think I should be? Kathleen: Yeah. How do you execute that? Because you just gave the example of somebody who's just poking around and then they're all of a sudden getting pushed to buy. You know, being that it's a playground and people can go in any number of directions, how do you craft those next steps so that they make sense? Ashley: I think the biggest thing is, there's obviously an ideal customer journey and that does include some post-sale engagement. That could be things like documentation. It could be a support community. But really, I mean even from like, um, practically accessibility, labeling your buttons with what it is you're doing. Are you downloading this? Are you reading this? Are you clicking to do an evaluation? Are you starting a trial for free? What is that? And then that way people are very clear whenever they get down there, they know what they're clicking on. I know I've had this experience a few times where it's like, see more. And I'm like, yes, I wish to do that. And it automatically takes me into this form where it's like put in a credit card. And I'm like, you didn't tell me that's what I was doing. That's not, I didn't agree to that. So having really clear navs and in the resource center, not having buy CTAs all over the resources. For example, Intercom does a great job with this. They're a messaging, communication growth platform. You can go over to their journal section or their resource center and it's all thought leadership. It's all very high level and they state at the top, "This is free content. It's educational, no sales." And so, you know, when you're that part of the website, you're not going to get sold to and there's a nice handy button at the top. It's like go back to home. And that's where, you know, you could either be directed down an education path or sales path and you can kind of choose. So I think just being really explicit. We're past the point of I'm going to trick you into sales. It might've been on LinkedIn. I saw a discussion that maybe you and somebody else were having about, "Oh, I got a thousand leads from this form. And the question is, are they qualified?" Jay Acunzo actually has a whole rant about this. Stop gating your best content and then pretending whoever fills out that form is a lead sales lead. That's not what they agreed to. And so don't try and trick your audience. If they want to buy, they'll let you know. If they want to be educated and they want to form a relationship with you, they'll do that. And so giving them a clear path to let them either do sales or build a relationship makes them feel empowered. It gives everybody good feelings and it doesn't clutter up your sales process with people that are junk, that are not qualified or that are not actually interested in buying. Kathleen: So true. I find it's counterintuitive because, I started a few years ago ungating as much content as I possibly could and just putting it on the page and then adding like a little field just for email saying, "Want to get the PDF? Put your email in." And that was it.  What was fascinating to me is that not only did conversion rates not go down, in many cases, they went up. It's really psychology if you think about it. There's so much crappy gated content out there and the problem with gating it, first of all, is people are very jaded and a lot of them will think, I'm not giving up my email only to find out that this is junk. And so then they don't convert at all. Whereas, if you give the content away and then give them the option of downloading, you're basically allowing them to try before they buy. You're proving that what you're giving them is really good and if they do think it's really good, they are going to convert because they're like, "Well, it's no skin off my back. This is great content. I don't mind giving up my email address for it." And so the people that wind up converting on the ungated content are more qualified because they've self qualified. The other thing I've found, it goes back to your thing about being explicit, is especially when you don't have things gated, like on the page before or in the marketing you're doing for it, just coming right out and saying, "No need to fill out a form to get it." Ashley: Yeah. Kathleen: You don't have to give us your email address. People are so naturally almost defensive or they're like, Oh, Nope, Nope, Nope. They're going to ask for something. And if you can just come out and say, I'm not going to ask you for anything, that goes a long way. Ashley: Well, and I think what's interesting in this, in this thought about building relationships and giving that content away, a great example, there's a company that I worked with, they were an agency for us. We were a startup. We were using, you know, a lot of agencies and freelancers and they host these dinners and it's basically, you know, just get five, six, seven people together, have dinner, nerd out about marketing topics. And yes, we all know full well some of us are current customers of this company. Some people are prospects of the company. But I don't have budget or need to work with them anymore. But every single time I meet somebody that says that they have the need that this company services, I refer them and I refer probably three or four clients to them. I would continue to do that and we have a great relationship. They still invite me to the dinners. I sent one of my colleagues to a dinner to basically make a connection to say this might be relevant for you to meet some people that we might want to put spokespeople on panels with in the future. And so that willingness to connect with each other. I'm loyal to that company even though I have no budget and no need to buy from them right now. But I'm referring, I'm still giving them revenue because again, it's, it's fine for, for me, when I meet somebody at a conference and they're like, how would you do this? I'm like, actually this is a great company. Would you like an intro? And so a buying action may not necessarily be the person who downloaded the content buys. It may be, I mean, again, I talk about Intercom. I love the content that IDEO puts out. Again, I have no need to buy their services at this point, but I tell everybody, go look at HubSpot's content or go look at Intercom's content. And so there's no way for them to measure that. I'm just another random name on their list that hasn't converted, but I'm a brand champion for them and they don't even know it, you know? Measuring the ROI of your content playground Kathleen: That's awesome. So speaking of measuring, you get this all set up. You deploy it. How do you track and measure whether it's working, how it's working, et cetera? Ashley: So I've done this in a number of different ways depending on the company and the strategy and the bandwidth and all of that kind of stuff. If you're just starting out in your tiny little team, and you don't have the ability to do, you know, Tableau or Databricks or kind of all of these fancy data pipelines, at minimum just start out with your Google tracking. Google has free stuff that you can put on. Use your UTM codes to understand if these things are getting tracked from a social media standpoint, what's the referrals, if you are using any pages with forms from any of the marketing automation providers. Again, I'm pretty partial to HubSpot just because I think they do amazing content. The platform is great. We've used Marketo in the past, and other companies. So any of those are great to really understand what are the trends. I think that's the biggest thing. Making sure that you're looking at a correct trend level. I've worked a lot on the social media side and people get freaked out per post. "Oh my gosh, we did 10 posts last week and this one did, you know, half a percent better than this one." And it's like, let's zoom out and look monthly. How are things trending? Let's do some testing to see if we post more. Does our engagement rate go down if we, um, the other big thing is optimizing the CTA is for what you want to happen. So it's going to be really impossible for you to get somebody to like, comment, retweet, follow, and click through all in the same posts. Like there's not enough words for that post. And so making sure that each CTA belongs where it should be. So if you're asking for a poll on Twitter or Facebook, that's the goal. Responses in feed is the goal versus explicitly asking someone to click through. Make that explicit and you need to make sure that you're putting in some sort of hook or benefit. I see this a lot with people who are just starting in social media, for example, that they just give the title of the article or they just say, read these five tips. Well, what are they? On the opposite extreme, they give it away and they say, here's the five tips. And then they laid them out. And I'm like, well, now why do I need to read the article? You already gave me the tips. Give me the first tip that you think is the most interesting and then say, click through to read the next four tips. Kathleen: Right? Ashley: So, from a measurement standpoint, being very clear on a per post basis about what your goals are, if you're looking at click through rate or engagement rates and what type of engagement. So that's kind of more from a social media standpoint. If you're doing YouTube, if the answer is subscribe to the channel, if the answer is watch the next video, if the answer is go visit the page, those are very different actions. And so making sure you're optimizing those. And then obviously looking at things like organic traffic is always great. Looking at whether you have emails or product tours. From an email standpoint, looking at the open rates and the click to open ratio. So a lot of people look at the CTR, but that's a little bit out of whack. If there's a thousand people that opened it, but you sent it to 5,000, it's not very fair to say what's the CTR on the 5,000? Use it on the thousand. In some cases we've gotten really granular to look at which pieces of content get the most clicks. And so that helps us to understand, it's great that you want to put 10 pieces of content in the newsletter, but if only the first five ever get clicked, you need to find something else to do because you're not amplifying those things. Kathleen: How do you get people down further? Ashley: Yeah, exactly. What kinds of results can you expect? Kathleen: So any examples of like, what kinds of results does taking this approach yield in terms of pipeline or engagement or revenue or any of the above? Ashley: Yeah. From a scale standpoint, it depends. It's not very fair to say like, Oh, you'll get a thousand leads. It's like, okay, well if your revenue goal is 10,000, that's a struggle. Or if you're a billion dollar company, a thousand leads doesn't do you any good, right? So, we've done content pairing for example, where we've done a mix of gated content and ungated content. When we did that at Duarte, the ungated piece has over 300,000 views. Now it's been up for a couple of years, but it's got over 300,000 views. We were getting roughly 10 to 15% download rates of people going and getting that content. And so that's something where you're still getting the benefit of the people looking at it for free and ungated, but then you're starting to see higher engagement, you know, 10, 15% on that. Whenever I've done newsletter sends that have been more thought leadership focused with very light touch sales, we've been able to see 20, 30% open rates, 15 to 25% CTOR rates. Again, because we're serving that content that they've requested, not trying to shoehorn in sales. Whenever we've done sales, as a piece of content, like, "Hey, get a trial" or "Use this code" or "Refer" or "Here's an eCourse and then we'll give you one module for free because you've signed up for this newsletter" or something like that, those do have a much higher conversion rate for whatever the next buying action is. Again, it depends on the scale. So like the Palerra one at the time, you know, that ebook and we were a tiny little company. I mean we only had, I think when we got acquired, we had maybe 60 employees total. So very small company, 10 by 20 booth at AWS Reinvent, which is a massive conference. And we got, you know, almost 2000 views on that small ungated ebook. And then we got substantially higher open rates, and then our lead scans at that booth, I mean it was ridiculous. I want to say we scanned like 500 people and at most shows we were only scanning probably a hundred to 112 and so it was huge because it all tied in. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: That's awesome. Well shifting gears because we're gonna run out of time. I have two questions that I like to ask all my guests and I'm really curious to hear your answers because you've worked with some really interesting companies who are very good at this. Is there a particular company or individual that you think is really killing it with inbound marketing right now? Ashley: So I will do the shameless plug for Atlassian, A, because I work there so of course I think we're doing a good job. But truly, I think one of the biggest examples of this, we have our team playbook and this is something again where we connected our work futurist Don Price, has done a number of different keynotes around the world and always promotes the team playbook and that has led to this health monitor -- the team health check, understanding where your blockers are. That led to a large engagement with ANZ bank, which is a huge bank in Australia and they have now done a case study with us. They're huge champions that come for our conferences and speak about how this one tiny little interaction with this health monitor has led to this entire agile transformation across their business. It's a mix of the tools, the people, the practices, it all came together perfectly. So, yes, that had a revenue result for us, but it started with that ungated content at a conceptual level about how do you do your team work better and that's what Atlassian really tries to empower. I mentioned Intercom as well. They have a ton of great content. They've got sales manuals, they got marketing manuals that talk about a variety of different ways to think about content marketing, sales, the interaction between sales and marketing. Highly recommend their content for both sales and marketing practitioners. And then, IDEO, just like if you want to elevate your creativity and you want to kind of think outside of a traditional business or products. I work in tech, so of course I'm in this little bubble that everything is SaaS and everything is ARR. IDEO has none of that. And so every time I go to IDEO and just like, this is fascinating, how does the world work when you're not in your little bubble? And so I would say, no matter what bubble you're in, IDEO will help you get out of it. That would be three that are a mix of marketing focused, tech and then a design consultancy that's just completely out of my wheel house.  Kathleen: I can't wait to check some of those out -- particularly IDEO. It sounds really interesting. Well, second question is, the biggest pain point I was here from marketers is that digital is changing so quickly and they feel like it's drinking from a fire hose to try and keep up with everything and stay educated and on the cutting edge. So how do you personally do that? Ashley: Yeah, so from a broader view, kind of outside of marketing or just business chops, which I think is really important, it's how do we fit in and especially as you move up in your career and you become COO or something like that, understanding that business acumen is really key. I love MIT Sloan review for that content and they've been killing it lately. Every single thing that's come out from them over the last probably six or seven months, I'm like, "Yes, one hundred percent fascinating". So I love MIT Sloan from a business standpoint. There's a couple of marketers that I think are a little bit contrarian and I joked about going on rants about things and I'm like, "Yes, ranting. I love it." Katie Martell is somebody that I've been loving her content lately. Jay Acunzo I think is great. He's really honing in on podcasting and show running over the last year or so. But just in general, his thoughts on content marketing and strategy are great. I love Scott Berkun. He is primarily a designer, and more on that design thinking. He has a new book out that I need to get because it looks amazing. It's like How Design Makes the World, I think is what it's called. And it's looking at how all of these interactions and everyday things influence our path, our actions, et cetera. So Scott Berkun is great. And then I would say just like a book that I always come back to is this book called The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson. It's primarily about intersectional thinking and divergent thinking. And so yes, there's an element of understanding the tactical nitty gritty from a digital standpoint. I think there's a number of, you know, Marketing Profs, CMI, HubSpot, all of those do a really great job of that. But how do you think about change? How do you think about a problem space? How do you think about a solution space? The Medici Effect is just every, it's like I come back to it kind of annually. It's like, okay, somewhere in there I'm missing something. I should probably just reread the The Medici Effect. In fact, I should probably just to think about the concepts and The Medici Effect to jolt myself out of being so focused on, okay, what does this button on Twitter do or what does this ads do? Like are we doing AB testing? We're doing multivariate testing, what's our competence interval, whatever. We're pulling those things down. Like I don't know what the best practice is. It's like I'm clearly thinking about it in the wrong way. If I'm so twitchy about such a small detail, you get lost in the weeds pretty easily. Kathleen: Those sound like some really good resources. I will put links to all of them in the show notes. How to connect with Ashley Kathleen: If somebody is listening and they want to connect with you online or follow you or learn more about this topic, what's the best way for them to do that? Ashley: I would love to connect on LinkedIn. I'm Ashley Faus. For the most part, I think I'm the first search result for that. And you can also follow me on Twitter also @AshleyFaus. Kathleen: Great. I will put Ashley's links to her social accounts in the show notes. So head there if you want to find them. You know what to do next... Kathleen: And if you are listening and you liked what you heard today or you learned something new, and how could you not because Ashley shared so many good ideas, head to Apple podcasts and please leave the podcast a five star review. That helps us get found by more people. And if you know somebody who's doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork, because I would love to make them my next interview. Thanks so much for joining me this week, Ashley. Ashley: Yeah, thank you for having me. It's always fun to nerd out about marketing. Kathleen: Yes!

Today, we launched our podcast The Fast Traack; micro conversations all about elevating our influencer marketing skills. Our first guest is Katie Martell, an unapologetic marketing truth-teller who has been named a top voice on LinkedIn three times! She provides strategic communications guidance to high-growth brands, and has partnered with firms like Adobe, Microsoft, and Oracle. Not to mention, she's currently working on a documentary exploring the intersection of marketing and social movements.This episode is co-hosted by Evy (Wilkins) Lyons, VP of Marketing for Traackr and myself, Mackenzie Newcomb, the Influencer Marketing and Social Media Manager at Traackr, micro influencer and aspiring TikTok star. Our first episode of The Fast Traack centers around a major question on every marketer's mind right now: How can brands avoid pandering to the COVID-19 pandemic?Does every company need to send out an email?Who do customers WANT to hear from?Do you need to toss out your Q2 strategy? How can your brand be helpful in this time of crisis? While it's not the time to pause all marketing efforts, it's crucial to revisit what you had scheduled for this quarter and make plans given our “new normal”, all while ensuring we add real value and avoid coming across as tone deaf. In the words of Katie, “Put yourself in the mind of your customer, ask what they need from you now.” Then, go do it!  

Conversation with Katie Martell, an on-demand marketer and communications strategist and a self-proclaimed “Unapologetic Marketing Truth-Teller”.

In this episode, we talk to self described "unapologetic truth teller" Katie Martell about balancing the desire to be part of zeitgeist narratives like "Me Too" and LGBTQ rights with authenticity in supporting those same narratives. It's all about putting your money where your mouth is and we dive deep into the responsibility of brands in the modern world.LinksKatie Martell WebsiteKatie Martell LinkedIn

Marketing stars Christopher Penn, Chris Brogan, Goldie Chan, Carlos Hidalgo, Katie Martell, and MarketingProfs' own Nina Bell share mistakes and missed marketing opportunities and lessons those experiences taught them. MarketingProfs Chief Conte

Explicit Content Podcast – Show NotesHost:Katie MartellDate:11.08.2019Headline:Carlos & Katie Talk Influencers and why that word needs to die alreadyLink:Show NotesWelcome back to another week of the Explicit Content Podcast! Katie Martell hosts this episode from the Adobe Summit 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. In this week’s installment, Katie interview Carlos Gil, author of End of Marketing and renowned strategist, marketer, and speaker.Carlos and Katie dig deep into why the concept of “social media influencers” is ridiculous and why rebranding them as “brand ambassadors” would better suit what companies are looking for. Carlos shares his thoughts on the matter, as well as other means of marketing.Sticking with social media, Carlos talks up the value of social media, how it can only help promote products more and more, and how he started working with it in its infancy. Working with it so early on in its life, Carlos also tells some stories about how it helped him to get to where he is now.Carlos Gil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlosgilonline/Katie Martell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiemartell/

This #H2H segment is an interview hosted by Carlos Hidalgo featuring Katie Martell: marketing leader, advisor, speaker and "unapologetic truth-teller." Carlos & Katie discuss the truth that is needed by brands and how her article on "femvertising" has led her to research brands and see if they truly stand for what they advertise or are they simply pandering? In this interview, Katie gives examples of brands that truly live out their messaging and discuss some of what is wrong with those that do not. Want to get a no-fluff email that boils down our 3 biggest takeaways from an entire week of B2B Growth episodes? Sign up today: http://sweetfishmedia.com/big3 We'll never send you more than what you can read in < 1 minute.

In Episode 8 of Learning from Leaders, Microsoft’s thought leadership video series, host Katie Martell talks with Katrina Munsell, US Digital Lead and head of the Microsoft Customer Experience Center, about the clear pillars that aren’t going away: being data driven and enhancing personalization. Watch now to learn how you can foster genuine connection and create moments where your team and customers can have fun together as part of the process. Visit aka.ms/microsoftinmarketing to learn more about modern marketing at Microsoft.

When it comes to compelling digital marketing, it’s not enough anymore to just have a thought-provoking ad. That ad has to spark something in the minds of the target audience, or the “members,” as Jia Hyun calls them. Hyun is head of LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions for North America, working on the sales side of marketing. In Episode 7 of Microsoft’s thought leadership video series Learning from Leaders, host Katie Martell chats with Hyun about how LinkedIn’s platform is like a cocktail party, with the role of brands being that of host. LinkedIn sees its job as offering up great conversations to the people—LinkedIn’s members—at the party. The platform’s role is to make sure the brands have a strong sense of what’s resonating with the members, keeping them engaged and helping them keep the conversation going. Learn more about this and the qualities Hyun says make a fantastic salesperson in this episode.

In this episode of the Learning from Leaders video series, hosted by Katie Martell and Dennis Williams, Andrea Elkin, Vice President, Enterprise Learning, ADP shares her thoughts on delivering a modern client experience for those she services.

In episode one of this new Learning from Leaders video series, hosted by Katie Martell and Dennis Williams, Valerie Beaulieu, Chief Marketing Officer of Microsoft US shares her experience and insights on modern marketing and the importance of the customer experience.

When the products and services you are selling look, smell, and act like several options in the market, your messaging and the experience you deliver becomes your differentiator. For your marketing team, understanding why your customers make decisions is key to your success.In this episode, Katie Martell and Tim Riesterer dig deep into the science of customer messaging for sales and marketing.Thank you for listening to the Explicit Content Podcast. For more information, check out enterprisemarketer.com.Full Show Notes and Transcripts: https://emktr.co/ecp23

Commoditization is such a beautiful word that means nothing, but it is so important to understand.  Katie Martell, CMO and co-founder of Cintel, will be speaking at the Conquer Local Conference in 2019, June 10-12 in San Diego! She can walk the walk AND talk the talk. Katie gives us a teaser on what she will be sharing with our Conquer Local audience, commoditization. She explains that it doesn't matter what you sell, you are likely selling into a commoditized market. It's an issue that all companies are facing every single day.  Katie Martell is an independent voice in the marketing community and known as the “unapologetic marketing truth-teller.” She has been named “one of the most interesting people in B2B marketing,” a “marketing expert to follow” and a top marketing writer on LinkedIn. Katie is a frequent speaker and emcee at conferences including TEDx, INBOUND, and MarketingProfs, and serves as the Co-Executive Director of Boston Content, the city’s largest community of content professionals. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Rabble Rousers, and hosts the Explicit Content podcast with Enterprise Marketer, featuring direct and honest conversations about marketing.

Our host Katie catches up with Cliff Lewis & Scott Trobaugh from the Godfrey agency, right after their popular presentation at the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Conference.The name of their talk was Deep and Simple: How Mr. Rogers makes us better at B2B.Sure, he was one of the greatest communicators of the 20th century. But we’ll bet you didn’t know that Fred Rogers is also the most significant role model for B2B communicators in particular.Katie & the guys talk about:- How Mr. Rogers was the most significant role model for B2B communicators.- B2B content creation can be similar to how we were introduced to industry for the first time on the Mr. Rogers Show. - Give your audience the awe and wonder of your client’s manufacturing or - The idea came from a creative brainstorming session inside their agency- Cliff & Scott both believe that Fred Rogers is the patron saint of b2b marketingMr. Rogers B2B insights:- Simplifying the complex. Communicate w/ simplicity.  If Mr. Rogers can explain death to a 4 year old, we can explain our industry to adults- He was a brilliant communicator- In everything Mr. Rogers did, he had a deep respect for his audience.- Build trust by illuminating people with knowledge. - Always humanize your content and help people understand the humanity behind the businessCliff & Scott share some letters that Mr. Rogers wrote to his audience. The anti-Mr. Rogers are marketers that can't keep from being shallow & complex.  No honest connection with their audience. Full Show: https://enterprisemarketer.com/podcasts/explicit-content/season-01-episode-20/

Your favorite people spend most of their interview time talking about work: offering up professional insights, sharing the latest thinking on topics of choice, and discussing their latest projects. But there's SO much more to unpack! When you punch out of work, you refocus on your personal passions and side interests. That’s exactly what my "Punching Out" co-host, Katie Robbert, and I want to explore. On Punch Out With Katie and Kerry, you’ll get to hear about people's fun hobbies, weird collections, and side hustles. For Episode 1 of Season 1, Katie and I cover what we do for fun. Other Season 1 episodes will feature well known personalities including Chris Brogan, Mark Schaefer, Christopher Penn, and Katie Martell! In this inaugural episode, we cover: Why people should tune in to the Punching Out Podcast Why dad jokes are the best - and not told exclusively by dads What activities fall into hobbies, interests and side hustles Bad student films and good movies KenTacoHut This episode of Punch Out With Katie and Kerry is sponsored by Trust Insights. Are you feeling less than confident in your marketing metrics, looking for some help automating your tasks, or wondering what topics are most important to your audience? Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, Trust Insights will help you light up your dark data. Visit trustinsights.ai/punchingout for more information. Punch Out With Katie and Kerry (#PunchOut) is the show that dives deeper into topics you care about. We don't ask the questions everyone else does. We get to the real insights (and the weird hobbies, the guilty pleasures, the secret side hustles...the good stuff)! We find out what really makes your favorite people tick. Punch out with Katie and Kerry! Have a cool hobby or side interest you want to talk about on the show? Let us know: Web: www.punchoutwithus.comEmail: punchoutwithus@gmail.com Hosts: Kerry O’Shea Gorgone (@KerryGorgone) & Katie Robbert (@katierobbert) Transcript: Kerry Gorgone 0:00 Katie, Do you know any dad jokes? Katie Robbert 0:00 As a matter of fact, I do. Did you hear the one about the restaurant on the moon? No great food, no atmosphere. INTRO: Sometimes you just want to talk about something other than work. Katie Roberto and Kerry O’Shea are going get to the weird hobbies guilty pleasures and secret side hustlers. The good stuff about all your favorite people. Punch Out with Katie and Kerry. Kerry Gorgone 0:29 Hi everyone. Welcome to the inaugural episode of The Punching Out Podcast with me, Kerry O’Shea Gorgone and Katie Robbert from Trust Insights. Hey, Katie big first episode you excited. Katie Robbert 0:32 I am beyond excited. This is something I’ve always wanted to be able to do. Like on my own terms, not for a company, not for anyone else’s agenda. And I’m so excited that we finally get to do something like this. Kerry Gorgone 0:52 I have been talking about marketing on the marketing smarts podcast for Marketingprofs for about five years. And I love it. I still love it. But I was ready to talk about something else. I kind of felt like with every guest, they would bring something up. And I would think I’d be so interesting to find out more about that. But it was like a hobby, or a side hustle or a cause they supported or something and didn’t really have a place in a business discussion about marketing. So now we can talk about all those things. Katie Katie Robbert 1:16 well, and it’s you know, it’s something that I think is also so important because especially at trust insights, we really challenge our employees to be well rounded, and not just work 15, 16, 20 hours a day. You know, we want people to have outside hobbies and have other passions outside of marketing. It’s just a really healthy way to live. And so I think that this is the perfect complement to what you and I both do. Kerry Gorgone 1:41 It’s like the movie “The Firm” with Tom Cruise when he goes to join that law firm. And they’re like, the firm encourages children firm doesn’t forbid wives from working. You guys are like “The Firm”. Katie Robbert 1:51 So, so similar, but not we do not enforce children. Thank goodness, we strongly suggest we don’t enforce Kerry Gorgone 2:03 children are not a hobby. Anyway, they’re more of a side hustle. But I would say it’s like your full time gig. No matter what is going on Katie Robbert 2:11 It’s kind of like the show “diners, drive ins and dives.” They try to fit everything into one of those three categories. So we fit kids into a side hustle because we have hobbies, interests, and side hustles. So it’s like the same thing. Hobbies, Kerry Gorgone 2:25 You're into dad jokes. Katie Robbert 2:27 I loved that job. You Unknown 2:28 don’t have good Did your dad joke? No. Katie Robbert 2:31 I want you know, I blame my own dad for it. He taught me some of the worst jokes that I’ve ever learned. including some really bad sea shanties and limericks Kerry Gorgone Oh. Like pG 13. Kerry Gorgone Yeah, yes. And no. Kerry Gorgone 2:48 Telling me a dad joke, Katie. Katie Robbert Okay. Kerry Gorgone Something you learned by the shanty? Katie Robbert 2:56 Well, here’s here’s a good dad joke. This is very typical of something that might dad would tell me how many apples grow on a tree? Kerry Gorgone How many Katie Robbert all of them. Kerry Gorgone 3:07 And that is the reaction you’re going for. Katie Robbert 3:09 I don’t have what, like an Alexa or Google Home. But I’ve been told that if you do have one, you can actually install a program that you can say, Alexa, tell me a dad joke. And chills. Just start telling you bad jokes. And if I were to invest in like a Google Home, and Alexa. That would be the only reason why. it’s just have someone tell me bad jokes all day long. Kerry Gorgone 3:30 But why dad jokes in particular, I mean, moms can tell terrible joke. I tell a ton of mom jokes. By the way. Katie Robbert 3:35 I think it’s just the what is always been called. I don’t think it’s actually necessarily has to be told by a dad. Like, I’m not a dad that I know of. So I think it’s just called a dad joke. Because that’s what people understand them to be. But I mean, anyone can tell a bad joke. A lot of people tell bad jokes. I think the difference is, anyone can tell them bad joke, but it’s considered a dad joke If you kind of get that eye roll and groan, of like, ”Oh my god, that’s so dumb. It’s funny.” And I guess that’s the difference. Kerry Gorgone 4:10 This is the best. Like, what do you call an elephant that doesn’t matter? An irrelevant. Katie Robbert 4:20 I’m gonna have to save that one. Kerry Gorgone 4:22 So dad jokes as a hobby. Just break that out. When you guys have company or what? Katie Robbert 4:25 I don’t even need company. I’ll just, I mean if my husband is sitting even somewhere within like, 10 feet of me. I’ll just start you know, telling jokes. Kerry Gorgone Adam. Sure. You really like that. Katie Robbert There’s a reason he married me. He actually really does and the worst the better and then he’ll take them to work with him and then start telling them Kerry Gorgone 4:47 how did the dogs like him because you have dogs, right. Katie Robbert 4:50 I do, I have two Newfoundland’s one is just under 200 pounds. And the other one is a little hundred-pound bruiser. They tell their own jokes they think it’s funny to pull pranks the other day they pretended, like, so I had gotten up a little bit later than I normally do. And they pretended they hadn’t eaten so they got two breakfasts so you know so they pulled a prank and my husband rolled into the room he’s like oh so they didn’t tell you that they’ve already and I was like “Oh guys you got me” Kerry Gorgone 5:19 you’re going to have like morbidly obese already giant Katie Robbert 5:25 no, they eat a normal diet that was that was only one out of you know, the five years that we’ve been doing this that they’ve pulled that prank Kerry Gorgone 5:32 Well, normally will be talking to other people about their weird collections and fun hobbies and side hustlers and causes that they support but, you know, we thought for this first episode of The Punching Out Podcast that we would find out about the weird things that you do Katie Robbert 5:44 well, and you Kerry Kerry Gorgone 5:46 and me but you know, I don’t have anything as exotic as dad jokes and enormous dogs that I overfeed. I don’t even have a goldfish. I just have children and they make an effort not to overfeed them. Although I can say that that always goes on according to plan. Katie Robbert 6:00 Well, we have established that children are a side hustle. Do you have any interesting hobbies? Or do you collect anything? Kerry Gorgone 6:08 I think kids are like tiny thugs to take over your whole life. That’s pretty much so I mean, side hustle, I would hesitate to categorize them as but before I had kids, I was at the movies every weekend. You know how they used to tell jokes or they’d have trivia at the beginning of every movie. And you know while they were well before the movie started I got to the point where I knew what the next revolution was going to be before the before it came up. I just been to so many movies anymore as like yes not that they actually give you prizes for that or anything but I felt like every crap movie that came out between 1990 and now Katie Robbert 6:44 what were some of your favorites Kerry Gorgone 6:46 Um, I don’t even know why I went to see Titanic because I was like everybody knows how it ends I will say that the lower my expectations the better my reaction when it is not terrible and so I was like oh man that was a amazing like the effects there is a way that the another one along the same lines with Varsity Blues expected to be god awful and when it wasn’t that bad I was so thrilled that it wasn’t that bad Don’t ask me why I think I had run through all the good movies that’s what happens right because movies stay out for a while and I was down to like the seeds and stuff as they say in certain the circles and so he went to see “Varsity Blues”, fully expecting it to be awful. And it was all right. I tend to like horror movies a lot. And so fairly recently I took my mom to see the first purge Katie Robbert wow Kerry Gorgone I know! that was another season says it’s kinda weekend. But you know what, she actually liked it too, because there’s a lot of action and stuff so and you don’t really need to have seen the rest of them because it is supposed to be the origin story. And if you’re familiar with the purge movies, like they locked down the city and everyone’s allowed to do whatever they want. Including kill people for like, 12 hours or 24, I forget, maybe 12 Katie Robbert 7:59 I haven’t seen but I do love an origin story. So are they are without giving anything away. So if you’re in your house, our people love to break into your house. Like Are there any rules with the purge? Or is it just, everything goes? Kerry Gorgone 8:15 everything’s legal, everything. Yeah. And so that’s the thing. So they’ll obviously to be targeting certain people. But their idea, I think, is that the kind of like, the lower classes would just kill each other, this terrible evil, horrible thing, right? And you get to see the beginnings of it, like, how it unfolded and how it actually whatever. But so I was surprised by that movie, too. I mean, that’s not none of these are like the best movies that I’ve seen. Terrible that I was, I was one of those nerds. It was like at the midnight showings for the Lord of the Rings movies, when they came out like it did all of that all the superhero movies, all the horror movies, the really good ones, there were some that were disappointing. I’ve seen some critically acclaimed movies that turned out to be in my opinion, awful like the “Witch” Katie Robbert 8:56 is that the one where the W looks like two V’s? Kerry Gorgone 8:59 I don’t remember. I don’t remember it. Seeing on Rotten Tomatoes. It had like this ridiculously high score, you know, that movie ratings website and I thought, you know, give it a whirl and they turned up for it. And it was it was just terrible, really slow moving and depressing as hell. And I was like, I want two and a half hours of my life back so angry. Katie Robbert 9:17 I think I see that one pop up on Netflix because I also watch a lot of horror movies and I’ve watched a lot of bad ones. I think one of the worst ones I watched was on a flight back from San Francisco to Boston and it was “the pretty thing that lives in the walls” Kerry Gorgone I haven’t seen that Katie Robbert and just in general like the title sounds like oh that’ll be really interesting and the preview was really interesting but there was almost no dialogue and it was like a single shot on the actress the whole time and it just was so slow and so terrible and I was really disappointed because I was really hoping to watch you know a really exciting horror movie so instead I switched over to Stephen King’s thinner which was way better yeah and on a plane when other people are trying to figure out what you’re doing like the guy next to me was horrified Kerry Gorgone 10:04 I bet well even the made for TV Stephen King movies are going to be better than some of the stuff that’s out there I like the ones that they release it seems like in Paris like to similar movies with a similar story like Armageddon and Deep Impact right and then you’re like Armageddon was so much better way better Yes Are there was deep blue sea and then there was a deep rising or something and one was about smart sharks for the other was about but anyway so I like those kinds of barriers you know comparing which was better and stuff you know i’m a movie buff and it’s partly about the experience I kind of like getting out and going to the theater Katie Robbert 10:37 so I don’t know if you know this Kerry but I actually have a film degree no way I studied film at Fitchburg state it was college back them now it’s University Kerry Gorgone 10:49 it matriculated Katie Robbert 10:51 so I to have made a bad student film in my day. And because I also love horror movies. That was the genre that I kept trying to make. But what would happen was we would the team and I would set out to make this horror movie and it would turn into a comedy. So we just rolled with it. And we ended up making this one called quiet hours. Because you know, when you’re in college, you have no budget, you have to kind of have to work with like the surroundings that you have. So we came up with this plot where there is this one, like sort of psychopathic kid who was trying to study during finals. And during finals, you have the quiet hour. So like every floor, every dorm has to be like no music, no parties, that kind of a thing. Kerry Gorgone 11:32 I was a Resident Assistant, I enforce this. Katie Robbert 11:35 And so you know, and so basically what would happen was he was he started murdering all of the people who were violating quiet hours. Who hasn’t wanted to do that. So you had someone who was singing in the shower, so there was a shower murder scene. And of course, he was singing that Maxwell’s “I always feel like somebody’s watching me” Kerry Gorgone 11:54 of course you’ve got clearance for that. Katie Robbert 11:56 I mean, yes, of course. There was a kid who was that was this was back in the day when they were actual phones tethered to walls. So there was a phone booth so we had somebody loudly arguing with their girlfriend in a phone booth so there was a phone booth killing seen lots of like, small on Kerry Gorgone Oh my god, phone booths. When was the last time you saw a phone booth, Katie? Katie Robbert that’s a really good question. I don’t know. Kerry Gorgone 12:21 I mean outside of the movies? Katie Robbert 12:23 Yeah, probably outside the pop Geno’s down the street Kerry Gorgone 12:26 We have a KenTacoHut. Katie Robbert A whaaaat? Kerry Gorgone A Kentucky Fried Chicken Taco Bell, Pizza Hut all in one Katie Robbert 12:33 oh my god – fancy Kerry Gorgone 12:35 I know right. Katie Robbert 12:37 I live I think I live too far into the sticks to have anything like that SPONSOR This episode of The Punching Out Podcast is sponsored by Trust Insights. Are you feeling less than confident in your marketing metrics, looking for some help automating your tasks, or wondering what topics are most important to your audience? Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, Trust Insights will help you light up your dark data. Visit trustinsights.ai/PunchingOut for more information. Kerry Gorgone 13:05 Well, I’m guessing your movie making career didn’t take off the way you hoped Katie Robbert 13:09 it didn’t. So after college, I interned for a production company and they produced a lot of local commercials. They worked with the Boston Red Sox and a lot of the charitable foundations and at the time Nomar Garciaparra no mas Noma was on the Red Sox. And so we would follow him around because he had the Nomar sorry, the Noma five funds. So we all summer I just got to follow around, Nomar and sort of like, he dedicated a playground and did like a children’s bowling league, and those types of things to sort of like, really give back. And then after that, I, after the internship was over, I fell in and started working with a casting agency. And that’s when I decided that I didn’t really want to go down that road. And at the time, the movie production hadn’t really come to Boston, that was probably like another 10 years out. And so I couldn’t afford to move to New York or Los Angeles, I didn’t really want to do casting. And I didn’t want the instability of doing freelance. And so I moved on to a regular office job. But the good news as it led me to where I am today. Kerry Gorgone 14:20 Yeah, I think it’s hard to make sense that your career journey until you kind of look backwards on it. But I love when your hobbies can inform what it is you want to do with the kind of the rest of your life. And they even help you make connections with people like I’ve connected with people over the fact that my favorite movie is part of the Evil Dead Series. I love all those Bruce Campbell movies, the really cheesy, Evil Dead series, my favorites, Katie Robbert 14:41 So good, Kerry Gorgone 14:42 an Army of Darkness, I think it’s probably my favorite of the series. And so I’ve had conversations with people, I’m a lawyer, I don’t practice now. But when I did, I did have a lot of conversations about things like copyright clearance for using different things in academic textbooks or other kind of contexts. And so you know, while I was chatting with people, because you kind of butter and Katie, you go butter people up so you can get what you want, get the Versa that you need. And haven’t mentioned that that was one of my favorite movies. And the guy on the other end was like, really, oh, man, I have a soundboard of all the stuff he says that it’s like, all these effects, and all its everything. And then I got my permission, whatever else got asked out on a date, which I had to like, politely decline. But I got the clearance. And it was in part due to the fact that I shared about my hobby, or my interest in movies. And we like connected over it. Katie Robbert 15:27 And I think that that’s a really good tie in because that’s really one of the things that we’re trying to accomplish with this show, is to show everyone the other sides of, you know, these marketers, and these people who are really big in the industry, people know what they do professionally. But they have very little opportunity to talk about what they like, and enjoy outside of their work. And it’s just another opportunity for people to connect, you know, when you and I started getting to know each other, we found out how many millions of things we have in common, we’re essentially the same person Unknown 16:02 you’re about, you know, better. Katie Robbert 16:05 But it’s really interesting when you break it down. Because we were even talking this morning about our love of horror movies. And we were just sharing referrals of like, you should watch this movie, you should watch this movie. And I know we have other guests coming up this season that we’ve been able to do that with Personally, I know like john wall, for example, he and I bonded over I love our shared love of 90s new jack swing music. And we could talk for hours about it, and he’ll send me audio tracks and things that he’s hijacked. And it’s awesome. We just talked about music for hours. Kerry Gorgone 16:36 So that’s the thing when your job like mine is, is to interview people about their professional pursuits, and accomplishments, about topics of interest that can benefit marketers, which I love. Like I said, it’s a little bit limiting. And I think for the people themselves, sometimes like, they’ll give you a little glimpse into what they do when they punch out when they’re done with work for the day. And you just think, Oh, I really want to know more about that. So this in our first season of punching out is going to be really exciting with people with all kinds of quirky little hobbies, some really meaningful side interests and causes they support. And it’s been really fascinating. I like finding out why people do the things that they do, like you like to travel. But on a beer budget. Katie Robbert 17:16 Yeah, I have champagne tastes, and a beer budget dream. You know, one of the things that so I live in Massachusetts, and there’s this nonprofit organization that my husband and I love to support called the Trustees of Reservations. And their whole mission is to preserve open space all around Massachusetts, so that you can preserve it for, you know, future generations so that you don’t have too many houses go up and those types of things. And so they have, I want to say about 125 properties all around Massachusetts, that vary from farms and hiking trails, and camping grounds. And they even have one right in the Boston Market where they teach cooking classes. And so they have this challenge to try to hit all of their different properties. And people participate. And they tweet about it, they post pictures of all of the different properties that they visit. Now, we’ve only gotten to about 20 or so properties, but most of the properties are actually free for people to visit. And we actually got married on one of their properties. And we were able to support them by making a donation to the property and we as people who don’t have a lot of money, we’re able to get a relatively inexpensive wedding venue, but it was a beautiful venue because it had, you know, like a covered picnic area. It was on the water. It was lovely. It rained all day, but it was still lovely. Kerry Gorgone 18:39 I thought he did it on the fly. Like quick, let’s do this thing before they Unknown 18:43 like Haha, too late. We did it. Unknown 18:49 Next marriage Katie Robbert 18:52 maybe next time. You know how many ideas for next time? Kerry Gorgone 18:56 Well, you can renew your vows if this one works out. I mean, you never know. You know, Katie Robbert 18:59 you never know, you never know Kerry Gorgone 19:02 at least you’ve stuck with it. I think my biggest thing with finding any hobby like I just started guitar lessons in October. the very end. When I say October, I mean like October 31. So I wore my Harley Quinn costume to the guitar shop for my first guitar. Lesson. Marketingprofs, where I work, is doing a learning challenge. And they’re like, devote five hours a week to doing something new. And everybody was like, You should learn to code do something, you know, professionally valuable. And I’m like, no. So I didn’t want I didn’t want to. Because for me punching out as an actual psychological phenomenon that has to happen. So I can decompress. So I decided to try something I’ve never done before play string instrument. When I was in elementary school, I played the flute. Katie Robbert 19:42 I also played the flute Kerry Gorgone 19:44 and not well, I didn’t play it well. But they were like, that’s what we need. You’re going to play the flute. And I hated it. I hated like every second of it. So I was never going to touch that again. And string instrument was totally different to me. So that’s what I do now. And I take a 30 minute less than a week from a super cool guy who could do with his little finger more than I can manage with both hands at a lot. We’re tell it that I have doubt. But I’m enjoying it. But the other thing I do is learn languages, little pieces of languages, not the whole language where you could talk to someone, Katie Robbert 20:12 but like enough that if you want us to travel to that country, you could get by Kerry Gorgone 20:16 maybe with the combination of some gestures Google Translate or something like I could ask in check for directions to Prague Castle. I could get a menu I could get some beer. These are all important things. Very important things a great I can’t even find a star last survey. So yes, I could find the business district Katie Robbert 20:38 would me hold don’t. Kerry Gorgone 20:41 Why do I know that I could give somebody my business card to dm Lee enough. She think that’s really good. I think I enjoy learning languages like the sounds. And when I learned them, I can do it. You know, in the pronunciation of whoever it is. It taught me like, I can mimic it really well. But I can’t ever find a conversational partner to take me to the next level. So I don’t get fluent. And at that point, I just like hop to the next one. So I’ve got the little Spanish, a little German, a little check a little Japanese, nothing that will get me very far anywhere. I know. It’s so funny. I’m just at this point. I’m probably on to cling on. I don’t know what I’ll do after that. Katie Robbert 21:19 I think I know some people who can help you out with that. Well, that I know, right? Kerry Gorgone 21:23 It’s so funny. And never mind that coding is a language. I mean, I’ve had that bill of goods sold to me also, oh, you should learn PHP or you should learn, you know, Ruby on Rails or whatever. And I’m like, no, it’s To me, it’s different. There’s something about learning like a romance language, you know, code. So I don’t know all these things, I think just get different cylinders firing in your brain. And that has to be a good thing. Katie Robbert 21:45 It absolutely is a good thing. So I’m excited for this season of the Punching Out Podcast. I’m excited to learn what other people are doing. We know so much about them as professionals, but I just want to know them as people. And I think honestly, that makes their marketing better when it’s authentic, and it’s genuine and it’s from their own perspective. So I’m, I’m really jealous. I can’t wait to hear what other people are up to. Kerry Gorgone 22:06 Well, let’s give people a sneak peek. Who do we have coming up, Katie? Katie Robbert 22:09 So, we have john wall who is co-host of marketing over coffee. He’s been doing that for well over 10 years. We have Gini Dietrich. She is the owner and CEO of spin sucks. We have Chris Brogan. We have Chris Penn. We have a lot of really good names. Kerry Gorgone 22:32 You have Katie Martell and a lot of really fun kind of obscure hobbies. Katie Robbert 22:35 Yeah, I know I’m leaving some people out. But you’ll have to listen and just sort of find out what these people are up to. There are some really cool things coming up. Kerry Gorgone 22:42 And if you have a weird hobby, by all means, let us know. We want to hear about it, so Katie, and I are both on Twitter. I’m at @kerrygorgone.. Katie, what’s your handle? Katie Robbert 22:50 I’m at @katierobbert, and that’s Robert with two B’s Kerry Gorgone Wow that’s complicated Katie Robbert Man, Tell me about it you know the family is divided down to like two sides you’re either a “row bear” or “row-bert”, nobody is a “Robert” and I think I get it wrong most of the time. It’s my married name. My maiden name is just as complicated so let’s just go with @katierobbert, that’s Robert with two B’s. Kerry Gorgone 23:16 I think “row-bear” is much classier than “row-bert” Katie Robbert 23:19 Well you can you can tell my husband’s mom that Kerry Gorgone Hard pass. How about a dad joke? Katie Robbert Okay how about this: The graveyard looks overcrowded people must be dying to get in there Kerry Gorgone 23:38 terrible Katie Robbert 23:41 but it’s so good. Kerry Gorgone 23:44 I look forward to hearing more about other people’s hobbies Katie Robbert 23:49 next time on The Punching Out Podcast more dad jokes Kerry Gorgone 23:53 that’s it will see our subscriber count dropped its here OUTRO 23:59 Thanks for listening to Punching Out Podcast. If you like what you heard today, please do leave us a review or rating on iTunes. If you have a weird how do you want to talk about reach out to us on Twitter at @kerrygorgone and at @katierobbert – Talk with you next time, I’m punching out!

Do you know the history of table lighters, or even what a table lighter is? Katie Martell knows all about these ornate pieces from yesteryear (and much, much more). Katie Martell is marketer, entrepreneur, speaker, emcee, and unapologetic truth teller.   In this episode we learned: What a table lighter even is What’s hidden in Katie’s closet Which marching band members matter most What it’s like to be a twin Why everyone needs a little plaid in their life This episode of Punch Out With Katie and Kerry is sponsored by Trust Insights. Are you feeling less than confident in your marketing metrics, looking for some help automating your tasks, or wondering what topics are most important to your audience? Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, Trust Insights will help you light up your dark data. Visit trustinsights.ai/punchingout for more information. Punch Out With Katie and Kerry (#PunchOut) is the show that dives deeper into topics you care about. We don't ask the questions everyone else does. We get to the real insights (and the weird hobbies, the guilty pleasures, the secret side hustles...the good stuff)! We find out what really makes your favorite people tick. Punch out with Katie and Kerry! Have a cool hobby or side interest you want to talk about on the show? Let us know: Web: www.punchoutwithus.comEmail: punchoutwithus@gmail.com Hosts: Kerry O’Shea Gorgone (@KerryGorgone) & Katie Robbert (@katierobbert)

Become a NewsWorthy Insider! Click here:  https://www.theNewsWorthy.com/insider The news to know for Thursday, March 7th, 2019! Today, we're talking about everything from an alleged military assault to how Facebook plans to change its future. Plus: what to know about a famous game show host, and how Google will book your next dinner reservation. Those stories and many more in less than 10 minutes! Then hang out after the news for 'Thing to Know Thursday.' This week's bonus interview is with Katie Martell about the good and bad of companies using International Women's Day (this Friday) to get your attention, and why sometimes, it ends up in the news. Award-winning broadcast journalist and former TV news reporter Erica Mandy helps break it all down for you.  Head to www.theNewsWorthy.com to read more about any of the stories and sources in today's episode. Just click "Episodes" or see sources below...              Sources:      Homeland Security Testimony: USA Today, CNN Watchdog Report:  TechCrunch   Air Force Assault: The Hill, ABC News, NYT   Facebook's Future: The Verge, NYT, WSJ, TechCrunch, Facebook Backlash: The Verge, CNBC   Fastest Growing Jobs: CNBC   Amazon Health Care: Bloomberg, CNBC Amazon Pop Up Stores: WSJ Alexa Song ID: TechCrunch   Google Duplex: Engadget, CNBC   Kelly in Jail: CNN, Page Six, TMZ   Jeopardy's Alex Trebek: Jeopardy/Twitter, USA Today, Variety   Mad About Your Revival: Deadline       

People have voices. Brands have voices. How do you find yours? We talked to voice coach Ita Olson, ghostwriter Cathie Ericson, and marketing consultant Katie Martell to find answers. Margins from Managing Editor is hosted by Lee Price and Mary Ellen Slayter. Learn more at http://www.managingeditor.com/podcast. Subscribe to our Friday morning emails at http://www.managingeditor.com/subscribe.  

In this episode of the Explicit Content Podcast, Carla Johnson discusses the need to enable corporate innovation and ideation with Katie Martell.Thank you for listening to the Explicit Content Podcast. For more information, check out EnterpriseMarketer.com.Full Show Notes and Transcripts: https://emktr.co/ecp19

The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer indicates that the U.S. has seen the largest decline in trust across every major institution since its inception 18 years ago. In this episode, Katie Martell, Executive Director at Boston Content and on-demand marketing strategist, addresses the implications of a declining trust amongst everyday Americans and the role of marketers in fixing the problem. Our customer base does not know who to trust. The notion of responsibility notwithstanding, we have a great opportunity set before us if we dedicate resources to rebuilding trust.

Do you personalize your marketing approach?Does direct mail still work?This week on the Explicit Content Podcast, your hosts Katie Martell and Lindsay McKinney discuss content mediums that work and the “what’s old is new again” approach. Marketing concepts such as direct mail are resurfacing with clear effectiveness. First impressions are vital in today's market: especially when it comes to building new clientele. Many companies bombard the prospective client with mass e-mails. Today’s target demographics expect a personal approach. On this week's episode, listen to a lively discussion regarding what's old is new again and the revival of adding a personalized touch in a market that is often overshadowed by technology.Thank you for listening to the Explicit Content Podcast. For more information, check out enterprisemarketer.com.Full Show Notes and Transcripts: https://emktr.co/ecp10

Is 2020 the year that 1,000,000 sales folks lose their jobs?  If so, who will replace them?  If not, where does this statistic come from?  In this episode, Katie Martell and Jeff Julian will dive deeper into what roles are expected to change on the sales team over the next few years and how our digital marketing teams will need to be prepared to fill the gap when it comes to preparing a customer for purchase.Full Show and Transcripts: https://emktr.co/ecp06

This is Part Two of the Introductions to the Explicit Content Podcast Hosts (Part One is here if you missed it).  Just a reminder of what we have put together on this podcast, we will have five different shows, rotating on a weekly basis, with two hosts for each show. Our goal is, to be frank, honest, straight to the point, and explicit. No bullshit. We will not try to lead you in a direction we don't believe in, and we won't try to pull the wool over your eyes to stroke our egos.So, what are the shows?First up is the SEO and Data show with Andy Crestodina and me.Next, Demian Ross from Social Media Examiner and Joe Cox of Pop-Marketer will dive deeper into Social Media.Melanie Deziel and I will cover Native Advertising, but let's face it, Melanie is the real star.Our fourth show, Katie Martell, and Lindsay McKinney will dive into the interworkings of the marketing team and what goes into digital marketing.And finally, veteran podcaster Pamela Muldoon and I will be jumping all over the topic of Content Marketing.Over time, our show will change. New shows will be introduced, new hosted will be added, and my hope that some of our shows will move into a weekly rotation of their own. Enterprise Marketer could not be happier about launching this show and are very proud of the hosts we have brought together.Thank you to Rev.com for being our new transcript sponsor for the Explicit Content Podcast - Get $10 off Your First Order and See What All The Buzz is About - http://emktr.co/revEnough of the yapping, let's get the team. This week, we will hear from Lindsay McKinney, Demian Ross, Pamela Muldoon, and Katie Martell.Katie Martell creates buzz and drives market demand as an on-demand marketing consultant, writer, and speaker based in Boston, MA.  Katie has been recognized as one of the top 10 marketing writers on LinkedIn, #3 Most influential B2B marketer on Twitter a “marketing expert to follow” by CIO Magazine, one of 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management, and a top 100 influencer in content marketingLindsay McKinney serves as Senior Director, Brand and Strategic Marketing at Yext. A 360-degree marketer, Lindsay has managed global Demand Generation, Events, Analyst Relations, Public Relations and Content teams over her 13 years in marketing at Sitecore, Salesforce (via the acquisition of ExactTarget) and Hyland Software. Lindsay has quarterbacked high-tech organizations' analyst relations strategies with outcomes, notably Leader positioning, in a score of tier-one analyst evaluations. She has also orchestrated demand teams to exceed targets and grow quarter-over-quarter pipeline growth. Lindsay has been an active member of Forrester's Analyst Relations Council since 2006.Demian Ross, a Sales and Marketing professional with 20+ years sales and marketing experience, specializing in digital media, social engagement, public outreach and creating quality content. He professional, analytical, and results driven. Demian is adept at conceptualizing and implementing marketing campaigns for a wide variety of clients and products. Strong results are derived from tailoring a campaign to a company’s current needs while simultaneously forecasting their future ones. Pamela Muldoon brings over three decades of marketing and media experience to her various roles in the content marketing industry. Her passion is helping brands and individuals get the right content in front of the right audience at the right time. As a content strategist, she works with B2B companies to tell a better story while ensuring sales and marketing work together to reach their audience. She merges her background in radio, voiceover, and podcasting as a consultant and coach, believing that audio is still the most intimate form of content you can produce.Full Show: https://enterprisemarketer.com/podcasts/explicit-content/season-01-episode-02

In this episode we talk to Maria Pergolino, Chief Marketing Officer, Anaplan. Maria shares how to cast a vision that gets other departments (and your entire company) excited about contributing to the role of marketing. We discuss how to engage other departments in projects Marketing is working on, to generate more sharing throughout the organization. She shares her thoughts on going from a CM-"No" to a CM-"Yes" by flipping the script on typical social media policies & collaborating on ideas with individuals throughout your organization. We also preview a fun session at the #FlipMyFunnel Conference Maria will be heading up, along with some other great names in B2B Sales & Marketing: Account Based Marketing Family Feud Her fellow panelists will include: John Barrows, Trish Bertuzzi, Bridget Gleason, Justin Gray, Matt Heinz, Katie Martell, Kash Razzaghi & Samantha Stone To get your tickets at for the upcoming event, August 8th in Boston go to: https://flipmyfunnel.com/2018-flipmyfunnel-conference/ Use the exclusive promo code for B2B Growth listeners to get 50% off: B2BGROWTH Click here to connect with this guest on LinkedIn.

Regardless of whether you want to admit it, you’ve bought something because of how it was marketed. If you’re a one-woman business or startup, the idea of hiring a marketing expert or agency might make you shudder. Here’s some real talk for you: It’s OK if you don’t know how to get the word out about your biz. You’ve got better things to do, girlfriend. Getting an expert on board with a specialized skill set will give you an outside perspective, save you time (no need to Google “What is an algorithm?”) and guide you to more customers. Today, scan your budget and set aside at least 2 percent to focus on brand awareness. The post Katie Martell: How ‘Femvertising’ is Failing Female Consumers appeared first on On The Dot Woman.