Podcasts about marketers

Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We're breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use. In this episode, Elena and Rob explore how emotions, even ones unrelated to purchasing decisions, shape what people are willing to spend. They reveal that disgust suppresses value across the board, while sadness increases openness to new products by motivating a desire for change. Topics covered:   [01:00] "Heart Strings and Purse Strings: Carryover Effects of Emotions on Economic Decisions"[02:00] How disgust, sadness, and neutrality shift buying behavior[03:00] The endowment effect and emotional influence[05:00] Why specificity matters more than positive or negative[06:00] Disgust in advertising: effective or repellent?[08:00] Can annoyance drive brand recall?  To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter.  Resources: Lerner, J. S., Small, D. A., & Loewenstein, G. (2004). Heart strings and purse strings: Carryover effects of emotions on economic decisions. Psychological Science, 15(5), 337–341.  Get more research-backed marketing strategies by subscribing to The Marketing Architects on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

44% of marketers say media fragmentation is one of their biggest concerns. But is it really threatening effectiveness—or just exposing weak planning?This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob tackle the fragmentation debate head-on. They explore why reach hasn't disappeared, how creative consistency beats endless platform optimization, and why the smartest response to complexity is simplicity. Plus, hear why doubling down on what works might be better than chasing every new channel.Topics covered: [01:00] Why 44% of marketers worry about media fragmentation[05:00] Mass reach moments and the obsession with live sports[09:00] Creative consistency across channels: IKEA as a model[12:00] Why narrowing targeting actually shrinks growth potential[15:00] Planning fundamentals that prevent fragmentation chaos[18:00] The importance of reinforcement over reinvention To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter.  Resources: WARC Article: https://www.warc.com/content/paywall/article/warc-talks/staying-effective-in-a-lots-of-little-media-market/en-GB/159439? Get more research-backed marketing strategies by subscribing to The Marketing Architects on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

In this episode of the HAYVN Hubcast, host Nancy Sheed is joined by Virginia Juliano, marketing and strategy consultant, and Marie Protomastro Patel of Girl on the Ball Solutions. Together, they reflect on a recent HAYVN Marketing Hub gathering and unpack the marketing shifts shaping how business owners and leaders should think about growth as we move into 2026. “Clarity is something that's never been out of style, but I think it's becoming even more important.” — Virginia Giuliano A central theme of the conversation is that marketing is no longer a separate function — we're all marketers now. From solopreneurs to established businesses, everyone is responsible for how their expertise, message, and value show up in the world. Key insights from the conversation include: AI is no longer optional — it's foundational.AI isn't a standalone tool or trend; it's woven into everything from strategy to content distribution to how people discover businesses. Like the early days of the internet, the shift is about integration, not resistance. Clarity is king — and always has been.No amount of clever tactics or polished content can compensate for a lack of clarity. Being clear on who you serve, what you do, and why it matters is the bedrock of effective marketing and strategy. Strategy must come before tactics.Business owners often get lost in execution — platforms, posts, tools — without anchoring decisions in strategy. Marketers add value by asking the hard questions that help cut through the clutter. Perfection is no longer the goal. Authenticity is.The pressure to constantly perform or produce flawless content is easing. Audiences are responding more to real, human moments than overly polished marketing. Showing up matters more than showing off. You don't need to be a content machine.Content stewardship is replacing content overload. Businesses should focus on what feels aligned, comfortable, and sustainable — and then use AI to repurpose and extend what already exists. Marketing is relationship building at its core.Whether through newsletters, speaking, podcasts, or in-person events, trust and connection drive long-term success. Community and human connection are becoming more valuable than noise and volume. AI amplifies good input — it doesn't replace thinking.AI can enhance strategy and execution, but only when the inputs are clear. Without clarity, goals, and intention, even the best tools fall flat. This conversation reinforces a powerful shift in modern marketing: less pressure, more alignment; fewer tactics, stronger strategy; and more humanity at every touchpoint. As AI becomes embedded in how we create and discover information, the business leaders who stand out will be the ones rooted in clarity, authenticity, and genuine relationships.  “Marketing works best when it feels sustainable, not performative.” —  Marie Protomastro Patel Marketing isn't about doing more — it's about doing what matters, consistently and in ways that feel true to who you are. Interested in implementing some of these marketing shifts into your marketing strategy? Give this custom ChatGPT a try. It's formulated from the recent 2026 Marketing Shifts presentation at HAYVN's Marketing Hub in January and this article based upon responses from marketers and creatives doing the work.  Also, want to know more about HAYVN's Hub for Marketing? You can join the group monthly in person for “Ask the Experts” for marketing advice and insight as well as an opportunity to connect with smart marketers and creatives in the area.  Connect with Nancy LinkedIn  Instagram Website Connect with Virginia LinkedIn Website Connect with Marie LinkedIn Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Evan Unger is a recognized expert in organizational change, leadership development, and collaborative facilitation. With decades of experience consulting for major enterprises, including large pharmaceutical companies and insurance organizations, Evan specializes in transforming workplace culture by empowering change agents at every level. His approach moves beyond traditional training, focusing on deep, practice-based skill transfer to foster genuine collaboration, reduce bureaucracy, and maximize meeting effectiveness. In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Evan Unger joins Robert Plank to discuss the art (and science) of running effective, high-stakes meetings. Evan reveals why most meetings are a microcosm of organizational dysfunction and how targeting meeting culture can boost company-wide productivity. Discover the “five fundamentals” for collaborative leadership, learn how to handle challenging personalities (including the “HiPPO” dynamic), and hear why real transformation starts with top-down engagement and extensive practice, not just passive training videos. Tune in for actionable strategies to reclaim time, drive better decisions, and create a culture of buy-in from the very first meeting. Quotes: “The fastest way to transform your company's culture is to change the way you lead meetings because every meeting is a window into your organization's soul.” “Real leadership isn't about having all the answers. It's about creating space for every voice and guiding your team to believe, ‘We did this ourselves.'” “You can't shift a culture with information alone. Transformation happens when leaders show up, practice together, and model the behaviors they want to see.” Resources: Evan Unger on LinkedIn

Omer Shai serves as the CMO at Wix. Shai leads a team of over 400 people and is responsible for the company's global online and offline marketing activity, which boasts an incredible growth of approximately 3 million new users every month. Under Shai, the marketing department has executed hundreds of worldwide campaigns for television and social including 5 Super Bowl commercials, creative videos, podcasts and more. AGENDA: 00:00 — The AI Agent Revolution: 93% Automation? 03:55 — Why I'm Buying TWO Super Bowl Ads This Year 08:58 — The $100M Marketing Secret: Brand vs. Performance 13:28 — Why LTV is Bullshit (and What You Should Use Instead) 18:52 — 10x Your Growth: How to Find Tomorrow's Arbitrage 27:10 — SEO is Dying? Why I'm Increasing My Ad Spend Anyway 31:14 — The TikTok Fail: Why Even Big Brands Can't Crack It 36:11 — Stop Selling the "Why": Put the Product in the Center 47:57 — Will AI Make You Unemployed? A Warning for Marketers 52:27 — Why Celebrity Endorsements Never Work  

Gloria Chou is an award-winning small business PR expert recognized for revolutionizing media visibility for overlooked founders, especially women and minority entrepreneurs. As the creator of the “CPR” pitching method and a fierce advocate for leveling the PR playing field, Gloria leverages free AI tools to help brands break through traditional barriers without a budget or gatekeepers. She's on a mission to help product-based businesses get featured in mainstream media, build credible backlinks, and earn trust in the age of AI-driven search. In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Gloria Chou joins Robert Plank to explore the dramatic shift from traditional SEO to AI-powered recommendations for brands. Gloria reveals why being seen by large language models (like ChatGPT and Perplexity) is now more important than ever and shares actionable steps for founders to get featured in podcasts, editorial articles, and gift guides. Tune in to learn about leveraging real-time AI tools for competitive research, media pitch creation, and maximizing content repurposing—plus the “one window of opportunity” founders cannot afford to miss. Quotes: “If you're not being recommended by AI, if ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini aren't mentioning you, then to today's shoppers, you're invisible. Media coverage is now your strongest trust signal.” “Right now is a once-in-a-generation window for founders; you don't need a massive budget or thousands of followers. Small brands finally have the chance to compete with giants, if you act before the algorithms choose their favorites.” “AI is rewriting the rules of marketing. It's not about stuffing websites with keywords but about building credible backlinks and getting your story told. Thoughtful pitches and real coverage are what move you forward.” Resources: Gloria Chou PR (official site) Gloria Chou on LinkedIn

Kathy Floam Greenspan is a veteran B2B marketing expert with over 25 years of experience helping organizations align marketing with real business outcomes. As president of POM Agency, she is passionate about cutting through the noise in fast-moving industries like tech, cybersecurity, and government contracting. Kathy specializes in helping lean marketing teams deliver impactful results despite resource constraints and is a strong advocate of clarity, focus, and practical use of AI to drive growth. In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Kathy Floam Greenspan joins Robert Plank to discuss the growing pressures on marketing teams, rising expectations, limited capacity, and constant change. Based on a survey of over 100 B2B marketers, Kathy reveals why misalignment, resource gaps, and unclear goals hinder performance and shares four strategic shifts to help teams reclaim focus and momentum in 2026. Learn how to partner smarter, clean up your data ecosystem, and use AI as a collaborator, not a crutch. Kathy offers actionable advice for marketers striving to stay the course, protect priorities, and create lasting impact in chaotic times. Quotes: “If everything is a priority, nothing is. Our role as marketers is to protect focus and stay the course, especially these days.” “Marketers are being asked to deliver more impact without more capacity, forcing tough trade-offs and constant prioritization.” “AI is incredibly powerful, but marketing is still very human work. Use AI as a collaborator, not a crutch to walk before you run.” Resources: POM Marketing (official site) Kathy Floam Greenspan on LinkedIn

Behavioral science holds the keys to some of the most effective (yet overlooked) marketing strategies. And if you're not thinking about it, you're already behind.  In this throwback episode, Daniel sits down with Phill Agnew, host of the UK's #1 marketing podcast Nudge, to explore psychological principles that can transform the way you sell.  From why loss aversion outperforms gain framing, to using scarcity without backfiring, to the surprising benefits of admitting your flaws, Phill unpacks examples and research-backed tactics you can apply today. And, what's up with Phill's reading list? He breaks down why you should read the 25 on his list…and why there's 5 to avoid.  If you're a Marketer who wants to understand the WHY behind your customers' decisions, this is the episode for YOU. Follow Phill: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phill-agnew/?originalSubdomain=uk Phill's 25 Books to Read (And 5 to Avoid): https://nudge.kit.com/reading-list Follow Daniel: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing/ Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: www.workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: www.workweek.com

Has your marketing become boring and repetitive? Does your team hold back on suggesting innovative ideas because they're afraid of being shot down? To discover a framework for cultivating content creativity by separating your ideation process into two distinct phases: divergent and convergent thinking, I interview Melanie Deziel.Guest: Melanie Deziel | Show Notes: socialmediaexaminer.com/703Review our show on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Modern marketing excels at personalization — until it reaches one consistent area where many brands still break down, costing them growth and frustrating customers in the process. In this milestone episode, Sonia Thompson explores The Glitch in Modern Marketing — and why brands that are otherwise sophisticated in growth marketing and customer acquisition often hesitate, stall, or retreat when identity enters the picture. Marketers know how to tailor products, experiences, and messaging by behavior, lifecycle stage, and preferences. But when personalization intersects with human identity, that rigor often disappears — replaced by assumptions and a return to “general market” thinking. This episode breaks down: Why identity shapes how customers decide what's “for someone like me” How general market marketing quietly creates friction and lost sales Why asking customers to adapt is no longer a neutral choice And how integrating identity completes personalization — instead of complicating it If growth feels harder than it should, this episode will help you see what's been missing — and how to fix it. Find out what's slowing your growth: www.frictionlessgrowthlab.com/quiz

Apoorv Sharma is an AI SEO strategist, co-founder of Derivate X, and a leader in AI-first marketing for SaaS and tech companies. Based in Bangalore, India, Apoorv helps brands navigate the rapid shift from traditional search engines to LLMs and AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini. By optimizing content for AI visibility instead of just Google rankings, he empowers organizations to appear where modern buyers make decisions. Known for his hands-on, research-driven process, Apoorv guides clients through the evolving world of AI search and digital discovery, helping them future-proof their presence, drive revenue, and adapt to the pace of technological change. https://youtu.be/Oh_O7PFdz9Y In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Apoorv joins Robert Plank to reveal the new playbook for AI SEO. He explains how business owners can adapt to shifting search patterns, why top-of-funnel content is fading, and the steps needed to win in AI-driven rankings. Discover the real challenges behind AI SEO: from accidental brand confusion and overcoming search system quirks to navigating a price-sensitive market and justifying the investment. Apoorv shares actionable strategies for targeting long-tail queries, associating SEO efforts with revenue, and continuously adjusting content and positioning to stay ahead as AI reshapes how buyers find and trust solutions online. Quotes: “Search behavior is shifting so fast, even people who don't know English are using ChatGPT more than Google.” “SEO without clarity is just wasted money.” “The top of the funnel is almost dead. Focus on the middle and bottom; those are your lowest-hanging fruits.” “AI SEO isn't just about rankings; it's about training the librarian so your content gets recommended to the right buyers.” Resources: Derivate X (official site) Apoorv Sharma on LinkedIn

Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We're breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.In this episode, Elena and Rob reveal how 84% of purchases are decided before shoppers even start looking... and why that changes everything about how you should invest in marketing.Topics covered: [01:00] "How Humans Decide: What Drives Consumer Choice and How Brands Should Respond"[02:00] The two stages of every purchase decision[04:00] Why 84% of purchases are already decided[06:00] Who's easy to influence (and who isn't)[07:00] The touchpoints that actually change behavior[08:00] Three moves to reach primed buyers  To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter.  Resources: WPP Media & Oxford Saïd Business School, Marketing Faculty. (2025). How Humans Decide: What drives consumer choice, and how brands should respond. October 2025.  Get more research-backed marketing strategies by subscribing to The Marketing Architects on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

How to Use AI for B2B Storytelling Without Losing Your Brand So many B2B companies and marketing teams waste budget on generic content that fails to resonate or support core business goals. In an era where AI-generated is everywhere, smaller B2B brands often struggle to maintain a unique identity while competing against larger firms with massive content engines. The key to staying relevant lies in a B2B brand’s ability to be authentic, human-centric, and strategically consistent despite the pressure to automate everything. So how can B2B brands effectively integrate AI into their marketing workflows without losing their unique voice and brand integrity? That's why we're talking to Nick Usborne (Founder, Story Aligned), who shared his expertise on leveraging AI through the lens of strategic storytelling. During our conversation, Nick discussed the critical distinction between simple narrative and a brand’s unique story, highlighting a significant gap where only 7% of top AI prompt libraries actually focus on storytelling. He shared actionable advice on building a “story vault,” training staff to avoid “brand drift,” and enforcing consistent AI usage to maintain the trust of the audience. Nick also underscored the importance of keeping human elements at the forefront of content creation to prevent AI from feeling overly mechanical, and advocated for a balanced approach that ensures scalable growth without sacrificing a brand's authenticity. https://youtu.be/dtgvg2-XXoU Topics discussed in episode: [02:53] The “Why” Behind AI Adoption: Why companies must embrace AI not just for efficiency, but to avoid being left behind by competitors who are already scaling their reach.  [04:10] The “Moat” of Storytelling: Why narrative and voice can be easily copied by AI, but your brand's unique “lived story” is the only defensible moat you have.  [11:27] Pitfalls of Inconsistent AI Use: The dangers of “shadow AI” use by employees (e.g., Using personal accounts vs. company custom GPTs) and how it leads to brand drift.  [16:46] The Human Element vs. AI: Nick explains why AI can describe the beach but can't “feel the sand between its toes,” and why human “messiness” is key to connection.  [24:26] Building a Story Vault: Nick provides a practical framework for formalizing your brand's folklore—from founder stories to customer service wins—so they can be systematically used in AI content.  [28:17] Actionable Steps for Marketers: Three immediate steps to take: build your story vault, interview key stakeholders (founders, early employees), and analyze customer service transcripts for sentiment.  [30:11] The Problem with “Killer Prompt” Libraries: Why copying “top 20 prompt” lists is a strategic mistake that leads to generic, non-differentiated content. Companies and links mentioned: Nick Usborne on LinkedIn  Story Aligned  Transcript Nick Usborne, Christian Klepp Nick Usborne  00:00 AI can do a wonderful job in many ways, but it’s never walked down the beach and felt the sand between its toes. It’s read about it. It’s never eaten ice cream. It’s read about that, but it’s never felt it. So that’s what I mean by lived experience. I think that content and stories that truly resonate with people you use those kind of touch points the the deeply human side of being alive. And like, say, I think AI can get close when you prompt it really well, but also, there’s a messiness that makes us recognize one another, the little mistakes we make. That’s what makes us human. We are messy. AI, it’s not very good at being messy. You can ask it to be messy, and it’ll try to figure that out, but it’s really not the same. And like I say, I think people are very sensitive to this kind of nuance. Christian Klepp  00:51 When brands rely on the same AI tools and prompts, they start to sound like everyone else. That loss of voice can hurt trust and lead to something called Brand drift. So how can B2B Marketing teams scale content with AI while staying true to their story? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today, I’ll be talking to Nick Usborne, who will be answering this question. He’s the Founder of Story Aligned, a training program for Marketing teams that want to scale content using AI while protecting the integrity of their brand story and voice. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B Marketers Mission is. Mr. Nick Usborne, welcome to the show, sir.  Nick Usborne  01:32 Thank you very much. Thank you Christian. Thank you for having me.  Christian Klepp  01:35 Pleasure to have you on the show. Nick, you know we had such a fantastic pre interview call. It was a bit of a you did drop a few hints and clues about what was to come, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation. I’m going to keep the audience in suspense a little while longer as I move us into the first question. So off we go.  Nick Usborne  01:55 Okay. Christian Klepp  01:56 All right, so, Nick, you’re on a mission to equip Marketing teams to scale AI powered content while staying aligned with their organization, story and voice. So for this conversation, let’s focus on the topic of how to use AI for B2B content without losing trust. And it is at the time of the recording, the end of 2025 and of course, we’re going to talk about AI, but we’re going to zoom in on something specific as it pertains to B2B content and a little bit of branding in there as well. But I wanted to kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. So the first question is, why do you believe it’s so important for brands and their Marketing teams to embrace AI so that they can scale? And the second question is, why does this approach require the right prompts and guardrails? I think that’s one thing that you mentioned in our previous conversation, the whole the whole piece about prompts and guardrails. Nick Usborne  02:53 Well, the first question, why do companies need to embrace AI? And the ridiculous answer to that. It’s not a good answer, but it’s true is that because everyone else is, because your competitors are, and they will create content at scale while you are not, and they will achieve reach that you can’t achieve without AI. And in fact, if they do it well, their content, their new content, will be very good, content deeply researched beyond perhaps what you can do. So it’s like everything within AI right now, like, like, Why? Why do all the companies like open AI and Google and Meta, why they all racing? Because if they don’t, someone else will get there first. And it’s, I’m not saying it’s a great reason, but I think it is the fundamental reason for companies to embrace AI, is that you will be left behind if you don’t. This is a transformational moment, and as much as we’d like to have choice, I think in this matter, we don’t have a lot of choice. So that’s my answer to that question. Repeat the second question for me. Christian Klepp  04:00 Absolutely, absolutely so based on, based on that, like, why does this approach require the right prompts and guardrails? Nick Usborne  04:10 As part of my business, I’m constantly researching this, and in particular, I’m researching the prompts people do so when say, could be writers coders, but in our world. Let’s say writers, principally, or marketers, are using AI. They’re using prompts, and they’re generally prompting about two things. One is narrative, like, what should we say? Or, you know, please write us a blog post about x. So that’s the that’s the topic, that’s the narrative. And then they’ll put in something say, oh, please do it in a voice that is authoritative and yet accessible. All right, so now that’s a voice. What they haven’t mentioned is what I think is the foundational layer, which is, which is story. And that’s important, because story is the only thing that is uniquely yours, if you have an narrative, if you, if you have voice, if you talk about something in a particular way, I can copy that with AI. I can copy it at scale. I can, I can look at the transcripts of Christian podcasts, and I can say, oh, I want to do one in exactly. Tell her the same topic. I can, you know, so when you focus on narrative, on what you write about in voice. I can copy it. There’s no moat. The only moat you have is with story, because every company’s story is unique. We can look at origin stories, foundation stories, we can look at customer stories through case studies, things like that. Those are always unique. No one else has Apple’s origin story. No one else has virgin Atlantic’s Founder’s story, etc. But we did some research recently. Actually, we did some research months ago, and I reconfirmed it earlier this week. I ran it. I ran it all again to look at the data. If you look at the top 20 prompt libraries that you know the big, trustworthy companies and organizations that put out prompt libraries for companies. If you look at the top 20 libraries and the 1000s and 1000s of prompts within there, 76% of those prompts are about the narrative. What to say? 17 are about voice. How do you sound? Only 7% relate to story. So this, to my mind, is where we have a problem. We have a disconnect. Everyone is going crazy, prompting for narrative and story, both of which have 0, zero mode, anyone can copy them at scale. And only 7% this very small percentage, are actually focusing on the one thing that is uniquely theirs and cannot be copied or challenged. So that when you say, when you, when you say I’m on a mission, that’s the mission for me to say, Hey guys, wake up. You’re You’re prompting the wrong things in the wrong way. Let’s like, go back and look at story Christian Klepp  07:12 Absolutely, absolutely. It almost sounds like an oxymoron to us to a certain degree, because you’re saying scaling B2B content using AI without losing trust. Because, you know, the narrative that I keep seeing on social media, particularly LinkedIn, is that if people are using AI, there is a bit of a trust factor there. But I think it’s to your point and correct me if I’m wrong, it’s being able to embrace AI and you leveraging it the right way, so it’s not, it’s not, it’s not to replace, it’s not to replace the writers, right, or to replace the Marketers, I hope not. Nick Usborne  07:50 It may replace some. But, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, you’re right, and the keyword you mentioned there is trust. I think, I think trust is going to be the most valuable commodity that a company can have in the months and years to come, because people don’t actually don’t if we’re talking about brand. So we’re trying to protect brand with story, right? And brand is something that a lot of companies have spent millions of dollars building and protecting over years or decades and well, one of the things let me come back to trust in a moment. But if I’m looking at brand, and I’m looking at all the stuff goes out there, it either builds brand or it burns brand. And if you burn brand, you lose trust. So if you’re going out with a whole bunch of content that sounds like everyone else is that it’s kind of meh. It’s ordinary. It’s in the middle, which is what AI is really good at. Without the right prompting, it will give you kind of in the middle, mediocre output. So you got to be much better at prompting than just like a, I don’t know, being careless about it, or taking a shortcut, shortcuts, or being lazy about it, because then you get brand drift, and all of a sudden the brand doesn’t sound quite right. And when that happens, you lose trust. And when you lose trust, you lose revenue. I mean, you really do. And people are getting very sensitive to brand of brand trust we saw recently. Was it tracker barrel tried to just change its logo. People freaked out. People freaked out.  Christian Klepp  09:27 It was an awful rebrand, but, yes.  Nick Usborne  09:30 Yeah, but it wasn’t. These weren’t. These weren’t. Saying is, I don’t think the design is up to snuff. It’s like, don’t mess with my tracker barrel. We actually feel very strongly about the brands. Talk to people who are absolute fans of Apple. Doesn’t matter that it costs twice as much, perhaps as not quite as good. It’s Apple. It’s my brand. Don’t mess with my brand. So we’re very sensitive to our loyalty to brands. And in fact, in some sense, it’s brand define us like a football team, a baseball team, in part, we can be defined by the brands that we support, local, Pepsi. You know, it’s like everywhere. So when a company uses AI carelessly at scale and all of a sudden that blog post, it kind of sounds like them, but something’s a tiny bit off. And then that LinkedIn update. Again, yeah, it’s them, but again, it’s, did I say is that the same as they were six months ago? You get the you get these little these little things that sound off, and now you get brand drift. And now you get people feeling uneasy, and the public are sometimes we think we can just make the public believe whatever we want them to believe, or companies to believe whatever we want them to believe, but actually, individuals, in their home lives and in their business lives are very, very sensitive to brand and they’re very, very sensitive to voice and what they hear, and if it’s off, they really don’t like it, and that does translate into loss of trust, and that does directly translate into loss of revenue.  Christian Klepp  11:07 Absolutely. I’m going to move us on to the next set of questions, particularly that one pertaining to key pitfalls that Marketers need to avoid when they’re trying to scale their B2B content using AI without losing trust. So what are some of these key pitfalls they should avoid, and what should they be doing instead? Nick Usborne  11:27 What I’m hearing from inside a number of companies is that there is an inconsistency in how people are using AI and even when systems are in place, that not everyone follows the system. So it’s early days. It is. These are messy times for, you know, working with AI within companies. So I think it’s really important that companies do have some frameworks in place, that people within the organization are using the same tools in the same way, and that they are encouraged to be consistent in what they do. So I’ve heard stories of where companies are set up, you know, they’re using Copilot, or whatever they use, and then some of the manager will walk by someone’s desk, and they’re actually, actually, they’re using Claude on their phone. That person like phone, and it’s like, well, yeah, but no, this is now, you know, you have no control. You also have to get people to do what they ask. I was talking to a Founder the other day. She has a PR (Public Relations) company, plenty of clients, and she’s smart. She’s created custom GPTs for each client. So each custom GPT is trained on with with a kind of database of information on that client and the content, so that you know when you when you ask it to do something else, it’s already has the context and the voice instructions and everything, and you can and it’s great, you get this consistency. But she says, what’s happening is some of her employees come in in the morning, they start work on client X, and they’re using that custom GPT. Then they move on to client Y, but they keep using the original custom GPT and not switching out. So the management has put in the structure in place to be consistent and to output the best, you know, the best content, but the employees are not always playing game, you know, going along with that. So so I do think we’re in a messy period now where companies are not entirely sure how to apply this, how to structure it, what kind of frameworks and guidance to put in place. What guardrails to put in place? Like? Again, I’ve heard horror stories of people grabbing content that should not be shared and putting it into a large language model and then turning that into customer facing or public facing content.  Christian Klepp  13:57 Oh, plagiarism.  Nick Usborne  14:04 So yeah, it is messy. So what I would say is, before you even try to make the best of the use of AI that you do, need to put systems and frameworks in place and educate your staff. So if you want your staff to use AI effectively give them access to training. Don’t just throw them at a tool and say, go for it, because they won’t know what to do with it, or they’ll be able to create stuff, but they won’t be able to create good stuff. So invest in the systems, invest in the frameworks and instructions, and invest in training for the people who are going to be using the tools.  Christian Klepp  14:46 Definitely some relevant points. I wanted to go back to something you said, though, because I think it’s really important. It’s certainly one thing to have the prompts and the guardrails in place and some kind of like, framework and structures. But to your earlier point, how do you enforce that? And I think you gave a really good example about like, if you have a custom GPT, and then they resort to like, using. Um Claude on their personal accounts, and then it’s a little bit like the wild west out there, isn’t it? Nick Usborne  15:06 It is, it is, and it’s and it’s, how do you enforce it? Well, that’s going to be a company by company decision. Like, like the Founder with the PR of the PR company, when she was telling me about how her employees just weren’t doing what they were asked. I was like, part of you is thinking about, why haven’t you kind of cracked down on this? But again, it depends on the company and what options you have when it comes to enforcing stuff like this. But I do think you need to, because then if we circle right back, if you have people who are untrained, and that’s the company’s responsibility to train their employees. If you have people who are untrained and they’re using these tools inconsistently, that is when you far more likely then to see errors for, you know, unforced errors like publishing stuff that you shouldn’t but you’re also going to see more brand drift, because you’re going to get this inconsistency between output and that is a disaster. Like I say, companies have sometimes spent, in a decade, several years in establishing and building a trustworthy brand. And people are very unforgiving. You can, you can lose all that goodwill very, very quickly. So, yeah, training frameworks make sure people are, you know, working within those boundaries, but as a company, it’s your responsibility to help make that happen. Christian Klepp  16:29 Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You kind of brought this up already, but you mentioned that AI can help to scale content, but it can’t replicate your lived story, so please explain what you meant by that, and provide an example. If you can, Nick Usborne  16:46 AI can do a wonderful job in many ways, but you know, it’s never walked down the beach and felt the sand between its toes. It’s read about it. It’s never eaten ice cream. It’s read about that, but it’s never felt it. So that’s what I mean by lived experience. So I think that content and stories that truly resonate with people, you use those kind of touch points, the deeply human side of being alive and like say, I think AI can get close when you prompt it really well, but also there’s a messiness that makes us recognize one another, the little mistakes we make, that’s what makes us human. We are messy, and it’s not very good at being messy. You can ask it to be messy, and it’ll try to figure that out, but it’s really not the same. And like I say, I think people are very sensitive to this kind of nuance and the lived story. It’s the it’s the weird stuff. I think that resonates. So I’ve spent quite a bit of my career doing copywriting for companies, and for a long period, I was doing some freelance, a lot of freelance copywriting. So this is just a little side note, a little side story for you. I used to live on a hobby farm. We had some sheep and pigs and chickens and all that good stuff, the good life. And also had freelance customers. And I went in, and I was and I went, you know, you go out, you feed the animals, you come in, I sit down to work, and my client said, this is just on the phone. This is even before the internet. Client said, Hey, you’re late. I was just out farming the pig and feeding the pigs. And the guy says, what? And this, I hadn’t realized. I never told him that I lived on a farm. He thought somewhere. So anyway, we talked a little bit about the pigs, then we get to work. So the project we’re working on worked out really well, and it won an award. So we fly off to your hometown, Toronto, for the awards ceremony, direct marketing awards ceremony, and he stands up and he says, Thank you very much. Blah, blah, blah. And special thanks to Nick Usborne, the pig farming copywriter. And I’m like, I’m like, in the audience, and I’m thinking, oh, please no. This guy is like, rebranding me constantly in front of all my peers, all my potential clients for next year. Big drama turns out so, so that that’s messy, all right? AI wouldn’t do that, you wouldn’t imagine that it wouldn’t do that. That’s a deeply human moment of my humiliation and him laughing, and everyone slapping me on the back and laughing and asking about my pigs. Turns out, over the next 12 months, I got a few phone calls out of the blue. And I say, Hello, Nick Usborne. I said, Oh, is that Nick Usborne? The cover of James Barber. And I say, why? Yes. And so I actually got work out of that, because it was such a distinct difference from every other copywriter out there. I was the only copywriter who had pigs. So that was just a fun story, but it also speaks to the difference between humans and AI, and it’s a live that’s a lived experience, and it’s a lived anecdote, and I tell the story, and it’s a true story that is really important, I think so, even when we use AI, even when we use it at its best, and it can be really good when you use it well, I think everyone should keep leave space for the human in the loop, as they say, keep that human element in there, big for those stories. So I so I encourage companies to create what I call like a story vault. So there’s the obvious stories, like the Founder story, the origin story, the six original success story, also put in the little quirky stories, like that one I just described, and and make that part of your process. And also go, you know, if you’re creating something with AI and it’s a big project, take the time to go and interview someone, talk to someone, get a human story, put it in just because you’re using AI, doesn’t mean to say that everything you create has to be 100% AI, you can, you can? I do this all the time. I look for it a draft with AI, then I’d go back in and I’ll rewrite the beginning with an anecdote, like the small s story, not a big dramatic story, just a little story. And what it does then is that then connects it with us, because as people, we recognize stories. Story is profound to all of us. I think in every country in the world, parents read their children bedtime stories. It’s something we share in common. It’s how we communicate, and it’s how we recognize our humanity in a sense of like, if you tell me a story, you connect with me, and vice versa. So that’s why I think stories are so important in this world of AI, because if you just go AI, it can get a little cold, and sometimes, as a reader, you don’t quite understand what’s happening and why, but you kind of feel it. There’s an absence. There’s something missing, and that what’s what you feeling is missing is that human touch, that human element, Christian Klepp  21:59 Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, there’s like, there’s like, telltale signs, right? Like em dash being one of them,  Nick Usborne  22:06 em dash Christian Klepp  22:07 Yes, or Yeah. Or it tends to, like, regurgitate the same type of war. It’s like, I find it loves using the word landscape or navigate, you know, things of that nature, right?  Nick Usborne  22:20 Yeah.  Christian Klepp  22:21 Or uses these funny like, you know, the colon or for, for, for titles of episodes, for examples. Nick Usborne  22:30 In titles, even when I give it clear instructions, do not use them. So sometimes, when I create content like that is, I’ll create it in with one model like say, GPT5, and I’ll take it over to flawed, and I’ll say, hey, please edit and clean this up for me, and remove any, you know, repetition or whatever. And sometimes it comes back say, hey, looks pretty clean, pretty good. Other times it’ll change stuff. And then, of course, always I will, you know, I will review. And that’s the other thing that the companies need to think about. Is that, at the moment, content generation at scale within companies, it is a bit like a conveyor belt in a factory of all these boxes flying off the end into the FedEx back of the FedEx van, and without, without any kind of quality control, which, which is actually what you do have with income within you know, if you’re manufacturing, and you do have quality control, and you pick out every 20th item or whatever to make sure that it’s good, a lot of that isn’t happening, that isn’t happening with a lot of people using AI is people don’t even see it. It’s fully automated, like, like a week’s worth of social media is automated, or a month’s work worth, and no one, no human, has read it or reviewed it. It’s just flying out automatically. And that is where at some point you’re inevitably going to have a problem. And it may not be a big problem, it may be lots and lots of small problems, lots of lots of things sounding not quite right, and then all of a sudden, when you’ve got enough little things not sounding right, then you start getting a medium sized problem. Christian Klepp  24:06 Yeah, yeah. No, exactly, exactly. Okay. Now, you talked about it a little bit in the beginning, but talk to us about some of these, these frameworks and these processes that B2B companies can use to help them, you know, organize themselves and reap those benefits of AI without losing trust. Like, what are some of these processes and frameworks? Nick Usborne  24:26 I do some training, and I have done a few rubrics where people can kind of use those to formalize the process. But I think if we talk about story, and I think I already mentioned the idea of each company having a story vault, so be formal and deliberate about it. Everyone can chat about their company’s stories, but if I say to you, hey, is there a folder? Can I can I get a Google folder and find a compilation of all of these stories? And have you graded those stories in terms of how strong and relevant? And they are, and how engaging they might be, or how evocative they might be, and the answer is almost always no, the story is around. But there’s no story vault, and there’s no rubric in place to grade those stories and decide which might be the most appropriate points at which to share those stories. So it’s that, it’s that formalizing the process, and I don’t like being 100% rules based, but I think in the AI world right now, where we are in that kind of messy middle period, I think it’s really important to have some systems in place so that we do have a consistent output, so that when you so that your brand doesn’t suffer from brand drift, and that you don’t make some significant missteps along the way. So somebody within the organization needs to be responsible for this. Maybe it’s the Chief AI Officer, if you have one, or otherwise, somebody in Marketing. So yeah, help people with training, but also help them by giving them some framework, some rubrics and some just a system like, you know, hey, picked up a story from customer service, put it in the story vault, categorize it. Customer service in the story vault says someone else can come back and find it. So it’s not just word of mouth. It’s not accidental. There’s a place where people can go to and then you’re going to do the same with narrative, the things we say. And you have another vault, as it were, and another rubric to to assess voice, how we say it. So it’s just this formalization of the process, and also trying to make sure that people use these systems as you put them in place. So somebody’s got to be walking along behind, behind and sort of, and again, it’s like, I guess, like early days of anything. Not every, not everyone will love the process. Not everyone loves using AI. But it’ll come. It’ll come. People will get in their heart better, not only using AI, but doing it well and following these processes. Christian Klepp  27:02 Okay, fantastic, fantastic. Let me just quickly recap, because I was writing this down. So obviously, having a story vault, grading them if you can, if possible, having systems and frameworks in place, training the team and getting them to familiarize themselves with the systems having a vault for narrative and voice, I think was the other piece. And finally, using, using the systems, once you have them, not letting them collect dust, as it were, right? Nick Usborne  27:32 Like and it is, I get it right now. I get it. It’s hard for a lot of companies, because I think using AI has been very kind of mixed. Some companies have dived straight in. Others are resistant, particularly companies that have compliance issues, financial, medical stuff like that. They’re being very careful, very cautious, and for very good reason. So the rate of adoption is very uneven at the moment, Christian Klepp  28:01 Absolutely, absolutely, all right. Nick you’ve given us plenty here, right? But if we’re going to talk about actionable tips, like something that somebody who’s listening to this conversation that they can take action on right after listening to this interview, what are like some of the top three things you would advise them to do? Nick Usborne  28:17 Well, I guess first is just we’ve talked quite a bit about the story, the story of collecting stories. Just do that because, like I say, I think story is your is your superpower, because it is the only place where you have a moat you don’t in what you say and how you say it. Anyone can copy you, and I can automate copying you through AI as well, but I cannot steal your story, because it’s just not true if, if it’s not my story. So I’d always start there and again, start, start that. Build the vault, select the story and formalize that process. Interview the Founders, if you can, interview early employees, even if they’re retired, interview the first three clients, if you can access them, interview customer service. So often overlooked, customer service in one way or another, so long as that’s not all automated, if there’s still humans in that loop, then have conversations with them. And you can, you can, you can, get transcripts, customer service transcripts, and feed them into AI and say, hey, please analyze and summarize this. What are, what are the most powerful messages we can get from our customer service? Sort of stream of content? Do? Do a sentiment analysis? What are people upset about? What are people happy about? So, yeah, story, I think, is like, I say, it will be your motive, it will be your savior. So first start to formalize that process of getting story and then making sure that it finds a place, somewhere in your automation of, you know, AI generated content, Christian Klepp  29:58 Fantastic, fantastic stuff. Okay, soapbox time. What is the status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why? Nick Usborne  30:11 I guess again, I’m just going to overlapping. I don’t know what a status quo, but the thing that I passionately disagree with is is every time you see most or a social media title that says top 20 killer, unbeatable prompts.  Christian Klepp  30:31 Oh, yeah. Nick Usborne  30:32 No, no, no, absolutely, just, just no for two reasons. One is that they’re going to be generic. They’re not going to apply to your company in particular, they’ll be generic, and just because they work for someone else does not mean they’re going to work for you. And like I say, we did, I’ve done research on those prompt libraries, and only 7% of them even touch on story. So if I’m writing stories, the most important thing almost all of those prompt libraries are missing out on that. They’re just focusing on narrative and voice and ignoring stories. So not good and and, yeah, so, so that is, I don’t know whether the status quo, but it’s something I keep seeing, and it irritates me when I get it. I understand why they’re doing it, but not helpful for your company. Christian Klepp  31:18 Yeah, you and me both. I mean, those are the those are the pulse they attempt to ignore immediately. I mean, I just skim through it and see the prompts, and I’m like, Nah, but I think it’s human nature too, isn’t it? Like everybody wants to chase the next hack. They want to find that the you know, the shortcut, like the quickest route to get something done. And I get that, but it sometimes does more harm than good. Nick Usborne  31:43 Easy button, but also to be fair and to be a little bit more generous. This is early days, and so people are looking for help. And if it says top 20, this is, oh my goodness, thank you. I’ll take that now. Over time, that’ll change, and people will become a little more sophisticated, I think, but like us, like you. You know, I get it. I understand why those those posts and titles are attractive, and that’s why people create them. But we can do better. We can do better Christian Klepp  32:12 Absolutely, absolutely we can, and we will, hopefully, all right, here comes the bonus question. I’ve been thinking about this one, but Nick Usborne  32:23 I feel strangely nervous. I feel nervous, but it’s a bonus question. Christian Klepp  32:30 Just breathe. Just breathe. I mean, clearly from this conversation, you know, writing is in your blood, right? It’s something that you are passionate about, but it’s also something you’ve done professionally for a long time, I suppose. The bonus question is, if you had an opportunity to meet your favorite writer or author, living or dead, who would it be, and what would you talk about?  Nick Usborne  32:55 One of the people, I really admire, and I’ve already spoken to him, is David Abbott. So David Abbott is a copywriter from from England, and he had an agency called Abbot Mead Vickers, and he was an amazing writer. So I’ve already met him. Who I haven’t met I would like to re write to meet is Susie Henry. She was the copywriter behind a series of advertisements in the UK for an insurance company, and she is just a delightful writer, so I told you, well, no, I hadn’t told you. Maybe I will tell you I’m like, when I started out copywriting, it was at the tail end of the Mad Men period, and creatives were the Kings and Queens, and copywriting was such a craft, it was something to be absolutely proud of, like we’d go through so many drafts, and it was, I was, you know, I was, I was a craftsman, learning from other craftsmen. And David, ever I met, he was in a fantastic writer, just written Susie Henry so good, very, very conversational writer, which was very unusual for that time. So I’d like to meet and talk with her, and I still can’t remember the fiction writer. He’s science fiction writer. I completely lost blank on his name, and I’ve actually met him once briefly, but I’d like to get back to him and chat, but I can’t, because he’s he’s since passed. Christian Klepp  34:19 Oh, I see, I see, I see. All right, well, that’s quite the list of people, but, um, but yeah. No, fantastic. No. Nick, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. And please quick introduction to yourself and how people can get in touch with you. Nick Usborne  34:37 All right. Hi. My name is Nick Usborne, so my business build Story Aligned. So storyaligned.com and what we do there is pretty much, what I’ve talked about today is we train teams within companies to look at story, narrative and voice with a lot of emphasis on story, because that’s where the note is, so if you get a Story Aligned, you’ll find we have a white paper you can download. We have a blog that you can read, the description of the training. So yeah, if this interests you, if you find this an interesting topic, there’s plenty to do when you get there. So Story Aligned, A, L, I, G, N, E, D, yeah. Story Aligned. Christian Klepp  35:21 Fantastic, fantastic. And we’ll be sure to pop that into the show notes so that it’ll be easy for everyone to access. But once again, Nick, thank you.  Nick Usborne  35:28 Sorry, one last thing, if you want to please opening myself up, if you want to just talk to me directly, you can write to me at nick@storyaligned.com. Christian Klepp  35:38 Perfect, perfect. Nick, once again, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. Nick Usborne  35:44 Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It’s been a pleasure. Christian Klepp  35:47 Thank you. Bye for now. You.

Pamela Potts is a leadership development expert, coach, and author dedicated to transforming how leaders energize themselves and their teams. Drawing on years of experience as an entrepreneur, consultant, and facilitator, Pamela helps business owners and professionals integrate coaching skills into leadership, enhance energy management, and unlock hidden potential in themselves and others. In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Pamela Potts joins Robert Plank to explore the power of the Leader Coach Approach. She reveals how understanding your personal energy, practicing self-awareness, and building coaching skills can revolutionize leadership outcomes, driving both personal and business growth. Pamela discusses why so many leaders struggle with accountability and implementation, shares her OMA coaching method, and demonstrates how to foster joy and sustainability in professional life. Listeners will discover how to identify and leverage individual strengths, why curiosity is vital for progress, and how adopting a coaching mindset can transform teams and create meaningful results. Quotes: "You can't be curious and judgmental at the same time."  "Look for what energizes you, and it's okay to focus on what brings you joy."  "As leaders, our job is to get results through others, not just ourselves." “When you shift from solving to asking questions, you become a leader who coaches.” Resources: Visit Pamela Potts's Website Connect with Pamela Potts on LinkedIn

One of the Top Marketing Trends in 2026.  AI search is about to overtake traditional search by 2028, and the implications for marketers are massive. In this episode, Sandy Carter sits down with content strategy expert Andy Crestodina to unpack the rise of GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and why it is radically different from the SEO we all know. You'll hear why AI-generated recommendations convert at higher rates, and how brands can train AI to choose them as the preferred answer, and most importantly, a Hack to start making progress for your brand today!

B2B Influencer Marketing isn't broken, it's just misunderstood. Author and CEO Brianna Doe joins Daniel on The Marketing Millennials to explain why most B2B influencer programs fail before they even start.  From unrealistic expectations to poor internal alignment, Brianna walks through what actually makes Influencer Marketing work, especially in B2B. They cover how to set the right goals, choose the right creators, write effective briefs, track the right metrics, and avoid the trap of one-off campaigns.  And, what does it mean to be authentic? They explore personal branding and how Marketers can stop letting job titles and imposter syndrome define their careers. If you're a B2B Marketer looking to refine your influencer program, set realistic goals, and even build your personal brand, this episode is for you.  Follow Brianna: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianna-doe/ Follow Daniel: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themarketingmillennials/featured Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Dmurr68 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: www.workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: www.workweek.com

For decades, the biggest barrier to building a SaaS company was technical talent. You needed a team of engineers to ship a world-class product. David Okuniev, Co-Founder of Typeform, believes that era is over. In this episode of the ProductLed 100 series, Wes Bush sits down with David Okuniev (Founder of Float) and Esben Friis-Jensen (Co-Founder of Userflow) to discuss why "Taste" is the only defensible moat left in the age of AI. David reveals how he is building his new venture, Supercut, by literally talking to Claude Code through a microphone - building full iOS apps in days without knowing Swift. He argues that since AI has commoditized the "How" of building software, the "What" and "Why" (Design and Taste) matter more than ever. They also explore why this shift allows for a "Minimum Viable Team" of just three people, why David regrets scaling Typeform into a large organization, and how to survive as a "Pioneer" founder without getting bogged down by professional management. Key Highlights: 01:21: The "Accidental" Origin: How a client project for a toilet showroom in Barcelona turned into Typeform.03:51: The Viral Launch: Generating 8,000 pre-signups and achieving immediate viral growth without traditional validation.09:53: The Taste Differentiator: Why design is the only way to distinguish yourself 13:00: The "Impulsive" Archetype: David's approach to building products based on intuition rather than validation.21:41: The "Professional CEO" Trap: Why David regrets stepping down and why founders should stay in the driver's seat.37:42: The Float Labs Model: How David runs a product lab to spin out new companies (like Supercut).42:09: The Minimum Viable Team: Why the modern startup only needs a Designer, a Tech Lead, and a Marketer.44:53: The "Tastemaker" Advice: You don't need to be a designer; you just need to be opinionated. Resources:

What happens when a side hustle photo business turns into a decade-long marketing career that no longer fits? In this episode, Michael Galo shares his non-linear journey to Nashville Software School (NSS). After feeling "stuck" in marketing and communications, Michael decided to follow the advice of local coffee shop regulars and dive into tech. Michael discusses the intensity of the six-month Software Development bootcamp, the "fire hose" of learning, and why he chose to immediately specialize further by joining NSS's brand-new Data Engineering program through the ProTech initiative. 01:33 Life Before NSS: A Decade in Photo Production, Marketing & Communications 02:31 The Spark: Too Many Alumni at the Coffee Shop 02:57 Why Software Development? 04:59 Navigating the Bootcamp Challenge: The Capstones 06:52 The Importance of Community and Teamwork 08:01 Specializing with Data Engineering and ProTech 10:41 Deepening Backend Skills and Data Architecture 12:18 Expanding the Job Search Target 14:24 Career Development: Beyond the Resume 16:18 Advice for the Job Search: Stay Connected 18:00 Is Now the Right Time to Invest in Yourself? 20:10 Final Thoughts: Busting Through the Walls

It was four years ago that the Twitter account for legendary beer brand Pabst Blue Ribbon tweeted out: "Not drinking this January? Try eating ass!" And we're FINALLY talking to the guy who did it. Because Corey Smale—who was promptly fired for the Tweet and owned it publicly—isn't just PBR's ex-social media manager. He's now been named Ad Age's "Marketer of the Year" for his current work as Chief Creative Officer at Garage Beer, one of the fastest-growing beer brands in the world. Look, we already covered the PBR "eating ass" tweet extensively in episode 30 of this podcast. And Dusty arrived at the conclusion that it might have been a dumb thing to tweet, but it was consistent with the brand voice that management and fans had embraced. Firing Corey was just an act of scapegoating. But in this episode, we'll chart the four-year redemption ordeal that took Corey Smale from social media fall guy… to the creative force behind a growing beverage brand that counts football and podcast sensations Jason and Travis Kelce among its co-owners. Corey will tell us about the very deliberate decision-making that rebuilt his reputation, the uncertainty that comes from missing on a big swing, and the source of the work ethic that has propelled him to the top of the marketing heap. Plus, we'll talk about the creative process behind Garage Beer's deliciously deranged marketing and social media presence, including its "Brewmite" martial arts movie, its Predator parody "Thermal Buzz," and a water bed that dispenses beer to one lucky brand fan. Check out the video version if you want to see clips of the creative assets: https://youtu.be/X32LR9Q0SVs Finally, Corey will break a bit of Garage Beer merchandising news—the upcoming launch of its "Beer Hand," a reimagined Nintendo Power Glove designed to aid the wearer in making life decisions and pounding brewskies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jay Williams and Kristin Chylak join Jim Flynn and Leslie Castillo to discuss why understanding insurance fundamentals is critical for marketing success in the insurance industry. From decoding industry jargon to navigating the insurance life cycle and key financial metrics, this episode explores how IMCA's Introduction to Insurance for Marketers course helps new and seasoned marketers onboard faster, communicate more effectively, and add greater value to their organizations. Tune in to this episode of the IMCA peer2peer podcast from ONEFIRE to learn how foundational knowledge can unlock stronger marketing performance.

In this week's Barber's Brief, Marcc and Vassili unpack four timely stories that cut to the heart of modern marketing leadership: strategy clarity, AI's real role in organizations, and why going small in marketing is often the riskiest move of all.The conversation starts with a sharp diagnosis of “strategy anxiety”—the condition where everything is labelled a priority, trade-offs disappear, and teams are left busy but directionless. From there, they examine why many organizations are stuck using AI to make marketing cheaper, not more valuable, and why that mindset risks turning marketing into a disposable cost center rather than a strategic function.The episode then tackles the growing backlash against “less is more” marketing, drawing on effectiveness research that shows scale, reach, and creative boldness still matter—even in a world obsessed with efficiency dashboards.They close with Ad of the Week, spotlighting Petro-Canada's “No Time to Hibernate” Winter Games campaign, breaking down why distinctive assets, emotion, and long-term creative commitment still outperform cautious, forgettable work.If you're feeling pulled in too many directions, overwhelmed by priorities, or pressured to optimize your way to growth, this episode offers a much-needed reset.Key TakeawaysIf everything is a priority, you don't have a strategy.Strategy requires exclusion. Anxiety fills the gap when leaders avoid hard choices.Activity is not clarity. More dashboards, roadmaps, and urgency don't replace direction—they often create noise.AI used only for efficiency shrinks marketing's importance. Making content cheaper doesn't make marketing more valuable or more defensible.AI is moving from experimentation to infrastructure.Organizations that fail to move from tools to orchestration risk building tech debt, not advantage.“Less is more” is often a trap.Small, fragmented marketing doesn't reduce risk—it guarantees invisibility.Reach, scale, and salience still drive growth. Efficiency metrics are useful, but they don't replace business outcomes.Brand vs. performance is a false dichotomy. Every marketing activity builds the brand—customers experience one system, not silos.Great campaigns compound over time. Distinctive assets and creative consistency matter more than short-term optimization.Chapters / Timestamps00:00 – Welcome to the Barber's Brief - What caught Marc and V's attention this week.01:00 – Strategy Anxiety: When Everything Is a Priority - Why lack of focus creates burnout, reactivity, and execution without confidence.04:45 – Strategic Drift and the Cost of Avoiding Hard Choices - Why exclusion matters as much as inclusion in real strategy.06:40 – AI, Davos, and the Efficiency Trap - Why using AI to do “more with less” risks shrinking marketing's role.09:15 – From AI Pilots to Enterprise Infrastructure - How AI becomes tech debt without orchestration and outcomes.11:45 – Less Is Not More: Why Marketing Needs Scale - Why cautious, fragmented spend often delivers the worst ROI.14:45 – Efficiency Metrics vs. Business Outcomes - The danger of optimizing dashboards instead of growth.16:30 – Brand vs. Performance: A False...

In this episode we'll talk about these energies:Why traditional marketing tactics are losing effectivenessThe difference between selling and resonatingWhy urgency, scarcity, and lifestyle marketing are wearing people outWhat audiences actually respond to nowHow honesty and process build trust faster than persuasionWhy people follow those who go first, not those who commandHow resonance creates long-term connection, not short-term spikesAnd more… CONNECT WITH ME…→ Instagram — @mattgottesman→ My Substack — mattgottesman.substack.com → Apparel — thenicheisyou.comRESOURCES…→ Recommended Book List — CLICK HERE→ Masterclass — CLICK HEREWORKSHOPS + MASTERCLASS:→ Need MORE clarity? - Here's the FREE… 6 Days to Clarity Workshop - clarity for your time, energy, money, creativity, work & play→ Write, Design, Build: Content Creator Studio & OS - Growing the niche of you, your audience, reach, voice, passion & incomeOTHER RELATED EPISODES:Faith Isn't Knowing the Whole Path… It's Taking the Next Honest StepApple: https://apple.co/3MB62IuSpotify: https://bit.ly/4rZw3RN

Retail media is moving beyond scale, and Roundel wants marketers to rethink what performance really means. In this sponsored episode of Marketer's Brief, Ad Age's contributing editor, Natalie Zfat, sits down with Matt Drzewicki, senior vice president and general manager of Roundel, Target's retail media network, to discuss how guest-centric strategies, responsible AI and deeper partnerships are reshaping the retail media landscape. Drawing insights from CES and early results from Roundel's new Precision Plus offering, Drzewicki explains why relevance is outperforming repetition, how first-party data and closed-loop measurement are helping brands prove incrementality, and why discovery increasingly happens offsite through creators, video and social platforms. Tune in to hear how AI-powered optimization is improving efficiency across the funnel, the role of storytelling in an always-on shopper journey, and what marketers should prioritize as signal loss and fragmentation accelerate.

In this heartfelt episode, Megan Powers reconnects with the dynamic Jen Larsen (or Jen Cole, as many know her) after a significant hiatus from recording together. The duo reflects on the challenges and changes they've faced over the last few months, emphasizing the importance of vulnerability and community support during tough times.As they catch up, Jen shares her personal experiences of navigating career shifts and the emotional toll of keeping everything bottled up. Megan, too, opens up about her own journey.Key Insights Include:- The Power of Vulnerability: Understanding that sharing struggles can strengthen bonds with your audience and community.- Building a Support Network: The necessity of leaning on friends and colleagues during challenging times instead of facing them alone.- The Importance of Consistency: How the duo plans to rekindle their podcasting rhythm, and engage their listeners more effectively.- Embracing Change: Both Jen and Megan discuss the shifts in their lives and how these experiences shape their perspectives as marketers.Get ready for more silliness and insightful conversations as they commit to recording their podcast together with quality content and engaging guests. ~._.*._.~Making a Marketer is brought to you by Powers of Marketing - providing exceptional podcast experiences & online and in-person events since 2013. Check out episode 184, and if our show moves you, please share it and let us know your thoughts!Take our LISTENER Community Survey!!! HERE** Our editor Avri makes amazing music! Check out his music on Spotify ! **

Performance marketers struggle with direct mail attribution and speed. Ryan Ferrier is CEO of Lob, the direct mail automation platform serving over 12,000 businesses with API-driven personalized campaigns. The discussion covers AI-powered delivery optimization that automatically selects standard vs. first-class postage based on speed requirements, real-time address verification APIs that prevent undeliverable mail and save millions in wasted sends, and QR code attribution systems with personalized URLs achieving 5% average conversion rates and up to 30% for compliance-ready campaigns.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We're breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.In this episode, Elena and Rob examine why treating statistical significance as proof can mislead marketers. They reveal how relying on a single P-value creates blind spots and why smart decisions require looking at the full picture of evidence.Topics covered: [01:00] "Statistical Significance and Statistical Reporting, Moving Beyond Binary"[02:00] What statistical significance actually means[04:00] When significant results don't matter for business[05:00] Building a toolkit approach beyond P-values[06:00] Practical importance versus statistical significance[08:00] Avoiding single-test tunnel vision  To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter.  Resources: McShane, B. B., Bradlow, E. T., Lynch, J. G., Jr., & Meyer, R. J. (2024). “Statistical Significance” and statistical reporting: Moving beyond binary. Journal of Marketing, 88(1), 1–20.  Get more research-backed marketing strategies by subscribing to The Marketing Architects on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Performance marketers struggle with direct mail attribution and speed. Ryan Ferrier is CEO of Lob, the direct mail automation platform serving over 12,000 businesses with API-driven personalized campaigns. The discussion covers AI-powered delivery optimization that automatically selects standard vs. first-class postage based on speed requirements, real-time address verification APIs that prevent undeliverable mail and save millions in wasted sends, and QR code attribution systems with personalized URLs achieving 5% average conversion rates and up to 30% for compliance-ready campaigns.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

PPC Strategies for Small B2B Brands to Beat Big Competitors So many B2B companies and marketing teams waste budget on tactics that don't drive results or support core business goals. Smaller B2B brands often compete against much larger companies while working with less internal bandwidth, tighter budgets, and limited resources. The key being successful lies in their ability to be strategic, efficient, and resourceful despite these obvious constraints. So how can small B2B brands outmaneuver big competitors using PPC and smarter marketing strategies? That's why we're talking to Andy Janaitis (Founder and Chief Strategist, PPC Pitbulls), who shared his experience and PPC strategies for small B2B brands to beat big competitors. During our conversation, Andy discussed the importance of foundational B2B marketing elements like high-converting landing pages, automated email flows, and a well-structured PPC strategy. He highlighted why targeted messaging and measurement are essential to compete more effectively against competitors. Andy also underscored the value of understanding B2B audience pain points, having a well-designed website, and leveraging key metrics such as first-order profitability and customer lifetime growth. He emphasized the importance of transparency and authenticity in B2B marketing strategies and advocated for a data-driven approach that achieves scalable, profitable growth. https://youtu.be/DR6d_dFfnVI Topics discussed in episode: [03:06] The Small Brand Advantage: Why being smaller allows for more targeted messaging that resonates better than broad, big-brand ads. [05:05] Avoid the Testing Trap: Why splitting a small budget across too many creative tests leads to insufficient data and wasted spend. [07:14] Winning the Auction: How the real-time ad auction rewards quality and specificity, allowing you to pay less than big brands for premium placements. [09:50] The Conversion Ecosystem: The critical role of landing pages and automated email flows in nurturing leads who aren’t ready to buy yet. [14:58] 5 Essentials for Ad Readiness: A checklist of what you need (from audience understanding to goal clarity) before launching your first campaign. [21:55] AI in PPC: How AI-driven automation has powered platforms for years and where it is heading next. [25:34] Better Metrics: Why you should look past ROAS and focus on first-order profitability and customer lifetime growth. Companies and links mentioned: Andy Janaitis on LinkedIn  PPC Pitbulls  Transcript Andy Janaitis, Christian Klepp Andy Janaitis  00:00 If you’re sending people to a landing page that’s not built to convert, if it doesn’t have the social proof that gives somebody the trust in your product or your service, you may be able to get folks to your site, but they’re not ultimately going to purchase for you, and that’s just one other component. Something else we see all the time is email flows, so making sure that you have automated welcome flows, that if they don’t purchase the first time they’re on your site, they have a lower value touch point, whether it be downloading a free lead magnet or something like that, that brings them into your ecosystem and allows you to start nurturing the relationship over time. Those are two things that we see all the time, landing pages and email flows that are fundamentals that get overlooked and people say, hey, the ads aren’t working, you know, I gotta, you know, try more creative. I gotta keep tweaking. I gotta change, you know, the different structure that some YouTube Guru told me that I need to be running, when in reality, it’s like, no, there’s some key fundamentals that you’ve got to get right about your business first. And getting those things right is going to have 100 times more impact than tweaking little bits of the creative here and there. Christian Klepp  01:04 So many B2B companies and their marketing teams waste money on marketing that doesn’t match their business goals. They go up against much larger competitors, while also having to contend with limited budgets, resources and bandwidth. So how can smaller B2B brands outsmart their biggest counterparts and win? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today, I’ll be talking to Andy Janaitis, who will be answering this question. He’s the Founder and Chief Strategist of PPC Pitbulls, a boutique digital marketing agency that helps B2B businesses grow past seven figures through leveraging Google and Meta ads. Tune in to find out more about what the speed to be Marketers Mission is. All right, and off we go. Mr. Andy Janaitis, welcome to the show, sir. Andy Janaitis  01:50 Thanks for having me, Christian. Christian Klepp  01:51 Really enjoyed our pre-interview conversation, Andy. We talked about a lot of things that range from B2B Marketing to family and hobbies and the different cities that we’re living in, and what have you. But I am really looking forward to this conversation, because it’s something that I think a lot of people in the B2B Marketing world can relate to. And if they can’t relate, they should all right, so let’s dive right in, because I think this is going to be a really interesting conversation, right? Andy Janaitis  02:19 Definitely. Christian Klepp  02:20 Okay. So Andy, you’re on a Mission to help scale independent B2B brands with data driven Google and Meta ads. But for this conversation, I’d like to zero in on the topic of how smaller B2B brands can outsmart the bigger competitors by being strategic with PPC. If we’re going to use military terms, it almost sounds like you have to learn how to use Guerrilla warfare instead of conventional war tactics, right? So I’m going to kick-off the conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them all right? So the first question is, what is it about PPC or Pay Per Click that you wish more people understood? And the second question is, why do you think small brands fail when they try to copy big brand ad strategies? Andy Janaitis  03:06 There’s a lot, a lot there to unpack, and I think, you know, there’s, I think you touched on it there, but there’s a lot of anxiety among small brands. We work with Founders and Marketing Directors of these independent brands, and oftentimes there’s a fear of a Google Ads or Meta ads, because they say, Hey, there’s some big competitors out there in my space that are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. And if I’ve got my little budget, if I’m trying to spend $5 or $10,000 a month, how do I have any chance of competing with them? You know, surely they’re going to outbid me on every single keyword, every single ad placement that I could be in, and what gets missed there is that you actually do have a big advantage in that being smaller. Your product probably has a smaller niche than you think, because you’re not distributed to everybody, you’re speaking to a smaller audience, which allows you to be much more targeted in your messaging. So in that way, where you might have some of these bigger brands that are, of course, way out investing, you that investment is being spread across so many different audiences and so many different placements, whereas you have the ability to say, Hey, I’ve got a limited budget. Let me only target, you know, the most likely people to purchase from me, and the people who are, you know, who I’m most likely to resonate with, and then give them a message that really speaks directly to them. So I think that’s the first and foremost thing to remember, is that you can take this, you know, supposedly disadvantage, and really turn it into an advantage when you when you focus in on, you know, who is your smallest, tightest, ideal client, that that you can target and speak to. I think that’s really, really important and gets missed and to your second question around, you know, the big brand tactics. I think a lot of times people see these in Instagram reels, LinkedIn posts that come up with a lot of different strategies that could work well, but are only going to work well on those larger budgets. So one great example of this. A lot of times I see people talking about creative testing and talking about needing we tested across 100 different assets, talk about, you know, let’s use AI so that we have the model in this particular influencer ad. You know, we can change the hair color and the shirt color and all these different combinations and test all these different things. The problem with that is, if you try that with a much smaller budget, you’re necessarily going to split, you know, the budget that many different ways. So say you run 100 different combinations, 100 different messages targets, you’re splitting your budget that many different ways, and you’re not building up enough data about any one of those individual combinations to make a good decision. So I always kind of tell people focus on the fundamentals. First worry about your top level messaging. What is it that really matters most and makes your product different, you know, and your really key differentiators to your to your most ideal audience, forget about, you know, button colors, or, you know, with these smaller budgets, don’t worry about testing. You know, what’s the color of the shirt that the model is wearing kind of thing, you know, you’ll have time to test those things in the future. But, you know, I think people get too caught up in those, those types of practices that, you know, big brands are spending a lot of time and money on and forget about, you know, the fundamentals themselves. Christian Klepp  06:35 Absolutely, absolutely. You brought up some really great points. I like to go back to like, two of them that you mentioned, I think the first one, short of getting too granular or getting too in the weeds, but you brought up something that I thought was really important to discuss further about, like the worry or the concern the Marketers have that people are gonna outbid us for those, for those keyboards, For example, talk us through, if you can, even from a top level perspective, how does a small B2B Company navigate through that? Because it sounds like it can. It can be an exercise that could potentially become very complex. Andy Janaitis  07:14 And the nice thing about this is it’s all automated these days. So, you know, realistically, when you are putting, you know, saying, hey, I want to run an Ad, whether it be on Google or on Meta. What’s happening is a real time auction where they’re saying, Hey, there’s this particular placement or this particular search, in the case of Google, so anybody who could possibly run an Ad on that, we’re going to let them, you know, put their ad forth and how much they’re willing to bid on it, and see, you know, who kind of gets in the top position and gets to show their ad. Now the thing that’s interesting there is it’s not based only on how much you’re about to pay for the ad. It’s also based on the quality of the ad, or how good of a match the ad is for that particular person or that particular search that’s coming in. And that’s where your ad can be more targeted, can be a higher quality ad, because it’s more specific. So you actually are going to be paying a little bit less for that placement than even some of these really big brands that are necessarily speaking a little bit broader language and not as niche down of a message. So that’s one, one big way. The other big thing is, as I mentioned, it’s in real time on every single on every single potential ad placement, or every potential search. So what that means is you probably aren’t going to compete with the big guys across all of the searches they’re running, but you don’t have to, because you may only show up, you know, you may only overlap in 5% of the placement. So where their budgets are going out there to every single potential placement or search that they could show up for, you only need to compete with them in that small, small percentage that is most relevant to your specific audience. Christian Klepp  08:55 Okay, fantastic, fantastic. Okay, second follow up question, and again, got to be careful, because we could potentially go down the deep rabbit hole with this one. But one thing that we all know about PPC is that there’s a lot behind it. And what I mean by that is, it shouldn’t be viewed as this one and done exercise. There’s a there’s a bit of an ecosystem behind it. And what I mean by that is, if somebody goes and sees the ad on Google or Meta and clicks on it, well, that clicks got to redirect people somewhere, right, be that a landing page or a website or whatnot, what’s on? What’s on the co you know, what kind of content are we talking about? What kind of CTA are we talking about? Walk us through that about why, why is it so important for B2B Marketers to understand that PPC is a component in this, this ecosystem? Andy Janaitis  09:50 That’s so, so important, and it’s, it’s important, especially as we talk about, you know, smaller brands, smaller budgets. You know, in that $10,000 to. $20,000 ad spend range. What we find is that, first of all, as you mentioned, it’s a holistic ecosystem. So, yeah, the ads are one part, and you got to make sure that you’ve got your ad copy, you’ve got your placements, you’ve got your you know, your strategy in the ad platforms down. But as you mentioned, if you’re sending people to a landing page that’s not built to convert, if it doesn’t have the social proof that gives somebody the trust in your product or your service. They’re not you may be able to get folks to your site, but they’re not ultimately going to purchase for you. And that’s just one other component. Something else we see all the time is email flows, so making sure that you have automated welcome flows, that if they don’t purchase the first time they’re on your site, they have a lower value touch point, whether it be downloading a free lead magnet or something like that, that brings them into your ecosystem and allows you to start nurturing the relationship over time. Those are two things that we see all the time, landing pages and email flows that are fundamentals that get overlooked. And people say, you know, hey, the ads aren’t working. You know, I gotta, you know, try more creative. I gotta, I gotta keep tweaking. I gotta change. You know, the the different structure that some YouTube Guru told me that I need to be running, when, in reality, it’s like, no, there’s some key fundamentals that you’ve got to get right about your business first. And getting those things right is going to have, you know, 100 times more impact than tweaking little bits of the creative here and there. Christian Klepp  11:26 You brought up one word that I think is worth repeating. It’s nurturing, right? Like, and I think that gets, um, that gets ignored or overlooked a lot in B2B, especially like, when, when the organization’s very sales driven. So it’s all about like, volume, volume, volume, right? Like we gotta, like, I mean, just to use the the old adage of like, you know, gonna hit that phone right, or pound the pavement and just get those numbers up right? But at the end of the day, especially if we’re talking about B2B, not everybody is ready to buy at the first contact. In fact, that would, I would almost go as far as to say, like, 97%, 98% of the time, they’re not, not, they’re not in buying mode, right? They’re probably still in an investigative mode. They’re still looking at what the options are out there. They’re probably doing their own research. That’s how they have landed on those ads. So it’s to your point. It’s so important to like, nurture that at that that lead rather in a non-pushy, non-intrusive way that helps to build that trust, to give them that confidence that this is, in fact, the right company that we should be perhaps having a conversation with, right? Andy Janaitis  12:33 Exactly, yeah, and I think sometimes people spend so much time on their messaging and their differentiators, and then they forget to tell their customers that, you know, they spent all this time working through what exactly it is that made their business better than the competitor. But if you don’t take the time to, you know, set up a welcome email flow it or, you know, build a presence on build an organic presence on Google, on Instagram or Facebook, you’re not necessarily getting that message out and giving people a chance to get to know you and fall in love with your brand. So I think that’s so, so important and often overlooked. Christian Klepp  13:12 Absolutely, absolutely. You brought up some of these already, but talk to us about some of these key pitfalls that Marketing Teams should be avoiding when it comes to PPC, and what should they be doing instead? Andy Janaitis  13:24 So we talked about a few of them. You know, some of the fundamentals that exist outside of the ad ecosystem. But one pitfall that I really want to focus on, that that is really closely tied to the ad ecosystem is measurement. So making sure that once somebody hit your site, you understand where they came from and ultimately what they did so that might be filling out a lead form. That might be purchasing a product, if you’re in kind of the E-commerce space, might be adding a product to their cart. You’ve got to make sure that you’re measuring all those independent events for two purposes, one, passing that data back to a Google or a Meta is the only way that those platforms can optimize and continue to get you better and better results. And two, you need to have that data to be able to report on and understand where your ad dollars are going and whether they’re working or not. That’s how you make the decision of, should I be putting more budget into Google or into Meta or hey, are neither of them working? And I got to try something totally different that’s often overlooked. We see clients coming to us that have spent untold amounts of money, and they’re not really even sure how it worked because they weren’t measuring it in the first place. So they’re just basing it on getting the cheapest clicks possible and not focusing on, you know, really optimizing for conversion? Christian Klepp  14:44 Yeah, no, absolutely. Those are, those are some very important points. In our last conversation, you talked about these five essentials that B2B brands need to have before they run their first ad campaign. Can you talk to us about that? Andy Janaitis  14:58 Yeah, definitely. I. So yeah, I’ll kind of walk through, and I don’t know if we’ll end up on four or six, but we’ll shoot for five here. The number one thing as you’re going through or selling online, obviously, you need to have an understanding of who your audience is and who you’re going to be targeting from that and what comes out of that is having an understanding of what are the main pain points that they have, and making sure that you’re speaking to those on a really well designed website that’s designed for, I say, designed for conversion, but what I mean by that is it helps guide somebody through that buyer’s journey, taking them from the point of just getting to know your brand to understanding what you do, to understanding how you solve their pain points, and then some social proof about why you’re better than others. So a you know, understanding your audience, having a well developed website that speaks to the audience, and importantly, speaks to the real symptoms and pain points that they’re dealing with, and how you can help solve them. Number three, I would say, is measurement. That’s, that’s a big piece that, you know, we just talked about in depth, but making sure you’re understanding once somebody hits the site, what are they, you know, what are they doing? Where are they going? What pages are they viewing? Do they ultimately fill out a lead form? Do they ultimately, you know, add the product to their cart and then leave? You’ve got to be able to measure what’s happening once they hit the site. Beyond that, I would say maybe, maybe item number four will group together a lot of those other fundamentals. So things that even outside of the website, things like a nurture flow and email, a presence on social, these are all so, so important, and even if you’re focused on paid ads running to a website to get a conversion, all of these other things are going to help that process. It’s a holistic marketing process, because we know today that people see you across a number of channels. It’s not that they’re only going to see your ad, come to your website, make a decision and buy. They’re going to, you know, hopefully see your ad later on, maybe see an organic post that you made on your socials. Maybe they bump into you at a trade show or a conference, and ultimately get to your website, make the decision there so making sure that those other fundamentals, like a an email nurture flow or a good organic social present are available, and then number five, and I think this is most important. And what I see people get wrong all the time is, understand your goals. So people will say, hey, I need to run ads. I want to run ads because I want more leads. Ultimately, you know, obviously we can, can run ads, and that could be an outcome. But if you’re not able to say, you know, what type of leads do you want, why are you not getting enough leads today? What’s your capacity? How many leads can you handle? You know, what type of behaviors are you trying to get more of, whether it be leads versus, you know, sales versus, you know, people buying a purchase or even downloading a lead magnet so that we can begin the nurture process. These are all viable, viable directions to go. And if you’re not thinking through specifically for your business, what’s the very specific goal that you that you have, and more importantly, what are the constraints you have? What’s your budget? What how much creative do you have available? Do you have a team on staff that can create more creative or work with your marketing strategy, understanding the goals and the constraints? A lot of people get caught up and just say, Hey, I got to run some ads and go for it. I want more revenue, when, in reality, there’s all these different nuances to it, and you really need to know what your specific goal is. Christian Klepp  18:39 Yeah, no, no, that’s great stuff. So let me just quickly recap for the benefit of the listeners, right? So you were talking about understand who the audience is, which is, which is imperative. I mean, you know, you almost shouldn’t start anything without knowing that, right? The second one was a well developed website, and I’ve got a follow up question for you on that one. Third one is measurement. So metrics like, know what to measure, and we will have a separate question about metrics later on in the conversation. Four is nurture, flow and email and organic and a presence on social. And the last one is understanding your goals, right? Like, what is it you want to achieve with this? Right? So on the topic of websites, when you say, well, developed website, I’m I have this feeling that you’re not referring to it’s got to be this incredibly expensive and complex website. That’s not what you’re talking about, right? Andy Janaitis  19:34 No and oftentimes, the simpler it is, the better it’s going to convert. So I think that’s really important what we think about. And I think the way I think of it is, in the old days, you might have a salesperson who’s going to get in front of a potential lead and then help kind of, you know, work through the objections they might have. So hey, you know, I’m not sure this might be a little too expensive for me. Or, Hey, I’m not sure if you know, you really serve people in my niche. Or if you know you you work with somebody, somebody different. I don’t know that this is a great fit for me. And the salesperson would have all the answers, right? They would say, hey, if this is their objection, this is how we answer that. If this is their objection, this is how we answer that. This is how we tell them about how we solve their problems. In today’s day and age, you may still have some sales people, but your website needs to do a lot of that work itself. So that’s what we need to think through is, what are all the things that a buyer needs to know before they’re ready to make that purchase and make sure that we’re putting that in front of them in a way that’s super easy to understand. A confused buyer is not a buyer. There’s a better way to use that statement. I’m sure you’ve probably heard that somebody, if they find confusion, they’re not going to be ultimately making a purchase with you. So make sure it’s really, really clear what is your product or service, how does it solve the customer’s problem? And hopefully some social proof too, and making sure that there’s some confidence that you’ve solved this problem for other people, like the potential buyer. Christian Klepp  20:57 And when you say social proof, you’re, of course, referring to things like in the form of case studies, testimonials, maybe even reviews on like platforms like Clutch and the like. Andy Janaitis  21:07 Exactly. All of those are great. You know, if you have a partner badge that, hey, you’ve done good work, or you’re certified to do particular work, that could be another one. If you’ve been featured in particular publications, that can be another one. But yeah, ultimately, all of these different ways that help give confidence that you can do the job. Christian Klepp  21:24 Fantastic, fantastic. You kind of scratch the surface a little bit in the beginning of the conversation, but PPC and AI, right? I mean, you kind of, you kind of cannot avoid this topic, right? Because it permeates across the entire marketing spectrum. But you know, from your perspective and in your experience, to what degree do you find AI harmful and helpful when it comes to PPC? Andy Janaitis  21:55 So I would say, on kind of the helpful side, and this is something that’s what’s interesting is we think of AI, you know, in the last, say, three years since chatGPT released, was it three? Five was the first, you know, kind of big milestone, breaking model where people said, Oh my gosh, this is, you know, this can really do a lot of, you know, can sound like a real human kind of thing. But long before that, AI has been implemented in these platforms, in Google and Meta, and for probably the last 10 years, we’ve been moving in the direction of more automation, more AI. So earlier, we talked about that ad auction, where every single time a keyword is searched or a placement pops up on Facebook or Instagram, you have to have a particular bid of how much you’re willing to spend to get your ad there. These days, you’re not putting any of those bids in manually. You’re just telling Meta or Google, hey, here’s the budget I want, and here’s the data coming from my website to let people know if they’re purchasing or filling out a lead form or not. And now Google or Meta, go out there and run with it. You know, go ahead and optimize with the ad assets that I’ve given you and the budget that I’ve given you. Go ahead and put me wherever you need to put me in order to get the most possible, you know, results, goals that that you can and that’s all AI driven. Then it’s been that way for a long time. We’ve been moving in that kind of direction. So that’s on the helpful side. That’s where, you know, AI is really driving, driving success for us. On the hurtful side. You know, you hear a lot of times people talking about, you know, now, especially in Google, when somebody makes a search, they’re getting the information. They’re getting an answer right up front. Or maybe they’re not even going to Google. Maybe they’re in ChatGPT or Perplexity, so, Christian Klepp  23:44 It’s a summary at the top right? Yeah. Andy Janaitis  23:47 Exactly, yeah. So they don’t even need to come to your website. From a PPC perspective, there’s not that click that you can go ahead and bid on and put your ad in front of, and that can be a concern, honestly, from a services and product perspective, I find that to be a little bit less of an issue. It’s definitely more of an issue for publishers. So if you have an information content kind of business that’s really harmful for you right now, because, you know, people are getting that information without ever having to make the click onto your website. But ultimately, if somebody is going to want to hire you for your services or buy one of your products, they still have to click through at some point. They’re not necessarily making that purchase, or they’re definitely not making that purchase out of the Google results summary. That being said, the other kind of big thing, and why I’m not super, super concerned about that development, is that whether it be on chatGPT or on Google, they really haven’t started monetizing yet, and that’s where I think you’re still going to see ads up in that area, we know that you’re going to be seeing ads up there. In fact, chatGPT is already hiring up and staffing up an ad organization, so it’s just going to be one more platform, one more area where you can run ads and get in. Front of your ideal customers. Because ultimately, you know, a subscription model can work to a degree, but you know, these companies, from an economic basis, need to have ads in order to kind of fund the type of growth that they that they need to see over the coming years. Christian Klepp  25:15 Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely, all right, previously, like when we talked about this, you mentioned this one thing, right? Kind of sounds like a song, right? Like this one metric that every B2B brand must know before scaling. So what is it? And why do you think B2B brands should have it? Andy Janaitis  25:35 So I’ll maybe take a little bit of a cop out. And they’re a couple different metrics. You know, we, especially on the e-commerce side, we look at four key metrics. One of the people get caught up when they’re thinking about on in the PPC world, a lot of times, people talk about ROAs (Return On Ad Spend) or CPA (Cost Per Acquisition/Action). So ROAs would be the amount of revenue that you’re getting in for every ad dollar your spend return on ad spend and CPA would be cost per action, or essentially, you know, if somebody is looking to get lead forms filled out, how many dollars of ad spend are you putting in for every lead form that you’re getting filled out? And those can be important metrics, but they abstract away a lot of important nuance, and it’s very possible to look good in those metrics and still not make a ton of money. So we have these four key metrics, especially on the e-commerce side, that we focus in on, and it’s things like first order profitability. So yeah, your ROAs may be high, but if it’s a lot of people making repeat purchases, you may still be spending too much money to acquire that that first customer so first order profitability is going to be the first time somebody makes a purchase. Are you profitable? Or are you not? You know that that one individual purchase even before you start to look at customer lifetime growth. Is it profitable for you? Another key metric that we look at is that customer lifetime growth. So okay, perfect. You’ve profitably gotten that first purchase, but are you building enough customer lifetime value so that over time it’s going to pay off what you had to put in to acquire that customer in the first place. Another key one that really applies, whether it be e-commerce or elsewhere, is the percentage of your revenue, the percentage of your leads that are coming from organic channels versus paid channels. So we love to focus on the paid side. We help people find scalable, profitable results in the paid channels, but if you’re too over indexed in those, if you’re getting too much of your revenue or your leads from paid channels, that tells you that you’re probably paying a little bit too much for it. And you need to develop that organic you know, from your your social from people just finding you via regular old Google search, making sure that you’re not over indexed towards the paid channel, if you want to be able to scale that profitably. Christian Klepp  28:06 Okay, okay, well, there’s some really great points, and I’m glad that you pointed that out about like, you know how everybody is very obsessed with ROAs and CPA, but there are actually, in fact, other metrics that they really should be paying more attention to, or that need, that deserve some of that limelight as well. Right? Andy Janaitis  28:23 Exactly. Christian Klepp  28:24 Fantastic. So we get to the point in the conversation, my friend, where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us a ton already within these past like, 30 minutes. But just imagine there’s a B2B Marketer out there that’s listening to this conversation between you and I, and there are three to five things that you can tell them. You know, you can take action on this right now, right after listening to this conversation, what would those things be? Andy Janaitis  28:48 Yeah. So first and foremost, we talked about your measurement. So the action there is use GA for Google Analytics. If you don’t have Google Analytics installed on your website already. Make sure you go ahead and get that installed. It’s a free tool. There’s some other paid tools that are better in certain ways. But you know, for my money, as you’re getting started out, Google Analytics is absolutely table stakes. You’ve got to have that installed on your site and set up properly to measure the behavior of what’s what’s happening on your site. If we’re talking PPC, similar to that, is making sure that everything is technically configured correctly, so that when somebody makes executes a behavior, makes a purchase, fills out a lead form, that data is getting back to, you know, either Google or Meta. So those are, you know, kind of the some of the key things that you got to do right out the gate and GA for Google Analytics. It’s a free tool, so there’s no, really no excuse not to have that set up. The other thing that I think is a first step that a lot of folks really got to got to figure out is getting crystal clear on who your customer is, what their main pain point that you can solve is. Is, and then ultimately, what’s your goal for for ads. So those kind of three, three components all tied together a lot of times. You know, we find people that are either, hey, we’re just looking for leads, but they can’t really give a good answer on, you know, who their customers or what type of leads would be a good lead for them. Or, you know, maybe they they’re really tight on who their customer is. And they say, Hey, we just, we just got to run some ads, but understanding kind of where ads fit into overall ecosystem. How are you doing organically? How do you close the leads once you get them you know? How often do people who make that first purchase end up coming back and making an additional purchase? Make sure you understand what you’re actually trying to get out of the ads. I think that’s probably the number one thing, and you can’t do that without the measurement piece that we that we discussed earlier. But I would really, you know, kind of start from a measurement component. Make sure you understand what’s happening when folks at your site, and then, before you spend $1 in paid ads, make sure you understand what you’re trying to get out of those paid ads and what gap in your marketing, you’re trying to solve. Christian Klepp  31:02 Absolutely, and it’s such a dangerous mindset to have that, you know, we just want to quickly do this right, and we just want to, like, generate some quick leads so we can show some numbers. But if you, you know, to your point, and you’ve raised it a couple of times in this conversation, if you don’t do this heavy lifting up front with understanding who your target audience is and understanding what the actual goals of this exercise are, then all of this is gonna go like, down the drain at some point, right? I mean, like, I’ll have to tell you, this is your this is your area of expertise. But if you don’t know what you’re doing with paid ads, that budgets gonna, like, evaporate fairly quickly. Andy Janaitis  31:40 Exactly, yeah. Christian Klepp  31:42 We’re gonna move on to the soapbox question. I’m gonna say I was, I was, I was trying to think about, well, how to describe this, but, yeah, that’s the best description. What is the status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why? Andy Janaitis  32:02 That’s a great question. I think we talked about some of the individual components earlier. You know, folks kind of listening to Gurus, kind of coming we still to this day, you know, have clients, or prospective clients coming in and say, Hey, I saw this YouTube video that told me I’ve got to do this. And it’s, you know, just bad advice for them kind of thing, you know, where they didn’t really, you know, get that good advice and take it one step further to see how that fits for their specific business. I think that happens all too often. The other big thing that we, we see, especially in marketing in general, I think there’s a lot of suspicion of, you know, marketing, you know, we people are really, really looking for authenticity these days. And I think there’s a fear that, you know, marketing as an industry is all about telling lies or not giving, you know, an authentic answer, trying to trick somebody into buying a product or a service. And a lot of that, you know, it’s kind of our own fault, honestly. You know, there’s a lot of Gurus out there that give the industry a bad name, when in reality, you know, all of this is about you should have a valuable product or a valuable service, and what we’re doing, you know, whether it be via paid ads or organic or you know those email nurture flows is just educating The customer on how your product authentically solves their specific pain points. So I think that’s, you know, something I would really like to kind of dispel that myth that marketing agencies say, you know, are not able to, are all charlatans and not able to give you good, authentic support. You know, we like to kind of think of it almost like when you bring your car to a mechanic, that old trusted mechanic thing, right? You don’t know what’s going on under the hood. You don’t know what that clunking sound is. So you better find a mechanic that you can trust to shoot it to you straight, not sell you something you don’t need. We like to think of ourselves like that in the marketing world, you know, in a world where there’s a lot of suspicion of the practitioners, you know, making sure that you can find somebody who is transparent and that you can trust to tell you the truth, I think that’s, you know, there’s a lot of good people out there and a lot of a lot of good businesses, agencies out there, you know, I’d like to kind of, you know, dispel that myth that there isn’t, you know, a trustworthy marketing agency that can really help you, guide your business to success, and help you find, you know, find the right answers for you, not what’s just profitable for the agency. Christian Klepp  34:33 This is gonna sound so biased coming from me, but yes, I agree with you. There are some good Marketers out there, right? I mean, we have to believe that too, because, you know, not, not all of us are, are out there to, like, just, you know, make some quick profit. In fact, like the way that I work with my clients, I always say up front, honesty and transparency. Andy Janaitis  34:52 Exactly. Christian Klepp  34:53 You know. And every time they asked me for for advice and or what I would do in this situation, I always start. Answer by saying full transparency, right? This is how I would do it, or I wouldn’t recommend you do this right now, because it’s not a good user for your budget, for example, right? And we and we know that, and we know that there are agencies out there that wouldn’t do that, right? They won’t say that, right? They’ll just say, oh, yeah, absolutely, go do it. Okay? But those relationships don’t tend to last very long in my experience. Okay, so here comes the bonus question, and we talked a little bit about this before I hit record. But rumor has it that you started your agency three months before your first child was born. So the question is, what important lesson to that experience teach you, both personally and professionally, like, like, it was almost like there was, there were two things coming into this world at that point in time as a war, right? Andy Janaitis  35:51 Yeah, it’s a great question. And certainly there’s been, you know, a lot that I’ve learned from, you know, both the business and and the parenting journeys, you know, I think kind of the crossover there, you know, we think about, like, the time component, right? You know, there’s only so many hours in the day. One big thing is, it definitely gives you perspective. You know, we always think about, you know, the perspective, hey, family matters the most and kind of what it means to, you know, now I know what’s really important, as opposed to getting worried or bent out of shape about, you know, some of the little things. But I think that really applies to the whole, you know, the holistic person, and, you know, the whole lifestyle, whether it be, you know, how we spend time with family or how we spend time, you know, working on the business and growing the business, it really forces you, because you have a limited time horizon, you know, forces you to kind of really focus in on what’s most important and not waste your time on, you know, either spending time on the things that aren’t going to be impactful or don’t matter so much, and especially not wasting your worry and your anxiety on, you know, things that are going to solve themselves and you really don’t need to be worried about. Christian Klepp  37:04 And just my two cents worth, because we kind of both started our businesses around the same time, but it kind of teaches you to prioritize and manage your time a little bit better. Not that we didn’t know how to manage our time previously, but it’s a different type of time management, right? Like, time management to take care of the family and time management to, like, run the business. Right? Andy Janaitis  37:26 Exactly. Yep. Christian Klepp  37:28 Yeah. No. Fantastic, fantastic. Andy, this has been such a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thanks so much for coming on and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. Please. Quick intro to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you. Andy Janaitis  37:43 Yeah, so we’re at ppcpitbulls.com at PPC Pitbulls. We’re really focused on helping e-commerce Directors, Marketing Directors, and just small businesses in general, figure out, you know, kind of demystify the world of digital marketing, and go from confused, not knowing where the next dollars are going to come in, to having a really good, stable strategy, and, you know, confidence in, you know, a strategy for profitable growth. So if you want to learn more, come check us out. We’ll actually have a special page, ppcpitbulls.com/mission, and that will be for listeners of this particular podcast. I talked about those four key metrics that we really care about. We’ve got that all put down in kind of a self guide that you can go through. We call it our paid ads reality checklist you can go through step by step. And I’ll show you exactly how to calculate each one of those metrics and how to analyze it on the back end. If that’s too much for you, can always just book a time with me too. I love sitting down with and meeting new small businesses, learning about your niche and you know, talking about where you can go next with your digital marketing. Christian Klepp  38:52 Fantastic, fantastic. So once again, Andy, thanks so much for coming on. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. Andy Janaitis  38:59 Talk to you soon. Thanks for having me.

Want to know how your residents really feel?Watch the door swing open when a maintenance tech walks in.In today's Multifamily Operations Tip of the Day, Mike Brewer puts the spotlight where it belongs — on the most under-celebrated, yet most impactful member of your onsite team: the service technician.It's not the leasing agent.It's not the community manager.It's the person with the tool bag and shoe covers.Resident sentiment is shaped in those quiet, unscripted moments when life is disrupted by a broken faucet, a faulty HVAC, or a leaky fridge. How your tech enters, greets, and resets the space says everything about your brand. Shoe covers? Respect. Friendly hello? Warmth. Clean up after the fix? Professionalism.Mike's message is clear: every micro moment is a brand-building moment.Service techs are your frontline. They carry your reputation into every home.They deserve training, support, recognition, and most of all, gratitude.If you're serious about five-star reviews and long-term resident retention, start by celebrating the people who make homes livable.If this message resonates, like the video, subscribe, and tag a service team member who deserves the spotlight.Blog: https://www.multifamilycollective.comSupport comes from: https://www.365connect.com/?utm_campaign=mmnHosted by: https://www.multifamilymedianetwork.com

In this post-pod discussion, Vassilis and Marc unpack the biggest ideas from their recent conversation with Dale Harrison on The Only Growth Lever Marketers Control — and what those ideas actually mean for marketers in practice.They explore a critical but often uncomfortable distinction: revenue growth is not the same as real growth. When categories expand, tides rise for everyone — but that doesn't mean brands are gaining market share, competitive advantage, or long-term resilience.This episode digs into why marketers over-index on revenue and ROI, why market share is harder (but more honest) to use as a growth signal, and why a huge part of marketing's job is simply not screwing things up. The discussion also reframes advertising as both an offensive and defensive investment, emphasizing the role of creative effectiveness, mental availability, and protecting existing demand — not just chasing new sales.If you've ever been told to “just grow revenue” without clarity on what growth actually means, this episode is for you.Topics covered:Why revenue growth can mask stagnationMarket share vs. revenue: why they're not interchangeableThe danger of confusing category growth with brand growthWhy marketers are often rewarded for being “in the right boat at the right time”Advertising as demand protection, not just demand creationThe three levers marketers actually have (and why they're mostly equalized)Creative effectiveness as the only real multiplierWhy “don't screw it up” is an underrated marketing strategyHow to think about growth accelerants and external shocksWhy long-term success depends on solving for the 95%, not the 5%Timestamps00:00 – Introduction02:00 – Revenue vs. Growth: The Core Misunderstanding - Why increasing revenue doesn't automatically mean a brand is growing — and why market share matters.05:00 – Category Growth, Timing, and the Illusion of Marketing Genius - How external forces (COVID, category expansion, timing) create false signals of success.08:30 – Market Share Is Hard (But More Honest) - Why market share is rarely reported, difficult to measure, and still the most truthful growth signal.11:30 – Advertising as Protection, Not Just Growth - Why a major part of marketing's job is maintaining demand and preventing decline.14:30 – The Three Levers Marketers Actually Control - Spend, creative effectiveness, and media quality — and why none are silver bullets on their own.17:00 – The Real Takeaway: Don't Screw It Up - Creative quality, mental availability, and being ready when growth accelerants appear.19:30 – Final Reflections and Close - What marketers should do differently on Monday morning.19:25 – Final reflections and closing thoughts

Education marketing is entering another year of tight budgets, longer decision cycles, and higher expectations from districts. The uncertainty is familiar now, but the pressure to make smart, focused choices has not eased. As teams plan for the next school year, the real challenge is not doing more. It is doing fewer things with greater intention.In this episode, Elana Leoni reflects on recent conversations across the education ecosystem to surface what matters most right now. From how districts are thinking about efficacy and technology use, to where marketers should actually invest limited resources, the episode focuses on signals that can guide smarter decisions in 2026. The goal is not optimism for optimism's sake, but clarity about where attention, time, and budget are best spent.See resources and more in the episode show notes: leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcast Mentioned in this episode:EdTech Planner 2026Planning a full year of education marketing takes time, and you need a clear path that helps you stay relevant, consistent, and aligned with the moments that matter. Ready to make 2026 your most intentional (and effective!) year yet in education marketing? What The EdTech Marketer's 2026 Planner helps you do: Focus on what matters most to your brand and audience Plan campaigns around key education events Use proven strategies tailored to K–12 and higher ed Build a system that fuels visibility, engagement, and leads For six years, thousands of education and EdTech marketers have used this planner to guide their yearly campaigns and stay aligned with the school calendar. Download here: https://www.leoniconsultinggroup.com/edtech-marketers-planner

The marketing teams winning with AI today are not the ones chasing every new model release. They are the ones who found the boring, repetitive tasks their teams hate and automated those first.Nir Pochter, Co-Founder and CMO at Lightricks, joins Stephanie Postles on Marketing Trends to break down what AI actually means for creative workflows and why most teams are still using it wrong.You'll learn:- The "algebra problem" of AI adoption- How to save your design team 80% of their time- Why the gap between marketers who use AI well and those who don't is widening fast.- How to use an LLM scoring system to pre-review documents for you- The dangerous trend of "AI Marketer" job titles- What's really in store for the future of video+AI Key Moments:00:00 — Why AI Hasn't Improved Creative Output Yet02:06 — The Algebra Problem: Tools vs. Knowing How to Use Them07:27 — Nir's Background: AI PhD to Lightricks and FaceTune09:46 — What Used to Take Weeks Now Takes Minutes13:35 — Why Automating Everything Failed Miserably16:38 — Start with What People Hate Doing20:08 — The LLM Scoring System: Nothing Gets Reviewed Without an 8521:43 — Train Your LLM to Be Mean, Not Nice23:32 — Building Custom GPTs with Company Guidelines26:30 — The Pitfall: Using AI to Please Leadership28:47 — From Toys to Tools: Why Text-to-Video Isn't Enough31:05 — Coca-Cola's 70,000 Prompts (Was It Worth It?)34:41 — AI Won't Replace Creatives, But This Will37:04 — The Two Critical Skills: Prompting and Curation37:55 — How AI Multiplies the Skills Gap (7 vs 10 Example)42:47 — What CMOs Should Be Asking Their Teams46:20 — Why "AI Marketer" Is LinkedIn Fluff This episode is brought to you by Lightricks. LTX is the all-in-one creative suite for AI-driven video production; built by Lightricks to take you from idea to final 4K render in one streamlined workspace.Powered by LTX-2, our next-generation creative engine, LTX lets you move faster, collaborate seamlessly, and deliver studio-quality results without compromise. Try it today at ltx.studio Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Stop chasing the "AI-first" dream. After a year of experimenting with every AI tool, framework, and workflow I could find, I learned that building a human-first company that smartly uses AI beats trying to become an AI company every time. In this solo episode, I walk through seven lessons from 2025 that completely changed how I think about AI in marketing—from why perfect prompts don't exist to why you should use AI in your personal life. Whether you're drowning in AI hype or just getting started, these insights will help you use AI more strategically in 2026.    Need help with your branding, website, or digital marketing? Reach out to me (Rich Brooks!) today at https://www.takeflyte.com/contact

Are you ready to take your podcast from a passion project to a monetization-based international business advertising/marketing tool? In this comprehensive episode, host Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS delivers an in-depth masterclass on leveraging podcast SEO and monetization strategies for international business growth. This session is the final installment in a series focused on helping podcasters and business owners build sustainable, globally-reaching content strategies.Favour explores the critical intersection of podcasting, search engine optimization, and international business development. The episode covers essential topics including multilingual content localization, performance benchmarks, download metrics, and how to position podcasts for passive monetization through advertising networks.Key highlights include real-world success stories from clients who have transformed their podcasts into powerful SEO assets, including a case study of turning 50 podcast episodes into 50 optimized blog posts that now rank on Google's AI-powered search results. Favour also demonstrates how his own podcast appears in Google's featured snippets and AI mode results, providing concrete proof of the strategies discussed.The episode features interactive discussions with community members Juliana, Celeste, and others who share their own experiences with SEO implementation, AI optimization (AIO), and the tangible business results they've achieved. Juliana shares an exciting success story about landing a major client through Google Gemini recommendations, directly attributable to SEO work completed three years prior with FavourThis episode is essential listening for podcasters, content creators, coaches, consultants, and international business owners who want to understand how to build long-term digital assets, increase discoverability across global markets, and create multiple revenue streams through strategic content optimization.Need to Book An SEO Discovery Call for Advertising or Marketing Services?>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a Complimentary SEO Discovery Call with Favour Obasi-Ike⁠>> Visit Work and PLAY Entertainment website to learn about our digital marketing services>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our exclusive SEO Marketing community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Read SEO Articles>> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the We Don't PLAY Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠>> Purchase Flaev Beatz Beats OnlineWhat You'll Learn:International SEO Fundamentals: How to optimize your podcast content for multiple languages, regions, and search engines (Google.com, Google.co.uk, and beyond).Monetization Metrics That Matter: Understanding downloads vs. unique listeners, 7-day and 30-day performance benchmarks, and what advertising networks look for.Multilingual Content Strategy: Leveraging localization and translation features to expand your audience across different cultures and languages.Podcast-to-Blog Conversion: The proven method of turning podcast episodes into SEO-optimized blog posts that rank on Google and drive traffic back to your audio content.AI Optimization (AIO): How to position your content to appear in Google's AI mode, featured snippets, and AI-powered recommendation engines like Google Gemini.Real Results: Case studies including a client whose emotional coaching podcast now ranks on Google, and a CPA who landed a major client through Gemini AI recommendations.Long-Term Asset Building: Why SEO is a marathon, not a sprint, and how work done today pays dividends for years to come.Detailed Episode TimestampsIntroduction & Overview (00:00 - 05:55) 00:00 - 00:13: Episode title: "Podcast SEO Monetization for International Businesses". 00:13 - 00:45: Welcome and call to subscribe to We Don't Play Podcast. 00:45 - 01:27: Overview: International business connections through podcasting. 01:27 - 02:31: Performance benchmarks: Downloads vs. unique listeners, measuring success. 02:31 - 03:33: Building sustainable growth and niche dominance. 03:33 - 04:48: Multilingual content and localization strategies. 04:48 - 05:55: International perspective: Moving beyond regional thinking.International SEO Strategy (05:55 - 10:03) 05:55 - 06:58: Analytics insights: Tracking international audience growth. 06:58 - 08:04: Case study introduction: Client success with emotional coaching podcast. 08:04 - 09:09: Turning 50 podcast episodes into 50 SEO-optimized blogs. 09:09 - 10:03: Podcast-to-blog strategy and long-term asset building.Content Conversion & Client Success Stories (10:03 - 15:00) 10:03 - 11:00: Amazon book-to-podcast conversion strategy. 11:00 - 12:00: Passive vs. active content consumption patterns. 12:00 - 13:00: Multi-platform distribution: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube. 13:00 - 14:00: Clubhouse as a content creation and community building platform. 14:00 - 15:00: Real-time engagement and relationship building.Technical SEO Implementation (15:00 - 20:00) 15:00 - 16:00: Search engine algorithms and content discoverability. 16:00 - 17:00: Metadata optimization for podcasts. 17:00 - 18:00: Location-specific SEO strategies. 18:00 - 19:00: Building booking systems and conversion pathways. 19:00 - 20:00: Creating "red carpet" experiences for potential clients.Monetization Strategies (20:00 - 25:00) 20:00 - 21:00: Advertising network requirements and download thresholds. 21:00 - 22:00: Passive income through podcast monetization. 22:00 - 23:00: Building credibility through consistent content. 23:00 - 24:00: Long-term revenue stream development. 24:00 - 25:00: International market opportunities.Community Engagement & Live Discussion (25:00 - 30:00) 25:00 - 26:22: Community building on Clubhouse since 2020. 26:22 - 27:40: Prayer and intentionality in content creation. 27:40 - 28:40: Daily room commitment and audience engagement. 28:40 - 29:19: Juliana's Success Story: Landing a major CPA client through Google Gemini. 29:19 - 30:00: AI Optimization (AIO) and its importance.AI-Powered Search Results (30:00 - 35:00) 30:00 - 31:11: SEO as a long-term investment: Results from work done 3 years ago. 31:11 - 32:30: Live Demonstration: Host's podcast appearing in Google AI mode with timestamp references. 32:30 - 33:50: Dual focus: Local search dominance + global revenue streams. 33:50 - 34:30: International markets and currency considerations (Shopify example). 34:30 - 35:00: Technical factors: IP address, API, LLM, search history.Actionable Strategies & Takeaways (35:00 - 39:07) 35:00 - 35:50: Being intentional about topics of interest. 35:50 - 36:20: Importance of independent research and validation. 36:20 - 37:18: Celeste's Reflection: Community value and 2026 goals. 37:18 - 38:00: Top 3 priorities: Booking system, financial management, business structure. 38:00 - 38:46: Encouragement and resources for implementation. 38:46 - 39:07: Closing remarks and invitation to daily rooms.This episode is perfect for:Podcasters looking to monetize their content.International business owners seeking global visibility.Coaches and consultants building authority online.Content creators wanting to maximize their reach.Marketers interested in AI optimization strategies.Episode Tags/KeywordsPodcast SEO, International Business, Podcast Monetization, Multilingual Content, Content Localization, AI Optimization, AIO, Google Gemini, Featured Snippets, Download Metrics, Passive Income, Content Repurposing, Blog Strategy, Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Global Revenue Streams, Podcast Analytics, Advertising Networks, Authority Building, Long-term Strategy, Clubhouse Marketing, Community Building, Business Growth, Online Visibility, International Markets.Target AudiencePodcasters seeking monetization strategies.International business owners.Digital marketers and SEO professionals.Coaches and consultants.Content creators and influencers.Entrepreneurs building online presence.Small business owners expanding globally.Marketing professionals learning AI optimization.Anyone interested in passive income through content.This episode is part of the We Don't PLAY!™️ Podcast series, hosted by Favour Obasi-Ike, focusing on practical digital marketing strategies for business growth.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why feed the content machine…when you can build the content house? In this throwback episode, Jillian Hoefer (Director of Content Marketing at UserEvidence) is a loud-and-proud evangelist for original research. She shares how surveys, expert interviews, and deep data dives can turn a single report into a year's worth of content and real go-to-market impact. And, how do you design surveys that don't suck? She breaks down how to work with analysts to pull out the story and keep the distribution engine humming long after launch. Plus, Jillian shows how to use AI not just to write, but to turn your proprietary data into smarter, sharper content. If you're a Marketer who wants to build trust, fuel sales, and own your niche with research-backed content, this one's for you. Follow Jillian: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillianmacnulty/ Follow Daniel: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themarketingmillennials/featured Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Dmurr68 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: www.workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: www.workweek.com

In December, Vineet Mehra formally added growth officer to his chief marketer remit. He's spent much time thinking about how CMOs can maintain relevance by adding a broader business focus to their role. He joins the Marketer's Brief podcast to discuss these thoughts and offer marketers advice, as the rest of the industry wonders if the CMO role will even still matter by 2030. He also discusses opportunities for brands to meet growing financial anxiety among consumers, and new agentic media opportunities.

The PESO Model® isn't outdated—but many implementations are. In this episode, Gini Dietrich explains how the PESO Model has evolved from a framework into a marketing operating system designed for today's reality: fewer journalists, more creators, AI-driven discovery, fragmented trust, and rising expectations for measurement.

Only 21% of creatively awarded campaigns actually drive business results. But when ideas reach the very top of creative excellence, effectiveness doubles to 44%. So what separates the winners from the rest?This week, Elena and Rob are joined by Chief Creative Officer Steve Babcock to discuss what makes creative truly effective in 2026. They explore why most award-winning work fails to drive growth, the danger of over-personalization, and why fewer ideas executed longer beats constant reinvention. Plus, hear Steve's contrarian take on creative awards, the role of AI in advertising, and why durability matters more than novelty.Topics covered: [01:00] Why only 21% of award-winning creative is effective[09:00] Durability beats novelty in creative effectiveness[15:00] Over-personalization is hurting creative campaigns[21:00] Balancing emotional and rational messaging[24:00] AI's role in creative work and the "human leap"[32:00] Steve's advice: commit to fewer ideas for longer  To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or subscribe to our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter.  Resources:  2025 WARC Article: https://ethicalmarketingnews.com/highly-awarded-creative-ideas-are-significantly-more-effective-new-warc-research-reveals Get more research-backed marketing strategies by subscribing to The Marketing Architects on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Most brands do not grow. Despite the industry's obsession with "growth porn," relative market share remains remarkably stable over decades. In this episode, Dale Harrison—physicist, former CFO, and consultant—joins Marc and V to dismantle the illusion of marketing-driven growth. He argues that most "hockey stick" curves are the result of external technological innovations or massive capital injections, not tactical marketing genius.For the mid-to-senior marketer, the reality is stark: your Reach is largely "locked" by your current market share and budget. This leaves you with a singular, high-stakes variable to manipulate: Creative Effectiveness. We explore why 90% of a campaign's success relies on reach you often can't control, and why your only move is to ensure your creative isn't "pissing away" the precious budget you do have.Key TakeawaysThe Reach Limiter: 90% of effectiveness is driven by Reach (IPA data), but reach is a function of cash. Unless you have $700M in venture capital (like Warby Parker), your reach is capped by your existing revenue.The Price-to-Value Ratio: Real growth happens when technology drops the cost of a solution by 10x–100x (e.g., the iPod or Electronic Spreadsheets). Marketing merely rides the "rising lake" of these disruptions.The Zero Choice Rule: There is no statistical correlation between what a consumer bought last time and what they will buy next. Loyalty is a probability distribution, not a behavior to be "built."Creative as the "Last Resort": Because you cannot outspend the incumbent, you must out-think them. Creative is the only lever that can multiply your limited reach.Timestamps & Chapters02:00 – Why growth is the exception, not the rule.03:15 – Revenue Growth vs. Market Share Growth: Knowing the difference.08:30 – The "Rising Lake" Effect: How external factors mask marketing performance.13:45 – Case Study: How the iPod changed the price-to-value ratio of music.22:50 – Warby Parker and the $700M "Share of Voice" shortcut.31:10 – Creative: The only lever marketers actually control.38:55 – Deconstructing the Loyalty Myth and the "Zero Choice Rule."46:20 – The "Shape of Loyalty": Why market share is so stable over decades.51:30 – Practical Application: How to stop "pissing away" your limited budget.About the GuestDale Harrison is a strategy consultant and former CFO with a background in physics. He is known for "slaying marketing's sacred cows" by applying mathematical rigor and evidence-based principles to B2B and B2C strategy. His work focuses on market dynamics, the limits of loyalty, and the mathematical reality of brand growth.Reference Links Ehrenberg, A. S. C. (1988). Repeat-buying: Facts, theory and applications (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.Harrison, D. (2024). The shape of loyalty: Why market share remains stable. LinkedIn Strategy Series.Sharp, B. (2010). How brands grow: What marketers don't know. Oxford University Press.Tellis, G. J. (2004). Effective advertising: Understanding when, how, and why advertising works. SAGE Publications.

Victor Dedaj is an entrepreneur, naturopathic expert, and co-author of "Success Breakthroughs" (with Jack Canfield). After two decades in corporate finance, Victor pivoted to health, wellness, and mindset coaching, challenging mainstream misconceptions about diet, cholesterol, and sleep. He is passionate about helping others reclaim health, break limiting beliefs, and create fulfillment in life and business. Drawing from personal experience and mentorship from leaders like Jack Canfield, Victor empowers others to take responsibility for their outcomes, cultivate success mindsets, and seek trustworthy guidance on the journey to well-being and entrepreneurship. https://youtu.be/N-e8FjD_9dU In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Victor Dedaj joins Robert Plank to break down persistent health myths, the critical role of sleep for entrepreneurs, and how mindset and mentorship accelerate business and wellness growth. Victor shares actionable advice on taking control of your health, the importance of questioning medical “truths,” and why adopting a positive, solution-focused mindset can transform every area of your life. Quotes: “Success leaves clues. Don't try to reinvent the wheel; learn from those who came before you.” “Take 100% responsibility for your life. You may not control every event, but you control your response and the outcome.” "Too often, we surrender the responsibility for our health; knowledge and action are the real power." Resources: Visit Victor Dedaj's Website Connect with Victor Deda on LinkedIn

Exclusive: This roundtable "insider" edition includes the entire chain from design and manufacturing to end-user. Joining me are Tim Frampton, Browning shotgun category manager, Ben Sovince, sales manager, and dealer/instructor/hunter Dave Fiedler of Mid-Valley Clays & Shooting School. We cover Browning's new product development process, how customer feedback impacts their decision-making, how target guns differ from hunting guns, what guns are selling best and buying trends. We also talk in detail about the 20-gauge version of the A5, the Browning shotgun line as a whole, how to pick the right shotgun for you, and what's coming down the pipeline in the way of new products. Fiedler offers an end-user and dealer perspective, and Sovince gives insights into how and why dealers stock the guns they carry.  Insider editions are brought to you by CableGangz tie-out systems and Heartland Lodge, where you'll get special freebies and gifts for every booking (learn more here). [Take 10% off your next order at CableGangz.com with the promo code CG10.]

Lori Payne is a visionary leader, consultant, and founder of Project Blue World. Driven by the Blue Zone theory of longevity and happiness, she spearheads global initiatives from Winnipeg to foster quality of life, sustainable energy, and community development. Through international collaboration, Project Blue World empowers citizens and leaders alike to create positive, lasting change locally and worldwide. https://youtu.be/eTGQ7kbPlVU In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Lori Payne discusses Project Blue World's mission, the science and inspiration behind Blue Zones, and strategies for linking happiness, longevity, and sustainability. Lori shares insights from energy transformation projects in Manitoba and beyond, including innovative uses of hydro and biofuels, global partnerships, and the critical need for clarity in information. She highlights community-driven initiatives, avenues for direct involvement, and how anyone can contribute to a healthier planet while achieving growth and development goals. Quotes: “Project Blue World is about changing the world, project by project, country by country, so every citizen can achieve happiness and quality of life.” “We have the brains and technology, and the global commitment, to maintain our planet's atmosphere and ensure future generations thrive.” “There's so much being done behind the scenes. When knowledge is shared, and collaboration happens, communities and leaders can create real impact.” Resources: Visit Lori Payne's Website Connect with Lori Payne on LinkedIn

Louis A. Rivera is a retired NYPD officer, author, and storyteller who brings a raw, behind-the-scenes perspective to policing in New York City. From surviving the turbulent streets of the South Bronx to handling riots, 9/11, and internal challenges, Louis chronicles a real cop's journey through two gripping memoirs: The 52nd and Four Six Rescue to Central. His firsthand account covers his start as a high school volunteer with the 46 Precinct Rescue Unit, his rise through the NYPD ranks during times of social change and unrest, and the relentless passion that drove him. https://youtu.be/Q-2KthaiFeE In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Louis Rivera joins Robert Plank to share powerful stories about coming of age in 1980s New York, the importance of passion and teamwork, and how volunteering laid the groundwork for a career in law enforcement. Louis discusses how internal obstacles can rival street dangers, reflects on evolving police culture and diversity, and delivers insights for those motivated by service. Explore what it truly means to follow your dream, whether facing riots, corruption, or the call to make a difference. Quotes: "Proudly we served; everyone who volunteered with the unit lived by those words." "Follow your dream, your passion, become a cop, and be the best cop you can be." "You don't let obstacles get under your skin. You push back, you persevere, you serve." Resources: Get THE 52ND by Luis A. Rivera on Amazon today

Sereda Fowlkes is a holistic health practitioner, wellness educator, and passionate advocate for women's health. With years of experience guiding women through the challenges of menopause and healthy aging, she empowers clients to understand their bodies, embrace proactive care, and make sustainable lifestyle changes. Her approach integrates holistic nutrition, alternative therapies, and a passion for prevention, helping people thrive at every life stage. https://youtu.be/4jchLerDwD8 In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Sereda Fowlkes joins Robert Plank to shed light on menopause awareness, the impact of environmental changes on early symptoms, and the critical role of nutrient-rich foods in lifelong well-being. She discusses the privilege of youth, the risks of caffeine, and why listening to your body is key to prevention. The conversation explores the effectiveness of holistic solutions versus one-size-fits-all treatments, the importance of regular check-ups, staying vigilant for nutrient deficiencies, and why a supportive, informed approach can transform women's health at any age. Quotes: "So if it's not in the soil, it's not in the vegetables, it's not in the fruits. So, you know, we're eating kind of like dead food." "You cannot out supplement a bad diet. What you eat matters." "Women always pay attention to your body. Something's different that you're not used to and you see the and notice the change. Pay attention." "There's no one pill that fits everybody. You have to know your body for yourself, especially women." Resources: Connect with Sereda Fowlkes on LinkedIn Get Why Be Sick?: 25 Strategies and Tips on How to Take Control of Your Health and Live a Longer, More Vibrant Life on Amazon today

Our analysts (or “bakers”) compete in a Great British Bake Off–style episode, discussing why podcasts will be more important to digital audio marketers than music and how FAST services will help push AVOD viewership across the 200 million milestone. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, along with Principal Forecasting Writer Ethan Cramer-Flood and Senior Director of Forecasting Oscar Orozco. Listen everywhere, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.   Subscribe to EMARKETER's newsletters. Go to https://www.emarketer.com/newsletters   Follow us on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/emarketer/   For sponsorship opportunities, contact us: advertising@emarketer.com   For more information, visit: https://www.emarketer.com/advertise/   Have questions or just want to say hi? Drop us a line at podcast@emarketer.com    For a transcript of this episode, click here: https://www.emarketer.com/content/podcast-great-btn-bake-take-off-forecast-trends-2026-podcasts-beat-music-marketers-fast-fuels-avod   © 2026 EMARKETER

In this episode of The Ross Simmonds Show, Ross dives deep into the ways AI is reshaping how entrepreneurs, marketers, and content creators work and how you can use tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Distribution.AI to get an edge instead of being left behind. Ross shares strategic frameworks, prompting techniques, and real-life use cases that show how AI isn't here to replace you, it's here to elevate what you do best. This episode is a masterclass in using generative AI as your co-pilot for ideation, execution, and growth. Key Takeaways and Insights: 1. AI is Not a Threat - High-performing marketers treat AI as a strategic partner, not a shortcut or replacement. - The real differentiator is how you work with AI—systems, iteration, and judgment matter more than tools. - Winners focus on long-term leverage, not short-term panic. 2. Why Claude Stands Out for Marketers- Claude consistently delivers stronger brand-aligned writing for positioning, messaging, and copy. - Less “robotic” output makes it useful for customer-facing content. - Tool choice matters less than mindset 3. Repurposing Content at Scale - AI can extract quotes, threads, newsletters, and posts from long-form content. - Tools like Distribution.ai automate cross-channel repurposing and scheduling. - Claude remains a strong budget-friendly alternative for manual workflows. 4. The Four-Phase AI Workflow: Discover → Framework → Build → Polish - Break complex projects into structured phases instead of one-shot prompts. - Improves quality, alignment, and creative control. - Applicable to blogs, ebooks, GTM plans, and proposals. 5. AI Amplifies Strategy, It Doesn't Replace It - AI handles speed and execution; humans provide judgment, taste, and insight. Marketers who avoid AI risk falling behind peers who use it strategically. Resources & Tools:

Jason Criddle is the founder and managing partner of a multi-entity private investment and technology ecosystem, including Smarter Holdings, Dominate.AI, and Jason Criddle & Associates. Known for scaling businesses through strategic development, acquisition, and a passionate approach to helping entrepreneurs, Jason leverages deep expertise in AI, automation, publishing, and behavioral coaching to drive results for both startups and established organizations. In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Jason returns after more than a decade to share how his journey from personal health battles to overseeing billion-dollar companies has shaped his no-nonsense philosophy on business growth, digital transformation, and personal fulfillment. Together with Robert Plank, they discuss why most entrepreneurs struggle to scale, the importance of consistent reinvention, actionable strategies for making your business scalable, and how to build infrastructure that lasts. Jason breaks down the value of pivoting early, highlights the role of mentors, stresses the need for clear customer experiences, and shares why celebrating wins big or small is essential along the sometimes-lonely road to legitimacy and authority. Quotes: “If your business isn't producing customers or revenue, it's not a business, it's an expensive hobby.” “You have to be willing to be bad before you can be great. Growth begins the moment you push past the fear of starting.” “Showing up is a win. If you earned even one today, celebrate it especially with the people who matter most.” Resources: Connect with Jason Criddle on LinkedIn Explore SmartRCommerce – Disruptive eCommerce, giving back

Mark Donnigan is a B2B tech marketing strategist, startup growth expert, and leading advocate for intelligent adoption of AI in marketing. With a track record of helping technology companies overcome resource constraints and secure multimillion-dollar deals, Mark is known for building and accelerating nimble, effective teams. He specializes in leveraging AI for research, content creation, and productivity, empowering marketers to be T-shaped, deeply knowledgeable, and highly adaptive in a rapidly evolving landscape. In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Mark Donnigan joins Robert Plank to share how AI is enabling small marketing teams to punch above their weight, create high-quality content, and deeply understand their buyers. Mark elaborates on the transformative power of LLMs, the overlooked capabilities for market research, and the vital importance of combining AI with genuine market insight. Discover why embracing AI is crucial, how to update your processes for maximum growth, and what makes resilient teams thrive in tech's fast-changing environment. Quotes: “AI gives marketers a superpower; anyone can become T-shaped, expanding depth and range exactly where the moment demands.” “What once looked like under-resourced teams now looks like untapped advantage. With AI, small teams can break through big limitations.” “Don't chase every new AI train. Spend that time learning your market, show up, listen deeply, and understand what your audience actually needs.” Resources: Connect with Mark Donnigan on LinkedIn Explore Growth Stage Marketing Visit the GrowthStage Marketing Blog Check out Mark Donnigan on YouTube

Heather Atherton is a communications strategist, PR consultant, and media outreach specialist with 25+ years of experience elevating brands and causes. Known for her work with companies like IMAX, GoFundMe, and Disney on Ice, Heather is also a passionate advocate for uncovering the truth behind the Vietnam War's Baron 52 case, a mission inspired by her father's service. Through custom, outside-the-box marketing, storytelling, and her deep belief in the power of dreams, Heather helps businesses, filmmakers, and nonprofits package their message for maximum impact. Her expertise spans film promotion, guerrilla marketing, independent filmmaking, and supporting small business growth, always focused on connecting human stories to wider audiences. On this episode of Marketer of the Day, Heather joins Robert Plank to share her journey from agency work to mission-driven advocacy, the importance of visual/guerrilla marketing, and the ongoing campaign for truth around the Baron 52 story. Heather discusses building custom pitches, the challenges indie filmmakers face, and why early PR is key. Discover lessons on amplifying meaningful stories, DIY marketing foundations for creators, and the relentless power of believing in your ideals. Quotes: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams and are bold enough to bring them to life.” “If you can see your story visually, you can market it anywhere. Visual thinking turns ideas into impact.” “I'm not a cookie-cutter. I create outside the box because that's where originality, opportunity, and growth live.” Resources: Explore Atherton PR Connect with Atherton PR on LinkedIn