Marketing Spark (The B2B SaaS Marketing Podcast)

"LinkedIn is way too slow, too reactive and not pro-active enough ." That's a blunt assessment from Charlie Whyman, a LinkedIn trainer and "marketing momentum builder". In this episode, Charlie and I explore some of the ways that LinkedIn evolved in 2020 and what she expects will happen in 2021. This includes: - Analytics for personal accounts; probably not going to happen. - More use of Stories as conferences and events come back to life. - Improve content discovery tools through the use of tags.  - Better corporate pages Charlie also offers insight into automation tools (they're evil) and how marketers are ruining LinkedIn by using these tools to drive leads and Website traffic.

Marketers love the thrill of the chase. We pursue prospects with reckless abandon. MQLs are B2B digital hunting trophies. But when marketers catch prospects, the game’s over. They quickly forget about these newly-minted customers….because prospects are sexier. It shouldn’t be this way.  Prospects shouldn’t be engaged separately by sales, marketing, and customer success. The three groups should be working together to attract, capture, and serve customers. John McTigue argues that silos create friction, which drives customer unhappiness and churn.  He believes a unified approach is a win for B2B companies and customers. 

Marketing is hard. It's even more challenging when you're the lone marketer. You need to strategize, coordinate, tactically execute, and organize.  In other words, you have to be a multi-task player. On the Marketing Spark podcast, Nancy Kwan talks about life as a solo marketer. One of her biggest pieces of advice: "Don't become a yes person. Be comfortable saying no." Nancy says that solo marketers need to be strategic and ask tough questions before committing to anything.

Personal branding is red-hot. Seemingly, everyone you turn, someone is offering personal branding advice and consulting. Is the focus/obsession with personal branding due to the gig economy, the ubiquity of social marketing, or the reality that people will work for multiple employers so a personal brand is important, if not necessary? On this episode of Marketing Spark, Rich Cardona and I dive into personal branding, why it matters, and how to build a personal brand.  We also discuss the importance of content marketing and why, like many people, his time on Clubhouse has gone way down.

Most business books are dull. I read the first 25 pages before a book loses its appeal. The writing is dense, the topic doesn't warrant a book, or I quickly get the point. Laura Valvasori has developed a new and interesting way for people to get more value from business books.  She recently launched the Business Book Collective, a virtual community that combines a Mastermind group and a book club.  Each month, you read a book and share your thoughts and take-aways with like-minded people.  It's a brilliant concept because you're held accountable to finish the book and you benefit from the collective wisdom of the community. Laura literally stumbled upon the idea a few months ago. But unlike many ideas that come and go, she embraced it and launched in January.

Jay Desai has always wanted to be an entrepreneur. At 11-years-old, he had a newsletter business. In middle school, he was reselling sticks of gum bought at Costco. While working for Trend, a B2B startup last year, Jay came upon a problem: how to collect content from around the Web for future reference. One thing led to another and Jay created Swpely, which he describes as Pinterest for B2B. It's a free service that makes it easy to collect digital content, social media, updates, videos, and photos. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Jay talks about the transition from full-time employee to entrepreneur, and how he plans to grow Swpely into a full-featured content aggregation platform.

Networking still matters. I'm not talking about social networks but establishing connections with people professionally and personally. A lot of things in life happen due to relationships. It's how we develop trust, empathy, and connections. Marc Angelos is a long-time Wall St. salesman who intimately understands the power of value of networking. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Marc takes a deep dive into the keys to success networking and how to make it happen in a digital world.

It goes without saying the marketing landscape has dramatically changed over the past year.  The disappearance of conferences (a go-to channel for B2B companies) has been a game-changer, forcing marketers to embrace virtual events, high-quality content, newsletters, and social media. Who better to provide perspective on marketing today and where it’s heading (as well as how business is transforming) than Mitch Joel, an entrepreneur, investor, author, and trusted advisor. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Mitch and I discuss: - The domination of the advertising landscape by Google and Facebook - The growing importance of storytelling - How and when in-person conferences will return - The future of LinkedIn and Clubhouse.

The subscription economy is expected to grow from $15-billion this year to $475 billion by 2025. That's 68% year-over-year growth. Adam Levinter operates in the eye of the hurricane as a subscription economy consultant, podcaster, and author. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Adam and I explore why the subscription economy is growing so fast, the sectors seeing the most momentum, and how companies can embrace a subscription business.  We also take a look at how the subscription economy will impact marketing, which will focus on customer acquisition and, as important, customer nurturing.

I have been working with B2B SaaS companies since 2008. I can honestly say that few of them have struck as truly innovative. Many of them were cool but they didn't blow me away. Lately is an exception to the rule. When I learned what it can do, it resonated as a game-changer. The company turns content (blog posts, eBooks, video) into social media posts. It takes the painful, time-consuming work out of creating updates for multiple social media networks. Imagine the ROI from being able to create social media content at scale effortlessly. In this episode of Marketing Spark, I spoke with Lately co-founder and CEO Kate Chernis about her journey from popular DJ to marketing to SaaS entrepreneur. We explored the personal struggles that Kate endured in the music industry, why she backed away from raising money because she believed the VCs weren't treating her in the same way as male entrepreneurs, and how to operate a business remotely.