Marketing Principles To Live + Die By
For now anyway, marketing is always evolving after all
Anna Lembke, MD says it best:
The workaholic is a celebrated member of society.
No where is that perhaps more true than here, in Silicon Valley, where 100-hour work weeks and 24/7 availability are the norm. In Physical incentives are now woven into the fabric of white collar work, from the prospect of bonuses and stock options, to the promise of promotion.
By 2002, the top paid 20% were twice as likely to work long hours as the lowest paid 20%—and that trend continues. Economists speculate that this change is due to higher rewards for those at the top of the economic food chain.
I find it difficult at times to stop myself from working once I’ve begun. The flow of deep concentration is a drug in itself—releasing dopamine and creating its own high. This kind of single-minded focus, although heavily rewarded in modern rich nations, can be a trap when it keeps us from intimate connections with friends and family, and the rest of our lives.
Oof! 💨 Nothing like a heavy excerpt from my latest read, Dopamine Nation, to kick off the new year. As I was starting off my GoodReads strong this year (last year I only met 50% of my goal — definitely too soon to talk about it 😅), I wanted to start with a book rooted in habits.
While I don’t necessarily believe in waiting for a calendar date to set intentions, a new year does breed an interesting sense of new excitement and opportunity to focus on parts of your life you might’ve overlooked or let slide the year previous.
This excerpt from Chapter 8 hit me hard. I resonated so much with how Anna is feeling towards her relationship with work. The line in the book cover that hooked me, “The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.”
I’m terrified that this applies to me. The irony is not lost on me that in order to communicate this sentiment right now I’m sitting here, curled up on the couch, again in front of a screen, and conversely, you’re spending a percentage of your screen time reading this newsletter. And before you ask yourself, “wait, how does this relate to demand gen, or Saas?” well, I’m getting to it…
One of my main takeaways from the data and research in this book was simply the art of prioritizing where and how I spend my screen time, outside of starting my own business to better balance my work and home life, I’m prioritizing time here, with you all, in hopes to share my learnings, the learnings of others, and create a space for the next generation of demand gen leaders to grow and thrive—without succumbing to the pressures of the age of indulgence.
All to say, thank you. Thank you for allowing me to find my voice here, and for being open to sharing yours. 🫶
As for the segue way you’ve all been waiting for… Thinking through my own life principles for 2024 naturally meant I’ve had marketing principles on my brain for the year ahead as well. Let’s get right into them:
Too much budget makes people lazy.
Give a marketing team $1M – everyone will have ideas to contribute.
Now, cut that by 10x, or 100x – this is exactly what's happening now across SaaS. It's time to get scrappy with budgets and double down on real investments.
A few ways to tackle this effectively 👇
– Optimize your conversion funnel. Pull down your conversion metrics from site traffic through CW revenue and make sure you're shoring up as many gaps as possible. In most instances, companies are leaving pipeline on the table with their MQL <> SQL conversion rates (e.g. marketing to sales handoff).
– Flex your organic engine. It's never been more important than now to build an audience and distribute quality content to your audience. For those who started building their audience years ago, you're ahead of the game. For everyone else, time to get to work. When I consult with companies about their organic engine a lot of the objections center around how hard it is to get started. It's definitely not a silver bullet, but once it's firing, it's powerful.
*Quick tips here to get started: find ONE channel where your audience spends time (don't spread yourself too thin). Do your research - what does this audience NEED. Find your wedge, and start writing, producing, filming, whatever it is. Your first takes won't be good. But the hardest part is getting started and it will get better every day.
– Prioritize your marketing channels. Instead of spreading your budget thin across multiple channels, focus on the ones that have proven to be most effective for your business. Analyze your data to see where you're seeing the most ROI and allocate your budget accordingly.
Speed is critical.
You’ve got to be able to ride the way quickly to maintain relevance—especially today.
Take your website for example. Every marketer I've ever met is always "redoing the website".
Instead of taking 6 months to work on a website in a silo, perfect every word on every page, then ship...think about it like this:
1. Which page(s) is most critical to close gaps in conversion? Start with that page.
2. Write a draft of copy for the page - mock it up in a Google Doc, nothing incredibly fancy.
3. Share the copy draft with a few friendlies, customers, raving fans - whatever you've got. Clone a dedicated copy per person so their feedback doesn't influence each other. Ask them to react to the copy. Does it resonate? What would they change? How would they say this point in their own words?
4. Synthesize/action the feedback on the page. Set benchmarks for success. Ship it!
5. Repeat.
Apply this mentality to prioritize shipping to all of your projects. Months will never fly. There's always an incremental version.
Copywriting is key.
I've spent the majority of my career shying away from copywriting. My catchphrase has always been, "I'm not the words person."
This is ironic because words are the backbone of every single thing we do.
My confidence level in my ability to write concisely and effectively has always felt subpar. Realizing copywriting is like a muscle has been the switch for me.
In the last few years as I train this muscle I've:
Read so many books (cited below)
Followed others who've mastered the craft
Put pen to paper to fail, and learn, in public
Push your ability to write copy clearly, and concisely. Never get so caught up in the motions that you’re no longer testing your messaging.
Books I'd recommend to anyone wanting to become a stronger copywriter:
Offers are everything.
And they're usually the missing piece with demand gen. Marketers spend so much time putting together a campaign but often forget to ask themselves, "what is going to make people move, switch, buy, engage, take the action" etc.
For that 1% of your TAM that’s in buying mode, you’ll capture them through request a demo or contact sales offers. But for that 99% not in buying mode, it’s your offer that’s going to help move them through the funnel.
Not a gated ebook to be clear. Something more actionable.
HubSpot has their website grader.
Gong has their revenue IQ assessment.
When I was at Campaign Monitor, we had an email grader. It analyzed your lifecycle campaign performance amongst millions of others in our database and let you know where you could improve. As part of the workflow, it actually let you in a back door to the self-service product and accounted for 15% of signups.
When I was at Chili Piper, we launched Test Drive. It allowed you to see the product in action directly on your website. This tool attracted hundreds of interested early-stage prospects just in the first few days of launching.
Creative is the variable for success today.
When you think about brands with strong recall, they've successfully done two things—built their strategic narrative and brought it to life creatively.
Think about brands that fit this mold for you. You'll likely have a strong visual brand affinity for some of the greats like Gong, Mailchimp, Masterclass, etc. And they all have those same two components in common.
Make sure that you’re telling a story that sells.
Social proof + testimonials move mountains.
99% of people won't do it unless they see others have already done it. There's power in people talking about your brand unprompted (and unsponsored), take advantage of that.
Perception is reality.
Master the art of dating up. Who you partner with matters, who you feature matters. It's all signaling to the market.
Build your audience.
There's nothing more important in today's world than finding your people. Build a tribe. This will help you in every single part of what you do (e.g. think phone a friend when you're blocked, need to borrow a podcast studio in a different city, etc.)
Everything you say is storytelling.
Lean into the reasons people typically make a change (dissatisfaction with the current state, a vision of a better state, belief they can reach it!) A story is how you get them there. This goes back to Donald Miller's Building a Storybrand.
Regardless of your industry, marketing is about people.
Even if you are the persona you're selling to, you'll never be able to articulate:
why they buy
what they need
how your product/service impacts businesses
better than your customers can.
2024: the year for prioritizing customer research - qualitative and quantitative.
Talking with actual customers is key.
A few years back I joined an EdTech company with a buyer I’d never marketed to before. It was clearer than ever in my first 30 days I had to prioritize getting close to the customer so I simply asked our Head of CS if I could help with customer outreach and also ask them a few questions while I had them on the call. She, of course, was very thankful for the support and didn’t blink an eye at the questions I was seeking more insight for.
Here are 6 questions I’d recommend you keep on hand for your next round of customer interviews.
Why did you buy?
Looking for a pattern on the value prop.
What problem were you hoping to solve?
Problem-based language and questions to discover the pain
What were you afraid of before buying?
Unspoken objections. Prospects don’t always tell you their concerns, but a customer will.
What’s your favorite part of the product?
So we know what to highlight on our website, in outbound outreach, etc.
What’s changed the most since you've bought the product?
Now we’re getting micro-examples and micro-testimonials about our product impact.
How would you describe the product to another persona?
Use words/language our prospects/customers NORMALLY would. Marketers like to differentiate. People like to compare.
And with that, I hope we’ve kicked the 2024 season off to a strong start. Let’s make this a two-way street. What are some of your core marketing principles? 👇
As always, thanks for staying looped in,
Kaylee