Building With Buyers: Startup Marketing and Growth Fueled By Customers

Shane Murphy-Reuter (CMO at Webflow) asked me a question in our last episode: "If you were the CMO at Webflow, what would you do differently?" Well that is a loaded question, isn't it. First, let me just say Shane you’re doing an amazing job. Leading a team of 70 people! I just have a couple of things to suggest. Well, I have 13 things. I hope we can still be friends. For more conten...

I've been talking about websites quite a bit on the show, on LinkedIn, and I just came off a project where I looked at close to 200 B2B websites (!) and realized that being a B2B buyer in 2024 is kind of still awful. I wanted to explore why that is with Shane Murphy-Reuter, CMO at Webflow. We also cover: Who's on the marketing team at Webflow; Why do B2B websites still suck in 2024; Going...

Happy solar eclipse Monday! Hope you've got your special sunglasses handy. Modern Startup Marketing just reached 200 episodes!!! Wild. 🦁 Do I feel tired? Does it feel like a lot? Will I be doing 100 more episodes? What's been the hardest thing about podcasting for 4 years? What’s been the most surprising thing about podcasting for 4 years? What are the most important Qs to ask if you'...

Just got back from a (mostly) relaxing Spring Break and eager to jump back into things. Hope you're doing well! Anthony Pierri is Co-Founder and Partner at FletchPMM. He helps founders market hard-to-market products and specifically focuses on Homepages. We cover: What’s wrong with so many Homepages today; How to fix those specific problems; A specific example in the HR tech space; Why does th...

I’ve often wondered about how influencer partnerships work. I've been involved in a couple, so I get to see examples from the inside. But I wanted to see more examples, so I brought on Emily Steele, Co-founder and CEO at Hummingbirds (Seed funded). She’s actually built a business around helping brands discover and work with hyper-local content creators. Some of these brands are working with 50...

Gaetano DiNardi is the Growth Advisor for 10 B2B startups. Something you may not know about him is that he spent 5 years as a music producer & songwriter in NYC. I first learned about Gaetano back in 2020 when he was doing Demand Gen Live sessions with Chris Walker. What I love about his content on LinkedIn is that it’s not fluffy and he's honestly trying to be helpful. We cover: Gaetano&#...

It doesn’t take magic to make content that resonates. You just have to be real. Show your audience that you get them by understanding their cares, frustrations, and the reality of their day-to-day lives. But to do this, you really have to know your audience and their life experiences. I was invited onto the Remarkable! podcast to share B2B content lessons from Diary of a Wimpy Kid . It's a chi...

Happy International Women's Day! I promised to answer this question for ya and I always deliver. Ari Yablok, Head of Brand at Island (Series C), was on the show (Ep. 194) and he asked me: "Founders that are not Marketing-driven or not appreciative of the role, what are some of the things you do to help them buy-in to marketing?" I answer in this 2-min. bonus episode. If founders ARE...

Ari Yablok is Head of Brand at Island (Series C). He joined Island in the very early days, back when they didn’t even have their name out in public. His job was to build the brand from zero. You rarely get the chance to pitch to a CIO/CISO (their target buyer) so the founders knew they needed to enter that world in a way that sent a very clear signal that this is actually a new conversation.  How...

In a world where using AI to do more, automate more, get more leads (more more more!) is celebrated, one thing that early stage startups have as the upper hand over larger companies is the permission and ability to do those things that don’t scale. Build community and relationships in unique ways (like with events), be creative, test wild ideas, learn and pivot quickly, etc. Why might a focus on d...

ABM often gets a bad rap, especially with early stage startups. People think ABM means you’re just running ads to a list of people, or that you need really expensive tech. A couple of weeks ago I had Trinity Nguyen (VP of Marketing at UserGems) on the podcast and we talked about how she joined an early stage startup and decided to go the route of Scrappy ABM which ended up being super successful f...

Happy Presidents Day 🇺🇸 🎉 Does your CEO like the content your marketing team is producing? Does your CMO? Does your head of Sales? Do you know the answer for sure? Does it matter? John Bonini (Founder of Some Good Content) has been meeting with founders and marketing execs that have said some variation of the following regarding their content marketing: “We’re doing SEO, but the content is not go...

Picture this. You’re the first business hire at a 4-person early stage startup. Head of Marketing. So you get hired, and you’re trying to follow the Hubspot Playbook. The problem is, it’s taking too long. You’re impatient. The founders are impatient. You want to see something faster. You need to prove yourself. How do you cut through the noise? How do you get your target buyer to pay attention? Tr...

Happy Friday ya'll. I just finished a 3-part series of episodes where I explored 3 topics: positioning strategic narrative category design I hear these concepts being thrown around all the time but I wanted to get to the heart of them. What are the key differences? When should you use one approach over another? And finally, what’s my take? Which one do I think is actually the most helpful for...

This episode is the 3rd in a 3-part series of episodes where I explore 3 topics: Positioning (two episodes ago) Strategic Narrative (last episode) Category Design (this episode) I hear these concepts being thrown around all the time but not always fully understood. What are the key differences?  When should you use one method over another? What’s my take on them? Which one do I think is actually t...

Hiya! This episode is the 2nd in a 3-part series of episodes where I explore 3 topics: Positioning (last episode) Strategic Narrative (this one) Category Design (next time) I hear these concepts being thrown around all the time but not always fully understood. What are the key differences?  When should you use one method over another? What’s my take on them? Which one do I think is actually the mo...

Happy New Year! I'll keep saying that until we're well into February. Winter is so much easier when there's something to celebrate! This episode kicks off a series of episodes where I’m going to explore three topics in-depth: Positioning Strategic Narrative Category Design I hear these concepts being thrown around all the time but not always fully understood. What are the key differenc...

Gotta love a BONUS on a Friday! In the last episode (Ep. 184) I didn’t get a chance to answer Merci and Derek's burning questions so I decided to put together this quick BONUS episode and do just that. Questions: 1) What are you seeing that’s working (with marketing) with your clients? 2) Which channel or method are startups underutilizing? For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketi...

Happy MLK Day! So I did this once before where I had a couple of startup founders join me on the show (check out Ep. 168) and I super loved the dynamic (listeners did too!) so I did it again.  These are a couple of companies that, at first glance, look and seem similar. They’ve got similar sized teams. They both talk about Growth or GTM which are seemingly similar concepts. But after digging deepe...

Happy New Year! I'll keep saying that until we're well into February, and you can't stop me. I feel like I could talk to Emily for hours every time she comes on the pod. Emily Kramer is Co-Founder at MKT1. MKT1 helps founders and marketers build and scale their marketing functions through investing (MKT1 Capital fund) and advising. Emily was on the pod before, listen to Ep. 141 “Mistak...

Happy New Year! Wishing you a year filled with gratitude and grace, light over darkness. After 3 years of podcasting and 180+ episodes, I'm sharing with you what I've learned. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show! And whenever you’re ready, there a...

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to ⁠⁠⁠ https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna⁠⁠⁠  and use the code MSM23 for 15% off. OK, final episode of 2023! I swear this time, this was just too important to leave until next year. Just coming off the last episode with Natalie Marcotullio (Navattic) we talk a lot about measuring our marketing efforts. Huge chal...

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna ⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use the code MSM23 for 15% off. Merry Christmas! You can snuggle up to the fireplace with this final episode of 2023. I’ve been working with the Navattic team for 1+ years now as an advisor, great team and super love the space they're playing in and the pro...

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  and use the code MSM23 for 15% off. It's Season 4 of the Modern Startup Marketing podcast and this episode is me continuing to share ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ MaaS ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Marketing as a System) which is the systematic approach to marketing that I built over almost 4 years of wor...

This episode is sponsored by Riverside, your all-in-one podcast and video platform. Go to ⁠⁠⁠ https://creators.riverside.fm/Anna⁠⁠⁠  and use the code MSM23 for 15% off. Peter Light is Co-Founder and CEO at Lumen Energy. Peter and I worked together back in 2021 and at that time Lumen was just a handful of people and they were building out their GTM strategy, positioning, messaging, and team. About...