Marketing Spark (The B2B Marketing Podcast)

Definition of annoying: most pitches from podcast booking agencies. They’re not personalized. Clearly, no research has been done. They’re frequently off-topic. And sometimes they use the wrong name. Agencies using these types of agencies are getting bad deals. It’s hard to get a guest on podcast, so you can't use a company that does a poor job. Having received so many bad podcast guest pitches, I...

The more that you know your customers, the better. That's Marketing 101. As marketing attribution becomes increasingly more challenging, companies will need new tools to identify and engage prospects. Getting this type of customer intelligence will allow them to make better and faster marketing, advertising, and sales decisions. On the Marketing Spark podcast, Clearbit CMO Kevin Tate talks about h...

In theory, podcasts are a great thing for B2B and B2B SaaS companies. They allow companies to connect with prospects, customers, and influencers and generate a ton of content (blog posts, social media updates, videos). But podcasts can be a hard sell for marketers. One of the challenges is that the value and ROI of a podcast are more than data-driven. When a marketer is asked by a CEO about how to...

Sales is a combination of art and science. The best salespeople combine personality, insight, research and time to engage people and convince them to make purchases. In this episode of Marketing Spark, SellX's Steve Schmidt talks about: - How salespeople should operate given the economic landscape - What makes for a great sales person beyond sales - How sales and marketing can work together effect...

Consultants get a bad rap. They're seen as people who like telling other people what to do, but they don't do the actual work. But consultants can play a key role in helping companies fill gaps and seize opportunities. The right consultant at the right time can deliver huge ROI. On the Marketing Spark podcast, I talk with Faheem Moosa, who helps consultants drive higher revenue. Faheem and I look...

Words are powerful. They make as much an impact as video, photos, and audio. But words and writing are often under-appreciated, particularly by people who aren't writers or marketers.  In this episode of the Marketing Spark podcast, Sam Howard talks about why words matter and best practices for using them to drive Website conversions. Sam embraces a research-driven copywriting approach involving i...

What a difference a year makes for B2B Saas entrepreneurs. In 2021, business was booming, venture capital was flowing, and the focus was customer acquisition and growth. Today, the economic landscape is bumpy, venture capital has evaporated, and customer retention is paramount. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Lately.ai CEO Kate Bradley Chernis talks about her professional challenges and how sh...

Typeform is one of the world's best-known and most popular tools for creating online forms and surveys. Armed with $135 million in Series C financing, the Barcelona-based company is aggressively expanding its marketing activities to drive brand awareness and cement its industry leadership. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Typeform CMO Carrie Sanderson talks about: - How Typeform works to ensure...

For all the focus on data, messaging (and positioning) is crucial for companies looking to connect with prospects and customers. If you cannot talk about your product and why it matters clearly, it's like operating with one hand tied behind your back. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Diane Wiredu talks about how to develop messaging, the deliverables (more than a document or guide) and how to q...

As B2B SaaS sales become more challenging, demand gen can be an important way for companies to attract, educate, encourage, and nurture prospects. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Chris Roche talks about the benefits of demand gen and how companies can get started or ramp up their efforts. We also talk about how B2B SaaS brands can leverage LinkedIn and experiment with TikTok.

Over the last couple of years, the fractional CMO (FCMO) has been gaining momentum as companies look for marketing leadership without hiring a full-time and expensive resource. As a fractional CMO, I've been seeing more interest and more people embracing the title. In this episode of Marketing Spark, I talk with David Poulos, a fractional CMO, about why there is growing interest, when and why to h...

What's it like to operate a red-hot startup? What's it like to raise $56-million in venture capital in a relatively short period of time? In this episode of Marketing Spark, Walnut.io CEO Yoav Vilner talks about the interactive demo software company's rapid growth and how it raised major venture capital, including a $35 million Series B round in January. Yoav and I also talked about: - How B2B Saa...

When should a B2B SaaS company change its pricing and how often should it happen? How do free trials and freemium play within the pricing equation? In this episode of Marketing Spark, Dan Balcauski and I explore the pricing landscape. We look at who should be responsible for pricing, know when prices have to be increased and know when your pricing is working. Pricing may not get the attention it d...

Most emails from salespeople are terrible. They're impersonal, irrelevant, and ineffective. They often don't reflect a prospect's interests or needs. Lavender wants to change that with AI-powered technology that lets salespeopole write better emails. On this episode of Marketing Spark, Lavender co-founder Will Allred talks about why salespeople struggle with email and how they can be more successf...

PizzaTime's business exploded during the pandemic as companies looked for ways to engage remote employees. The company, which offers catering to remote teams, reaped the benefits and transformed itself into a high-growth entity. But as more people start going back to the office, PizzaTime has to re-strategize. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Matthew Carnevale talks about the different marketin...

TikTok is the world's sixth-largest social media platform with one billion users. Slowly but surely, B2B brands are establishing a presence, although it's far from bandwagon jumping. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Sales Feed's Will Aitken talks about why now is the time for B2B brands to embrace TikTok and the power of video. From insight into attracting 39,500 followers Sales Feed's TikTok c...

Many B2B SaaS companies are aggressively leveraging content marketing to attract and engage prospects. One of the ways to generate content is to hire freelancers and contractors. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Brooklin Nash and I talk about: - The pros and cons of in-house content marketers and outsourced. - How to hire contractors and freelancers. - Gated vs. ungated content, and  - Long-for...

Marketers will tell you the importance of really knowing their customers but how many marketers actually understand their customers inside out? Long-time marketer Mike Birt talks about the differnet approaches that marketers can take to gain customer insight. In this episode of Marketing Spark, we talk about the importance of rewarding and nurturing customers rather than simply focusing on custome...

While marketers are obsessed with all things digital, direct mail marketing is alive and well. There's huge value in being able to target people by their physical addresses. As important, brands that leverage direct mail marketing are seeing impressive ROI. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Postie CEO Dave Fink talks about why direct mail is viable option for many brands and how it liberates mar...

Many companies develop great products. The problem is few people know about them. These companies struggle with a lack of money to do marketing. There's too much competition, or they're product-based. Andrew Grubb is experiencing this first-hand.  As the CEO of ThinkSound, which makes earphones and headphones, Andrew heads up a company that has loyal customers....but not enough of them. In this ep...

Many B2B SaaS companies are started by engineers with no marketing expertise. They build the product but struggle to spread the word so people can discover and use it. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Verb Data's Dave Hurt talks about the steps he and his co-founder took to dip their toes in the marketing waters and some of the experiments they conducted along the way. It's great insight into h...

In a fast-moving marketing landscape, it's a challenge to break through and attract the spotlight. Kacy Maxwell is taking a different and effective approach with a concept called sketchnotes that combines notetaking, doodling, and drawing. It's a user-friendly and quick way to communicate ideas at a time when multi-tasking people scan rather than read. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Kacy and...

Some companies aim to stand out from the crowd. They want to differentiate themselves from companies that walk, talk, and sound the same. Some companies want to go a step further. They want to compete in a new category. They embrace a concept called category design in which they define and lead a new market. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Josh Lowman offers insight into the definition of cate...

xtensio is a classic story of how a service-based company turned a problem into a product. The company was working with startups and needed better ways to support buyer personas and other marketing activities It launched a few templates that resonated and then realized that there was more than enough demand to pivot the business. In this episode of Marketing Spark, xtensio CEO Alper Cakir talks ab...

It's the wild west when it comes to building a personal brand.  There's no lack of advice, guidance, content, and coaches to establish a personal brand within a competitive landscape.  Michelle Griffin has some great insight into creating a strategic plan for personal branding. We talk about why personal branding is important for entrepreneurs and CEOs, and how to get started on platforms like Lin...