Transcript
WEBVTT
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Yeah
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welcome back to be to be growth. I'm
Leslie Cruise with Swedish media and we
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are continuing on our journey into
demand generation. Um Today I'm joined
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by Sarah Anderson who is the head of
marketing at Origin. Sarah thanks so
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much for coming on the show today.
Thank you very much. I'm happy to be
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here. Yeah. So I want to start off by
talking a little bit about
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transformation and obviously demand jin
has really taken off in the past few
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years and has evolved tremendously. So
do you mind sharing a little bit about
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how the evolution of marketing has kind
of transformed your role over the past
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several years? Yeah, sure I am. I think
what's good here is to first look at
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just how demand generation has changed
in the past 15 years. When I look back
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at what I was doing 15 years ago, it
was all about the M. P. U. L. Uh we
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were just getting the technology, we
needed to track our leads and
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ultimately be considered in the revenue
discussions. So that was very exciting
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time. But, you know, quickly and then I
think somewhere in between then and now
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we quickly realized, you know, content
was king. They started producing these
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just massive amounts of content helped
fuel the funnel. And, and, and then
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today, I feel like we've just, we've
evolved into this group that we like,
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not only do, we need to be very
creative and create these compelling,
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engaging campaigns, but also we have to
have this tech background that, that
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wasn't necessarily required 15, 20
years ago. Uh, and that's to, you know,
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track every interaction our buyers have
from, from the start of the campaign to
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the end. And, and, you know, that was
pretty simple years ago. There was a
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few touch points and now we, you know,
there's, there's so many chances for a
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prospect to interact with our brand and
we want to make sure that we're
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tracking all that and that takes a lot
of technical Background for sure. And I
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think it's also just important to talk
about the last 12 months because our
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roles have changed drastically in in
just this year. Uh and I think for me
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it's it's really in two areas. So one
like I I relied heavily on in person
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engagement like conferences and and
like more intimate dinners with our
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prospects and so that obviously went
out the window and got thrown out. And
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now we've pivoted very quickly to, we
did last year very quickly to try some
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new things. And then on top of that we
also we're seeing our marketing budgets
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really tighten and as a result of the
pandemic, we either lost budget or just
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really had to tighten up, tighten up on
spending. And so we were kind of
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automatically all turned into growth
marketers overnight and coming up with
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all these really interesting strategies
to just get more from less. So that's
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yeah, it's changed so much and it's
really exciting field to be in for sure
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and becoming more of a marketing role
rather than you know, a sales role. I
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think that people are so accustomed in
the past two sales generating all the
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revenue and really that's not so much
the case anymore. Like a big percentage
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of that revenue really falls on
marketing as well. Yeah. Yeah. You're
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right. You know, at the start of my
career, even even um 10 years ago or so
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I was tied to different metrics than I
am today. Like today it's all about the
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percentage marketing is is producing in
revenue. So it's we have the technology,
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we have the skills and so why not be a
part of that at that level? Sure. Well,
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you know, demand jin just a term that
gets thrown around and be to be a lot
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and everybody kind of seems to have a
different take on what it is, what it's
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not what it should be, where it's going.
So do you mind just sharing, what is
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your definition of demand generation?
Yeah, I have no idea. I still every
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once in a while just google, you know,
the definition of demand jin or
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demanding versus legion or because it
always comes up uh my whole career
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really like getting confused,
especially outside of marketing. Um So
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I I honestly just no, I I do have some
ideas in my opinion. I think demand
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generation is, I think it's easy to
talk about demanding versus legion. So
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I think the difference there is demand
generation is the bigger picture and
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it's, it's really selling, uh not just
a particular product, but like the
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whole experience or solution that
whatever it is for, for me, it's
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financial wellness benefits. So it's
not necessarily selling my company, my
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products, it's about understand making
sure that the prospects understand why
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this particular thing is important,
should be important. Um, so it's just,
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it's just a much bigger thing and I
think lead generation plays a big role
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in demand generation and that that's,
that's the way you get them to the
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point of saying, oh, I want that
particular one, like I want that
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particular benefit for in my, in my
case. And so that's, that's how I see
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it, but it's, it's evolved so much like,
I just feel like in the early days I am
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guilty of jumping on the demand shin as
the hot new title bandwagon and you
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know, it's now just it's so such a big
part of marketing. Like I feel like in
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a lot of ways I do most parts of
marketing, the exclusion being I don't
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really touch pr and product marketing,
but in a way I kind of do actually,
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because even with when we're planning
out pr campaigns, I'm always thinking
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about how to leverage that for demand
generation. So yeah, it's it's just so
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it's such a large area of marketing
today and I previously talked about how
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it kind of started as this like fancy
title and it's just grown so much over
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the past couple of years. And, you know,
we talked about kind of getting going
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on those measurable things. Yeah, for
me, I think on measuring, I think
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that's a big part of it. Like I I think
my role specifically is is very much in
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the marketing operations world to have
a very successful, demanding campaign.
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I think you really have to have that,
that knowledge of how to track
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everything. So yeah, it's all, it's
very, very measurable part of marketing
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for sure. We talked a little bit
earlier about kind of filling the
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funnel and really optimizing on that
quality over quantity. So let's dive
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into that a little bit. Can you
describe your campaign optimization
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process and what that looks like? Yeah,
sure for me, I've always been a part of
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a Lien marketing team, a lots of
startups and, and typically the first
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marketing higher. And so my first
thought when you say campaign
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optimization is is just to repurpose
everything. So An example of that if
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you pay $10,000 to speak at a
conference, like don't let the campaign
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end there, like grab the recording,
turn it into a podcast or transcribe it
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and write a blog post or an e book on
the session. And so there you have
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another piece of lead generation
content and then go even further and
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edit the video down into small little
clips and put that on your website.
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Give it to sales to use for prospecting.
So yeah, every every little effort,
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like those tiny little like with a
little bit of effort and not much
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additional budget, you've extended the
life of every campaign indefinitely. So
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that's my secret sauce, especially in
the early days of building out a
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marketing team is is just to make sure
that you're leveraging Everything you
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can and you know that $10,000
investment can produce so much more
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when you are repurposing things, we're
looking at that campaign, How do you
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measure success there? Yeah, I think
tracking everything, uh, just, you know,
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I'd say the one thing I would say there
is like, just don't wait for the length
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of the deal cycle to know if a campaign
is working. So what I do specifically
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is I break up the steps of the buyer
journey quite a bit like a bit overkill
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and then measure every conversion
through the funnel and that will
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quickly tell me like what's working and
what's not and so you can much more
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quickly see like which top of funnel
initiatives are working. And if you
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wait, you know, if your sales cycle is
30 days, 90 days, whatever you don't
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want to wait to see the R. O. Y. At the
end, you've already wasted so much time.
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And in the start up world, you just,
you just, you're moving fast. So I
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would say, yeah, that would be, that's
that's one way to do it is just make
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sure you're not just looking at
traditional return, like break it down
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into all the steps and that could be,
you know, your marketing qualified
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leads, sales, qualified leads, whatever,
but just have it broken out and in your
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marketing automation tools so that you
can really hone in on where things are
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falling and you can quickly get an idea
of which programs are moving forward
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and which ones are stalling out. So
that's that's my recommendation there,
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let's say, a small startup organization
like you mentioned, um, wants to start
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a demand gen um, strategy completely
from scratch and they've never done
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this before. Where would you recommend
for them to start? Good question. I'd
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say, first of all I'd say keep it
simple and then keep it highly
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measurable. So you walk in and the Ceo
says they want a giant billboard, you
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politely respectfully decline that and
just start with, you know, 3 to 4
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programs, you know, have worked in the
past for you, ones that don't take a
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ton of resources if that's a limiting
factor for you and just get those up
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and running and you know, like I
mentioned, make sure you're tracking
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every step of the funnel and you know,
while those are kind of getting up to
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speed, you can also have a little more
flexibility to um have a little what I
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what I did early on is I had like the
budget and all my predictions of
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outcomes. And then I had this separate
budget that I was always allowed to
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just do whatever I wanted with. And
that was really helpful because when
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you're starting out in an organization,
you're just spinning up marketing, you
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don't really know what's going to work
for that particular product or service
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or scenario. So if you have the things
you know, work maybe that's webinars
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and you just start doing a couple
webinars a quarter a month and then
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meanwhile you have maybe this small
budget that you can do things that
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you're unsure of and you're not getting,
they're kind of like removed from the
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leadership discussion. You know, it's
not you're not getting asked what's the
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return on that every week or every
month? So you have some flexibility to
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try banner advertising or whatever it
is, social media stuff like whatever it
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is that you're unsure of and that's a
great way to build consistency, build
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the pipeline, but also make sure that
you're trying a lot of new things for
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what might work. And so they also being
new to origin, I kind of went through
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this scenario is think through the
funnel and if you're going to be tied
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to a revenue goal Map out from the
revenue goal what like say you were
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going to contribute 20 or 25 30 of the
revenue goal, track that all back to
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the number of leads you'll need. And
you might not know all the specifics on
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conversion rates from, from, let's say
like an MQ L to an SQL or that sort of
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granularity. But go with some industry,
um numbers to start and just get
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something tracked and then you can
slowly start tightening up those
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numbers. So if you are going to
contribute X amount of to the revenue
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goal, then that means you need this
many opportunities because you know
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that those clothes at a rate of
whatever percent and the average deal
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size is X. And it's all just a big math
equation. But the way I do it is just
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in a spreadsheet and uh, you know, no
fancy tools required, just a tiny bit
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of math and uh, and just track it back
all the way from each step, all the way
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down to the number of Mosul's. And then
from there, I think of those very
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specific programs that you think are
like golden, the ones that are that you
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think are going to be successful and
map what you think you're going to get
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out of those programs and map that all
the way back. So if you need whatever
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200 mq Ls in the quarter, then that
looks like this mini programs in that
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quarter. And here's the mix, the actual
mix of programs that we're going to,
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we're going to focus on for the quarter
to hit those goals. And do you have any
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other tools even that you lean on when
you're developing a strategy like this
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that you would like to share? Sure.
Yeah. I mean spreadsheets. Uh so I do
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have I have kind of like the scrappy
scrappy marketers tech stack that I can
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always recommend to new marketing
organizations. But if you're if you're
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short on content writers or producing
visuals or you know, images and things
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for your blog, then I'd say just use
whatever technology you can you can get
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the budget for to augment. So in my
scenario, I think hubspot is great for
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early marketing teams because because
they have not just the typical
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marketing automation platform, but
there's a lot of these little add ons,
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you know that you can you have your
blog, you can do landing pages, you can
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have like the chat going like there's
some other things that tools that you
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can access that can help you give the
appearance of a much larger marketing
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organization. Another like one that I
love is Canada. And I think in any any
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marketer that doesn't have a designer
is probably familiar with that tool is
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as a way to quickly create social
images or things like that to help
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promote your upcoming webinar, whatever
it is. I think, you know, if you if you
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if you're going to have lee generating
pieces of content and I think it's also
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great to have a good good landing page
editor and just make sure that your
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whatever you're using for email
marketing is very easy to use. Like I
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think even mail chimp is is great for
email marketing starting out. So
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there's there's tons of tools like that
that are accessible and camera and it's
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funny, we don't use it. We have great,
great designers. Um but in other
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organizations I've worked and it's kind
of funny, I'm like, man, how did we
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live without camba, like it's such a
simple thing and it's just, it's like
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who wants to start their own business
and might not have the budget of you
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know, okay, I have to hire all these
designers, I have to hire freelancers
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or whatever. Just do Cambon, do it
yourself, it's great. Yeah. And I would
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also say leveraging all the access we
have to freelancers nowadays is amazing,
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you know, up work and the like, so if
you if you have the budget to do that
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then definitely do that. Like leverage
find content writers that are just that
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are good. Like you don't want to, we're
over the days of quantity. We, you know,
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if you can find a writer that can
deliver really good quality, lock them
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in and same with designers as well.
Well, Sarah, this has been so
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insightful. Thank you so much for
joining me today. Um where can people
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find you online if they're interested
in learning more on Lincoln for sure. I
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don't have the most unique last name.
So I'm not sure how easy I am to find
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on linkedin, but Sarah Anderson, I
would love to connect with other those
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are marketers for sure. This has been
fantastic. Thanks again so much for
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joining me here and GDP Growth. Yeah,
you bet. Is the decision maker for your
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product or service at BBB marketer. Are
you looking to reach those buyers
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through the medium of podcasting?
Considered becoming a co host of GDP
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growth. This show is consistently
ranked as a top 100 podcast in the
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marketing category of apple podcasts
And the show gets more than 130,000
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downloads each month. We've already
done the work of building the audience
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so you can focus on delivering
incredible content to our listeners. If
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you're interested, email Logan at Sweet
Fish Media dot com.