Mastering Messaging and Positioning

Emily Kramer (Founder of MKT1 and the Dear Marketers podcast) has led marketing teams at Asana, Carta, and Astro (acquired by Slack).

After working in-house, she became an advisor, consulting with B2B startup founders on marketing approaches across growth stages, audiences, and GTM motions.

She’s seen it all.

We chatted about positioning fundamentals, product vs. content marketing, the growing founder-influencer trend, and her personally coined Fuel and Engine Framework that identifies which part of a broken marketing machine needs fixing.

In this episode:

(00:00) Intro

(01:38) How Will AI Change Startup Marketing and Advising?

(07:53) The First Steps to Startup Marketing

(14:56) Join Emily at Ahrefs Evolve

(15:35) The 12 Marketing Advantages Framework

(16:43) Getting Your Messaging and Positioning Right

(22:40) The Fuel and Engine Framework

(28:59) The 30% Juice Rule for Startups (DEBUNKED)

(34:57) The Difference Between Product Marketing and Content Marketing

(40:11) Examples of Ultra-Successful Campaigns & Measuring the ROI

(49:13) Category Creation vs Roles

(51:28) The Rise of Ecosystem Marketing

(59:34) Is SEO Dying?

(01:01:21) Founders as Influencers

(01:07:57) The Shortcut to Building Brand Influence

(01:14:10) Outro

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Ahrefs Podcast! As always, be sure to like, subscribe, and tell a friend.

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Where to find Emily:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilykramer/

Website: https://www.mkt1.co/

Where to find Tim:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/

X: https://x.com/timsoulo

Website: https://www.timsoulo.com/

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Referenced in this episode:

👤 People:

Dave Fallarme – https://www.linkedin.com/in/dfallarme/

April Dunford – https://aprildunford.com/

Dustin Moskovitz – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dustin_Moskovitz

Ryan Law – https://www.linkedin.com/in/thinkingslow/

Dmitry Gerasimenko – https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmytrogerasymenko/

🏢 Companies & Brands:

Owner – https://owner.com/

Carta – https://carta.com/

Airbnb – https://www.airbnb.com/

Clay – https://www.clay.com/

Asana – https://asana.com/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/

Twitter – https://twitter.com/

Substack – https://substack.com/

🛠️ Tools / Platforms:

ChatGPT – https://chat.openai.com/

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/

Reddit – https://www.reddit.com/

TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/

Google – https://www.google.com/

📚 Frameworks & Concepts:

Fuel & Engine Framework – https://mkt1.substack.com/p/fuel-engine

Marketing Advantages – https://newsletter.mkt1.co/p/find-and-accelerate-your-marketing

Percent Juice Rule – https://newsletter.mkt1.co/p/high-impact-content

Category Creation vs Design – https://www.aprildunford.com/post/dont-let-customers-decide-what-your-product-is

Ecosystem Marketing – https://newsletter.mkt1.co/p/ecosystem-marketing

Business Potential – https://blog.timsoulo.com/business-potential-the-most-important-metric-in-content-marketing/

🌐 Other:

Hashtag Angels – https://www.hashtagangels.com/

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#StartupMarketing #MarketingStrategy #EmilyKramer #Ahrefs #B2BMarketing #ContentMarketing #FuelAndEngine #EcosystemMarketing #PersonalBrand #MKT1