Hi to my amazing listeners! This episode kicks of the beginning of what I'll call the "Marketing Planning Series" where I invite back founders and marketing leaders to talk about their marketing plans going into 2022. I get questions from startups about this a lot (especially as the marketing landscape has changed so much throughout the pandemic) so I know this is on people's minds. We'll dive into marketing channels, budget, and resources and so much more.

Cassidy Shield is VP Marketing at Narrative Science. Prior to that, he was VP Marketing at Gogo, VP Marketing at NetCracker and spent 13 years at Alcatel Lucent, purchased by Nokia. He also went to Kellogg (woop woop!).

Narrative Science was founded in 2010, has 85 people, and is based out of Chicago. Funding: Series D ($43.4M total) and they just got acquired!! Narrative Science allows you to humanize analytics with data storytelling (not dashboards).

Here's what we cover:

2022 marketing plan - budget, channels, and resources;

How are you splitting your budget organic vs. paid;

What channels are you leaning into and why (NOTE: 90% of revenue is marketing sourced);

They launched their first event (Data Storytelling Summit) and realized "hey, we're good at this";

Who's on the marketing team now and how you're planning to build out;

Planning can't start until you know the goals of the business (HINT: we do this every 3-6 months on a rolling basis);

Cassidy shared some other unique/helpful things related to marketing planning e.g. galvanize around your "big rock" items;

Some goals (personal/professional) for Cassidy going into 2022.

You can reach Cassidy on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/cassidyshield

Find out more about Narrative Science: www.narrativescience.com

This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io

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You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com

Thanks for listening!