Blake Emal is CMO at Copy.ai. Prior to that, Blake was Senior Manager of Demand Gen at TalkDesk (a Series D SaaS startup that has raised almost $500M). Copy.ai was founded in 2020, has 18 employees, and is based out of … nowhere, bc it's a distributed team! Makes sense.

Copy.ai is seed funded ($2.9M).

The tool helps you write better marketing copy, faster. Who doesn't love that? And it’s not just about writing marketing copy. It's a full-on creativity suite to help you start and grow a business.

Here's what we hit on:

What is marketing? (HINT: ideas that people collect about your brand);

What are some of the biggest content trends that startups need to be on top of? (HINT: don’t worry so much about trends, or be aware of them and go against them proactively);

Copy.ai has 13k followers on TikTok - why is a B2B company focusing on TikTok;

How Blake thinks about personal brand, and why companies that are just starting out need to leverage personal brands;

Top channels for Copy.ai 7 months into the game (HINT: Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook Group, and now TikTok which is proving to be a bigger opportunity versus Youtube);

How long does it take to really see some traction (HINT: traction is directly proportional to how interesting the thing you’re sharing is);

Blake has been "doing Twitter" (his personal Twitter) since 2013, and he's still got room to improve;

How long should you test a channel before you know whether or not to continue (HINT: you have to show up every single day and give it your all, and this is more important than being different);

When you’re building an audience, it takes years of heavy work;

How do you differentiate when there are so many others in the same space;

We talked about the creative use of UGC (user generated content) on the Copy.ai homepage (where users are explaining the product);

Marketing and growth challenges - what are you still trying to figure out (HINT: focus focus focus!);

How has a failure / mistake set you up for later success.

You can reach Blake on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/uxblake

On Twitter: @heyblake

Find out more about Copy.ai: www.copy.ai

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!

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