Building With Buyers

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA Josh Ades is Head of Marketing at DwellWell. Prior, Josh was the Marketing Director at mPulse Mobile (a healthtech startup that has raised $42M in funding). Josh wrote me asking to get on the show and typically I don't bring people on that way but then I asked him some questions and he wrote back a very lengthy, thoughtful and interesting response so of course I said yes. Plus the company is very cool. DwellWell is Seed funded ($6M total) and based out of LA in California. DwellWell is an end-to-end platform that guides homebuyers through their home buying journey. They provide education, decision-making tools, and personalized connections to vetted partners (agents) so instead of feeling frustrated and confused, DwellWell gives users a way better homebuying experience. Here's what we hit on: Your marketing plan - where have you been putting your dollars this year; Josh's 30-60-90 day plan when he joined DwellWell ~1.5 years ago; Fast learning from early mistakes with paid ads; How they use TikTok to build a complete customer funnel (ad, landing page, form, CTA); How to earn the right to get more marketing budget; Creative ideas we tried that failed but still helped us understand who we are as a brand; Creative ideas we tried that worked; Top marketing challenges (HINT: email is a challenge for us, also how to create urgency); Josh started in standup comedy - how his background has impacted his approach to marketing; Josh asks me his burning question "How would you summarize your marketing philosophy at a high level?". You can find Josh on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/josh-ades/ Find out more about DwellWell: www.dwellwell.com/ This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review. And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com 2. GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/ 3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA Sarah Breathnach works with early stage SaaS companies to build a strong marketing foundation for fast growth. She's currently Head of Demand Generation at Hunters. Prior, Sarah was Demand Generation Lead at Tamr, a SaaS startup backed by Google Ventures and others that has raised $69.2M. I happened to stumble upon Sarah while listening to her speak in a recorded webinar and thought "woah, I gotta bring her on the show." Hunters is a Series C ($118.4M total) security tech startup based out of Tel Aviv, Israel. Here's what we hit on: Generating leads versus generating demand - what’s the big difference between the two and the big "aha!" for startups, why can’t you do both; People think you need a big team and lots of money to generate demand - how many people do you really need and how much money do you really need; What are some smart ways to approach demand generation when you’re lean and have a small budget (HINT: focus on the innovators and risk-takers); We setup "kiosks" at trade shows and events to find out if we were selling to the right person; How did marketing help 5X revenue (HINT: early on marketing built those important foundations); Why we decided to focus on the "2 opportunities goal" from any demand generation effort we did; Top marketing channels for Hunters; From Chris Walker (CEO at Refine Labs): "It’s time to get out of the tech. Top marketing teams will be talking with customers every week and leaning into marketing fundamentals.” Are we too much in the tech and not enough in the fundamental, foundational marketing work; Sarah asks me her burning question "what is the hardest thing about being a marketer today." You can find Sarah on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sarahbreathnach/ Find out more about Hunters: www.hunters.ai/ This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review. And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com 2. GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/ 3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

Hi listeners! I decided to post this quick raw TikTok video on the podcast as a BONUS episode (I posted it on LinkedIn with more info/commentary on what I'm thinking about for my podcast strategy for next year if you wanna check it out).  This is going to hit close to home for many startups that are running the content creation engine. How does our content tie back to business results? It should. To create demand you need to create content. But just because you're creating content doesn't mean you're creating demand. Companies fall into this trap - they're creating content and so they check the content marketing box. And then someone goes "wait, the content isn't doing anything. It's not working" (or maybe nobody says anything and they just keep rolling with the content production, yikes). So here's me thinking out loud. My podcast is doing well - after 2 years (happy anniversary today!!) listenership continues to grow 100%+ YoY. Most episodes get 100-200 plays with the top episodes getting 300+ plays. I've also got a great sponsor. I'm getting a lot of positive feedback that people are enjoying the material and like listening to episodes regularly. But just because I created a podcast and invite amazing guests onto the show and people love it and it’s growing doesn’t mean I’m creating demand for my offerings. It's really hard for someone listening to make the connection and go "I need HER help." Why? Because there's this thing called status quo + other marketing consultants out there. Also I never really talk about how I help my clients, it's just not really the type of content I share on the show. You can visit my website for that kinda thing (just built a new landing page called "Love" it's like a customer love wall). A few weeks ago I thought "in order to monetize the podcast beyond sponsors, just include an ad about my offerings." Yea maybe. But that's not going to work because people listening (startup founders, startup marketers) don't think they need what I offer. Because I'm not creating any demand. Now we've come back full circle: How can your content create demand? What should I be doing differently? Here's what I think I’m missing: Sharing a strong POV. A strategic narrative. Old way to New way. Unique expertise on a specific topic. Obvious + non-obvious insights. OK, I do some of that, I give myself some credit! But not enough to where it feels like MY thing. And so I got to thinking. What's MY thing? Well, that's what I'm figuring out these next few weeks as I plan for 2023. This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review! And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com 2. GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/ 3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA Anthony Kennada is a B2C marketer trapped in a B2B body (I can SO relate). I met Anthony through Pavilion where he was teaching a course in CMO School about how and why companies are increasingly becoming media companies. Anthony is co-founder and CEO at AudiencePlus where the team is building software, content, and community to help every company become a media company. Prior to AudiencePlus, Anthony was CMO of Hopin and Front. He's worked at Box, LiveOffice and Symantec. Anthony was the founding CMO at Gainsight where he and the team created the Customer Success category and fueled the company’s growth from $0 to $100M+ ARR, and eventual acquisition by Vista Equity at a $1.1B valuation. Here's what we hit on: Why are companies increasingly becoming "media companies," why it's easier today more than ever and will continue into the future; Why gating content is no longer necessary or preferred; Instead of gating content, what can companies do instead (HINT: emails are important so you do need emails, you just need a better way for people to share their email address); "Community-led marketing" - what's all the fuss, let's define what this means and explain how this works and how can early stage startups leverage this marketing play; You gotta hook them on social media with video clips (demand creation) then bring them back to your website (demand capture) - but how to best run this play and who's doing this well; Why engagement with your company's content is an important leading indicator to EVERY business outcome (e.g. sale, renewal, expansion, adoption, etc.) and not just a TOF strategy; Anthony shares more about building AudiencePlus; At the very end, Anthony asks me his burning question. You can find Anthony on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/akennada/ Find out more about AudiencePlus: https://www.audienceplus.com/ This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review. And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com 2. GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/ 3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show for ya: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA Oftentimes you'll hear marketers hating on cold outbound - it's not efficient, it's spammy, etc. And sometimes they're right. But what is truly the best approach?  So I brought on a long-time friend and (now) business partner Daniel O'Reilly (aka Dano) to help set the record straight. He's CEO and Founder of Fuel Sales and FuelK12. He's got a TON of sales experience -- 30+ years to be more exact. Dano and I met back in 2018 at Elevate K-12 and now we're running the Edtech Founders GTM Bootcamp together.  Dano is one of the few sales leaders I know that understands marketing and the interplay between sales and marketing to impact business growth. Here's what we hit on: Dano's got 40 SDRs working the phones, email, and LinkedIn outbound cadences and seeing good results. But many people show hate for cold outbound. Why is that, and what's the best approach; What makes someone a really good SDR (and not spammy); We discuss how paid ads and SDR outreach can have some similarities, here's the link to the LI post I mention; How does Dano help SDRs transition from inside Fuel Sales and integrate well within companies; What's the best approach to align marketing + sales to amplify business impact. You can find Dano on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/danoreilly/ Find out more about the EdTech Founders GTM Bootcamp: https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/ This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months! For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review. And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com 2. GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/ 3. (NEW) Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA I had the pleasure of bringing Latané Conant onto the show. She's pretty amazing and let me tell you why. Latané is CMO at 6sense (4+ years). Prior, she held sales and marketing leadership roles at Appirio (B2B SaaS, raised $111.7M in funding). She wrote a book called "No Forms, No Spam, No Cold Calls" (I read it, you should check it out). She's big on pushing the boundaries in B2B marketing which I love. We didn't get to cover everything during this episode so I'll be bringing her back on again soon. 6sense was founded in 2013, has 1,256 people, and is based out of San Francisco, CA. They've raised Series E ($200M total). The 6sense mantra: you can’t guess your way to quota. For sales and marketing teams, 6sense uses AI to capture anonymous buying signals, targets the right accounts at the ideal time, and recommends the channels and messages to boost revenue performance. Here's what we hit on: What made you decide to write your book (HINT: customer and prospect experiences); What steps have you taken to really nail sales+marketing alignment at 6sense (HINT: I don't care where it's sourced from, I'm going to make sure we hit our numbers); If you're thinking like a salesperson, how do you hold true to marketing mindset vs. fall into sales mode (they're different disciplines); What's your recommendation for early stage startups that don't have a lot of data points and can't rely on trends analysis to make decisions. You can find Latané on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/latane-conant/ Find out more about 6sense: https://6sense.com/ This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review. And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com 2. GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/ 3. (NEW) Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA When I asked Tyler to join me on the show, I thought I was bringing on a marketing leader from a video company (true) but I was also bringing on an amateur comedian, plus video expert, plus all around great personality and person to talk with! Tyler Lessard is VP of Marketing and Chief Video Strategist at Vidyard (8+ years). Prior, Tyler was CMO at Fixmo (a mobile security startup) and held leadership roles at Blackberry (10+ years). Vidyard was founded in 2011 and has 300+ people. They've raised $75.7M total funding. Vidyard is virtual sales made human. The easiest way to create, host, and share videos so you can keep connecting with customers and colleagues. Here's what we hit on: How has being an amateur comedian helped shape your career as a marketer (HINT: only use comedy if you're selling to humans); What are your top customers doing with video (HINT: LinkedIn is where ADULTS watch TikToks); Where do people go wrong with creating video content as part of their marketing strategy; Your marketing strategy during this downturn - where are you putting your dollars, where are you spending time and energy (HINT: we're investing more in PLG programs and growing our base of users); What marketing channels and content are you leaning into; Top marketing challenges; What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you/your team has come up with; What are some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2022. You can reach Tyler on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tylerlessard/ Find out more about Vidyard: www.vidyard.com/ This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review! And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:   1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com   2. (NEW) GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/    3. (NEW) Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show! https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA In this episode I’m getting interviewed by Nelson Gilliat (Founder of the Marketing-Led Growth™️ movement and community modernizing and liberating B2B from Sales-Led Growth from the 1980s).  Nelson wrote a book called Marketing-Led Growth via the Buyer Centric Revenue Model. He’s been advocating for a more Modern B2B Marketing and Sales model built for today, not 40 years ago. Main topics we cover: First I put my B2B buyer flip flops on to talk about the kind of buyer experience I enjoy (vs. don’t enjoy); Then I put my on my Marketing hat and we talk about what’s broken with the system today; We also talk about proper, modern, non-spam marketing (which I love). Check out his website: www.buyercentricrevenue.com For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review! People call me (Anna) the Marie Kondo of startup marketing because I help VC backed early stage startups clean up their marketing mess to uncover more joy (and revenue). For those startups that have already built their marketing foundation and have been testing different marketing plays but just aren't satisfied with the traction they're seeing, I created the Marketing Audit + Roadmap offering. At the end of your audit, you’ll get a custom Roadmap with improvement opportunities for the next 3-6 months. So that you can finally put the missing pieces in place to start seeing more traction and stop spending time and money on the wrong things. You can learn more about it by visiting my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com/pricing You can also connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

*hey listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA HubSpot's INBOUND conference took place a couple weeks ago so I invited one of their speakers, Sarah Breathnach (Head of Demand Generation at Hunters, she was also on my show before this but that episode hasn't released yet) to jam on some of the highlights and topics covered during the conference. Of course our conversation took some winding turns! That's the point of these shorter unfiltered episodes and that's what makes them so fun to do and share. Here's the link to HubSpot's new community that Sarah mentioned in the episode: https://connect.com/ For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review! People call me (Anna) the "Marie Kondo of startup marketing" because I help VC backed early stage startups clean up their marketing mess to uncover more joy (and revenue). For those startups that have already built their marketing foundation and have been testing different marketing plays but just aren't satisfied with the traction they're seeing, I created the Marketing Audit + Roadmap offering. At the end of your audit, you’ll get a custom Roadmap with improvement opportunities for the next 3-6 months. So that you can finally put the missing pieces in place to start seeing more traction and stop spending time and money on the wrong things. You can learn more about it by visiting my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com/pricing You can also find me regularly posting on LinkedIn and join the convo: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA Guys, you're gonna love this episode. I finally got to bring on Pete Lorenco (VP of Marketing at Alyce) to join me on the show. I'm a big fan and you'll soon be too. Prior to Alyce, Pete was VP of Marketing at Avid Technology (a public company) and several other enterprise companies including Iron Mountain and EMC (prior to their acquisition by Dell). Alyce was founded in 2015, has 174 people and is based out of Boston, MA. They've raised Series B funding ($46M total). Alyce provides a better way to do outbound B2B marketing by transforming from transactional touch-points to delivering personal experiences using gifting, swag, and direct mail. Here's what we hit on: I had Dan Frohnen (former CMO at Sendoso) on the show, Episode 16, and we talked about gifting. There are other players in the space, how do you compete; How does gifting work effectively within the buyer journey; Some people will not agree with our POV and why that's a good thing; How is outbound broken today, and what should we do about it; Why certain goals matter in order to create an experience people will love, and what those goals should be; At Alyce you’re sourcing 70% of total new logo pipeline & revenue from inbound marketing - what's your 2022 marketing plan; What channels are you leaning into; How're you setting up effective ABM at Alyce, from your target list of accounts to winning deals; What are your top marketing challenges; What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you/your team has come up with. You can reach Pete on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/peter-lorenco Find out more about Alyce: www.alyce.com For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review! People call me (Anna) the Marie Kondo of startup marketing because I help VC backed early stage startups clean up their marketing mess to uncover more joy (and revenue). For those startups that have already built their marketing foundation and have been testing different marketing plays but just aren't satisfied with the traction they're seeing, I created the Marketing Audit + Roadmap offering. At the end of your audit, you’ll get a custom Roadmap with improvement opportunities for the next 3-6 months. So that you can finally put the missing pieces in place to start seeing more traction and stop spending time and money on the wrong things. You can learn more about it by visiting my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com/pricing You can find me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov