Time for another solo episode! It's fast but packs a punch. I started creating TikTok videos and posting them to LinkedIn and so far it's going well and I love how it takes less than 5 minutes to record, add a title, and add captions and do it all myself. Talk about scrappy AND engaging. Video works, ya'll. So I'm stripping out the audio and adding it to the podcast. I was asked on a recent discovery call: “Where should we prioritize marketing in the funnel, TOF? Middle? Bottom to help close? With Customers to grow WOM and referrals?” Answer: Yes. The cool thing is your content strategy can hit ALL those levels (even with a very small team) if you’re being thoughtful about it. I like to use a 1-page marketing plan that includes specific marketing plays across the funnel. For example: TOF to Engage: podcast, social media video clips MOF to Nurture: podcast, social media video clips, newsletter, 1:1 sharing on LinkedIn, weekly virtual events BOF to Convert: case studies, testimonials, testimonial videos Customer Success: surprise and delight e.g. super responsive Slack channel, case studies / video testimonials from superfans, give them a platform to share their expertise >> get them on your podcast to discuss wins and challenges And then for each stage, also have objectives (e.g. increased website visitors MoM, 50% OR and 20% CTR for email, 5 new customers per month, etc.) How is your content strategy impacting your objectives? For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen. You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening, and don't forget to leave a review!

I had the pleasure of talking to Maya Grossman, Founder of Maya Grossman Consulting, about her experiences as VP of Marketing and how she prioritized her marketing efforts in those critical first 90 days. Maya has 15+ years of marketing experience building brands and driving growth at companies like Microsoft, Google, and most recently Canvas. As the VP of Marketing at Canvas she built the marketing team, grew qualified pipeline 3X Q/Q, doubled ARR Y/Y, and helped secure Series C at $400M valuation. She was also the VP of Marketing at Colu ($40M VC backed startup). Here's what we hit on: What's your process for getting prospects to go from "what is this?" to "I want this!" (HINT: sell the CHANGE, this is the core of product marketing); As VP of Marketing at Canvas, how did you build out the team, build out demand gen, build pipeline and sales, help secure Series C funding...all the things. How you prioritized that role the first 90 days and the results from there (HINT: start by talking to all different people and teams within the company about product, customers, positioning, etc. and see if there's a consistent message at home); How to handle ambitious goals as VP of Marketing (HINT: there will always be ambitious goals, but how to balance that with being realistic and also having quick wins); What would you have done differently while at Canvas; How did you build out your marketing team early stage (HINT: product marketing, content manager, demand gen manager and this took 5-6 months); How did you handle marketing attribution early stage (HINT: you don't have to measure everything, we didn't gate our content, we launched a podcast, community, created demand, created resources); We stopped doing Instagram and Twitter and instead focused on LinkedIn > doing one thing really well versus a bunch of things not well; Now your focus is "how to build a thriving career in marketing" - why did you decide to help people with this; Maya shares her strategy/steps for how to build a thriving career. You can reach Maya on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayagrossman/ Check out her website: https://www.mayagrossman.com/ Check out her book: Invaluable For more content like this, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen. You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening!

Time for another solo episode! It's fast but packs a punch. I started creating TikTok videos pretty much weekly and posting them to LinkedIn and so far it's going well and I love how it takes less than 5 minutes to record, add a title, and add captions and do it all myself. Talk about scrappy AND engaging. Video works, ya'll. So I'm stripping out the audio and adding it to the podcast. As a mentor at Growth Mentor I talk to a few startups every Friday about their marketing challenges and specific questions they have for me. Recently I was asked "as you work across startups, what marketing channels approach seems to work the best?" Cool thing about working across early stage startups is I get to see their top challenges and also help prioritize top marketing channels (based on talking to customers and finding out where they hang out online, how easy it will be to implement and based on potential impact). My answer is "it depends" but I know that's not helpful so I share more in this quick audio. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen. You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening, and don't forget to leave a review!

Happy Memorial Day if you're in the US!  WOWZA these episodes are popular...so let's keep this going! Sprinkling in another episode for the "Marketing Planning Series" where I invite back top startup founders and marketing leaders to talk about their marketing plans going into 2022. We'll dive into marketing channels, budget, resources and so much more. Kyle Lacy is SVP of Marketing at Seismic (Series G). Prior, Kyle was CMO at Lessonly (Series C) for almost 5 years where he 20X’d revenue growth (70% sourced by marketing). I've had Kyle on before - check out Episode 31 where we talk about “the power of irrational ideas and golden llamas” among other things. Seismic was founded in 2010, has ~1,175 people, is based out of San Diego, CA, and Series G funded. Seismic is the #1 global sales enablement solution. Lessonly got acquired by Seismic in 2021. Lessonly is focused on training and coaching sales teams and Seismic does way more. Here's what we hit on: 2022 Marketing Plan, budget splits (HINT: the board really cares about the one metric LTV/CAC so as long as that stayed in the lane we can do whatever with our budget); Marketing channels you're leaning into this year (HINT: organic should be primary, and should always be primary); Marketing content you're leaning into this year; How you're planning to build out resources; What's your secret sauce to managing such a big (marketing) ship?? (HINT: hire people that understand how to move quickly but also have empathy/EQ because it's easier to have those difficult conversations; You need to build the marketing plan that's right for YOUR team, resources, etc; Goals that Kyle wants to accomplish in 2022. You can find Kyle on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kylelacy Find out more about Seismic: https://seismic.com/ For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen). You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening!

I invited Kathleen Booth, SVP Marketing at Tradeswell, to the show and we had a blast talking about how to do marketing the way it SHOULD be done - with a customer/audience-first approach focused on community, great content, and building a brand that people love, whether they buy from you or not.  Prior to Tradeswell, Kathleen served as CMO at clean.io (Series A). She's also the host of The Inbound Success Podcast and Board-level advisor to several tech startups. Tradeswell was founded in 2019, is based out of Baltimore (MD), and has 38 people. They've raised Series A ($18.8M). Tradeswell is the real-time operating system for e-commerce. Like "mission control" for growing e-commerce businesses. Tradeswell is creating a new category called “real-time operating system”. Here's what we hit on: How buyers used to buy and how buyers are buying today (HINT: they go to peers, communities, Slack, LinkedIn, etc.) and how "meh" marketing still follows the old approach; To truly succeed you need to win the hearts and minds of the buyer and the people they’re talking to; How we organize our budget (HINT: it's not the usual 10% of revenue is spent on marketing); What marketing channels are working well (HINT: podcasts, community, niche newsletter ads); What marketing content are you leaning into this year (HINT: your content should shine a spotlight on your audience PLUS we have data that nobody else has access to); How are you building out resources this year; What are your top marketing challenges (HINT: saying no can be hard AND we're creating a category and that's a challenge for sure but there are things we are looking for in the short-term); How we're aligning really well with sales (HINT: don't pit marketing against sales, it's about the channel and not the team); What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you’ve come up with (HINT: niche Substack newsletter sponsorship, check out the link below to learn more); Some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2022. You can reach Kathleen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleenslatterybooth/ Find out more about Tradeswell: https://www.tradeswell.com/ Check out Swapstack for niche newsletter advertising: https://swapstack.co/ For more content like this, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen. You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com and you can also subscribe to Anna's monthly newsletter by going here: https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba Thanks for listening!

Time for another solo episode! This one's fast but packs a punch. I started creating TikTok videos weekly and posting them to LinkedIn and so far it's going well and I love how it takes just 4 minutes to record, add a title, and add captions and do it all myself. Talk about scrappy AND engaging. Video works, ya'll. So I'm stripping out the audio and adding it to the podcast. In this quick episode, I cover my conversation with someone I know at a super cool VC firm that helps his portfolio of companies with marketing and growth. He said something and at first I was offended, and then I realized there's some nuance that needs to be unpacked and I do it right here. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen. You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com and you can also subscribe to Anna's monthly newsletter by going here: https://share.hsforms.com/1cP1V40x7RGes5gHk1XNgNw47lba Thanks for listening!

Hi and welcome or welcome back! You're going to love this episode. I've known about Justin Welsh since I saw him in a video clip with Chris Walker about 2 years ago, and I've been following his journey ever since. Justin Welsh is the founder of Justin Welsh Media. He's an angel investor in B2B SaaS and an advisor for healthcare SaaS. He has built digital courses for how to get followers and customers from LinkedIn and Twitter. He would know. Justin has almost 200k followers on LI and almost 65k on Twitter AND tons of engagement. In the past, Justin helped to build two $50M+ ARR companies and raise over $300M in venture capital (SVP of Sales at PatientPop, a Series C SaaS where he still serves as strategic advisor, and Director of Strategic Sales at ZocDoc). Here's what we hit on: Writing can be harder and take longer versus (for example) talking on a podcast. How do you have so much content to write every single day? What are those systems you use to produce 10-15 pieces of high-quality written content every single day; Top books and creators Justin follows and recommends; Most people push content out and don’t analyze it...you do have to study it; What are the specific tools you use as part of your system; Justin's mission is to be a "diversified entrepreneur" and he's creating operating systems to do just that. Can you help explain what diversified entrepreneur means? What’s your WHY; Justin built The Content OS digital course, what are your top learnings to share for folks that want to be successful at productizing their knowledge (HINT: Justin has a 5-step process); How to build and execute from $0 to $50M+ ARR at your startup...thinking back to PatientPop and ZocDoc, what were the milestones for the different stages, e.g. hiring, running experiments, marketing + sales collaboration, etc. What matters at each stage; What are your top challenges, what are you trying to figure out; What are 1-2 big sales trends you're seeing today that startups should be aware of (HINT: there's a big missed opportunity to empower your team to create content where your buyers are hanging out online); What are some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2022. You can reach Justin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinwelsh/ On Twitter: @JustinSaaS Find out more about Justin by visiting his website: https://www.justinwelsh.me/ For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen). You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening!

When I say "no fridge needed and 90 second convenience" what comes to mind? Well soon, my friend, you will be seeing Proper Good everywhere. I invited Christopher Jane, co-founder and CEO at Proper Good, to talk about his delicious company and what they're working on with their marketing efforts. Prior, Christopher was co-founder and CEO at Montana Mex (clean label seasonings, sauces and oils carried by Whole Foods, H-E-B, Albertsons and more). Proper Good was founded in 2020, is based out of Austin (TX) and has raised Seed funding ($1.5M). Proper Good is 90-second tasty meals with clean ingredients delivered direct to your door. Check out their keto, vegan & low-calorie options. I tried 'em and they're tasty! Here's what we hit on: Proper Good was on Shark Tank! How'd it go? (HINT: got a lot of interest from just the viewership but also a lot happened AFTER the show aired); How'd you come up with that name, what's the backstory; 2022 Marketing Plan - budget, channels, resources (HINT: reduced spend on Insta and FB, increased spend on sampling and top of funnel); How's TikTok working out for you; What types of content are you leaning into (HINT: simple and focused messaging, customer reviews and testimonials, and emotional messaging); Who's your competition (HINT: competition really "lifts all boats"); We grew 400-500% in 2021 with the same base team, who's on the team; What are your top marketing challenges; What are the last 1-2 really good, creative marketing ideas you’ve come up with (HINT: it involves food donations and creating an enormous flywheel effect); Some goals you want to accomplish (personal, professional) in 2022; How new product innovation works at Proper Good (HINT: we have a private Slack channel for feedback and our Broccoli Cheddar has been revised 5X over 2 years! You can reach Christopher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisofthejane/ Find out more about Proper Good: https://eatpropergood.com/ For more content like this, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen. You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening!

WOW these episodes are popular...so let's keep this going! Sprinkling in another episode for the "Marketing Planning Series" where I invite back top startup founders and marketing leaders to talk about their marketing plans going into 2022. We'll dive into marketing channels, budget, resources and so much more. Rob Singer is CMO at Remitly. Prior, Rob was CMO at Ancestry.com, and at Smule, and at Habit. I've had Rob on before - check out Episode 17! Remitly was founded in 2011, has 1,264 people (WOAH) and is based out of Seattle. And guess what?! They IPO'd September 2021!! Remitly helps people send money across borders. There are millions of immigrants around the world that make the huge sacrifice of leaving their families behind to live and work in another country. Remitly makes international money transfers easy. Here's what we hit on: 2022 Marketing Plan (HINT: being public doesn’t matter, what’s gotten us here will enable us to keep moving forward); For new customer acquisition and revenue growth, we spend to a certain payback; Now we're focusing more on organic growth (creating demand in lower cost channels); Marketing channels we're leaning into (HINT: audio, TV); Marketing content we're leaning into (HINT: music and food); Rob's personal and professional goals. You can reach Rob on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rob-singer-313131/ Find out more about Remitly: www.remitly.com For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen). You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit my website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening!

We talk about how important storytelling and emotional connection is for really great marketing. But can banking be emotional?  You betcha.  I brought on a creative leader to talk about how and why it's important to nail this. Matthieu Silberstein is VP of Creative Marketing at Lili. Matt works on commercials, PR, influencers, podcasts, social, content, media partnerships, OOH, and creative writing including voice and storytelling. Matt also owns his own business, creating video content for companies like FOX STUDIOS, HEARST DIGITAL, CONDE NAST, FUSE, THE NEW YORK POST, POPSUGAR, and more. Prior to Lili, Matt served as video content director for Spoon U, a media-tech startup (acquired by Scripps Networks for $11M, and then Scripps was acquired by Discovery for $14.6B) and video director and marketing producer for Popsugar. Lili was founded in 2018, is based out of NYC, and has 84 people. They've raised Series B ($80M total). Lili is the all-in-one banking app designed for freelancers. Your checking/savings account, taxes, invoices, expense reports – all in one app. Here's what we hit on: You joined Lili in 2019 as a contractor, what were you focused on then as Head of Content; What is the stigma around the term "freelancer" (HINT: it's not a job title, it's a status); 2022 Marketing Goals (HINT: I'm inspired by seeing real people, not by looking at my phone); What content marketing are you leaning into this year (HINT: trying to make taxes sexy); What marketing channels are you prioritizing (HINT: we created a cool TV ad, link in the show notes below); What is Lili’s unique Voice and how do you use Storytelling as part of your creative efforts (HINT: Lili’s voice is my voice because it’s so organic to me); What are your top creative challenges; What does “creative'' mean to you and which brands are most creative; Some goals Matt wants to accomplish in 2022 (HINT: go back out into the world and rekindle inspiration, find that fire). You can reach Matt on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/matthieusilberstein/ See Matt's creative work: www.matthieusilberstein.com Find out more about Lili: https://lili.co/ Here's the "I Need This" commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGuDgvx0EWo For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen). You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening!