The Marketing Companion

Social listening platforms are meaningless when it comes to young people today. Gen Z is hiding out in their digital campfires on Fortnite, Roblox and other hard-to-reach places. Mark Schaefer and Sara Wilson discuss how this new generation of tastemakers are re-defining community, marketing, and how we reach our customers. Sara Wilson is a journalist-turned-social-marketer (former Facebook & Instagram) who works with brands, publications, and platforms like YouTube, Nike, Bumble, the New York Times and many others find, engage and grow obsessive communities across digital channels through her consultancy SW Projects. Sara also writes frequently on the subject of digital marketing trends; she coined the term "digital campfires" in the Harvard Business Review to describe the types of spaces where young audiences are gathering online today, and often speaks and leads workshops on this and other topics related to social innovation, web3, and Gen Z consumption trends to companies around the world such as Microsoft and McKinsey.  

Mark Schaefer and Dennis Yu get out their crystal balls to look at the biggest impacts on marketers in the next two years. Will it be the metaverse? NFTs? Influencer marketing? The hosts don't always agree on this but you'll gain a fascinating perspective on what's coming next! 

Put down your smartphone, shut down the metaverse, and close TikTok for a moment to re-visit one of the most important marketing theories of all-time, the Four Ps of marketing. Mark Schaefer and Robbie Fitzwater provide a fresh, surprising, and perhaps controversial take on what the theory means to marketers today.

Mark Schaefer and Amanda Russell both have globally-recognized brands but took drastically different routes regarding their self-promotion strategies. In this show, the co-hosts discuss their pitfalls and challenges, the need to evolve strategies over time, the limits of self-disclosure, being "on-brand," over-sharing, and more.

Have you considered how brand and marketing messaging evolve over time? Have you noticed a trend from product attributes to values? Mark Schaefer and Keith Jennings offer a new way to think about marketing in a changing world with implications for how you and your business can stand out in a noisy world. 

Digital marketing pioneer Dennis Yu and futurist Mark Schaefer debate the state of the marketing jobs market. The market is red hot but can it stay that way? What job skills are needed to compete now in and in the future? And how can we take advantage of technology to fill marketing jobs in creative new ways? It's a can't-miss show!

Mark Schaefer and co-host Brooke Sellas talk about a ground-breaking new book that covers the essential online customer care strategies. They discuss the elevated emotional furor on the web today, the risk that comes with taking a stand, the impact of Web3 on customer service, and practical strategies for nurturing meaningful customer connections. 

Mark Schaefer and Mathew Sweezey have a wide-ranging conversation exploring the truth and consequences of crypto winter, co-creating brands, NFTs as the future of CRM and much more. This is an amazing opportunity to peer into the mechanics of Web3 with an industry futurist and thought leader. 

Like many of us, Mark Masters struggled to build his marketing agency. His own marketing and advertising weren't creating momentum for his business. And he felt rather empty with the transitory, transactional nature of marketing. So he tried a bold experiment. He started a learning community that revolutionized his business. This is a bold discussion that may point to the future of marketing.

Mark Schaefer and Amanda Russell dive into their consulting practice secrets. How do they keep the clients coming in? When do you "fire" a customer? What is their best consulting advice? All this and more in this jam-packed episode.