Megan Duffy

Winding up the work week with some education. My fellow content marketers, if you haven't yet checked out Lauren Lang's "Bending the Spoon" course, you are missing out. Period. I already have 4 full pages of notes, actionable insights, and quotes from Lauren, Linda Leung, and Chloe Thompson (and more truly wise content marketers are also involved -- just haven't hit those parts yet). So, so many statements that are making me rethink how I view content marketing and how companies view content marketing VS how it SHOULD be viewed. Thanks so much to Lauren for putting this course together. The link to the course is in her bio if you're interested. #contentmarketing

17

6 Comments

Is this customer service email ridiculous or is it me? Paramount+ is paying somebody to read my email... but that's it! Nothing more. You're on your own, girl, go figure it. I don't normally email providers, but I can't get ahold of them otherwise. The chatbot is useless. No phone number. Website is no help. It is a confusing set of vendors. I signed up for Paramount+ SHOWTIME via Amazon Prime on AppleTV. The subscription came from Apple. So, the login should be Apple? Wrong. No passwords work on the app or website and I'm unable to recover or change my password. I'm being charged $11.99 per month but cannot access the channel. I'm stuck in a loop. Now, I could cancel, but I really want to watch to watch "A Gentleman in Moscow"! And I can, if I specifically search via AppleTV. So, essentially I'm just paying for one show, once a week. Bottom line: This is an unacceptable customer service experience. We expect more these days.

23

13 Comments

After a short hiatus 🗓 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 🗓 is back with some really great new research. Each year I look forward to the findings from G2's 2024 Buyer Behavior Report, but this year especially, I couldn’t help but notice how many takeaways there were for customer marketers: ⭐ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 No surprise - buyers are leaning more into peer reviews than ever before. This year 31% of buyers said review sites were the MOST consulted info source in buying new software or services (up from 13% in 2021).  Meaning whether you’re paying attention to review sites or not, your buyers are.  🔎 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆  9% of buyers expressed clear distrust in vendor websites – up from 3% last year – it’s a wake-up call to foster authenticity and transparency. Buyers said instead they’re turning to peer forums and communities (those were the second and third highest rated sources for information). 💬 𝗣𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝘁 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗺𝘀 And a trend that we continue to see - buyers trust their peers more than analyst firms. Independent software and service review sites reign supreme in their influence, underscoring the need for customer marketers to capture the voice of their users across review sites. 🚀 So what does this mean for us? Amplifying the voice of your customer – it's evident that customer opinions matter to prospects more than almost anything else. Put your customers at the center of your marketing strategies – and let them tell their stories. Foster Community Engagement – Nurture independent forums and communities. Engagement can yield dividends in brand trust and loyalty. But don’t just join them to push your own content or to make a sales pitch. Thoughtful engagement is the key here. Embrace Authenticity - Align your marketing content with the real stories and experiences of your users. Authentic insights resonate stronger with buyers than sales jargon. Link to the full report is below, but would love to hear your thoughts – anything in these takeaways that was surprising to you? #CustomerMarketing #BuyerBehavior #PeerReviews #TransparencyInMarketing #B2BSales #G2Report

17

1 Comment

Q: What's a marketer's favorite thing to do? A: Argue on LinkedIn about terminology. ...just ahead of arguing in internal meetings about terminology. And that's how we lose the forest for the trees. So, if we ever happen to be in the same forest, here's how I think about marketing's purpose in simple terms. 1. Create awareness ✔ Let your audience know you exist ✔ Build unaided recall (name, logo, and if you're really good, brand elements) ✔ Let them know WHY you exist (super important) 2. Create demand ✔ Describe your audience's problems, potential solutions, and roadblocks ✔ Share tools, templates, and examples ✔ Sear into your audience's brain the association between problem, solution, and your brand 3. Capture demand ✔ Be wherever your audience is when they decide to act so you're the easiest next step This applies to prospects, customers, and partners alike. The specific tactics and messages may change, but the overarching purpose is the same. And that's it. Now excuse me while I go steel myself for people to tell me marketing only really does one thing, while others tell me I'm missing tons of important nuance.

17

2 Comments

Our latest survey offers a comprehensive look at the current state of selling, featuring insights from 800 front-line sellers. A standout finding: 3 out of 4 respondents believe they could save at least an hour by eliminating the task of creating personalized emails for prospects. While personalization is essential for connecting with prospects, it’s also incredibly time-consuming. Sellers understand its importance, but those hours quickly add up. We know time is money, and we’re dedicated to providing today’s sellers with the tools they need to personalize efficiently and effectively. Additionally, we asked sellers, “What specific tasks in your role do you think would benefit most from AI and automation?” The top three responses were: 1. Follow-up and engagement tracking 2. Reporting and performance analytics 3. Data entry and CRM updating Our survey uncovers valuable insights into the future of sales. Discover how AI can revolutionize your sales process: https://lnkd.in/gMr_3UNA

2

I've been thinking a lot about the role of the marketer and how it's evolving, so it was super validating to attend this week's ANA conference and hear a speaker share... "Marketers are like a Swiss Army Knife, they're expected to achieve in all sorts of areas of a business." Wow! There's nothing like attending a session in person and having someone put words to your ideas. 💡 Thanks for the inspiration on this topic and many others, and for Moira Vetter, Modo Modo Agency, Metro Atlanta Chamber and Association of National Advertisers for throwing an inspiring event. #atlanta #b2bmarketing #atlantamarketing

7

2 Comments

I really enjoyed Collette Masso del Llano's talk at #BrightonSEO recently. Collette spoke about: "Addressing the Gaps Between SEO and CX." What I liked about this session was that Collette (who says she's not an out-and-out SEO specialist) spoke about how it’s easy to sometimes fixate too much on the wrong SEO targets. This can cause marketers to lose sight of their broader marketing goals. Some key takeaways from the talk: It seems there’s quite a big gap between customer experience and SEO in a lot of businesses. It’s important for marketers to remember to focus more across the whole of the customer journey. Lots of marketers are missing huge opportunities by just looking at that top-of-funnel search intent, where you find high volumes of visitors who are only in the early "awareness" stage of their customer journey with your brand. Colette advised you to try to put more effort into engaging your audience across all stages of their customer journey, guiding them further along that journey. A key quote I wanted to share was: “Vanity metrics are driving SEO strategy.” Collette suggested thinking beyond the constraints of a traditional marketing funnel, and seeing it as more of a cycle. I really like that idea. Your audience is always going round in cycles, of course, so you need to be continually engaging with them. A few more highlights: “Retention strategy needs to be built into an SEO strategy. Only 44% calculate their customer retention rate, according to Semrush.” Collette also mentioned that the death of cookies is going to make the CRM the all-powerful beating heart of an organisation’s marketing. This sounded fascinating. Do you agree with that? It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the next few years! I’d love to hear your thoughts on these points. Let me know in the comments.

2

Right now the lead form my team is using to capture leads has an 80% drop off rate - and I couldn't be more thrilled. 😊 Drop offs are usually considered bad. So why does this big number spark Marie Kondo levels of joy for me? Much like for Marie, in the world of B2B leads, less is often more. A few months ago our marketing and sales team were swimming in a sea of thousands of leads a week, but we had so little information about them that it was impossible to prioritize them accurately and handle them with the speed and attention they required. It was only after we had calls with our leads that we would find out many were completely irrelevant. So we launched a new form and we did a couple of things that to some may have been controversial but that have had astounding results. 1. We made the form longer - we went from a single step form to a multistep form that asked twice the number of questions as the original. This gave us way more insight on the intent and product fit of the leads for our Enterprise solution. 2. We added very specific answer choices to our questions - we did that to show our leads through that specificity that they are in the right place. We will continue to iterate on this experiment, and I can't wait to see what else we can do to optimize this funnel and experience the life changing magic 🧝‍♀️ of tidying it up.

37

5 Comments

Presented our PMM charter yesterday. Getting good feedback so far. My goals were: 1. Set expectations around what I will focus on (especially at first) 2. Clarify what teammates can come to me for 3. Educate our broader team on the PMM function (PMM is one of our buyers) The toughest part about the presentation was talking about all the ways PMM can be different across different orgs, explaining how different GTM motions effect our role, and still trying to distill it into something understandable. Consistency is hard to find. That lack of consistency is a part of why this role is so interesting and fun, but it's also easy to see why PMM can struggle or be misunderstood in an org. If anyone wants to see the deck I used let me know. Would be curious what other PMMs think of how I framed it.

106

120 Comments

✨ Excited to share even more details about our very FIRST internal communications hire at Workshop! ✨ Applications for this role will be open for just a litttttle bit longer. Here are a few reasons why it's so special to us: 🥇 EARLY STAGE ADVANTAGE: While many would say we're a bit early for this hire (at around 60 employees), we see this as an opportunity to build our internal communications from the ground up. Let's get it right from the start! 💖 📣 FULLY ALIGNED WITH MARKETING: Reporting to the marketing department, this role is thoughtfully designed to create more transparency in internal communications (after all, that's what Workshop is all about)! We'll share our work, open up our emails, and publicly discuss the success (or challenges) of specific campaigns. And you'll have the opportunity to host webinars, do podcast interviews, speak to the entire company, and so much more! 💌 CELEBRATED AND APPRECIATED: At Workshop, we are passionate about creating happier Mondays for employees everywhere through outstanding internal communications. Our platform is dedicated to this purpose. You'll not only have full support in what you do, but will also be able to provide amazing feedback to the product and sales teams, and the chance to create even better experiences for internal communicators around the world! If you know someone who would be a perfect fit or if you're interested in more details, please reach out and/or check out the job listing! (Note: this role is located in Omaha, Nebraska but if you're open to re-locating, get in touch!) Also, cannot BELIEVE I left two such a crucial hashtag off of my first post: #commsjobs (So excited to have one to share!) More details here: https://lnkd.in/g44mTBzV

98

4 Comments

Struggling with sales and marketing alignment? 🤔 You're not alone. John Eitel, our CSO, and Kelly Hopping, our CMO, have teamed up to address this critical issue in their 📚 new book, "Yes, It's Your Fault! From Blame to Gain: Achieving Sales and Marketing Alignment to Drive B2B Growth." In a recent Demand Gen Report article, John and Kelly share insights from the book, exploring the origins of misalignment and practical steps to foster collaboration. Read the article today to hear what they had to share: https://bit.ly/45Vqnh3 📘 For even more insights get your copy on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3VjikG3

1

This is a rec for my #marketing peeps 😀 If you're like me, you can't count the number of webinars you've watched. Some are good, and some are underwhelming (to put it nicely). Well, I have a 5-⭐ recommendation for you! Go watch this webinar from Brandwatch. The three had good chemistry and interaction, paired with solid questions and answers, which created an enjoyable watching experience. This seems basic, but most webinars I've joined lately don't make this low threshold. This one provided good nuggets, and even when they were making points that I knew, instead of getting bored, I was nodding along and staying engaged. I don't even know these folks, but kudos to Brandon Smithwrick 🧠, Milena Toro, and Katie Slayford for reassuring me that there are marketing webinars out there still worth watching! https://lnkd.in/gjUfiRud #marketingeducation #socialmedia #brandengagement #

8

2 Comments

I know I know I know - I talk about WTF News constantly. But we're not the only ones that squeeze every ounce of revenue from our webinars. We also have an INCREDIBLE customer base that absolutely CRUSHES their events (read: generates lots of $$$$). Here are some of my favorite highlights: ✨Prophix enhanced audience engagement, improved efficiency + cost savings, and optimized their lead gen with Webinar+ (they switched platforms from ON24) ✨EQS Group surpassed their lead gen goals and enhanced user experience with Webinar+ ✨Transfr boosted their brand identity and cut editing time by 50% with Webinar+ ✨Azuga, Inc. chose Hubilo after comparing us to Livestorm, GoToMeeting / GoToWebinar, AND ON24 ✨Medrio centralized data managed, streamlined their integrations, and improved efficiency with Hubilo (they switched platforms from ON24) ✨Ignition cut manual tasks by 75% while boosting data accuracy and increasing speed to lead Read the full case studies here: https://lnkd.in/gJ7EqX-u

25

1 Comment

Aligning sales and marketing is crucial for business growth, but it's not always easy. I've always worked diligently to foster a positive and respectful relationship with sales teams. This article provides some helpful key steps marketing leaders can take to build a positive relationship between them and sales. Check it out to learn how to foster better sales-marketing alignment in your organization. https://lnkd.in/gugjVKPn

1

Whew! Yesterday was a big day for us at Workshop – we officially launched our second channel designed specifically for internal communications: two-way text messaging! For the past three years, we’ve been dedicated to building a platform that empowers comms leaders to connect with their teams more effectively. Starting with email, we addressed a major need in the comms space with the easiest drag-and-drop editor I've ever, ever used. And I know that email will continue to be a foundational element of internal communication, but we also know that a fully integrated, multi-channel approach is essential for reaching and engaging with 100% of the team. We've spent so much time listening and learning with some *large* frontline workforces, from quick-service restaurants like Papa John's to transportation companies like Sun Country Airlines. It was crystal clear that there was a need for a more immediate and direct communication method – and SMS was the answer. Two-way text messaging offers HUGE value for internal and employee communications, like: ✨ Instant connectivity: Reach employees quickly, no matter where they are. ✨ Enhanced engagement: Foster a more interactive and responsive communication environment. ✨ Real-time updates: Share urgent information and updates in real-time. ✨ Accessibility: Ensure all employees, especially those on the frontlines, are included in important conversations. And unlike a mobile app or intranet, it doesn't require employees to go TO a destination to get information; the messages come straight to their phone! We are so excited to officially introduce SMS as an additional channel for internal communications. And in classic Workshop fashion, this isn't just plain ol' basic SMS – it’s a two-way platform designed to streamline how you connect with your team, complete with an inbox for easy responses. Check out more at Workshop & DM (or text!) me if you have any questions. ✨ #internalcommunications #frontlineemployees

44

2 Comments

Shhh....let it go. Let it go. 😅 What worked then may not work now. Users change. *People* change. Being a solid PMM includes knowing when and where to pivot. Whether it's being a little more flexible with how you define your primary target audience (S/O to Stanley 1913), or maybe shifting your product's positioning--it's worth a try. Keeping your KPIs front and center, look at which parts of your marketing strategy would benefit the most from a makeover. The results may surprise (and humble) you.

5

1 Comment

I agree with this thought which is similar to a lean startup methodoly concept —- “Nail it and then scale it! “. We need to stick to 2-3 few big ideas and work towards them diligently to be able to hit the right cord with the target audience. In the end, it’s important that the prospects understand the problem we are trying to solve and how the solution is the most relatable to them. #ideas #leanstartup #marketing #b2bmarketing #contentmarketing

1

IT'S TIME!!! I'm absolutely over the moon to be opening the role for our very first, foundational internal communications manager. I've been dreaming and scheming about this hire for quite some time. Here are a few reasons why it's such an important role to us: 1.) It's early. Many would say that it's still *too* early (we're at about 60 employees). But instead of hiring your first internal comms role to inherit a mess and fix it all when it's broken, what if you could build it right from the beginning?! That's the opportunity we want to chase here. 💖 2.) This role will report into marketing because I have a deep passion for building more transparency into internal communications. I want us to show our work, share our emails, and speak publicly about specific campaigns that are doing well (or not so well). 3.) Internal communications is truly CELEBRATED at Workshop. We exist because we believe in creating more happy Mondays for employees everywhere through great internal comms. Our platform is built for internal communications only. Not only will you be supported in all of the work that you do, but you'll help us shape the product and create better experiences for internal communicators everywhere. It's such a unique and key role, and if you know anyone who would be a great fit (or want more details), please message me and check out more via the job listing! Note*: At this time, the role is not open to a fully remote candidate, but if you're open to relocating to the lovely Omaha, Nebraska...let's talk. ;) Details here: https://lnkd.in/g44mTBzV

253

27 Comments

Repurposed content can feel like a meal made out of leftovers. ❌ Try this instead. I see a lot of discourse on repurposing content as a way to do more with less. But in my experience (10+ years at Salesforce, plus agency- and publisher-side roles), I’ve seen that content resonates most when it’s *purpose-built* for your target message, channels, and audience. 🩵 Purpose-built. Purposeful. Not just repurposed. 🍽️ Watch the video where I explain more of my POV. Here’s what I suggest instead: Refine your goals. If your goal from repurposed content is… 👥 Making your brand appear on every channel. 📤 Publishing more often. 🛠️ Creating a big number of pieces of content from one piece. Then I invite you to reframe your content goal around this: 🍝 How can you create a few pieces of highly impactful content that each feel like delicious entrees, instead of more leftovers? THAT is what your audience will organically gravitate towards. In the hands of a talented content strategist, upcycled content can still be purpose-built. 🚨 But if the original piece of content was mediocre, any excerpts or clips will be, too. And every time your audience sees another mediocre piece of content from you, they tune out your brand a little bit more. I don’t like to see content marketers exhausted, trying to create more things for more channels. That struggle seems to be fueling a lot of the repurposing talk in modern content motions. Tell me if you agree or disagree, and take a moment to watch the video where I explain further! What repurposed content does or doesn’t work in your marketing strategy?

167

82 Comments