Podcast Summary
Fuel and Engine: Two Parts of an Effective Marketing Strategy: Marketing success requires both compelling content creation and effective distribution. When building a marketing team, identify the biggest challenge and work with talented marketers as a product team to avoid pitfalls and drive results.
Marketing can be thought of as needing two parts: fuel and engine.Fuel includes all the content and value that a company creates, while the engine is how that content is distributed to the right people.When building a marketing team, it's important to consider where the biggest challenge lies, whether it's in creating compelling content or effectively distributing it.Emily Kramer, a marketing leader, gives concrete advice on how to find the right marketers, work with them effectively as a product team, and recognize red flags of an ineffective marketing team.
Emily Kramer on Common Mistakes Founders Make When Hiring Marketing Teams: When building marketing teams, founders must understand their needs and prioritize hiring marketers who specialize in areas they require, to avoid confusion and maximize their marketing efforts.
Emily Kramer built marketing teams at B2B startups and advises and invests in early stage B2B.Kramer's newsletter is the letters mkt1.substack.com and her fund is Market 1 Capital.She has seen founders and teams make mistakes when hiring marketing people, such as not knowing what they need or what the big levers are that work for them.There are many different sub-functions of marketing and there's a range of specialization.It's even confusing for marketers to know where they fit in and who else they should hire on the team.Founders should hire people who cover the areas they need most.
Prioritizing Business Model Experience When Hiring a Marketer: When hiring a marketer, focus on business model experience rather than industry or audience experience. A balance of valuable content and distribution methods is crucial, and founders should hire a marketer who can address their biggest challenge in terms of fuel or engine.
When hiring a marketer, it is important to prioritize business model experience over industry experience or audience experience.The business model dictates what marketing activities should be done, so it is crucial to have a marketer who is familiar with this aspect.It is also important to have a balance between fuel and engine, which means that marketing needs both valuable content and distribution methods to reach the right people.Founders should assess their biggest challenge in terms of either fuel or engine, and hire a marketer who can address that challenge first.
Fuel or Engine? Deciding what your Business Needs in Marketing: To grow your business effectively, determine whether you need more fuel (content, copy, tools) or engine (distribution channels, optimization, reporting). Identifying your biggest constraint helps prioritize marketing efforts for success.
Before hiring a marketing person, it's important to figure out whether your business needs more fuel (content, copy, tools) or engine (distribution channels, optimization, reporting).Some things can be both fuel and engine, such as a community that generates content that can be used for newsletters and also has an audience to distribute content to.To determine your biggest constraint to growth, ask questions about your top performing content, website pages, product positioning, and benefits compared to competitors.If you don't have answers to these questions, you likely have a fuel problem.
Identifying a Startup's "Fuel" or "Engine" Problem: Startups need to determine whether they have an "engine" problem (lack of proper distribution channels) or a "fuel" problem (poor quality content) to achieve social media success. Hiring generalist marketers who understand the product, audience, and market is recommended.
Emily Kramer emphasizes the importance of identifying whether a startup has a "fuel" or "engine" problem.If a startup's great content isn't gaining traction on social media, it has an engine problem, which could indicate a lack of proper distribution channels.On the other hand, if the startup isn't producing quality content in the first place, it has a fuel problem.Kramer advises startups to hire generalist marketers to solve their bigger problems, rather than specialists, who are better for specific tasks.Product marketers understand the product, audience, and market, and focus on communicating the right message at the right time.
Hiring the Right Marketer for Your Startup: Look for a "pie shape marketer" who has expertise in at least one area of marketing, proficiency in another, can set strategy, and understand how to hire contractors. A product marketer is the most common archetype to hire for startups.
When hiring the first marketer for a startup, it's important to look for a "pie shape marketer," who is an expert in at least one of the three areas - product marketing, content marketing, growth marketing - and proficient in another one.They should also be able to set strategy and understand how to hire contractors across all areas.While it's difficult to find someone who is good at both content and growth marketing, a product marketing and growth marketing or product marketing and content marketing pie shape marketer is more likely to exist.The most common archetype to hire for startups is a product marketer.
The Essential Qualities of a Product Marketer: A successful product marketer must possess effective writing skills, comprehensive knowledge of marketing channels, teamwork experience, exposure to diverse marketing, and an understanding of how to build a strong marketing foundation. Avoid hiring overly senior candidates lacking startup experience.
A product marketer needs to be able to write well and have an understanding of all the channels they can use to reach their audience.It's important to look for someone who has worked on a team where they were not siloed into their specific role, and has exposure to various marketing.They should also know what great marketing looks like, whether through direct experience or having a high quality bar.When hiring the first marketer for a startup, it's important not to hire someone super senior who has only worked at a public company, as they may not understand how all the marketing works together and how to build a foundation from scratch.
The Importance of Timing: When to Hire Your First Marketer: Wait until achieving product-market fit and successful customers before hiring a marketer. Consider business model and growth stage to determine if hiring a marketer will accelerate growth or be a waste of money.
In startups, you need to be a doer and comfortable doing all aspects of your role, especially in marketing where you may be the first marketer for a while.It's best to hire your first marketing person after achieving some semblance of product-market fit and having successful customers.The decision to hire a marketer should be based on the go-to-market model and whether the addition of a marketer will accelerate growth.Hiring a marketer too early can be a waste of money if there is a lack of clarity on what they will do or if the product is not ready to handle an influx of customers.The business model and stage of growth should determine when to hire a marketer.
Roles and Responsibilities in Marketing for B2B and PLG: In B2B, product marketing handles the positioning and story side of brand while design is owned by the product or brand designer. PLG startups must focus on hiring a marketer for inbound traffic and a product expert for testing to create a successful marketing strategy. Cooperation is key.
In this section, Emily Kramer and Lenny discuss the different roles and responsibilities in marketing, specifically in the B2B and PLG (product-led growth) industries.They mention that brand marketing can be a combination of product marketing and content/community marketing, and that typically in B2B, the positioning and story side of brand is owned by product marketing, while the design side is owned by the product designer or a brand designer.For PLG startups, they recommend hiring a marketer to focus on getting people into the product and driving inbound traffic, while product experiments and testing should be handled by someone with a product skill set.Cooperation and collaboration between these different roles is key to a successful marketing strategy.
Achieving Product-Led Growth: The Importance of Collaboration and Consistent Experience: To achieve product-led growth, collaborate between skill sets such as product and growth. Create clear handoff processes between marketing and product teams to ensure seamless user experience. Focus on communication through product.
In order to achieve product-led growth (PLG), it is important to have a consistent user experience from marketing to product.This requires collaboration between team members with different skill sets, such as those with experience in product and growth.Companies should focus on creating a clear process for the handoff between marketing and product teams to ensure a seamless transition for users.However, the structure of the team itself can vary from company to company, as long as there is clear ownership of onboarding and a focus on consistent communication with users.Ultimately, PLG is a combination of both product and marketing, but marketing should focus on communication and product should be used as a channel for that communication.
The Importance of Clear Ownership in Collaborating Between Marketing and Product Teams: To avoid confusion and overlap, it's crucial for B2B companies to establish clear ownership and responsibilities between marketing and product teams. Asana's approach of listing responsible individuals for each area of responsibility can help ensure successful collaboration.
When it comes to website conversion and signing up for a product, there needs to be clear ownership between marketing and product teams.While marketing may own the website, product teams should be involved in the signup process and forms.It's important to establish clear areas of responsibility and ownership to avoid confusion and overlap.Asana had success with their approach of having a list of directly responsible individuals for each area of responsibility, making it easy to know who to go to for assistance or collaboration.Clear ownership and understanding of responsibilities is key to successful collaboration between marketing and product teams in a B2B company.
Effective Strategies for Improving Cross-Functional Collaboration between Product and Marketing Teams: To improve collaboration between product and marketing teams, prioritize clear responsibilities and review processes, open communication, and use marketing briefs to ensure alignment on project goals, creative direction, channels, and stakeholders. Respect each other's skillsets and perspectives to enhance collaboration.
To improve cross-functional collaboration between product and marketing teams, it is important to break down responsibilities and have clear review processes.Holding open meetings and having a culture of sharing the right information at the right time can also be helpful.Using a marketing brief like the GACCS framework can ensure alignment on project goals, audience, creative direction, channels, and stakeholders.Good planning processes are also essential.Ultimately, it is important to respect the different skillsets and perspectives of everyone involved to ensure successful collaboration.
Effectiveness of Marketing Teams: The success of a marketing team lies in recognizing each member's strengths, excellent communication, and avoiding silos. Prioritizing impact-focused efforts that drive linear growth is crucial, with a clear plan in place. Busy work with little impact should be avoided.
In order to have a successful marketing team, it's important to recognize each person's strengths and allow them to focus on what they are good at.It's crucial to have open communication and not work in silos to avoid tension between product teams and marketers.Good marketing teams are impact-focused and can prioritize their efforts based on what drives linear growth and big bets that can cause a step change in growth.It's essential to have a clear plan in place and not get bogged down in busy work that doesn't have a significant impact.
The importance of an impact-focused marketing team: A marketing team should prioritize impact over activity by measuring conversion rates and fostering clear communication and teamwork. Without clear goals, it may be necessary to reassess the team or personnel.
Emily Kramer, a marketing expert, discusses the importance of an impact-focused marketing team.She explains how marketing goals should be focused on impact rather than just activity, and how conversion rates throughout the entire sales funnel need to be tracked.She also emphasizes the need for clear communication and teamwork, and having a strong foundation for marketing initiatives.Ultimately, if a marketing team or lead is not prioritizing impact and clear goals, it may be necessary to reassess the team or personnel.
The Importance of Effective Communication and Expertise in Marketing and Investing: Clear communication and understanding of marketing jargon can improve leadership skills, while highlighting your specific expertise as an investor can yield more opportunities for involvement in ventures and finding successful deals.
In order to communicate effectively as a marketer and leader, it is important to communicate at the right level and educate others about what marketing does.This includes separating jargon from clear and concise messaging.As an investor, having functional expertise in a particular area can be highly valuable to founders who are looking for advisors or hiring for a specific function.It is important to clearly articulate the exact value add and product that you can offer as an investor, which can make it easier for others to bring you into deals and generate deal flow.
How to Build a Strong Reputation as an Investor: To build a good reputation, deliver on promises, set clear expectations, refer good candidates, and recommend classic marketing books that provide evergreen insights.
Building a good reputation as an investor requires delivering on promises and being helpful to founders.It's important to set expectations for how and where you can help, so that founders know when they can come to you for assistance.Referring good candidates is a valuable way to help, and can create long-lasting loyalty from the startups that hire them.Although investing in many companies can seem daunting, most founders won't require too much time and attention.Finally, recommending classic marketing books can be useful, as they provide evergreen insights that remain relevant despite changes in the industry.
Emily Kramer's Top Book and Media Recommendations for Marketers: Emily Kramer recommends classic marketing books such as The Tipping Point, Crossing The Chasm, and Purple Cow, as well as positioning book Obviously Awesome by April Dunford to all marketers. She also suggests listening to The Daily and How I Built This podcasts, and watching Yellowjackets and CODA.
Emily Kramer, a marketing expert, recommends some classic marketing books such as The Tipping Point, Crossing The Chasm, and Purple Cow.She also suggests the book Obviously Awesome by April Dunford to understand positioning, which she believes is helpful for all marketers.For podcasts, she listens to The Daily by New York Times and How I Built This to understand founders and startups.She also recommends the TV show Yellowjackets on Showtime and the movie CODA as must-watches.
Key Questions to Ace Your Job Interview: To impress interviewers, explain your company's product, simplifying a complex idea, and outline your approach to goals. Diverse interests and experience can make you stand out. Avoid buzzwords.
In job interviews, it's important to be able to explain your company's product, why it's better, and who it's for.One question that can reveal communication skills is to describe something complicated that you know well in simple terms.This can also reveal aspects of your personality and interests.Other good questions can help the interviewer understand your approach to projects and goals.While the term "thought leader" is overused, there are many marketers doing interesting things, including those who also work in funds or have diverse backgrounds outside of marketing.
Emily Kramer's Mission to Empower Marketers through her Resources and Network: Emily Kramer's website, mkt1.co, provides courses, a job board, and a newsletter for marketers. She believes in the importance of building out strong marketing teams to help founders succeed. Contact her through Twitter or LinkedIn.
Emily Kramer is a marketer and angel investor who runs courses, a job board, and a newsletter for marketers on her website mkt1.co.She also admires other marketers, such as Arielle Jackson from First Round and Kevin Lee, the head of Marketing at Oyster.Emily believes that marketing can be like the San Francisco of functions in a company, but with the help of her resources, she hopes to help marketers build out their teams and help founders build out their marketing teams.You can find more information on Emily's website or contact her through Twitter or LinkedIn.
