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💵 CFO: “Hey Jill, bad news. We’re cutting your marketing budget by 25%”
Jill:“Why?”
CFO:“We need to cut costs.”
Jill:“But then we won't have any pipeline next quarter… or the quarter after.”
CFO:“You can make it work, we need to cut costs”
Jill:"If we do this, we’ll lose about $10 million in pipeline and miss our topline growth goals by 12%.”
CFO:“What? Really? How do you know that?”
Jill:“Remember last year when we purchased Planful to help manage our spend and get a hold of our budget agility?”
CFO:“Yeah…”
Jill: “Well, we automated all of our digital spend forecasts, and we’re putting more money to work each week/month and with the Salesforce integration, so I know exactly where and how the budget is performing. And, I’m also able to see the impact of all of these financial decisions.”
CFO: “Interesting… Let me revisit T&E.”
Don't get surprised by budget cuts. Help prove and improve the value of your marketing efforts with Planful. Your CFO will love you for it (and,Planful can help them too).
Visitplanful.com/marketingto learn more.
Be a Broken Record
As a marketer, especially one working in content, one of the biggest challenges is coming up with things to say.
What do I post on LinkedIn today? What about the newsletter topic for this week? A new blog post? Ugh.
It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to always have a hot take to share, a fresh phrase to coin (looking at you, ____-led growth), or a new topic to shake things up. It’s fun. It’s exciting.
But it’s also, more often than not, incredibly ineffective – your content ends up all over the place, no one knows what you stand for, and you burn out spinning your wheels and getting nowhere.
But here’s a little secret all the best marketers in B2B know: you should be repeating yourself. Often. Loudly.* Something I was reminded of recently while listening to an interview Dave did with Alex Minor, a podcast producer and video strategist.
And now, I’m going to ignore my own advice and introduce you to what I’m calling theBroken Record Marketing Strategy.
Here’s how to do it:
Decide on your Core Messages
Define the 3-5 key messages you want to be known for. This isn’t positioning, but think of it as your brand thesis.
For example, at ExitFive:
- Nobody goes to school for B2B Marketing
- We help you get smarter at B2B Marketing
- Exit Five expertly curates insights from the best B2B Marketers
Of course, it’s a little different in our case because our product isn’t software, but you get the idea.
This isn’t exactly what you’ll say, word for word, all the time – but itshouldguide everything that you create. If you're familiar with Emily Kramer and MKT1 – this is similar to her Perceptions exercise (one of my absolute favorites).
Fun bonus exercise: go to one of your favorite content brands and see if you can guess what their core messages are.
Create Content with Your Core Messages As a Guide
Everything we do at Exit Five is around those three principles. Every newsletter we write, podcast episode we record, webinar we host – you name it.
But that doesn’t mean everything we do is the same – instead you find different ways to say the same key points – or in our case, back up our thesis with our content.
This can mean using different content formats—like videos, text posts, or images—but they always, always tie back to one of your core messages.
Examples:
- Video Content: A short how-to video showing how your product simplifies a specific process your audience struggles with.
- Blog Post: A deep dive into a common challenge your audience faces – and different ways of solving it.
- Template: is there a spreadsheet template you can create to help your audience streamline a process? A simple google doc framework they can go off of?
Distribute, Distribute, Distribute – especially the HITS
You can and should repost things on different channels – especially when you’ve seen signals that it was useful to them:
- Did a certain blog post see a bump in traffic? Break it down, section by section, into brief LinkedIn text posts over the next few weeks, without linking out to the original post.
- Did you get a ton of downloads from that template you created? Create a quick loom video of how you’re using it and post it. Or ask someone who downloaded it to do it for you :)
There are ENDLESS ways to do this – it’s a whole newsletter topic in itself.
To wrap up – broken record marketing doesn’t mean repeating yourself over and over… it’s the art of finding new ways to say the same thing.
P.S. As a reminder, I’m OOO for my wedding 👰 but fear not – the incredible Exit Five team will be reading and responding to your replies.
And yes, I’ll still read and cherish them when I’m back :)
P.P.S** Extra points if you understood my Game of Thrones reference here 🤓
Episode #171: How to Grow Your B2B Brand on LinkedIn with Tommy Clark, CEO of Compound
Dave sits down with Tommy Clark, founder of his own B2B social media agency, Compound, to talk about the ins and outs of social media strategy for B2B companies. Tommy shares his journey from running social for a SaaS company to building his agency and the lessons he’s learned along the way.
Tommy and Dave cover:
- Why LinkedIn is the go-to platform for B2B brands and how to maximize its potential
- The importance of posting consistently to build a strong social presence
- How using video content on LinkedIn can accelerate trust-building with your audience
Or find it everywhere you listen by searching "exitfive" podcast.
Episode #172: Building a Brand Strategy and Content Goldmine with Chelsea Castle, Head of Content and Brand at Close
Dave sits down with Chelsea Castle, Head of Content and Brand at Close. Chelsea talks about her experience in B2B SaaS and shares how to build impactful content that resonates with your audience.
Chelsea and Dave cover:
- How leveraging internal and cross-functional knowledge can create a content goldmine
- Why it is important to repurpose podcast episodes, webinars, and other media into multiple forms of content to maximize their value
- Strategies for integrating SEO with authentic, valuable content that resonates with your audience, beyond just ranking for keywords
Or find it everywhere you listen by searching "exitfive" podcast.
Upcoming Events
In today's challenging business landscape, marketers face the daunting task of not only crafting an efficient marketing plan, but implementing it quickly, proving its value, and continuously adapting the plan on the fly. The ever-changing macroeconomic environment adds an extra layer of complexity, making success even harder to achieve.
Join our webinar with Dave and Rowan Tonkin, CMO at Planful, where they’ll lead you through the essential steps to building your plan, getting it approved, and unlocking the full potential of your marketing efforts.
You’ll discover:
- Tips to build a powerful marketing plan that aligns with your business objectives.
- Strategies to gain plan approval from executives and board members.
- Best practices and practical approaches to flawlessly execute your marketing plan, turning ideas into measurable results.
- Insights into the advantages of scenario planning and how it can prepare your marketing team to adapt to the ever-changing economic landscape.
The webinar is onSeptember 18th at 3PM ET, click the link below to reserve your spot.
Save Your Spot
Open Roles
Who's Hiring Right Now?
HOT JOB OF THE WEEK:Freshpaint is hiring aProduct Marketing Manager.If you value lots of freedom and ownership in your work, interfacing with customers, and working on a product with high customer impact, then Freshpaint is your home.
Interested? Apply here.
Other open roles on the Exit Five job board this week:
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