EXIT FIVE

Should you create a category?

Should you create a category? There was a question a few weeks ago in the Exit Five community from Calvin about category creation and I thought it would be a good one to feature in this week's newsletter: Question   Category creation seems to be all the rage in B2B marketing these days. I see marketers talk about it on LinkedIn every day." "Don't compete, just make your own category!" they say. If only it were that easy. It takes so much more than writing blogs about it and pitching Forrester analysts. Let's have an honest discussion. How come everyone fancies themselves a category creator, but yet there are only so few B2B categories that are "official"? It's like being an NBA player. Only 0,5% ever make it.

Nov 29, 2022 · 5 min read

EXIT FIVE

Short-Form Video Is Coming for B2B Marketing

Do you have a short form video strategy? Short form video is eating the world. Everyone is talking about it in our personal lives or as B2C brands, but short form video is going to eat B2B marketing too. The people you're selling to are still people. The trick will be figuring out which content to make. Similar to Youtube, you can't just re-purpose videos or take podcast clips and hope to grow. You need to create dedicated content for those platforms — or at least have the "this is for a 1 minute video" mindset.   Short form video is not just about doing TikTok dances.   With the rise of YouTube Shorts, short form video is going to eat Google Search because it is the PERFECT customer experience.

Nov 16, 2022 · 4 min read

EXIT FIVE

Buckle up, marketers

Marketing has to be the revenue department. Buckle up. If you're in SaaS you've seen / felt what's happening with the economy first-hand. Either you've had to make layoffs, your budget has been cut, or your company is doing OK but buying is slowing down. I'm not writing this to send you into a panic. There are many great companies out there that will continue to grow. And many more that will survive and then thrive after having been forced to make changes. But there's no better time to get back to basics with marketing. Only the marketing programs that can prove revenue will survive right now.

Nov 8, 2022 · 4 min read

EXIT FIVE

What should you do the first 30 days?

What should you do the first 30 days? There was a question this week in the Exit Five community about starting a new job as Head of Marketing and what to focus on in the first 30 days.   Hi: I am starting a new Head of Marketing role at a HealthTech this week. I have a team of 18 who have been without a leader for around 6 months – and they are open and excited about me joining. I report into the CEO and sit on the leadership team.   Any advice on how to make a big impact in my first 30 days short of just jumping in and executing/fire fighting which I am used to doing in previous marketing leadership roles with much smaller teams?

Nov 1, 2022 · 4 min read

EXIT FIVE

What I wish I knew as first-time CMO

16 Lessons I Wish I Knew… I went from Marketing Manager to CMO in 4 years. And damn did I make a bunch of mistakes along the way. I didn't realize how different the role of "good marketer" was from the role of "good marketing leader." After some time now away from a marketing leadership role (I'm retired from being a marketing leader, don't worry) I've had some time to think back on the things I wish I knew then.

Oct 17, 2022 · 10 min read

EXIT FIVE

The ROI of social media (for real)

The Real ROI of Social Media. A few weeks ago I wrote a viral LinkedIn post (viral for me at least; had 1M+ views in a day). Last week I used the content from that LinkedIn post in my newsletter list of 10k subscribers — I got more replies back than in a single week maybe ever, saying "great post" or "I learned something from this" or "best email yet!" — and not a single person write "dude, you just posted this on LinkedIn…." I've also been able to read the comments on that post from LinkedIn + email responses to judge what parts of that content people reacted to (or were confused by) and tweak it and use it for an upcoming presentation at an event I am speaking at. Then this week, I used the content from that email + post to deliver a talk in front of ~300 marketers at CXL Live in Austin.

Oct 17, 2022 · 6 min read

EXIT FIVE

No One Is Paying Attention to Your B2B Marketing

Please remember this if you work in marketing: No one is paying attention to your company. At least that's the mindset I like to have when doing marketing. You must assume that your prospect/customer is not paying attention. Why would they be?

Oct 5, 2022 · 2 min read

EXIT FIVE

Steal this LinkedIn move I use

Here's a proactive LinkedIn move to steal. It's hard to build an audience with a cold start, and simply posting content won't just magically draw in an audience. One thing I've done in the past and recommend to those I know now: be proactive with connections. You can have 30,000 connections before LinkedIn turns it over to "followers" — and a new connection is essentially someone opting in to see your content. So now the more you publish, the more you increase the chances of those people seeing it.

Sep 29, 2022 · 3 min read

EXIT FIVE

Win/Loss Analysis: How B2B Marketers Gain Competitive Advantage

Should you be using Win/Loss analysis? If you are like me you are looking for anything you can add to your toolkit to help the company close more deals and generate more revenue. But most of the "growth" advice often centers around more: more top of the funnel, more volume, more conversion, more optimizations, more ads, etc. Instead, you could be winning more deals (and influencing your product org) by truly understand why people are *not* buying. Enter Win/Loss analysis. Marketers that know how to do win/loss analysis can create a competitive advantage because they are getting deep buyer insights and delivering their message more effectively both internally and externally. As a result, they can create marketing and product strategies based on what their buyers care about most.

Sep 20, 2022 · 4 min read

EXIT FIVE

What’s the ROI of a podcast?

What's the ROI of a podcast? One of the most common questions I see around B2B startups as it relates to starting (or not starting) a podcast is — of course — well what's the expected ROI of that podcast. But that's where everything starts to go haywire IMO. What makes a podcast great is that it's often *not* a sales channel. It's a way to have conversations, share your POV, talk to dream customers, record it all and repurpose that content across your website, blog, social. So if you go into creating a podcast for business thinking about "well what's the dollar ROI of this going to be" it's going to be an uphill battle. You also need TIME. A podcast will not be an overnight success, so you're going to nee to commit to 6-12 months of doing it consistently before anything real happens.

Sep 13, 2022 · 3 min read

EXIT FIVE

How to Rethink B2B Marketing Strategy During Budget Cuts

Marketing in a recession. Marketing in a recession —> we're all making cuts and changes right now. I've seen it in my business personally, with companies I'm working with, and even how I am making some decisions. But as it relates to the marketing strategy moving forward, if the only thing changing about your marketing strategy right now is cutting back on paid, you have more creative thinking to do.

Sep 6, 2022 · 3 min read

EXIT FIVE

Why More Lead Nurturing Is Not the Answer in B2B

The solution is never more lead nurturing. I don’t mean that example specially, but here’s what I’m trying to articulate – the marketing team often defaults to the smallest possible solutions…

Sep 1, 2022 · 3 min read

EXIT FIVE

Do you need your boss too much?

Stop relying on your boss. The less you can rely on your boss, the better.

Aug 25, 2022 · 3 min read

EXIT FIVE

Community for B2B

Community Is The #1 B2B Marketing Trend Community is the most important trend to understand and try to harness for your business today. Smart marketing teams (and the executives at those companies) understand the value of building an audience of their dream customers. Community can come in different forms and channels. But for me it’s about building relationships through content with your dream customers — that has nothing to do with selling your product, but everything to do with helping them achieve their goals personally / professionally.

Aug 15, 2022 · 5 min read

EXIT FIVE

LinkedIn vs. PR

LinkedIn vs. PR. You could pay a PR agency $10k/month to write and place articles in publications that few of your actual customers will ever read. Or — through only text + images — you could build a following for your CEO/Founder/Company Page on LinkedIn and reach customers directly. Maybe you’ll get the PR bump of you land a massive feature in a Tier 1 publication, but that is pipe dreams for most B2B software companies today. So instead you get the random blogs so the PR team can feel good about “placing” something. Forget that approach.

Aug 10, 2022 · 4 min read

EXIT FIVE

Why Audience-First Marketing Is the Smartest B2B Strategy

I like to do marketing backwards. And start with the audience first. Marketing and sales are about the feedback loop. The quicker you can get feedback from the people you’re trying to sell something to, the better thing you can create. It is an incredible advantage to be able to test ideas quickly with an email and then Google Form / Typeform.

Aug 1, 2022 · 2 min read

EXIT FIVE

Why Sales and Marketing Get Over-Measured in B2B

They love to drown us in metrics, but… Have you ever noticed this? When it comes to management level reporting and internal strategy discussion, there are 27 different metrics they want to use to hold sales and marketing accountable… and yet none of the other teams inside of the company have metrics like that!

Jul 28, 2022 · 4 min read

EXIT FIVE

Blame the CEO

Blame The Founder/CEO If your brand has nothing to say, don't blame marketing. Blame the Founder/CEO. There's a reason why Andy Raskin told me he only works with CEOs / Founder on the strategic narrative. Because it's way more than just "messaging & positioning." A narrative drives the product you build, the people you recruit, the company you create.

Jul 25, 2022 · 3 min read

EXIT FIVE

Double down on what you’re good at

Double down on what you’re good at. That’s a timeless growth hack. Personally. As a company strategy. As a marketing team. We spend a lot of time chasing new ideas and new channels vs. nailing a niche and doubling down on what you’re good at. You will see greater returns turning your B skills into A skills vs trying to turn a D into a B. One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence. It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence. And yet most people – especially most teachers – concentrate on making incompetent performers into mediocre ones. Energy, resources, and time should go instead to making a competent person into a star performer. – Peter Drucker – Managing Oneself OK, back to the family. I've been behind on work this week. Always happens this week of the year but it's nice being home with the kids. See you around. – Dave PS. have you been listening to the Exit Five podcast? I'm about to put out the next episode but wanted to send this email first. Last week's show with Kaylee Edmondson and Amanda Natividad was our most downloaded episode yet. Search for Exit Five wherever you get your podcasts. PPS there's not a single link in this email! imagine that

Jul 7, 2022 · 1 min read

EXIT FIVE

Dear Founder re: LinkedIn

Founder: I am having a hard time hiring marketers. Me: Are you active on LinkedIn? How often do you talk about what you’re doing there? Founder:  Look. LinkedIn is not magic. But for startup founders, there’s no better brand awareness channel. Brand awareness meaning: people knowing that you exist. Not comfortable promoting yourself? Great. That’s what works best. Self-promotional content is not what works anyway so you’re in luck. What works: sharing your ideas and vision for your industry, talking about your customers problems, sharing learnings and observations from what you’re seeing.

Jul 1, 2022 · 1 min read

EXIT FIVE

How to Do B2B Creative That Gets Attention

My wife is under the weather; she's fine but she's in the basement away from us and I've been on solo parenting duty with the kids this week so I'm behind. You ever been there? Behind on Slack, email, writing a newsletter, making some videos I wanted to make … but that's life.

Jun 23, 2022 · 3 min read