ATTN Makers Philosophy

Creating pipeline is tough… I help make it easier, through one of the most proven ways of consistently generating pipeline - paid social.

A lot of marketers would disagree with that.  Why? Because everyone has different experiences, different expectations for marketing, different ways they’ve seen things work.

EX: Your CEO says, “I want to grow pipeline.”

For one marketer, that could mean you need more leads.  See if we get 1500 leads, from ebook downloads, and we pass all those to sales, there has to be pipeline generated…

For another marketer, that could mean focusing entirely on great content, saying if we grow our audience X percent, then we’ll have X number of fans, and eventually that will pay off in dividends.

For another marketer, that could mean re-vamping the website — if we re-vamp the website, we’ll convert X more people, and that will be more pipeline.

For another marketer, that could mean creating webinars. If we get 100 people on a webinar, and we pitch our product at the end with a free gift if they request a demo in the next 5 minutes, then we’ll certainly get some pipeline going.

For another marketer, that could mean starting an ABM campaign — if we buy an ABM platform, and we get in front of our entire target account list, and sales brings in anyone, we’ll have influenced that pipeline and would be a huge win.

“Marketing” is too broad, it means too many things, it requires so much, there are so many “right” ways to do it, and arguably, not that many “wrong” ways to do it.

If you’re on LinkedIn, everyone has their own hypothesis, their own set of experiences…

I’ll try to break it all down, and share MY set of experiences, that no one else has…

Experience that can’t be diluted by other people’s experience, because this is mine and I’ve seen what I’ve seen…

Is it all right? Definitely not. Any good marketer would say they don’t have all the answers, but can experiment towards the right answers…  Everything is changing so fast, from new digital experiences like Web 3, VR, to new platforms Threads, X, to trends like Gen X returning to the dumb phone….

The principals of marketing however, stay fairly static.  Yet, which ones you choose to follow, your experience, and even the way you apply them will all change, year to year, company to company, trend to trend.

I’ll try to explain all of this and more, including how you can grow pipeline, in the rest of this.  If you don’t want a high level philosophical approach, feel free to skip the next section.

What are the primary ways to do marketing?

What is marketing?  

Look up “the definition of marketing” and you’ll find a million answers…. Add in B2C, B2B, PLG, demand generation, product marketing, copywriting, content writing, and many more terms and you’ll get even more confused.

In my opinion, in B2B, it’s really a foundational GTM team, that can make or break a company, and is based entirely on experimentation…. A partner to sales. Again, other marketers will disagree and their side is largely “Marketing is a support function.” — Need a pretty graphic? Marketing.  Need new collateral for the sales team “Marketing.”  Need more leads?

You guessed it, marketing.

What I think marketing is

The approach I take, is different from many and definitely comes from a “demand gen” background working at B2B SaaS companies.  

Again, a lot of jargon, but basically earlier in my career I started with a CEO asking for more leads for sales…. I tried it all… I did it all. By putting in the work and listening, talking, and working with way smarter marketers I eventually realized it’s all about closed won… Reverse engineer that, you need pipeline that can close. Before that, you need hand raisers.  

In between that, you need to ensure the hand off to sales is strong, you need a way to measure it all, and you need a way to get hand raisers.  

You need to do it in a way that provides a positive brand experience and doesn’t poison the well.  You need a way to position your brand.   You need a brand identity so that you can create mindshare.  You need a lot…..

So that simple request of “more leads” is almost a trick request.  This is where so many get marketing wrong.  Everything needs to work together to create an environment where people A. Want your product B. Can start the process of exploring/ buying your product in an easy way….

How can you get someone to “want” your product?

So how can you get someone to “want” your product? Or even better, need your product?

Typically, there are 3 types of “media” which are ways of creating brand awareness, which is the start of everything.  Before the closed won, pipeline, and hand raisers you need awareness, typically through owned, earned, or paid media.

Here’s the breakdown, with a pipeline lens:

See you can grow pipeline through 3 main ways owned, earned, and paid channels:

• Via owned channels:

• EX: by building a fan base (a well known content series, an email you always look forward to)
• EX: organic search (rank high, create enough awareness, own keywords, see conversions)
• EX: a person with a strong personal brand on LinkedIn.

• Via earned channels:

• EX: Content created about a brand that is not created by that brand. Like a top publication in your space creating content about your company. This is very very difficult to do, but some of the hottest B2C companies in the world rely almost entirely on earned channels.  Typically, it’s via influencers or people with followings who talk about your product.

• Via paid channels:

• EX: conferences (can be really great, or really bad, but it’s usually lumpy — there are only so many conferences !!)
• EX: Paid search - can be great, for generating leads for people looking for your solution
• EX: Paid social - can be great, if done right.

IMPORANT Note: some people would probably argue with me on these, and I don’t have the strongest opinion in the world as to where some of these live, but at the heart, it’s you own the channel, (some people would say you don’t own email, because anyone can unsubscribe at anytime, your domain reputation can get so low that it’s hard to deliver the emails to the email address you “own”). You earn promotion via having something worth talking about.  In a way, it’s scaleable word of mouth, which is by far the best type of marketing.  A lot of people would probably argue that organic search is earned, but I like the word of mouth definition.  Are people talking or not?  Lastly, paid, which is by far the easiest to define, is are you spending money on it directly? Not a salary, but money in to get money out.

In my experience, out of the 3, you need great marketers, really dedicated to your company in order to pull off owned and earned channels — it’s not easy….  It is very rewarding, but it’s a long investment.

While you’re building 1 or both of those, it’s very helpful to have paid media, which can inform literally everything. Especially done right.

Paid media thesis:

So here’s where I come in, I’m a die hard paid media person, because of the experimentation of it.  Often, owned and earned is much less in your control, much more static, much more long term.  You need every piece to align and they have to align perfectly.  You have to have a marketing leader with such a clear vision of what it could be and they have to work at your company for a while….

In B2B, good leaders get cut and it can be for the worst reasons… Turnover and change is foundational at a lot of these companies. If you look at some of the powerhouses, (Gong, Hubspot, etc), the trend I’ve seen most often is the leaders have been there for forever… The founders “got” marketing.  They hired great people early on, whether they knew it or not, and it worked out.  

Again, if, if, if.

Paid media is far less of an “if, if, if” — I have a foundational approach, that’s worked at most companies I’ve helped.  It’s simple: A. Make sure your target market knows you exist. B. Create content + experiences that resonate with that audience. C. “Sell” the product via marketing. D. Create unforgettable interactions that bring people back.

That’s it.  That’s what I do, and that’s how you can grow pipeline.  Leave me the heavy lifting, and you can focus on hiring great people, content, owned and earned media, and everything else.