Category Archives: Marketing

It’s Time For A Change, So I’m (Re) Opening For Business

For those who have been under the COVID-19 cloud, I was let go from Third Door Media in April due to, well, a COVID-induced restructuring. It’s always tough to unexpectedly lose a job; I have been through this once before during the recession in 2008. But this time the word “challenging” does not suffice.

A job search can feel like zero value for a ton of work.

Actually, let me step back. That’s not entirely true. I have connected and reconnected with dozens of colleagues over the last four months, and have gotten to know some fantastic new friends. I have become more involved and I have networked in the past few months like I never have before. Searching for a job is grueling, thankless work. For years I have been fortunate to have had my work come to me naturally, and frankly dismissed the tedium and hard work that is involved in a job search, especially in such a competitive market. It’s easy to be complacent and think you can find a position right away.

Back to marketing consulting.

During my job search, I have had so many wonderful colleagues offer support, and ask me, “Why not do your own thing?” Well, after four months of looking for an in-house gig, I decided to embrace consulting again. I have not stopped looking, but now I’m ready to work more than ever. After so many hours of outreach and preparing for interviews, I realized I can share a lot more if I opened up and offered my marketing experience and knowledge to help organizations, rather than hold out for that perfect opportunity.

I’d like to take a moment to thank these fantastic humans.

Akvile DeFazio
Alex Bennert
Amy Gesenhues
Andrew Shotland
Anita Brearton
Anne Jordan
Anne Wright
Barry Schwartz
Betsy Peters
Brenda Darroch
Brian Gagnon
Brooke Sellas
Casie Gillette
Chris Elwell
Dan Dinsmore
Dana Schwind
Danny Sullivan
David Frankel
Doc Sheldon
Elisabeth Osmeloski
Eric Lander
Ginny Marvin
Greg Sterling
Heather Jury
Jane Bogue
Jane Mount
Janice Rogers
Jeff Jordan
Jim Darroch
Jon Henshaw
Karen DeWeese
Karl Scholz
Kathleen Haley
Katie Jordan
Kellianne Frankel
Kristy Morrison
Lindsey Tishgart
Malinda Gagnon
Mark Traphagen
Marty Weintraub
Melissa Ledesma
Michael Robinson
Michele Martin
Michelle DeMent
Michelle Hayes
Michelle Robbins
Nori Gale
Phoebe Fasulo
Purna Virji
Sara Runnels
Stephanie Seymour
Stephanie St. Martin
Susanne Gurman
Tim Wright
Vicki Frost
Wendy Almeida

And yes, Guy Raz.

Guy Raz offers job search support

Growth Hacker? Or Growth Marketer?

I don’t like the way the word “hack” is being thrown around willy-nilly, especially in regards to marketing. And according to some definitions, I’m actually a growth hacker. I don’t like it.

Last week my colleague (read: boss) Danny Sullivan tweeted:

Good question.

I participated in a tweetchat a few weeks ago about #growthhacking and that same question came up numerous times – how is growth hacking different than marketing? And, how is hacking necessarily a good connotation when it comes to marketing? That short conversation didn’t seem to get very far, but I still felt like I was missing some secret marketing approach that was going to save me oodles of time and headaches. Isn’t that what hacking means these days? Over the past few months I have been visiting the GrowthHackers forum periodically, checking out videos on GrowthHacker.tv. There are some great ideas, and some excellent resources. But I couldn’t seem to definite it differently from smart marketing. So I looked it up.

What is Growth Hacking?

I first came across growth hacking via Mattan Griffel, partner at GrowHack, who defined growth hacking as “a set of tactics and best practices for dealing with the problem of user growth.” You can check out his primer on Slideshare (you can skip to slide 43, and if you’re short for time go straight to slide 102 through 137) but it all looks so, so familiar, including A/B testing, email marketing, and segmenting your audiences.

I dug a little deeper, and discovered Sean Ellis first described a growth hacker in 2010 as someone in charge of scalable growth, primarily for start-ups, without the inflated credentials of a traditional marketer.

I found more satisfying definitions and opinions of what growth hacking means over at Quora, and liked this definition of growth hacker from Aaron Ginn:

growth hacker (noun) – one who’s passion and focus is pushing a metric through use of a testable and scalable methodology.

In this case, a growth hacker is someone who is more concerned with achieving the growth metric rather than getting bogged down by a defined process.

I really like Aaron Beashel’s process in 4 Stages of Growth Hacking, but to me, this is far from a hack, it is a legitimate painstaking process to build customers. It’s work, there are no shortcuts, so why is it hacking?

Nick Usbourne, a self-proclaimed “growth hacker since 1979” (back then we called it “direct marketing”) reviewed Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising, and concluded that much of growth hacking is marketing.

Patrick DiChiro took another approach last year, distinguishing the differences between growth hackers and brand marketers, concluding that in order to be successful, the two roles will ultimately collaborate together.

And recently TechCrunch article depicts how growth hacking can go “bad” to spammy digital marketing shortcuts, especially to meet investor expectations.

It seems like what once had been defined as a creative, start-up marketing role in 2010 has evolved into as using aggressive tactics that just annoy and infuriate users.

So Do We Have To Use The Word “Hack” When Talking About Marketing?

Personally I still define the word “hack” as unauthorized entry into a system, or cobbling code together as means to get to a desired outcome. The phrase “hack job” implies you have no idea what you are doing. And, in case you were wondering, the word “hack” originates from the word hackney, which can mean, “To cause to become banal and trite through overuse.” My friend Kristy Bolsinger shared this ridiculous article where two of the “it” jobs to watch for startups have “hacker” in the title. Yet all these definitions and descriptions about growth hacking sounds a lot like what I do. Maybe I’m old fashioned and tired of buzzwords, but I would rather explain exactly what my role is in a company and talk about growth and engagement. Because all I can think of is hacking and wheezing. So let’s just stop already.

"Lucy" by Benjamin F. Guy

Humility, Twitter Reciprocity and Not Being Famous

A month ago now I was at SMX West in San Jose, meeting up with good friends and colleagues, and meeting many for the first time as well. I had the pleasure to be introduced to someone well-known in the search space. We had a few great discussions over the course of 3 days, and at one point he turned to me and said, “I am sorry, but up until today I have never heard of you.” My response was merely, “So what?”
I don’t have any aspirations for recognition from strangers, I just want to do good work. But the exchange stuck with me, and started to think, do I fall into the same trap as to quickly assume because I haven’t heard of someone that the conversation is less meaningful or interesting? And where do the new connections generally originate if not in person? On Twitter, of course.

So this past week I just turned back on my Twitter follower notifications –  the past two years or so I was getting so much spam that I had to turn it off to maintain some level of sanity (especially those that pull the follow > unfollow > follow again trick to get your attention). And I still don’t know how people can engage with 10,000 people, or even 2,000 for that matter. But I wanted to see who the real people are in real time as they followed.  Plus it’s easier to detect the spammy profiles compared to back in the day when you actually had to visit a Twitter page, so the inbox hasn’t suffered too badly.

Interestingly, I noticed that I still didn’t follow back. And not because I didn’t want to “JOIN THE CONVERSATION”. I am on Twitter because I care about the people I follow and what they say, and it’s easier to do that if I manage that list. In fact I could probably do a better job reining it in. So does that make me a Twitter snob? No, the way I look at it is this – the people we seem to respect are following the least amount of people. It’s not an exclusivity metric or a popularity contest, it is because they have curated and honed in their following list to a realistic and useful level, and when they do converse, it’s not broadcasted noise.

Anyway, back to the “I am sorry but I have never heard of you” exchange… what is most interesting to me is the assumption that this was a bad thing. My participation in the marketing community – online and offline – has been a genuine effort to contribute and build respected relationships and trust, not about fame. So I keep my circles pretty tight. I could use Twitter (or anything else for that matter) as a platform to elevate my status, but what’s the point? I can’t equate accomplishing my goals that way, it’s not how I work. Let me clarify that using social media to meet people  – especially before and after events –  is a very powerful thing. But I don’t need it as a narcissistic stroke of the ego. And frankly, there are more than enough egos in this pond to contend with, another would just be jumping the shark.