Communications
While I don't do politics on Kellblog, I do analyze messaging, including political messaging. My point is not to change your mind on a given issue, but to study what works in the major leagues [1]. Towards that end, I wrote a post back in January entitled Analyzing
Communications
Sometimes. But make sure it's not out of laziness or ignorance. Increasingly, you’ll hear the term “business outcomes” popping up in software marketing. While I initially loathed the phrase for its vagueness, over time I’ve come to believe that, much like the frequently-abused word “solutions,
Grateful Dead
Since It Costs A Lot to Win, and Even More to Lose [1] It's hard for a DNA-level marketer and inveterate deadhead [2] to review a book that fuses both. While I first read Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead not long after its publication in 2010,
Demandgen
"How's it going at StartCo?" I asked. "Great," the CMO replied. "We hit 105% of our pipeline generation (pipegen) goals last quarter, and with a healthy pipe/spend ratio of above 10." "Nice," I said. "How is sales doing?
Branding
I was thrilled to get together with Janessa Lantz (former CMO at dbt Labs) to join her and Amrita Gurney's podcast, Standout Startup Brands, to discuss a topic that most people don't even want to talk to me about -- branding! Yes, I'm known as
Marketing
"If a bird walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck." -- James Whitcomb Riley Many marketers are in such a hurry to talk about topical issues that they forget the duck test: if it walks like a
AI
Last week I hosted an event at the Balderton Capital London headquarters discussing the impact of AI on go-to-market (GTM) functions. The event was inspired by two things: * My aborted attempt to write an AI GTM guide, after I realized just how huge the space was and how
Demandgen
I had a lightbulb moment in the car yesterday listening to the Revenue Vitals podcast. It wasn't a flash of insight so much as a flash of synthesis. I've been driving a lot lately, so I also had time to listen to the amazing Acquired podcast,
Marketing
The other day an old friend, a highly accomplished marketing executive, asked me a simple question: if you only had five metrics to summarize marketing performance for a quarterly business review (QBR) or board meeting, what would you pick? In this post, I'll share my answer to that
Marketing
This post is going to get a little weird because it's going to do two things at once. * Discuss an interesting, if dated, survey [1] I found on the sometimes tense relationship between CEOs and PE operating partners (and other senior advisors like executives in residence) [2]. * Demonstrate
Marketing
Be the second kind. The other day I was meeting with an advisory client [1], talking with the CMO and a handful of go-to-market team members. We started to discuss marketing, topics like product positioning and the website. So I asked for some feedback. I displayed the company&
Management
Last week in London, fellow Balderton EIR David Vismans and I held a joint meeting to discuss the working relationship (or moreover, the lack thereof) between product and marketing organizations. David is a career product leader, who worked for over 8 years leading product at Booking.com. I am a