Thoughts on Marketing

Firing an agency is a rite of passage in a marketing career.

Sometimes it’s easy (when they’re really bad at what they do); sometimes it’s tough (when they’re nice people); and sometimes it can actually be quite satisfying. Which makes me sound mean, but let me explain…

A few years ago, I was hired by a tech company that was growing fast. They had a small in-house marketing team, and an aggressive budget. With a lofty goal of $100M revenue in 5 years, they needed to get the marketing machine firing on all cylinders.

From my initial marketing audit, most of their spending was on digital ads. And they’d brought in a New York-based agency to manage their SEO and PPC campaigns. An agency with solid credentials and Google premier partner status; and, of course a cool office with bare-brick walls.

Their reports and dashboards were impressive. Lots of activity, lots of “up and to the right” graphs.

The problem was…none of those lovely reports were tied to revenue-generating activity. They focused on vanity metrics – things like page views and keyword rankings. But at no point were they driving behavior that we could link to deals.

The marketing audit had also highlighted the value of demo calls. We had a close rate over 60% from qualified demo calls, with an average deal size in the five figures. So now I could assign an average value to a demo call..

..which then meant we could justify SEO and PPC spend that directly impacted the number of demo’s booked.

Not page views. Not white paper downloads. An actual live demo for the sales team – with a known opportunity value.

The agency disagreed. They wanted to stick to their vanity metrics, and build ever-more expensive ad campaigns.

So when I made the call to part ways, it wasn’t a difficult one. I felt that they’d effectively been ripping off their client for a year or so; they weren’t receptive to a hands-on client relationship; and they only had a single playbook.

Choosing the right SEO agency isn’t easy. So if you want some ideas on what to look for, and how to go through the process, listen to the latest episode of The Marketing Mix, where I talk with Charley Karpiuk about exactly that.

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Should LLMs Write Marketing Copy?

The frustrating thing about hosting a podcast is that you really don’t know who listens to it. So I was chuffed to see The Marketing Mix podcast mentioned in an article in The New Stack (“for the people who build and manage software the world relies on”).

Jon Udell – who I was lucky enough to work with on a project last year – has a strong interest in AI and Large Language Models (LLMs).

He takes the time to explain their use and utility to those of us less inclined to spend the hours required to truly understand them – and in this case, he looks at how they can be used to improve marketing copy.

If you’ve ever picked up a copy of Strunk and White to help you with your latest press release. Or thought “what would George Orwell think of my blog,” then Jon’s article is worth a read.

Drink of the Week – The Penicillin

I like a good whisky cocktail, and when I get a chance to use two whiskies at once, then you know I’m going to try it! So I’ve been experimenting with a drink called The Penicillin recently.

It uses a blended scotch in the mix, with a peated single malt on top. So you have a nice combination of flavors that change as you work your way down the glass.

If you want to give it a try, here’s a recipe from The Spruce Eats. Cheers!

*Magnifying glass photo by Marten Newhall on Unsplash