Episodes

Hey MSM listener! Anna here, host of the show. I hope you enjoyed Season 4 of Modern Startup Marketing. I'm officially wrapped with this season, but will be back for more in the future. In the meantime, make sure you follow me on LinkedIn where I’ll continue to share top highlights from past pod episodes, and you can sign up to get my monthly startup marketing newsletter where I’m sharing frameworks and insights and cracking some jokes. Peace and love. For more content, subscribe to Modern Start...

Ryan Staley is Founder and CEO of Whale Boss where he does sales consulting and AI consulting. I heard Ryan present for an AI session earlier this year and thought “I gotta have him on my show.” So here we are. Here’s what we cover: What AI tools are you mostly into right now; Biggest value use cases from AI for sales and marketing teams; What are you still weary about when it comes to using AI; AMA: Ryan asks me his burning question which actually inspired me to test something. Learn more about...

Sam Dunning is the Founder at Breaking B2B and host of the Breaking B2B podcast (Top 2.5%, 377 episodes). Sam came onto my podcast to talk more about the company he's building, plus: The Breaking B2B podcast is 377 episodes and Top 2.5%. How do you decide what to talk about and who to talk to? Do you have Seasons? How has the show changed over time? What’s been the impact on your business; Sam has been testing outbound cold calling and got surprised by the results; AMA: Sam asks me his burning q...

Hope you're having a meaningful Memorial Day if you're in the US. Sam Dunning (Founder at Breaking B2B) asked me to come onto his podcast "Breaking B2B" via a live session where we talk about the top deadly B2B startup marketing sins, how to avoid them, practical advice you can use right away, and we answer an audience question. Check out more of Breaking B2B: www.breakingb2b.com Here's the full video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRBg1qG3XjI For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on...

For this BONUS episode I brought on a friend. Friend episodes are great because you've talked to this person so many times and they just hit different. Come hang out with us. Meredith Hein is the Founder of Unicorn Content & Growth Marketing where she works with growth stage companies, she also went to Kellogg. Here’s what we cover: On writing books for her clients and what books accomplish; Udi Ledergor (Gong) once said "marketing’s goal is to make sales easier” and that still makes me cringe. ...

Ian Faison is CEO and Founder of Caspian Studios where they create shorts, shows and moonshots (with podcasts and videos) for B2B companies. Ian wrote to me and said “I have an idea for your show…” and when Ian writes with an idea, I will of course say yes. Here’s what we cover: The old and dusty content marketing strategy; The new content marketing strategy and why companies are adopting an Owned Media Portfolio; Examples of shorts, shows and moonshots; How do you create a podcast that breaks t...

In the last episode, Drew Brucker asked me “What are some creative marketing ideas that you or someone on the show has shared that are 100% worth experimenting with?” Drew, you’re in luck because I focused on creativity in Season 3 of the podcast and then I wrote a whole article called “ 36 Startups Share Their Top Creative Marketing Ideas ” so in this episode I pull out those I believe startups should test. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever ...

Drew Brucker is the Founder and Creative Director at brainchild, a solo agency that helps brands with their creative and marketing execution. He's also master of Midjourney (genAI that generates beautiful images). Here’s what we cover: Why are you going big on Midjourney; What are some of your best prompts; How will Midjourney impact photography in the future; Why images are so important for standing out and how to leverage that; How can early stage startups incorporate Midjourney into their wor...

There are so many skills you need in a rockstar marketing hire, plus so many marketing channels. It's really challenging for a company to spend $120k+ and hire one single marketer and be happy with the result. It also takes time to find just the right (full-time) person. Traditionally, companies had to choose between hiring an in-house marketing person or an agency. With the rise of remote work and solopreneurs, many of the best marketers are now working for themselves. How can startups best lev...

I was on Marketerhire's podcast (The Marketer Show) where Blake Emal asked me to talk about MaaS Method, the 10-step systematic approach I built and use after working with dozens of early stage startups. Here’s what you’ll learn: - Why you should start with the customer in your marketing research - How to think about positioning and messaging at your early stage B2B startup - How to build a content strategy "wedge" - Creating your custom GTM strategy For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup...

Erin Balsa (Founder of Haus of Bold) asked me this question in our last episode: “What is the #1 improvement area when you work with new startup clients?” So I'm going to answer it now. Happy Friday! For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review if you're lovin' the show! And whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. fractional head of marketing for early stage startups >> ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Happy Passover! In my work with early stage startups, I've seen some of the ways that they approach their content strategies. Sometimes there's structure, but usually it's all over the place. It's not their fault, though. I haven't really seen any visual diagrams that would help startup founders and marketing teams build this out. Nothing too fancy, but at least some kind of easy to use, systematic approach that brings it all together. So I brought on Erin Balsa to help hash this out. Erin Balsa...

Shane Murphy-Reuter (CMO at Webflow) asked me a question in our last episode: "If you were the CMO at Webflow, what would you do differently?" Well that is a loaded question, isn't it. First, let me just say Shane you’re doing an amazing job. Leading a team of 70 people! I just have a couple of things to suggest. Well, I have 13 things. I hope we can still be friends. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to l...

I've been talking about websites quite a bit on the show, on LinkedIn, and I just came off a project where I looked at close to 200 B2B websites (!) and realized that being a B2B buyer in 2024 is kind of still awful. I wanted to explore why that is with Shane Murphy-Reuter, CMO at Webflow. We also cover: Who's on the marketing team at Webflow; Why do B2B websites still suck in 2024; Going beyond your website copy, how else can companies think about improving their websites today? (HINT: make it ...

Happy solar eclipse Monday! Hope you've got your special sunglasses handy. Modern Startup Marketing just reached 200 episodes!!! Wild. 🦁Do I feel tired?Does it feel like a lot? Will I be doing 100 more episodes?What's been the hardest thing about podcasting for 4 years?What’s been the most surprising thing about podcasting for 4 years?What are the most important Qs to ask if you're doing a pod?What are my most favorite episodes?How do you know if your podcast strategy is working?How am...

Just got back from a (mostly) relaxing Spring Break and eager to jump back into things. Hope you're doing well! Anthony Pierri is Co-Founder and Partner at FletchPMM. He helps founders market hard-to-market products and specifically focuses on Homepages. We cover: What’s wrong with so many Homepages today; How to fix those specific problems; A specific example in the HR tech space; Why does this Homepage (and website) work matter? AMA: Anthony asks me his burning question which I will answer in ...

I’ve often wondered about how influencer partnerships work. I've been involved in a couple, so I get to see examples from the inside. But I wanted to see more examples, so I brought on Emily Steele, Co-founder and CEO at Hummingbirds (Seed funded). She’s actually built a business around helping brands discover and work with hyper-local content creators. Some of these brands are working with 50-100 creators at once. A lot of what we talk about is very relevant for B2B influencer partnerships. Wha...

Gaetano DiNardi is the Growth Advisor for 10 B2B startups. Something you may not know about him is that he spent 5 years as a music producer & songwriter in NYC. I first learned about Gaetano back in 2020 when he was doing Demand Gen Live sessions with Chris Walker. What I love about his content on LinkedIn is that it’s not fluffy and he's honestly trying to be helpful. We cover: The MaaS Method (Marketing as a System) has 10 steps, or 3 parts. What do you think early stage startups should focus...

It doesn’t take magic to make content that resonates. You just have to be real. Show your audience that you get them by understanding their cares, frustrations, and the reality of their day-to-day lives. But to do this, you really have to know your audience and their life experiences. I was invited onto the Remarkable! podcast to share B2B content lessons from Diary of a Wimpy Kid . It's a children’s book series about a boy named Greg Heffley. More than 290 million copies have been sold globally...

Happy International Women's Day! I promised to answer this question for ya and I always deliver. Ari Yablok, Head of Brand at Island (Series C), was on the show (Ep. 194) and he asked me: "Founders that are not Marketing-driven or not appreciative of the role, what are some of the things you do to help them buy-in to marketing?" I answer in this 2-min. bonus episode. If founders ARE bought-in to Marketing but don't understand how to measure brand, or don't know what to prioritize first, or aren'...

Ari Yablok is Head of Brand at Island (Series C). He joined Island in the very early days, back when they didn’t even have their name out in public. His job was to build the brand from zero. You rarely get the chance to pitch to a CIO/CISO (their target buyer) so the founders knew they needed to enter that world in a way that sent a very clear signal that this is actually a new conversation. How do you send that signal? What kind of message did they use? How do you attract the C-Level with your ...

In a world where using AI to do more, automate more, get more leads (more more more!) is celebrated, one thing that early stage startups have as the upper hand over larger companies is the permission and ability to do those things that don’t scale. Build community and relationships in unique ways (like with events), be creative, test wild ideas, learn and pivot quickly, etc. Why might a focus on doing more with AI and automation actually hurt early stage startups? That's the focus of my conversa...

ABM often gets a bad rap, especially with early stage startups. People think ABM means you’re just running ads to a list of people, or that you need really expensive tech. A couple of weeks ago I had Trinity Nguyen (VP of Marketing at UserGems) on the podcast and we talked about how she joined an early stage startup and decided to go the route of Scrappy ABM which ended up being super successful for them (90% of their pipeline was generated from this play). There’s something about ABM when you r...

Does your CEO like the content your marketing team is producing? Does your CMO? Does your head of Sales? Do you know the answer for sure? Does it matter? John Bonini (Founder of Some Good Content) has been meeting with founders and marketing execs that have said some variation of the following regarding their content marketing: “We’re doing SEO, but the content is not good, and it’s just not working very well anymore.” So what’s broken with our content efforts? And how can we fix it? How do you ...