SparkToro Blog

Marketing Office Hours Tactics

Office Hours: How to Write Influence-Driven Marketing Messaging

“Where we’re going, we don’t need… roads.” Slip on your self-lacing Nike Mags, and buckle up in the DeLorean. We’re going back to 2021 to that time I (Amanda) presented on writing influence-driven marketing messaging. A lot has changed since then. AI wasn’t yet swallowing every marketing conversation whole, “zero-click” was just starting to take off, and plenty of marketers…

Audience Research Newsletter: Why Audience Research; Grow Your Podcast; When to Charge for Public Speaking

We’re publishing prior issues of the Audience Research Newsletter here! But we’re not just copying and pasting from the archives — we’re only surfacing what we believe is still salient today. For the newest, freshest advice on audience research and doing better marketing, subscribe here so you don’t miss new editions! We send this newsletter twice per month. 1. Why…
Marketing

Why LinkedIn Might Have Two Algorithms — and Why Marketers Should Care

We marketers talk about the LinkedIn algorithm as though it’s a single behemoth. But a recent analysis from Christopher Penn suggests the platform may be running two separate systems that work together to determine what shows up in the feed. One system decides whether your post should even be considered for someone’s feed. The other decides where it ranks once…
Content Marketing Marketing Tactics

Best Practices Are Meaningless Without Audience Research

There isn’t actually anything “wrong” with best practices. Best practices are general guidelines for what to do in order to ensure a general baseline of success. The problem comes when you employ best practices without personalization or a point of view. Then you’re just leading with some statistically average decision and marketing to… nobody in particular. Certainly not bad enough…
AI/LLMs Marketing

Why Everyone Prompts AI Differently (Even When They Want the Same Thing)

Recently, I ran a tiny experiment. I asked eight mom friends — people very similar to me socioeconomically and with kids around the same age — to look up local basketball leagues for their kids. My only instructions were to search as though they really wanted a good answer. (And of course, “good” is subjective.) Every single one of them…

Vibes Meet Facts: Write Like the Smart Human You Are, Not the LLM Making Stuff Up Again

If you were to perceive the world based on a skim of my Threads feed this morning, then you would be convinced that absolutely everyone is engrossed with the Beckham family drama, the only other pressing matter at hand is whether to recline your airplane seat, and the cost of $0.79 for a garlic bulb is exorbitant to the point…
Marketing Startups Tactics

Your Next Launch Will Fail Without an Amplifier Strategy

When teams say, “We’ll build first and figure out marketing later,” they’ve already made their launch harder. That’s not a dunk; it’s an observation. Every time we separate “product” from “marketing,” we guarantee that one will limp behind the other. I was reminded of this when Rand said in a recent interview with Jacob Cook (for his students at Harvard…