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…

The 2025 State of Digital Agencies: it’s still rough out there, but slowly improving; and is AI really a threat?

Introduction from Rand: I care deeply about the consulting world in digital marketing. These people are my friends, my colleagues, my fellow speakers, and my investors. Their fears, concerns, successes, and trends are bellwethers for our field as a whole. Is AI hurting or helping marketers? Is the Zero Click costing them clients or gaining them new ones? Are agencies’…

The 7 Marketing Problems Pinball-Shaped Buyer Journeys Create

Last week, I showed you how Internet buyer journeys have transformed from the cleaner, more predictable funnel model of the 2000-2015 web into something shaped like a ball bouncing around a pinball-machine. These modern buyer journeys bounce back and forth between channels and content in ways that can’t be readily modeled nor cleanly attributed (despite what your analytics tool tells…

The Pinball Customer Journey Has Replaced the Marketing Funnel

I like the marketing funnel. It’s a great analogy, and has served me well for years. I *STILL* think it works reasonably well as a way to describe how businesses experience the various points at which they engage/interact with users before they become customers. But, we cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend it’s a reasonable way to…
Marketing Tactics

Content as a Service (CaaS): The Framework That Aligns Marketing with the Business

Marketing often treats content like a vending machine. Sales needs a case study, so you fill in the template. Check the next row on the spreadsheet, write a blog post about that keyword. Insert a Jira ticket, get a graphic version of that blog post. That’s how you end up “keeping the lights on” with content… that does nothing. Because…
Data Industry Marketing Research

New Research: 20% of Americans use AI tools 10X+/month, but growth is slowing and traditional search hasn’t dipped

The media hype may be overblown, but the data doesn’t lie: over 20% of Americans are now heavy users of AI Tools (employing them 10X or more each month), and nearly 40% use one AI tools 1X+/month. Despite this massive growth, traditional search engines aren’t going anywhere: 95% of Americans continue to use them each month, and 86% are heavy…
Marketing Tactics

Care to Comment? Why, Yes, I Do: How to Get Quoted in the Press

It’s always, “How do we get mentioned by ChatGPT?!” and not, “How can we be worth mentioning by ChatGPT?” Fortunately, this blog post is your guide to bridging that gap. Journalism is now the most cited source in AI-generated responses to current event queries, according to a new report by Muck Rack. And well more than half of websites receive…