Last Saturday, I received an email from Rich Wilan, founder of Fascinate Productions. Rich and his team help podcast creators build audiences and top charts, and they’re very good at their work, helping clients like Zoe: Science & Nutrition, Startup Dads, A Cuppa Happy (and more) launch, grow, and reach chart-topping numbers. Rich kindly gave
Google, Apple, and Amazon Stifle Innovation When They Favor Their Own Products
By The SparkToro team got an exciting surprise on Sunday evening: a mention of our research on Last Week Tonight by John Oliver. The full episode, Big Tech Monopolies, is available on YouTube. It covers an issue I’ve railed against before, but with a heightened sense of urgency: there is actually a bipartisan bill in Congress
You Don’t Need a Buyer Persona. You Need Multiple Audience Personas.
By Update: We hosted a SparkToro Office Hours webinar about audience personas. Sign up to watch the replay. I have a bone to pick with buyer personas, but it’s only because I like them (in contrast to Rand who doesn’t like them; yes, we can disagree). My quibbles? There’s a misguided focus on demographics, arbitrarily chosen
SparkToro’s Mission, Vision, and Values: BELUX
By Those skilled in the art of BS detection can tell you that 99% of company mission, vision, and values statements are meaningless. For corporate ideals to be more than just blatant-hypocrisy-in-poster-form, leadership has to build them into the company’s operating systems: how they hire/fire/promote, how they prioritize product investments, treat customers, make decisions around funding
SparkToro & Followerwonk Joint Twitter Analysis: 19.42% of Active Accounts Are Fake or Spam
By TL;DR – From May 13-15, 2022, SparkToro and Followerwonk conducted a rigorous, joint analysis of five datasets including a variety of active (i.e. tweeting) and non-active accounts. The analysis we believe to be most compelling uses 44,058 public Twitter accounts active in the last 90 days. These accounts were randomly selected, by machine, from a
SparkToro’s Year 2 Retrospective: Can Chill Work, Alternative Funding, and an Indie Approach Scale?
By Two years ago today, at the nerve-wracking start of a global pandemic, we launched SparkToro. Since then, we’ve learned a lot, and uncovered plenty of unanswered questions, too. As is tradition, I’ll try to share the good, the bad, and the interesting in the hopes it can help other entrepreneurs, especially those considering an alternative
Provable Marketing Attribution is a Boondoggle; Trust Your Gut Instead
By You’ve heard the marketing analytics spiel before. It goes something like: Marketing journeys are long, complicated, multi-channel paths. Tracking them is always imperfect, but if you employ an extensive, expensive, difficult-to-configure combination of tools, tracking systems, and deeply talented statistics professionals, you can build a high-quality, predictive attribution modeling structure that approximates reality with relatively
8 Counterintuitive Marketing Strategies That Actually Work
By Cold outreach is typically seen as a numbers game: hit as many inboxes as you can, assuming 5% or fewer will convert. But I’ve never agreed with that approach because I believe my reputation is on the line when I message a stranger. I don’t want them to feel like I copy and paste the
What Your Marketing Needs is a Bad Guy
By If you’re a big brand, already established, conservative in your ways and happy with your performance, this advice isn’t for you. But, if you’re a startup, an underdog, a challenger, you need to hear this. Villains are a good thing. Stories with villains make sense. They can be memorable. They can have depth and purpose.
Is This a Twitter Thread or a Blog Post?
By Eureka! I just had a great idea for a blog post… or wait.. maybe it’s short enough to be a Twitter thread. Y’know what? Twitter’s easier. I’ll just post it there. The instant dopamine hit of likes and retweets. The mystery of whether and when I’ll get replies. Re-loading the post every 5 minutes to