MGC Look-Back: 8 Ways Marketers are Realizing Growth
Marketing as a profession is about driving growth for business and organizations. Great marketing leaders go further, also prioritizing growth for teams and careers. This is the simple idea that led to Season 1 of the podcast, "Marketing Growth Conversations." What materialized is a series of honest discussions with marketing, brand, media and industry leaders, uncovering key learnings, powerful perspectives and enduring truths shaping what it takes to innovate, push through challenges and navigate change as a marketer. If you’re just jumping in, here are the top insights from each episode, unveiling 8 compelling ways marketers are finding success and driving growth. And the don’t miss the continued learnings as we continue into Season 2!
1. Modernizing Creative Strategy with Hybrid Innovation
Zach Foster of Foster Brand Strategy digs into the evolution of brand planning processes and insight-hunting that gets to breakthrough ideas. For Zach, authentic brand conviction, curiosity to understand what drives audiences and openness to collaboration with diverse teams all play critical roles. Zach touches on inspired moments through his planning career at Droga5, Goodby and other top agencies, which led to great work with brands such as Intel, Under Armour, Upwork and others. He reflects on modern approaches with strategy and creative collectives that assemble the right talent for projects by embracing the world of digital networks, remote collaboration and agile tools. Explore here.
2. Crafting Compelling Messaging That’s Built for Change
Jeffrey Pease, a seasoned brand and messaging leader with CMO leadership experience, discusses the power of storytelling compression and the need for concise, impactful brand messaging that breaks through with B2B buyers. Clarity in messaging and scalable brand structures are vital for effective communication, particularly at firms that are continuously evolving and introducing new products. His early and unexpected growth moment was in having his songwriting critiqued by a professional musician who convinced him to “cut down” his verbose lyricism. Explore here.
3. Content Strategy as a Catalyst for Creativity and Full-Funnel Performance
David Brown, SVP and Head of Strategy at Knotch, emphasizes the pivotal role of content strategy to establish clear pathways for creative thinking and scalability. The precision of content objectives across business, brand, and audience are critical for purposeful work and outcomes that matter to stakeholders. For teams activating full-funnel publishing plans, new content analytics capabilities that measure quality of experience help shine a light on the "missing middle" of full-funnel journeys, which until recently has only been supported by vague engagement metrics. Explore here.
4. Developing Quality B2B Content that’s Client Centric
Chris Gillespie started his career in sales and now is CEO of Fenwick Media, a creative content studio for B2B brands. As a young seller years ago, the moment Marketing asked him to pick up a pen and develop his own creative was a career-changing growth moment. He advocates for prioritizing quality over quantity in content creation. By focusing on higher-order outcomes that often transcend beyond digital analytics his team fosters impactful content marketing that keeps an eye towards building eminence, addressing client needs and fostering high value interactions with new business teams. Explore here.
5. Building Connected Brands & Teams
Alyse Schwartz, Head of Account Management at Digitas, shares growth perspectives around building connected brands and coaching teams to be resilient. She offers that connected brands leverage data to nurture addressable relationships at the speed of culture and business. Her personal growth moment, starting during the challenges of managing a full agency office during COVID, has been in becoming a certified executive coach to empower rising leaders who can better foster deep client relationships. Explore here.
6. Placing Brands at the Center of Culture
Landon Nguyen, Director of New Business at Andresen Digital, highlights the agility of boutique agencies in aligning work with cultural shifts. Rapid ideation, agile operations, and connecting brands to culture through partnerships are big ideas shared. Landon shares a growth experience leading partnerships for Uber’s brand campaigns and points to Barbie and Liquid Death as examples of innovative branding that drives growth. Explore here.
7. Leveraging Intelligent Tools for Content Marketing Agility
Matt Cross of Knotch advocates for embracing new tools like Pathway IQ, Descript and ChatGPT to drive productivity, rapid prototyping and efficiency in content marketing. He encourages marketers to test and learn around these intelligent tools to understand their potential and limits, and adapt workflows with iterative approaches. Explore here.
8. Reaching Next-Gen & Diverse Audiences
Zach Rozga shares insights from Thece, a streaming platform for Gen Z gamers. He shares how Gen Z has matured and offers a massive opportunity for brands to reach a new and diverse consumer base. Building authentic relationships and delivering value are paramount in engaging this digitally savvy and highly diverse audience. Zach encourages marketers who are looking to drive growth to embrace diversity and testing how they reach new audiences, supported by brand research. Explore here.
Browse and subscribe to "Marketing Growth Conversations" on Spotify, here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
