This episode features an interview with Justin Shriber, CMO of People.ai.

On this episode, Justin explains why a website built for everyone is a website built for no one, why you shouldn’t think of your SEO strategy in broad generalities, and why you need to view your marketing effort as a system with each part reinforcing all the other parts.

Justin talks about:

• How a solid marketing operation is a system. Each part of the system needs to contribute to the whole.
• Before starting working on your SEO, you need to be clear about what your message and story is, come up with a tight content strategy, and then finally, think about how to make it discoverable.
• That your website should not be all things for all people. Keep personas in mind and map out how each different persona will use your site.

“I've become a massive proponent of getting the bottom of your funnel right. Build those tactics first so that you don't have a leaky bucket, then you can go do whatever you want at the top of the funnel.” 

“The conversation has turned to how much revenue are you going to drive for the company? And in owning a revenue business, it's not always that easy. Marketers are wearing different hats. On the one hand, they're looking at revenue. On the other hand, they're thinking about how to build a brand. On the third, they're thinking about how to work with the sales team and the product team to help drive the business forward. So in terms of building the rocketship, I think it comes down to having the right people in the right places and building the right processes so that this can become an ongoing, consistent, scalable motion.”

“Be confident. There are so many people who are going to make you want to second guess your intuition about things that you have to do, but just stay strong and focus on what you think is right.” 

“Managing different stakeholders is a bit of an ordeal. When you are a first time CMO, you have to manage the board, you have to manage the executive team, and you have to manage the CEO. Don't underestimate how many calories are going to be needed to do that. And don't underestimate how much effort you're going to need to bring the team together as you're starting up all of the different functions within marketing.” 

“When you're in a growth mode, you are just constantly chasing things. There are a thousand things to do. There are so many areas that you can invest time and energy into. At that time when you have the luxury of doing many things is when you have to really pause and say, ‘what is really the most important thing to do here?’ That's the advice I would give for someone who's in a hyper-growth environment.” 

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