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The phrase “product/market fit” was coined by Marc Andreessen in his post “The Only Thing That Matters.” In short, product/market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market. Many companies create an MVP and simply hope their product takes off. You can have a huge market, but if you don’t have a product that fulfills the needs of that market, you’re going to be missing out. So product/market fit is all about finding cohesion between having a good product and a large market. In this episode Joana Kogan, Product Manager at Gooten, explains how to line up your product with your market.

There is no one place to go to obtain customer intelligence; you have to get it from lots of different points. For digital music distributor TuneCore, the key to their success has been taking what they’ve learned from various initiatives and bringing them together to get a more holistic picture of their customers—and at the same time identifying those segmentations they need to do to better target based on the customer’s needs. Andreea Gleeson is TuneCore’s VP of Marketing and Product. In this episode, she explains why customer intelligence is so important to your marketing success.

Everyone wants to send the right message to the right person at the right time. For many, finding the right message and the right person are fairly easy. There are a handful of tools you can use to segment your list and use that segment to drive the right message to the right people. The larger challenge, for most marketers, is delivering it in a timely manner. Especially when the timeline changes for each individual customer. Listen in as Jamie Field, Senior Account Executive at Windsor Circle, explains how predictive marketing automation can solve that problem.

What if you could take the guesswork out of snacking? What if you didn’t have to be a slave to the vending machine, fueling your body with unhealthy junk? What if you could choose affordable, healthy snacks, and they were delivered right to your desk? Most consumers buy the same products every time they go to the grocery store. You’re already going to go to the store and buy these products, so why not have them delivered to your door?

We’re in the modern era, and everything is changing. Now we’re on the Internet, and the Internet is a medium you need to be on. Some old-fashioned folk resist, but as our guest Jon Butt says, “Get with it, granddad. You’ve got to.” A website is your hub; you have to have it. Listen in as Jon, the Founder of Marketing for Owners, lays out what you need for a simple, effective website.

Jay Zhang is the Senior Marketing Director for Integrated Marketing and Demand Generation at United Family Healthcare in China. In this episode, he joined us from the other side of the world to discuss his experience as a marketer in the healthcare space, and how B2B digital marketing can translate to the B2C Market.

The overall growth in U.S. general merchandise and apparel over the last decade is relatively flat. But look under the covers and disaggregate brick-and-mortar sales from digital sales. Not surprisingly, you’ll see digital growing at a double clip while brick-and-mortar is declining. In this episode Scott Friend, Managing Director at Bain Capital Ventures, reveals the details behind that decline and predicts whether legacy retailers will be able to keep up with a rapidly evolving retail landscape.

The goal of account-based marketing is faster sales cycles—and revenue of course. This differs from traditional content marketing, where you’re thinking about your content mix, SEO, and conversion goals. Traditionally, you’re looking at bringing people to your site with your content, then from that big pile of people, filtering out some for sales to engage with. Whereas with ABM you say, “I know who I want to sell to; let me target my efforts there.” Listen in as Paula Crerar, VP Content Marketing and Programs at Evergage, lays out account-based marketing in detail.

The key to understanding the online shopping experience is to start with a realization: The device your shopper is using to buy things with is not the thing they’re holding in their hands: it’s the thing between their ears. In this episode Dr. Jennie Wong, author of 7 Ways to Hack the Mind of the Online Shopper, makes the case that the real hardware of eCommerce is the human brain. Listen in as she walks through 3 of the 7 steps in her book to truly understand the mind of your online shoppers.

Paul Murphy is the Co-Founder and CEO of Dots, the company that produced the popular minimalist game. Dots has experienced the rapid growth of their team in a short time, partly due to a unique launch story. How did they do it? “The main thing is you have to be selective when you’re asking for help,” Paul says, “and you want to be as specific as possible when doing it.” Listen in for more advice on how to get your own product/app idea off the ground.

Virality is an elusive beast. There’s a misconception that folks can snap their fingers and create something that “goes viral.” You can’t control virality, but you can give yourself the best chance for something you create going viral. In this episode Joel Ackerman, Chief Creative Genius at Ackermania Creative, teaches the seven elements of virality. While they’re not a perfect formula, they are “ingredients” or “colors” that you can mix together to give yourself the best shot at creating something memorable.

Developing a company’s social media presence is an invaluable means of marketing, one that can lead to great expansion for your business in a growing online economy.  However, blazing the trail of online media also comes with unprecedented issues, both legally and in the realm of public opinion. The internet never sleeps, but hopefully you do.  As your business presence expands online it will need systems in place to not only help its marketing thrive, but also to protect it from risks 24/7.  You and your carefully selected staff help tediously build the face-to-face reputation of the company, but who is overseeing and advocating for your brand online? In this post Jenny Wolfram, CEO and Founder of BrandBastion, talks about the risks associated with a presence on social media and how to protect your brand amidst an online community that is expanding exponentially.

A few years ago, virtually everyone had heard of Elizabeth Arden. Yet when asked about the brand, people followed up with “...but what are they up to today?” It was the largest of all the turnaround opportunities that JuE Wong, our guest today, had been involved in. The task piqued her interest. Today, JuE is the President of Elizabeth Arden. In this episode, you’re going to hear how she helped resurrect a brand that was considered by most to be well past its prime.

There’s nothing worse than being heckled by a salesman when you have no interest in the product. In the same way pushy marketing, especially from an unknown source, is not going to generate the type of traffic you want your business to have. This week, Tony had the pleasure of speaking with Heather Taylor, Director of Creative Strategy for North America at The Economist. Heather creates RSPs to figure out the best content programs for a desired audience. The Economist was founded in 1843, and because of that, they have become the go-to authority on the economy and the numerous factors that are affected by it. Heather tries to use a mix of events and media to reach The Economist’s audience in creative ways that invite the consumer in, rather than dragging them in by their shirt tails.

Normally, “PUSH” is the exact opposite of what your goal should be in content marketing. You want to pull readers in, not push them. But PUSH also happens to be the perfect acronym for what your content needs: P: Purpose U: Utility S: Story H: Humility In this episode Drew Neisser, Founder and CEO of Renegade, expands on that acronym and more as he lays out a plan for an effective content marketing strategy.

Your employees have a firsthand knowledge of your company, since they’re in the environment every day. If your employees are happy, your clients will be as well. That’s the idea behind social selling that utilizes employee advocacy. Listen in as Marylin Montoya, Director of Marketing at Sociabble, shares how and why to create an employee advocacy program.

More and more people are starting to recognize social media as a customer care platform. A few years ago, a report came out from Nielsen stating that close to 33% of all customers would prefer to use a social media channel as opposed to calling over the phone. They prefer a quicker, more personal interaction, as opposed to waiting on a phone call for who knows how long. In this episode Dallen McKee, Global Social Customer Care Leader for a little company called eBay, shares how a wildly successful company like eBay uses social media to protect its brand and empower its customers.

Good content doesn’t help your marketing if no one is reading it. While SEO still plays a role in drawing eyes to your content, it is quickly being outclassed by social media. Facebook in particular is a great place to share content to pull in more business, but it can be confusing for newcomers to the idea. In this episode, Paul Berry, founder and CEO of RebelMouse, explains how to build your content distribution strategy with both search and social to promote organic growth.

In business, a lack of thoughtfulness—whether intentional or not—has resulted from digitized communications. The idea of a handwritten note, in a world like ours, is so thoughtful—and could teach your business a lot about how to make people feel valued. In this episode Matt White, Director of Sales at Bond, shares his thoughts on how to position your company as one who wants to “serve the world and give it a way to be more thoughtful.”

There are a lot of tools out there that you can use to raise money, separate from traditional VCs or angels. Ajay Yadav is the Founder of Roomi, a roommate-finding app that has raised more than $1 million using AngelList. While you may be familiar with AngelList, you might not be getting as much out of it as you could. In this episode, Ajay explains how you can use AngelList to raise money from dozens of investors with a few steps and some simple A/B testing.