Why is this distinction so crucial? Modern marketing challenges are stacking up:

• Customer behavior is evolving rapidly. Digital transformation has changed how people consume information, with trends and technological advances shifting preferences almost overnight. Attention spans are shorter than ever, and competition for clicks and engagement is fierce.
• Data overload meets privacy concerns. While marketers have access to vast amounts of data, meaningful analysis is tough. Regulations like GDPR and CCPA add layers of complexity, driving customer skepticism. The demand for personalization persists, but balancing relevance with non-intrusiveness is a challenge.
• Market fragmentation. Niche markets, micro-segments, and generational differences in media consumption mean communication strategies must vary widely across platforms.
• Content saturation. Oversaturated markets and digital-native brands have made standing out authentically more difficult than ever.

By incorporating both upstream and downstream marketing into their strategies, teams can address these challenges more effectively. Let’s look at them both in more detail.

What is Upstream Marketing?

In today’s fast-paced and digital-first world, successful companies don’t just react to what’s happening now — they plan for what’s coming next. That’s where upstream marketing comes in. Instead of focusing solely on driving immediate sales, this approach shifts attention to long-term growth, untapped opportunities, and innovative market positioning.

Picture marketing as a river journey. While downstream marketing tackles the here and now — navigating the current — upstream marketing looks ahead to map the river’s future course. This forward-thinking mindset helps identify emerging trends, unmet customer needs, and market gaps that others might miss.

Here are the core elements of a strong upstream marketing strategy:

• Deep customer understanding. It starts with more than just demographics. Building detailed buyer personas and uncovering deeper insights — like hidden pain points and unmet desires — helps you anticipate what customers want before they know it themselves.
• Innovative problem-solving. By understanding your audience better, you can design products or services that fill existing market gaps. Whether that means reimagining current offerings or creating something entirely new, the goal is to meet current needs and prepare for what’s next.
• Smart pricing and positioning. A strategic approach to pricing balances value, customer appeal, and profitability. This means digging into competitor strategies, customer expectations, and perceived product value to find that sweet spot.
• Constant evolution. Markets shift fast, and successful brands adapt just as quickly. That could mean refreshing your brand identity, repositioning your message, or doubling down on forward-looking initiatives that resonate with emerging customer segments.

Beyond strategy, upstream marketing also makes financial sense. Companies that invest in this approach can:

• Reduce risks when entering new markets
• Develop innovations that hit the mark
• Build a stronger, more defensible market position
• Gain competitive advantages that outlast short-term trends

In short, upstream marketing is about setting the stage. It’s less about quick wins and more about creating a roadmap for sustained growth. By transforming marketing into a proactive driver of business strategy, upstream marketing ensures you’re not just keeping up with the market — you’re shaping its future.

And the best part? A solid upstream strategy sets the foundation for a smoother downstream marketing process.

What is Downstream Marketing?

If upstream marketing is about setting the course, downstream marketing is where the rubber meets the road (or the oars meet the water if you want to stick with the river analogy). This phase is all about taking big-picture strategies and turning them into actionable campaigns that drive real results. It’s the tactical side of marketing — the part that answers questions like:

• How do we bring our vision to life?
• What campaigns will help us hit our sales goals?
• How can we measure what’s working and refine what’s not?

While it may feel less conceptual than upstream marketing, downstream marketing is far from simple. It requires careful planning and precise execution to make an impact. Here’s what goes into a successful downstream marketing strategy:

• Detailed campaign planning. Think of it as your marketing playbook. Teams map out exactly how they’ll reach their audience, from crafting targeted messages and selecting keywords to building product-specific promotions and setting up metrics to track success.
• Audience segmentation. Not all customers are created equal, and downstream marketing gets that. Breaking audiences into smaller groups based on demographics, behavior, and engagement history helps marketers deliver more relevant and effective campaigns.
• A multi-channel approach. Reaching customers where they are means tapping into a mix of strategies, like:
  • Content marketing
  • Pay-per-click ads
  • Retargeting
  • Social media

But here’s the catch: downstream marketing can’t thrive on its own. Its success depends on the groundwork laid by upstream marketing. Without clear positioning and a deep understanding of your audience, even the most well-executed campaigns can fall flat.

At its core, downstream marketing is about delivering measurable results. Teams set specific goals, establish KPIs, and check in regularly to see what’s working and what’s not. It’s where visionary ideas transform into real-world campaigns — and where theory becomes tangible business outcomes. Together, upstream and downstream marketing create a complete system, ensuring your efforts are strategic, targeted, and effective from start to finish.

Upstream vs. Downstream Marketing: Harmonizing Both Approaches

Effective marketing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s a dynamic process where strategic foresight meets tactical execution. When done right, upstream and downstream marketing work together to form a cohesive, comprehensive approach that drives sustainable growth.

The key to success is balance. Marketing teams must explore future opportunities while executing current strategies and staying agile enough to adapt to emerging trends. It’s about seeing the big picture while focusing on the details — a tricky balance to strike.

Of course, integrating these approaches isn’t without its challenges. Common pitfalls include:

• Over-prioritizing immediate sales at the expense of long-term growth
• Neglecting market shifts and emerging opportunities
• Losing sight of customer-centric innovation

How do you avoid these mistakes? It starts with having the right leadership in place.

The Role of Leadership

A skilled leader — often a chief marketing officer (CMO) — bridges the gap between ideation and execution. They connect product development with market strategy and maintain a holistic view of the marketing ecosystem.

But not every business has the resources for a full-time CMO. That’s where fractional CMOs (fCMOs) come in. These experienced professionals bring deep expertise in integrating upstream and downstream marketing, ensuring your strategy stays aligned and effective.

Here’s how they help:

• Ongoing market research. Staying ahead of trends and understanding customer needs is critical for both strategic planning and campaign execution.
• Flexible planning. Effective marketing requires strategies that can evolve alongside changing market dynamics.
• Cross-functional communication. Successful integration depends on clear collaboration across teams, from product development to sales.
• Customer focus. A customer-centric approach ensures your efforts resonate with the people who matter most — your audience.

When upstream and downstream marketing work in harmony, your business is better equipped to anticipate market shifts, engage your audience, and stand out in a crowded landscape. By working with an fCMO, you gain instant access to a data-driven expert in marketing strategy with the talent for ramping up quickly in your industry, identifying and uncovering market trends, and leading your team to maximize ROI on marketing spend and drive business growth. Ready to discuss whether an fCMO is right for your business? Contact us to connect with our team or take our quiz to learn whether you might be ready for an fCMO.

The post Demystifying Marketing Strategies: Upstream vs Downstream Marketing appeared first on &Marketing.

Quarterly plans are flexible, acting as living documents that can be adapted as needed. This means you can make changes without throwing off your long-term vision, keeping your team agile and ready for anything. Quarterly reviews give you the chance to check in on progress, tackle any roadblocks, and adjust strategies as needed. Whether market trends shift or unexpected challenges pop up, staying adaptable helps keep your company competitive and responsive.

At &Marketing, we run on EOS—which (in our opinion) is the best at helping business leaders define their vision and keep everyone aligned, crucial for both quarterly and annual planning. Keep reading this quarterly planning guide to find out the best ways to plan your quarterly meetings for everyone’s benefit.

Quarterly Plan Must-Haves

As you draft your next quarterly plan, include the following nuggets.

• Review of the previous quarter. Analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) to understand what worked well and what needs improvement. Identify completed projects or milestones. Highlight areas where goals fell short and brainstorm reasons behind the shortfall.
• Milestones and performance metrics. Set clear milestones for tracking progress within the new quarter. Defining KPIs will help you measure your team’s quarterly progress and performance.
• Key focus areas for the upcoming quarter. Outline 2-3 high-level priorities for the quarter that align well with annual goals. Consider seasonal trends, upcoming marketing campaigns, or product launches.
• Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals. Develop clear, measurable objectives for each focus area. Break down large goals into smaller, achievable tasks with deadlines. Ensure these goals are relevant to the overall business strategy. Using EOS terms – these are your Rocks for the quarter.
• Action plans and initiatives. Define specific projects or initiatives needed to achieve each goal. Outline a step-by-step process for each initiative, with clear ownership assigned. Include timelines and milestones to track progress throughout the quarter.
• Resource allocation. Identify the resources needed to execute the plan, including personnel, budget, equipment, and software. Allocate resources efficiently to support priority initiatives.
• Risk management. Brainstorm potential risks that could hinder progress on goals. Develop contingency plans to mitigate these risks or adapt strategies, if necessary.
• Communication plan. Define how team members will communicate progress to each other and other stakeholders. Determine the frequency of progress reports and meetings.

How to run a quarterly planning meeting

Crafting a solid quarterly plan will keep your team focused and drive results. Use the following checklist to ensure you’ve created a productive, effective quarterly planning session. Each item is a building block to lay the groundwork for a successful next quarter.

Not sure how long quarterly planning should take? A typical quarterly planning session among leadership teams should take a full day, with some flexibility depending on your team’s specific needs. Small to medium companies may also need less (or more) time than global organizations. We’ve included an approximate timeline for each section.

• Team check-in (30 min.): Encourage team members to share a personal win and business success from the previous quarter. Teams can offer updates on what they see as working well and what needs improvement. You can also ask each team to share its expectations for the upcoming planning session.
  Use this check-in as a transition to help teams debrief from the previous quarter, stay informed, and understand each other’s perspectives. It fosters a sense of shared responsibility and provides a moment to pause and reflect on your company’s current state.
• Previous quarter review (30 min.): During this block, teams review the past quarter’s key objectives (Rocks) and assess completion. Your goal? A minimum of 80% completion. The review offers another chance to discuss what worked — and what didn’t — regarding goal setting and achievement. It also allows teams to discuss lessons learned and become more effective planners for the future.
• Vision review and issue identification (1 hour): This agenda item involves revisiting the annual plan’s vision and strategic plan and confirming everyone’s continued alignment with the core principles outlined in the plan. This exercise reignites team commitment to the vision and verifies everyone’s on the same page. Once the vision is clear, the team can identify and articulate any challenges, concerns, ideas, opportunities, or roadblocks that could impact achieving the vision.
• Establishing the next quarter’s priorities (1-2 hours): Now, the team should work to reach a consensus on the most critical goals for the next three months. You can use your understanding of the overall vision and list of issues to determine top priorities, eventually whittling that list to 3-7 that will significantly impact the company’s success in the coming quarter.Once these priorities are established, each leadership team member defines their own 3-7 priorities for the next 90 days. This process creates a laser focus for the entire organization until the next quarterly meeting.
• Addressing key issues (2-4 hours): This agenda item tackles the other issues identified previously. The team selects the top three most critical issues and addresses them in a three-step process. Step one: define the core issue. Step two: an honest, open discussion about the issue. Step three: identify the best solution to eliminate it permanently. The team uses this approach for each issue that is prioritized as crucial for resolution.
• Next steps (5-15 min.): This section recaps all action items generated throughout the day and confirms that everyone is accountable for their commitments and priorities.
• Wrap-up (5-15 min.): Everyone benefits from taking five minutes to reflect on the day. Encourage each team member to share their overall feedback, whether their expectations were met, and rate the day on a scale of 1-10. Your goal? Achieving an average rating of 8+ with honest, open feedback from all participants.If ratings fall below your benchmark, work with the team to understand why and identify areas of improvement for future planning sessions. By your quarterly planning session’s end, your team should feel completely aligned with one another, with clear priorities set for the coming quarter and all key issues resolved (or on their way to resolution).

How to do quarterly product planning

Is quarterly product planning also on your agenda? Here’s a quick breakdown of the critical steps involved.

• Review and analyze previous quarter performance, looking at key metrics, including user growth, feature adoption, customer satisfaction ratings, and revenue generated (if applicable). Identify successes and areas for improvement.
• Research and evaluate current market trends that might impact your product — think new technologies, competitor activity, or evolving customer needs.
• Ensure your product roadmap aligns with your company’s overall quarterly objectives. Consider factors like revenue targets, marketing campaigns, or upcoming business milestones.
• Facilitate brainstorming sessions to generate ideas for new features, product improvements, or potential marketing initiatives related to your product.
• Don’t try to do everything at once! Prioritize ruthlessly by assessing each idea’s value and feasibility. Focus on the ideas that will most significantly impact achieving your goals within the quarter.
• Break down those ideas into user stories that clearly define the features and functionalities you hope to develop.
• Establish clear milestones and deadlines for each user story within the roadmap.
• Allocate resources (teams, budget) effectively to ensure successful execution of the roadmap.
• Communicate the roadmap effectively to all stakeholders, including development teams, marketing, sales, and customer support.

Quarterly product planning is an iterative process. You may need to adapt your roadmap based on market feedback, user testing results, or unforeseen challenges. Conduct regular check-ins to monitor progress and course correct as needed.

What are examples of quarterly goals?

As you draft your quarterly planning agenda, consider the goals to include. Look at your annual plan — your roadmap — for inspiration. Your destination remains the same, but perhaps your route has changed from Q1 to Q3.

Common goals that appear on some or each quarterly agenda can include:

• Increasing market share by X%.
• Growing revenue by Y%.
• Reducing customer acquisition cost by Z%.
• Improving lead conversion by A%.
• Enhancing customer satisfaction by B points.
• Launching X new products or services.

Quarterly planning empowers you to chart a clear course for your company, one focused quarter at a time. A little thought and planning will help you and all stakeholders, from department heads to executive leadership to team members, navigate the process efficiently and effectively.

While these meetings typically last a few hours to a full day, prioritize focused discussion and avoid information overload. Assign ownership and deadlines to all action items to ensure accountability. A well-defined plan and commitment to execution will position your team to achieve success and reach its goals throughout the quarter.

At &Marketing, a fractional CMO can help run your quarterly planning sessions and great the detailed roadmap you need to spur growth and meet your yearly goals. Download our overview to learn more about our fCMO services and matching process.

The post The Power of Portions: A Guide to Quarterly Planning appeared first on &Marketing.

Business Challenge Summary

&Marketing’s client, Freya Systems, is developing a new brand called Allvaldi as a launching pad for a product strategy separate from their base business. Allvaldi will commercialize web and mobile applications initially focused on the inspection and maintenance space for pipelines, infrastructure, and aviation, with the eventual aim to broaden the platform.

Allvaldi’s name is based on a giant from Norse mythology, commonly known as Ivaldi or Alvaldi. The sons of Ivaldi were master craftsmen who created tools for the gods, and the client saw this new company as a digital smith forging powerful tools for their customers. They came to us with a desire to develop a brand that communicated this narrative, while also conveying a sense of modernity and fun.

&Marketing’s Approach

Before any design work began, we scheduled a working session with Allvaldi where we could understand their background, their audience, and their goals for the company. During this working session we utilized a unique combination of Donald Miller’s Storybrand Framework, along with a Brand Archetypes exercise. This allowed us to uncover who their customer is, what problem(s) they face, how Allvaldi is uniquely positioned to guide them to a solution, and how they can help their clients find their ‘happily ever after.’

Once we established that narrative, it was important for Allvaldi to know their place in the story. We shared the twelve Brand Archetypes (applied to marketing by Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson) with Allvaldi, and through a combination of a Narrative Marketing Outline and supplemental questions, were able to determine the Archetypal Guide their customers need.

In this case, their customer is seeking to minimize human error in inspections and reporting in order to focus on the things AI and programming can’t do. The guide they are looking for is one who understands the need to control the mundane (Ruler) in order to have the freedom to create the magnificent (Creator). Once the story (and their place in it) was established, the work of creating their visual identity could begin.

Here is our typical process for crafting a brand’s visual identity:

• Develop 8-10 concepts of a logo based on the Narrative Marketing Outline and Brand Archetypes
• Share with the client and narrow down to one design
• Refine the chosen design based on client feedback
• Share with the client, receive final feedback, and finish logo

Once the logo was approved, we moved on to create their brand guide. Here is our typical process for developing a brand guide:

• Select 3-5 color palette and font pairing options, and provide samples for the client using the finalized logo and lorem ipsum text
• Share with the client and narrow down to one color palette and font pairing
• Take the selected color palette, font pairing, and logo to create the brand guide
• Share the brand guide with the client
• Package and deliver the guide, logo, and font files

Results

Allvaldi received a visual identity that was congruent to their audience and what they are looking for in a guide. With their brand identity firmly in place, Allvaldi can now confidently launch into the marketplace with an engaging and consistent look and feel.

Additionally, the client is also confidently equipped with a strong sense of their own brand personality and can move forward with additional marketing strategies with clarity and consistency.

Clarification and alignment of Allvaldi’s unique value proposition

New logo that reflects the essence of their identity

Brand guide that serves as a compass for brand aesthetic and communication

The post Using Storytelling & Branding to Establish a Compelling Identity for an Emerging Company appeared first on &Marketing.

Business Challenge Summary

The primary problem this partner faced was a result of the company’s decision to change its name during rebranding. The client partner knew they needed marketing help, but they weren’t sure what specific mix of marketing assistance would be most appropriate. We worked with them to help them identify what they needed at a high level: a coordinated marketing program to target specific industry users to promote brand recognition and adoption.

&Marketing’s Solution

Here’s what we did to address their needs:

• Our web development team got to work rebuilding industry and product pages on their website, which would be used to drive engagement for their specialty areas.
• Next, we created a blog with compelling content that helped share their personality and uniqueness. This client’s ‘human-ness’ and service-oriented approach were the business traits that would set them apart from everyone else in their industry. The blog was the perfect way to give them a unique voice and set them apart.
• We implemented a Google AdWords campaign that began with broad strokes, then narrowed our scope to focus on more meaningful traffic.
• We helped them create an eCommerce platform using Shopify, so customers could interact directly with their site.
• We supported an industry trade show with planning assistance prior to the event, demo facilitation during, and follow-up after the conclusion of the show.

Ongoing Support and Execution

Lead generation drives our support, which includes consistent follow through and nurturing contacts with consistent email campaigns. So far, we’ve been able to increase our partner’s site traffic and pipeline by 2x using these methods. We also offer continual analytics and reporting, which allows us to enhance and change tactics as needed. Monitoring site traffic, engagement, bounce rate and that pathway of potential customers can help us improve in real time, as we go.

We at &Marketing offer something bigger firms can’t: Flexibility. We are limber and can pivot as needed while keeping an eye on your budget throughout. The support tactics we use vary based on each client’s individual needs shift. Let’s face it: Things are always changing in a fast-paced world, is your marketing team keeping pace?

Since then we’ve developed reliable marketing calendar featuring a blog, newsletter, and social media program to continually update our customers with new, relevant, information. Most importantly, &Marketing’s flexibility and sound advice have been the keys to our partnership.

Web Development

Full Trade Show Support (Planning Assistance, Demo Facilitation & Lead Follow-Up

Web Development

0

Lead Generation (2x Sales Pipeline Growth)

Full Trade Show Support (Planning Assistance, Demo Facilitation & Lead Follow-Up

The post Lab Distributor Enhances Market Visibility, Differentiation, & Engagement appeared first on &Marketing.

The successful partnerships we’ve built with our clients would be impossible without first establishing some common ground. This happens before we even sign on a new client. We take the time to understand your business, your goals, your team, and your culture. In doing this, we’ve learned that we’re not a perfect fit for everyone. Based on our experiences with a variety of clients of all shapes, sizes, and industries, there are certain commonalities that we and prospective clients must share in order for us to have a successful relationship.

Goal-Setting

First thing’s first: can you articulate your business goals? Do you know what you’re hoping to accomplish? If not, we can help you figure that out. However, if you can’t arrive at a clear definition of goals, it likely won’t work out between us.

Why? There are two reasons. First, your goals lay the foundation for everything we do with you. Without them, we can’t develop a strategic marketing plan. And without a strategic marketing plan, we can’t put together an execution plan.  We’re headed nowhere fast. Second, we measure our success by whether we’re driving results for our clients, and results are dictated by goals. Yes, we can sit and check boxes and complete tasks, but what is the actual return? We like to win, but we can’t win without knowing how to calculate the score.

Transparency 

Partnerships aren’t always pretty. Sometimes hard, uncomfortable conversations need to happen (your palms sweat, your heart beats fast…you know what I’m talking about). But this doesn’t intimidate us. We say let’s go ahead and have those hard conversations. We believe in open, candid communication with the senior decision-makers at our client companies. Transparency is one of our core values, and we admit when we’re wrong. Let’s face it, we’re human beings, so being right 100 percent of the time is not feasible. We’re also not afraid to challenge you or encourage you to see something through a different lens.

Respect for Time and Money

We’re not obsessed with billable hours, and we don’t nickel and dime. We’ll never ask you to be in a meeting just for the sake of being in a meeting. We don’t invite our entire team to be on client calls; only those who are necessary.  As much as we might like you and enjoy talking to you, we’d much rather have our heads down working toward meeting your business goals. One of the questions our Managing Director, Rajat Kapur, likes to ask is, “What would you do if it were your money?” When you think about it like that, the conversation changes. As your outsourced marketing department, we will treat your money (and time) like it’s our own.

Company Culture

We have purposefully created a unique and unbureaucratic company (well, as unbureaucratic as possible…obviously there need to be some rules.) Our culture is important to us. We have very little turnover at &Marketing because when people come on board, they tend to stay. We are selective with our people and invest in them accordingly. Ideas from every single team member are valued, from those of us with decades of experience, to our newest, fresh-out-of-college Marketing Coordinators. Everyone brings value. Our expectation is that our clients will treat each of our team members — regardless of age or experience — with dignity and respect. How we operate together will make or break this culture.

Ethics

Ultimately, it all comes down to ethics, and we’re not afraid to decline work with potential clients if it’s a cultural mismatch. As we wrote in a previous blog series (the ABCs of What We’ve Learned so Far at &Marketing):

“What we’ve learned so far is that you can’t assume everyone takes ethics seriously. Many take it for granted, while others don’t even think about it at all. In our two-year journey, we’ve run into a surprising number of clients who try to cut corners, don’t stay true to their work, or don’t hold themselves accountable for their end of the bargain.”

As your outsourced marketing department, our top priority is not growing our own bottom line; it’s meeting your business growth goals. We measure our own success by our client’s success, and we’re here to generate results for your business. The foundation of that joint success is transparency and mutual respect. We believe if we do that relentlessly and consistently, the financial results will follow.

So, do you jive with our ethics? Are you looking for an honest, trustworthy marketing partner, and not just a “vendor?” If the answer is yes, let’s chat! Contact us for a free consultation, or download our workbook, “Marketing Planning Like a Pro: Offline and Online.”

The post Are We Meant To Be (Your Outsourced Marketing Department Match)? appeared first on &Marketing.

Fast forward ten years. Recently, I was updating our Managing Director, Rajat Kapur, on the current status of each of my projects. I told him that I would call someone I needed to follow up with and say, “I am just checking in on that proposed plan we sent you.” Raj stopped me to ask, “ Why ”just”?” I hadn’t even thought about it, really. But yeah, why ”just”?  Why am I “just” calling this man, for whom our company works, to get an answer? No, not “just.” Give me a damn answer, Mr. CEO. 😉

As a result of this conversation, Raj and I started talking about different qualifiers we hear.

“Actually, you’re right.”  

Are you surprised I’m right?

“Can I be honest with you, I do not think that’s a good idea.”

Have you not been honest this whole time?

“I’m sorry but I hate that.”

Why are you sorry if you hate that?

When I say to someone, “I’m JUST checking in on that proposed plan we sent you” it diminishes what I’m doing and makes it seem less important. I’m not just doing anything. I’m doing my job.

Sorry, I’m Not Sorry.

Now that this is front of mind, I’m hyper-aware of these speech qualifiers people use. I find myself listening to the way men and women speak. I noticed that sometimes I catch myself apologizing to someone when I don’t understand something,  or when I need their help. “I’m sorry, but I need help.” Why am I sorry? Am I sorry? I am not sorry, dammit. I don’t hear men using qualifiers as much as women, though it does happen. I also hear men apologize a whole hell of a lot less than women. My unfounded, unscientific hypothesis is that women are taught to be nice more than men are.  

During a recent project kick-off call with a small team, I took their silence in response to something I said as a lack of buy-in or confusion. I noticed I kept saying, “Does that make sense?”  I read the absence of affirmation as the presence of misunderstanding. Since then, I’ve promised myself not to keep taking silence as a chance to ask that question. We’re all adults, and the onus is on each person to speak up if they disagree or don’t understand. From now on, silence will be a source of affirmation rather than consternation for me.

The Just Not Sorry app, which is a Gmail plug-in with over 35k subscribers, underlines words in an email that might undermine the message you’re trying to send. The app explains itself like this: We’re Just NOT Sorry! Let’s build awareness of how we qualify our message and diminish our voice. Inspired by the writings of Tara Mohr and others, this Chrome Extension for Gmail and Inbox will warn you when you use words or phrases that undermine your message. Commonly used qualifying words and phrases are underlined for you to choose how you want to address them. Hover over the underline to see additional information about how using the phrase is perceived.

It looks like this:

How Managed Email Signatures work:

1. We create a signature template to match your organization’s branding and content strategy.

In her article “3 Communication Mistakes with Big Impact”, Tara Mohr calls these statements, “shrinkers.”  She writes, “‘Notice how “just” shrinks or qualifies what comes next? Notice how “actually” makes the speaker sound like she’s surprised that she has a question?” In other words, qualifiers dilute the message and water down your communication, diminishing its impact. Who wants to do that? Not me.

I am trying to pay attention to the way I say things when I talk to colleagues and clients. This adjustment is showing me that the way you say something can impact how people interpret and react to what you say. For now, I hope they interpret me as someone who does not need to qualify what she says. And for that folks, I’m #sorrynotsorry.

The post Sorry Not Sorry: Qualifiers And Apologetic Work Culture appeared first on &Marketing.

I am not a millennial, even though I sometimes play one at work.  Don’t get me wrong, I love most of what millennials love. Instagram?  Check. Craft beers? Check? Working remotely? I’m cool…

I joined the team at &Marketing about six months ago.  In this remote role, I am more of a marketing generalist, which is drastically different from my prior jobs in larger, more corporate-y food companies, where our functions were more siloed. For example, when I was a product marketer, my role would be to get the product to market, and then the digital team would take over.  At &Marketing we each play the role of the entire marketing department. So, we need to be able to talk about strategy, traditional marketing principles, new products and services, digital marketing, and marketing execution. To be completely transparent, the digital elements of this position have been the biggest challenge for me since I’ve never had to dip my toes into the digital pool.

In my first week at &Marketing, Rajat Kapur (&Marketing’s Founder and Managing Director) and I were talking about doing a series of activities for a client to grow their digital presence, including a “pay per click” campaign.  The only problem was that I wrote it down in my notes as a “paper clip” campaign and left wondering what “paper clip campaign” meant. Eventually, I ended up learning that a “pay per click” campaign meant advertising on Google to attract buyers, and we had a good laugh.

As I reflect on this humbling experience after having worked with several clients over the past few months, I have come to recognize the huge generational divide the digital revolution has brought with it.  Generations of marketers and business owners grew up without digital tools, and although strategic principles are timeless, so many elements have changed in the last 10-15 years. This younger generation only knows these digital tools and quite often, the two generations don’t speak the same language. Additionally, the digital marketing industry has successfully added a whole slew of terminology that makes things extremely difficult to understand.
I realize now that bridging this divide is a primary reason &Marketing has been successful:  To allow businesses who are not marketing experts to access the same level of expertise that larger, more tech-savvy organizations implement every day.

9 Digital Marketing Terms You Should Know

So, I decided to compile a short list of modern marketing terms that were confusing to me at first, but actually are quite simple once I learned their meaning.  Without further adieu, let’s learn some basic digital marketing jargon, shall we?

• Search advertising – the main platforms for search advertising are Google ads and Bing. These are advertisements that display when people search on Google or Bing.
• Landing page – the entry page on a company’s website that a user goes to when directed from an external link (like email or social media).
• Keyword – a word or phrase someone uses to search for relevant topics on search engines. For example, if you were looking for a chocolate shop, a relevant keyword could be “Buy chocolate bars” or “Looking to purchase truffles from a chocolate shop”.
• Retargeting – ads displayed on websites other than your own to people who have already visited your website to encourage them to return.
• Click-through rate, or CTR – the percentage of users that actually click on a link vs those who saw it (an impression).
• Pay per click, or PPC – a pricing model where companies are charged every time a user clicks on an ad, which leads people to a company’s website.
• Cost per click, or CPC – a calculation to determine the total cost of an advertising program vs how many users visited a given page.
• SEO or Search Engine Optimization – a way a company optimizes webpages to allow its website to rank higher on a search engine’s results page. The higher a site ranks, typically, the more traffic is generated (if the keyword has high traffic). SEO yields more targeted traffic to a site, but is usually a much longer process.
• Conversion – when a visitor takes the desired action while visiting a company’s website. A conversion can be a purchase, membership signup, download or registration for newsletter.

In the last 6 months, I’ve learned a fair amount about digital marketing to complement my nearly 20 years of traditional marketing experience.  Would I call myself an expert? Never! But at least I can hold my own when talking to a teammate or client. The most important lesson I learned from this experience is that it’s OK not to know.  Own not knowing. Ask questions. Read up. Don’t pretend you know when you don’t. Good luck and keep swimming!

If you’re a marketing newbie looking for ways to implement a clear marketing strategy for your company, let us help you make it easier. Download our Marketing Planning Like a Pro to coordinate your approach and prioritize the right tactics.

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