Why I Closed My Marketing Agency (and what's next for me)

Incentivized LinkedIn ads are a great way to generate more highly qualified sales leads for your B2B company. Offering a gift card can be the difference to getting your ideal customer onto a demo call or not.In this episode of SaaS Marketing Superstars, I discuss the pros and cons of incentivizing prospects to join a sales call and share some of my experiences and best practices.Check out the show notes and get links to all the resources mentioned in this episode here: https://aaronzakowski.com/podcast-incentivized-gift-card-linkedin-ads/

In this episode of the SaaS Marketing Superstars podcast, Krish Ramineni shares how Fireflies.ai grew to be used by over 200K organizations through product led growth. Krish also shares his opinion on what the future of AI might look like. Episode Highlights ● Fireflies features and vision (0:40)● Who is the typical Fireflies user (1:50)● How Fireflies successfully utilized product led growth strategy (5:46)● Why it is extremely expensive to produce AI based tools (11:09)● How AI has completely transformed the way he works (13:20)● Predictions on the societal impact of AI in the near future (15:15)● How he uses criticism from disgruntled customers to improve Fireflies (21:45)● Favorite books, apps and business leaders (32:47)Check out the show notes and get links to all the resources mentioned in this episode here: https://aaronzakowski.com/podcast-product-led-growth-krish-ramineni-fireflies/Follow Krish on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krishramineni/

In this episode of the SaaS Marketing Superstars podcast, Shay Howe discusses his unique career journey to becoming the CMO of ActiveCampaign and what it's like leading a large marketing team at a company with over $100M ARR.Episode Highlights ● How his experience in the world of design and engineering influences his current role as the Chief Marketing Officer at ActiveCampaign (0:43)● How big is the marketing team at ActiveCampaign (5:46)● How to manage a large multi-talented marketing team (8:53)● How ActiveCampaign differentiates itself in the highly commoditized email automation market (11:47)● The importance of brand building and how ActiveCampaign turns their customers into a marketing engine (15:41)● Is AI marketing hype or is it a useful tool for business intelligence (19:06)● The challenges associated with rapid evolution of marketing tools and social media platforms (28:24)● Favorite books, apps and business leaders (32:47)Check out the show notes and get links to all the resources mentioned in this episode here: https://aaronzakowski.com/podcast-marketing-leadership-shay-howeFollow Shay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shayhowe/

In this episode of the SaaS Marketing Superstars podcast, Mor Assouline discusses sales techniques to convert more demo calls to closed-won deals. He also shares secrets about his LinkedIn content strategies for getting more customers from LinkedIn. Episode Highlights ●The process Mor used to scale a B2B company in sales from <$100K to $15M ARR (3:17)●What is a sales playbook (4:23)●How to ace sales calls effectively without sounding unnatural or focusing entirely on your product (6:25)●The major mistakes most sales people make and how to avoid them (11:12)●How to reach out to prospects even if you don't have a new feature or announcement (15:10)●Creative hacks companies can apply to get people to show up for meetings (20:53)●How to use account-based management (ABM) strategies to boost sales (29:16) ●The secret sauce for creating Linkedin posts consistently and effective post templates (36:03)●Favorite books, apps and business leaders (48:26)Check out the show notes and get links to all the resources mentioned in this episode here: https://aaronzakowski.com/podcast-b2b-demo-sales-mor-assouline/Follow Mor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morassouline/

In this episode of SaaS Marketing Superstars podcast, Justin Oberman talks about LinkedIn content creation and how to apply old-school advertising concepts to B2B Marketing.Episode Highlights ●How to apply creative ideas in B2B advertising (2:43)●How London Times creative idea got lawyers to subscribe to their newspaper (4:44)●Should B2B companies initially focus on branding the company or branding the individuals in the company (8:04)●How to make branding and direct response work in tandem (17:05)●Why Justin believes brand is not hard to measure vs direct response (23:16)●How Redbull broke into the London market without an ad budget (34:39)●How to grow your personal brand on Linkedin (36:18)●The 70-20-10 framework for creating Linkedin content (45:00)●How Justin gets client from his Linkedin posts without relying on ads or his website (47:25)●A quick hack to come up with unlimited content ideas and position you as a thought-leader (57:40)●Favorite books, apps and business leaders (1:00:46)Check out the show notes and get links to all the resources mentioned in this episode here: https://aaronzakowski.com/podcast-b2b-old-school-advertising-justin-obermanFollow Justin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinoberman/

In this episode of SaaS Marketing Superstars podcast, Lloyed Lobo talks about how he grew Boast.ai to over $10M ARR using Community-Led growth.Episode Highlights - The differences between USA and Dubai as it relates to child care, safety, community, quality of life and work-life balance (3:17)- Lloyd asks me how I manage with 6 kids (4:48)- Appreciates his wife for her support and keeping the family in sync (7:49)- How his daughter’s comments challenged his workaholic mindset and being present for the birth of his 3rd child (10:12)- Why he was forced to step out of his company (13:20)- What is community-led growth (18:26)- How Boast.ai helps companies (22:14)- Why people associate print media with legitimacy and how he got referral partners from his weekly newspaper column on startups (29:15)- Why your idea will fail without consistency (36:51)- The key strategies SaaS company can adopt to grow their community in today’s market (42:35)- How his cold emails for podcast outreach gets over 70% open rate (48:50)- Creating content for superfans, contributors and lurkers (51:43)- Favorite books, apps and business leaders (55:24)Check out the show notes and get links to all the resources mentioned in this episode here: https://aaronzakowski.com/podcast-lloyed-lobo-community-led-growth

In this episode of SaaS Marketing Superstars podcast, Scindia Balasingh explains how to use partnership marketing to grow your B2B SaaS. Episode Highlights - How Scindia got into partnership marketing and her career trajectory (1:11)What is partnership marketing (4:08)Types of partnership marketing (7:18) Why you should tier your partners into strategic, regular and long-term partnerships (13:31)How to find effective partners for your company (16:22)How to build relationships with intending partners without alienating your customers (18:18) Common partnership pitfalls companies must avoid (22:32) Recommended number of clients companies should start their partnership program with (25:32) How to measure the impact of a partnership program (28:46)Favorite books, apps and business leaders (30:52) Check out the show notes and get links to all the resources mentioned in this episode here: https://aaronzakowski.com/podcast-partnership-marketing-scindia-balasingh

In this episode, I'm resharing my recent guest appearance on Dylan Ciaccio's "B2B Strategy" podcast. Episode Highlights:• The big problem with lead gen forms• How to run LinkedIn ads that actually generate revenue (not just ‘leads’ that don’t show up for calls)• How you can use your organic LinkedIn content to maximize ROI from ads

In this episode of SaaS Marketing Superstars podcast, Eden Bidani teaches how she uses Conversion Copywriter to help B2B SaaS companies to increase conversions, acquire more customers and grow revenue with clearer messaging.Episode Highlights - Her ideal clients and how she helps them with their messaging (0:44) - How SaaS companies can clarify their messaging when communicating with their customers (3:55) - Getting access to key stakeholders of companies and their customers to get their view of the product (7:29) - How to make sure that companies positioning statement and strategic narrative are used in the right places (10:25)- Shortening sales cycles with video testimonials (14:29)- The two key elements companies must focus on to excel in their messaging and communication (17:17)- How she has unlocked LinkedIn to grow her business (21:07) - Her system for publishing content consistently (23:41) - Favorite books, apps and business leaders (27:55) Check out the show notes and get links to all the resources mentioned in this episode here: https://aaronzakowski.com/podcast-conversion-copywriting-eden-bidani

In this episode of SaaS Marketing Superstars podcast, Aaron is talking about his recent decision to close down his marketing agency, Zammo Digital.Episode Highlights:• Why I decided to close Zammo Digital now• How I got burnt out and self-sabotaged my business• How G-d is guiding me to bigger and better opportunities• What I'm looking to do nextCheck out the show notes and get links to all the resources mentioned in this episode here: https://aaronzakowski/podcast-why-i-closed-my-marketing-agency