Carol Howley

"We are starting to define our target audiences, not as the people who could potentially buy our product, but those people who are prepared to engage with us in at high speed in low cost media." What does this mean for the long form content? Is this why nothing else matters except ranking as a brand in GPT? https://lnkd.in/dHhQxMuM #marketing #advertising #b2bmarketing

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This week Julie Fry shared her incredible insights on the Bountifull Podcast about the true essence of ambition and its impact on our lives. 🔥 Julie Fry is a renowned consulting economist and multi-time author, deeply passionate about understanding and harnessing ambition. 💡 Groundbreaking work with Ambition New Zealand 🌿 Balancing a high-powered career with personal fulfillment 🛠 Addressing persistent social disadvantages with tailored solutions Here are my key takeaways from our conversation 👇 1. Ambition’s Universal Quality: Ambition is inherent in all of us, driving us to strive for "just manageable difficulties" regardless of our circumstances. 2. Embracing the Restlessness to Productivity 3. Navigating Personal Loss: Julie’s honest account of dealing with her father’s recent passing highlights the critical role of community support and resilience. 4. Balancing Professional and Personal Life: Transitioning from a high-powered career to raising a family, reflecting on societal perceptions and personal fulfillment. 5. Importance of Contribution: Contributions come in many forms, from professional achievements to everyday acts of kindness that create lasting impacts. 6. Addressing Social Challenges: Designing social systems to meet the needs of the most vulnerable requires tailored, trust-based approaches. 7. Economic Insights: Understanding both micro and macroeconomic impacts on daily life provides a comprehensive economic perspective. Ambition isn’t just for CEOs, founders, or sports stars—it’s part of all of us. It’s up to each of us to figure out where to point it and how to harness it. This episode a must-listen for anyone aiming to live a bountiful life, have a bountiful career, and wanting to contribute to a bountiful and equitable society. 🎧 Listen now: https://lnkd.in/gebhrUNY #Podcast #Ambition #Contribution

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🎤 CEO Conference Speaking Horror Stories: What’s Yours? 💼 With marketing budgets shrinking, securing free visibility through speaking engagements is more crucial than ever. But it’s not always smooth sailing. Here are some of the worst nightmares I’ve faced when pitching or supporting my CEO's speaking gigs: 🔥 Disjointed Strategy: Our CEO says "yes" to a low-tier event, and we scramble to back out gracefully without burning bridges. 🤯 Lost Trust: We secure a prime spot, but the CEO hates the conference, making future pitches a harder sell. 😡 Visibility Wars: We neglected pitching speaking opportunities amongst competing priorities, only to face the CEO’s wrath when a competitor hogs the spotlight. 😓 Side-Stage Woes: Land a slot at a hot conference, but it’s a side-stage gig at a terrible time. 😬 Panel Pitfalls: The CEO ends up on a panel with a competitor, and we didn’t prep enough, resulting in a disastrous showing. ⏳ Wasted Time: Sent the CEO to a conference without maximizing his schedule, leading to frustration and missed opportunities. What’s your worst horror story? Share in the comments!👇 For a deep dive into creating a holistic speaking program (complete with tracking templates) and maximizing conference impact, check out my recent blogs at carilu dot com. Links in the comments. Let’s turn these horror stories into success stories! 💪 #Speaking #Conferences #Marketing #CMO #CEO #Founder

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When was the last time a B2B campaign truly resonated with you? If you’re struggling to recall, that’s a big issue. In B2B marketing, 60% of UK ads and 54% of US ads leave viewers feeling NOTHING – completely neutral. Neutrality in B2B marketing is a silent killer. It doesn’t inspire, persuade, or engage, and it’s costing companies millions in lost opportunities and effectiveness. While B2C brands can often afford to be emotional, B2B tends to play it safe. But emotion matters just as much – maybe more – in B2B. If your campaigns aren't sparking a response, they aren’t building a relationship with your audience. Don't be part of the snoozefest statistic and let's have a chat about how to grow your marketing effectiveness... #B2BMarketing #BrandEngagement #MarketingEffectiveness #DemandGeneration The CMO Syndicate

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Monday morning reminder 📢 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐲. So, ❌ rather focusing on what will get the most likes, ✅ focus on what message will engage your ICP the most. More than this though, with the positive dopamine hits we get from the engagement pings on posts, there's also a downside So why did Instagram start to move away from LIKES on posts - 😊 Impact on 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡: removing likes can improve mental health by reducing the pressure to get likes and the urge to check the like count. 🎨 Impact on 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲: removing the need to get the most likes can lead to people being more experimental and increasing creativity This is a clip from a super interesting conversation I had with the incredible Yang Lu-Bourner on her new podcast - we talked everything from sustainable growth to the use of AI in marketing. Let me know what you think 👇

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Just read an interesting article and white paper about how Ai content ranks lower than human-made content on search... so this is from my head not Ai... for the record. Anyway, enough of robots and algorithms, I had a lovely chat the other day with a friend of mine who is thinking of starting a business and we got onto the subject of value (my passion in business) it came about when I did my little talk on what business is, that basic exchange of value. Someone goes to work, earns some money and then makes a decision to exchange that money for something else. If you're lucky, they come to you, and exchange their hard-earned money into something you are selling, a service or a product. This value exchange happens when they have built up the courage and trust that you are the right person /company for the job, based on research, recommendations, brand, price, aesthetic, many many reasons. They're convinced, that, the exchange of their money for what you are selling is worth it. But... deep down they're still a bit scared, will it work (product), will the food be nice (restaurant), will I get what I paid for? Do I even want it!!! Over time, their value exchange with you will settle, and they will either be happy, unhappy or disappointed with their choice. Of course, as business people, we all want them to be happy, so they go off as advocates, telling their friends, and more importantly, coming back for more. Everyones happy. So what's the point of this little story? Well its that the value you deliver for that monetary exchange exists through the entire buyer journey, from research (past advocates) to how you present and convince (marketing) to the actual product or service they receive (experience). Is it as good as they are expecting? Can it be any better? Have we smashed it out of the park for them? The exchange of value is not just the transaction, it is the experience, the delivery, the being part of the brand/tribe/gang, the badge value, the telling your friends you made a great choice... it's the entire end to end relationship you have with your customers. So it's pretty important (I told my friend) you get it ALL right. He agreed. Which was nice.

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Following on from my popular post about ageism last week, and all the reasons we need to be actively including 50 and 60 year olds in the workforce, it shouldn't be surprising that we are still having to have a conversation about bringing women into the workforce. But it is. According to Axios - reiterating the point that the global labor pool is on a shrinking trend - they point out: 📢 "In the U.S. and UK, the share of women employees in tech and finance has declined steadily since the 2008 financial crisis. The bottom line: "Women's contribution to the economy has changed a lot in the last quarter century," Bell says. "The gains have been great, but the distance to cover is still big."" We know that many women quit the workforce during the pandemic to look after children who were out of school and childcare. Doesn't appear that we have been able to lure them all back. Again, not a surprise, given the many headwinds that career women have to face. C'mon folks, we can do way better than this. I know of so many accomplished women, who are past child-bearing years, empty nesters, and eagerly looking for work, and not being readily considered. We just have to start widening our lens and looking at things differently. There are solutions everywhere if you change your mindset. #hiring #womenatwork

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According to Marketing Week, bridging the skills gaps marketeers suffer from focusses overly on junior and middle management and not so much on senior leaders. The figure quoted of 1 in 10 CMOs feeling they don't have the right skills to perform is I suspect much higher! Why? Because Marketing is a set of skills in its own right. Mastering it takes decades. Let alone trying to upskill in digital, data and tech on top. So, CMOs, you are graciously invited into the data "training room" too! And with private one-on-one coaching available, no one needs to know:) DM me or visit www.dataforthecmo.com Also, if it makes you feel better, the same applies to CEOs!

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It is only 1 week away and really looking forward to meeting fellow Channel Marketers and at the London Partner Pulse unconference and hearing thoughts and getting insights from their perspectives. See you there! #partnermarketing #Channelmarketing #B2B

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My #1 tip for Enterprise marketing leaders going to digitalisation? Don't let outdated tools hold your marketing teams back. Here’s why: You won’t attract the best team and talent (Candidates will ask which tools your team uses in early stages and make determination of how much you’re investing in that part of the business). If no one on the team is asking for a tool, the bar is higher for you as a leader. (Shelfware costs businesses billions each year). Read this guide to learn how tools for AI-enabled automation and integrated insights can supercharge your marketing tech stack and boost team productivity.

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I really enjoyed the talk from Adam Ryan and Jacob Donnelly at the #OX7 Idea Exchange, brought to you by Omeda. Pretty forceful CTA from those two for B2B media owners to create better content, with more unique voices. Easier said than done, of course — but crucially important. I also wonder: so what if your content is awesome if it's packaged in a way that is hard to access (e.g. slow website, poor design, poor experiences on different devices). That perspective has to be a part of the conversation. Come see us at the conference if you want to talk shop — I'm here with my Organic colleagues: Tom Imboden Justin DeMaris, and kendra gauntlett. Next up: using Zapier to improve lead scoring.

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What Does Marketing Even Do? A question that's been asked on many calls and on-sites I've attended recently. Justifying the marketing budget is currently the biggest concern as we approach the second half of the year. ⚒ Ops practitioners have seen tech budgets shrink, and we’re now doing more with less. 👨‍💼 Marketing leaders are tasked with proving marketing spend is worth it and showing tangible downstream effects. The GNW Consulting RevOps Framework was created for the marketer, by marketers! It's designed to show how practitioners contribute to company goals and how marketing leaders can justify their budgets. Check out this quick video on the framework breakdown. Download your copy (link in comments) and show off the impact you have as a Marketer! #MarketingStrategy #RevOps #Leadership #Budgeting #MarketingROI #B2BMarketing #OpsExcellence

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Introducing BuytoGive, a groundbreaking online marketplace in the UK that is changing the way we shop and give back. Sellers on BuytoGive donate up to 35% of their sale fee to a charity chosen by the buyer, making each purchase a meaningful contribution to a good cause. Here's why BuytoGive is a game-changer: - Access to over 100,000 UK online shops, including those already present on major marketplaces like eBay and Amazon. - Over 190,000 UK charities benefiting from innovative fundraising solutions. - A unique business model with no direct competition in the UK market. - Every purchase results in a donation, offering shoppers a feel-good factor. - Direct donations with a minimal transaction fee of just 1.2%, made possible through a partnership with Stripe. Additionally, BuytoGive's associated site, WorktoGive.co.uk, promotes corporate social responsibility by fostering employee engagement and facilitating payroll giving. Partner charities receive an exceptional marketing toolkit to support their fundraising efforts. Noteworthy is the leadership of Sir Rodney Walker, our esteemed non-executive Chairman, recognized with the Freedom of the City of London in November 2021 for his outstanding contributions to sports and charity. With around £40 million raised for various UK charities, especially in Yorkshire, Sir Rodney brings a wealth of experience and dedication to the cause. For more information on how you can be part of this impactful initiative, reach out to Mark at +4407736157050. #BuytoGive #OnlineShopping #Charity #CSR #Fundraising #UKMarketplace

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I could not agree with this analysis more. PMMs are basically mini CMOs. You must own the world of your particular product if at a larger company with multiple products, or if at a smaller company you are the Swiss army knife - but your top priority is to 1. know the customer better than anyone else and feed that information into all directions the job takes you. and 2. know the product to a depth where you can match the two together and translate for anyone - dev, customers, c-levels, product, strategy, what is needed and what the value is in their 'speak'. Best job ever but not an easy one.

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Publishing content consistently on your podcast is by far the biggest challenge you will face. Most podcasts have a couple of episodes published before gathering dust. With Trend Detection, we’re now up to 2 episodes published a week and loads more in the backlog. This is how we do it 👇 🎙️ Proactive recording - Dont wait until you run out of episodes to publish before recording more. Keep recording at every chance you get to give yourself a nice bank of episodes. 🎙️ Invite guests back - Most of our guests have been on our podcast multiple times and have provided amazing value, so why not invite them back on? 🎙️ Repurposing - Any presentation that’s recorded at an event or any webinar we do, is then turned into podcast episodes. We call it juicing the fruit! 🎙️ Create robust process - With so much content being recorded by internal and external guests, it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks. Create a process for tracking podcast episodes from the initial idea to recording then publishing/distribution. We use a JIRA board to track everything. #marketing #b2bmarketing #podcasting

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Just wrapped up a very meta meeting with Jake Heinl-Powell at the LinkedIn HQ, complete with a tour of their sleek offices and a stunning rooftop view of London. From discussing content strategy, coaching and executive search to the rebrand of Twitter - what were they thinking?! - we covered it all. Oh, and did I mention I got my obligatory photo in front of the LinkedIn logo? #meta #LinkedIn #contentstrategy #businessdevelopment #headquarters

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Some awesome tips on Account-based Marketing from Karine Regev. Marketing into large organisations is complex and hard to measure. These ideas use data to make it less of a lottery.

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One of my favourite interview questions is, "What have you been doing since you left your last job?" As well as job seeking, a bit of journalism, and setting up my marketing business Its been my very great pleasure to work with entrepreneur and AI-start up CEO Jamie Loudon with his launch and go-to-market programme for Campaigns Never Die. Campaigns Never Die is a Dungeons & Dragons AI-start up designed to help Dungeon Masters build and manage every aspect of their campaigns. It has a World creator, the ability to create encounters (short adventures), adventures (Dungeons etc.), monster creation, non-player character NPC creation and other fantastic tools for the time-pressed Dungeon Master. What I love about the platform that Jamie has created is that it feels so comprehensive and intuitive. It feels like a fully-rounded toolset, and this is just the early release. The other thing that has impressed me is how the Generative AI is able to inject humour into the creations. During a dog-walk one morning we created a "Grumpy Teenager Monster" which among other attributes had the ability to say, "Whatever" to any magic attack which would then be negated. As the father of three "grumpy" teenage girls I'm subjected to the "Whatever" attack everytime I ask them to do the washing up. For those people, like me, who grew up reading Douglas Adams, I think you'll appreciate the humour of www.campaignsneverdie.com. Behind this very slick Dungeons & Dragons platform is some incredibly sophisticated GenAI development and engineering. Jamie has an incredible depth of knowledge around GenAI. He has uncovered some interesting restrictions with some of the AI Large Language Models (LLMs) and had to move LLM for the launch. He also found some real skills gaps with AI engineers and developers not really having the skills and knowledge to push the boundaries of GenAI. I've really enjoyed working with Jamie and I shall be digging into more details of the platform and its capabilities. Basically, it is designed to help time-poor Dungeon Masters to create and manage campaigns quickly and effectively so that people can spend their time playing role-playing games (RPGs) rather than time writing and preparing. D&D is already experiencing something of a renaissance following lockdown where people started playing online and Stranger Things Season 5 is going to drive interest even further. Campaigns Never Die will soon be on kickstarter. While it may not be the next UK unicorn ($1bn company) it will include unicorns :-) Watch this space! #AI #dungeonsanddragons #innovation

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These were my parting words to the girls yesterday at St Mary's School, Cambridge Juniors leaving and speech day, where I shared some of my learnings from work with Space Generation Advisory Council and The Planetary Society: “I need you to know one thing: we live in incredible times. Today, we have the means to speed up progress in anything we apply our minds to. In your lifetime, you will see tremendous things. Now, every week, we have new images of the farthest-away galaxies from the James Webb Space Telescope. It is just the start of the amazing discoveries we will see unfold. **In the next year, an all-women crew will lift off to space. ** You’ll see not only new incremental discoveries but true mind-blowing leaps. **The first person to walk on Mars is alive today. ** You will see that happen, and many of you will make it happen. You could even be that person. That explorer that will open new worlds to humanity. It is difficult to say what is impossible. So, begin bold.” I welcome you all to walk into the new week too, knowing we live in incredible times (even when some things may not leave us feeling that way).

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