Episode Summary
Taking the reins of an established marketing team shouldn’t mean throwing out everything that’s come before. Put the hard work of your predecessors to good use.
Adam Lambert joined scheduling software company Calendly as its Senior Content and Digital Marketing Manager in January 2020. He spent his first three months studying what his team had achieved before his arrival.
“Customer service was really strong: people had good resources to answer current customer questions. So I didn’t have to spend a lot of time with current customers, compared with connecting with people who might find this tool useful,” he says.
Adam identifies content marketing — especially video — as one of the strongest mediums for getting word out about your product.
In this episode of Tech Qualified, Adam tells Tristan Pelligrino why and how marketers should put their time and budget into video.
“The money doesn’t hurt as bad when you’re getting 12 pieces of content. You’re making this video, a transcript and a blog about this video, and you’re doing thought leadership because you’re going to share clips,” he says. “You’re doing a lot more than the one deliverable that’s laid out on the contract.”
Guest Profile
- Name: Adam Lambert
- What he does: Adam spent a few years in the emerging tech hub on Utah’s Silicon Slopes and is now the senior content and digital marketing manager at Calendly, where his focus has been reaching new customers through content marketing, especially video.
- Company: Calendly
- Noteworthy: Adam started out as a copywriter and he still takes the time to hone his writing skills, which he believes give him a leg up in marketing. Outside work, he spends time on his own creative writing projects.
Key Insights
- Invest in video. People use YouTube like a search engine, so you need to have a presence on the platform. You don’t have to spend a fortune: look within your own team for budding scriptwriters and videographers. Use the finished video to generate other types of content, such as a transcript, a blog post, clips you can share.
- When you’re starting a new job, spend most of your time listening. That means jumping on sales calls or customer service calls. Look at the work your predecessors have done. It’s the best way to understand what’s been achieved already, what’s been missed, and how you can move the marketing strategy forward. Compiling existing data can reveal stats others have overlooked which you can use in internal and outbound marketing.
- Set one big goal per quarter. Three months sounds like a lot of time when it’s the start of the year or of the quarter and you’re bursting with big ideas. But if you load yourself with too many projects, you’ll struggle to deliver to the best of your ability. Choose one ambitious goal instead. For example, commit to creating a certain number of videos, or introducing a new color to the brand, or promoting the company in a specific number of interviews. You’re making progress without feeling overwhelmed.
Episode Highlights
- No more wasting time finding time
- Personalize messaging even if customers have the same end goal
- Listening to your customers sets you up to win
- Great content gets straight to the point
- Your video dream team might already be working for you
