Let’s say you‘re the CMO of a scrappy startup, and you’ve got limited (or no) budget. You’ve got no name recognition, and no time to waste. So, where do you start to make the biggest impact?

There’s no way around it — every business needs to drive leads to grow.

A writer who (gasp) used AI to help write? Before you clutch your pearls in my direction, know this — AI, when used as a tool and a creative collaborator, is a fantastic way to brainstorm, outline, and yep, even organize and polish my ideas.

The other day, I was reading a blog post when something caught my eye: a section about how to create a landing page to promote offers like a free ebook. Naturally, I clicked the link. It took me to a clean, focused page that broke down what the ebook included, how to get it, and why it was worth checking out.

I see a lot of marketing teams stuck in the same cycle: They believe in content. They’re creating constantly. But, they’re just not seeing the results they want. Add that the CEO is asking why the competitor is “suddenly everywhere.”

We all know AI assistants can help with marketing tasks. But, here's what most people are missing: Using AI as a prompt engineer is where the real productivity gains happen.

I’m a teacher, so I’m now used to the faces of students who are scared to learn. More specifically, they’re scared to fail to learn. It’s ingrained early in our studies — As are good, Fs are bad, and you’d better learn the right answers before time runs out.

With the global revenue for AI in marketing pegged at over $107.5 billion by 2028, there is no doubt that AI in content marketing will (and may already) be an integral part of the digital marketing landscape.

LinkedIn might be the most underrated growth channel in marketing right now. I‘ve been obsessing over this lately. While everyone’s fighting for attention on every other platform, LinkedIn remains a place where smart marketers can still build massive audiences without burning through ad budget.

Like many buyers in America today, I cringe whenever I swipe my credit card. Amid a “shifting economic landscape” (read: messy economic times), we’re all watching our wallets, trying to keep spending down, and questioning where our dollars go. And it’s not just consumers — businesses, too, are monitoring budgets and seeking better deals.

If you’ve ever stared down a sea of bland AI content and whispered, “Is this my job now?”, you’ll enjoy this master's take: "The amount of blog posts that are written with AI is at an all-time high… And all of it is trash."

You know that moment when you stumble on a brilliant growth tactic hidden in a Reddit thread or buried deep in a comment section? That's the kind of stuff I live for.

In 2020, I interviewed Andrea Lisbona for Forbes about her less than two-year-old hand sanitizer brand, Touchland. The pandemic was wreaking havoc and the very green startup needed to act quickly and smartly.

A few years ago, I was head of content at a health insurance company — a role that required a team of full-time employees and freelancers to get the job done. But once ChatGPT hit the scene, I realized I could strike out on my own.

With 66% of marketers globally using artificial intelligence in their roles, it's no longer a matter of if you should use AI but how. How are other marketers (and your competition) using AI? How can you use AI ethically?

When clients first started asking me to handle their social media, I figured the image part would be easy. Create one clean graphic, upload it across platforms, and the tools would adjust everything automatically.

Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success.

Look, we‘ve all been there — you know your website could be converting better, but figuring out exactly what to fix feels like solving a Rubik’s cube blindfolded. You‘re running A/B tests, analyzing heat maps, and guessing at what’s actually going to move the needle.

“I tried using AI for our marketing content, but it just doesn't sound like us.”

I’ve been in content marketing for about eight years, and I’ll tell you this golden nugget of truth for free: You can’t cheat your way to success in this game. And that’s especially true regarding marketing on a highly visual platform like Instagram.

Every few years, a new channel takes center stage — short-form video, podcasting, or AI-generated content — and people start asking the same question: “Are blogs dead?”

 
Since late 2024, major players in the chatbot game have been rolling out a deep research feature designed to provide what they call “expert-level analysis.”

Welcome to
Breaking the Blueprint
— a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your success.


This piece is in collaboration with HubSpot Podcast Network’s Amplifying Voices campaign partnership with The Gathering Spot.

Pretty landing page examples are nice to look at, but let’s be real: You want yours to convert well — which is exactly what these landing page examples do.

LinkedIn is full of narcissists, and I have the data to prove it.

One of the hardest parts of our three-lesson format is deciding what NOT to include, and a lot of really useful advice is gathering dust in my Google Drive.

Time is money in marketing, so why not use AI workflows to boost productivity? I spoke with some of my colleagues at HubSpot, and they say they've found workflows that maximize their productivity, save time, and act as the perfect automated assistant.

My transformation from serving customers to nurturing a community didn't happen overnight. It started with a crisis. Gymshark’s infamous Black Friday 2015 catastrophe happened during my first week: Our website crashed on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

In February, OpenAI gave a two-minute demonstration at a private event in Tokyo. The demo didn’t stay quiet for long. It set off a firestorm in the sales industry.

Running a marketing agency used to mean juggling a small army of freelancers, risking missed deadlines, and spending more time managing people than creating content and building strategies.

When I stepped into my role as head of content at Gong, I didn't come with a decade of marketing experience. I came with a sales background and a whole lot of time spent chasing leads. That experience turned out to be my unfair advantage.

You might know your Instagram content is good, but imagine how much better it will seem if it looks like 10,000 people agree.

I’ll never forget the first time someone asked me for a marketing performance update. I had six messy spreadsheets open, no clear narrative, and no KPI dashboard to tie it all together.

When I started working with B2B companies, I quickly realized that understanding how your customers make purchasing decisions is just as important as knowing your product inside and out. This is where a B2B buyer journey map becomes an invaluable asset.

Image editing used to mean opening Photoshop, wading through complex tools, and spending hours on tedious fixes. I've been there. It was frustrating and a massive bottleneck.

Writing with clarity means making your content easy to read and understand. If your audience can’t grasp what you’re trying to say, what’s the point?