I write about organic growth, A/B testing, data analysis, and the occasional life reflection. Subscribe for a monthly roundup of posts, recommendations, and a personal note you won't find on the blog.
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“Kmart has plenty of awareness, so what?” -Purple Cow by Seth Godin I hear the term “brand awareness” all the time, but to be honest, I don’t really know what it means. On its surface, it’s somewhat obvious: it’s the amount of people who know about your brand. But that simple, stupid Google search definition … Read more
Content creation has a cost, both directly and indirectly. Knowing that cost lets you make better business decisions (and choose what to read)
Content marketing strategy is something few companies do well. This is something I’ve focused on for years, mostly because all the companies I’ve worked for, from super early stage startups to HubSpot where I work now, have been largely supported by content marketing (in one way or another). However, each company’s content marketing strategy was … Read more
New Year’s Resolutions™ are overrated, but time-based goals are nice, and so are general life reflections. I find it’s valuable to put them in writing and in public, mostly for reference and reflection down the line. I did one last year, and in 2017 as well. 2018 Was a Good Year (Recap) 2018 was an … Read more
A/B testing (aka split testing or online controlled experiments) is hard. It’s sometimes billed as a magic tool that spits out a decisive answer. It’s not. It’s a randomized controlled trial, albeit online and with website visitors or users, and it’s reliant upon proper statistical practices. At the same time, I don’t think we should … Read more
How do you model and predict growth (and growth opportunities)? There’s all this talk about “growth models” and “growth modeling” but not much talk about how to build them and get value from them. As with many things, it’s easy to see why they’re important, but hard to put them into action. This post covers … Read more
“There ain’t no such thing as free lunch.” – Milton Friedman (among others throughout recent history) This will be piece inspired by a recent BuzzFeed article that outed contributors at “trustworthy” publications like Forbes, HuffPo, and Inc. To recap the piece: Forbes and others operate using a free contributor model. In addition, their editorial stringency … Read more
I’m not an OG Austinite, but I’ve been here long enough to have had dozens of visitors come through and ask, “what do I definitely need to do while I’m in Austin for the weekend?” After having answered the question similarly each time, I decided to write down what I would consider an optimal weekend … Read more
Capturing email leads is one of the primary goals of most content marketing programs. The money’s in the list, you get a million dollars back for every dollar you invest in email marketing, yada yada yada all the cherry picked statistics. Anyway, you know it’s important or you wouldn’t have found your way here. The … Read more
I think I’m pretty good at email outreach. I’ve done a bunch of it, for a variety of reasons from link building to strategic partnerships to simply wanting to meet up for caffeinated beverages, and have had pretty good success in general. One time, I even had an unexpected case study written up about my … Read more