The music industry has had to deal with serious shifts in the way people pay for music. The result, artists needing to get more creative than ever to give their fans an experience.

Cormac McGee (aka. DJ Deadweight) joins me to discuss the ins and the outs of getting your music heard. Even if you don’t have a musical bone in your body, this episode has tons of tactics you can model in your work.

We pull back the curtain of the music industry and chat about:

Playlist Brokers (Or The Reason You Hear Certain Artists on Spotify)

How to Market Your Music to Your 3 Most Important Customers

The Formula Top Stars Use to Launch a New Song (and Get Triple The Streams)

To get a behind the scene look at the making of this podcast, and other exclusive content, go to stewarthillhouse.com/topofmind

You can connect with Cormac McGee (https://www.djdeadweight.com/) through his site and Instagram (www.instagram.com/cormac.mcgee)

Get on the email list at topofmind.substack.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/topofmind/message

For how much time we spend working in our lives, we sure are terrible at talking about it with others. Terry Schilling breaks down the exact framework he uses before any copywriting project to get his clients speaking clearly about their value.

We talk about:

Why you need to be very specific when writing on the internet

How to discover who your ideal customer is

What you need to consider when creating a brand voice

And so much more!

Check out Terry’s three step guide we talk about in this episode here: https://www.terryschillingwrites.com/howtowritewhatyoudo

Get on the email list at topofmind.substack.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/topofmind/message

How do you know if you company has a bad name? When your accountant tells you you’re not making enough money.

Louise Karch (a.k.a. The Name Whisperer) joins me to give a Masterclass on naming.

We cover:

The two most important questions you need to ask when testing a new name

How the sounds we hear influence our emotions

How to take advantage of our brains wiring to stand out in a crowd

And so much more!

Her award winning book: Word Glue - How To Find Your Million Dollar Brand Name (https://www.wordglue.co/) will help to guide you and your team on your next Name Storming session.

Get on the email list at topofmind.substack.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/topofmind/message

My guest today, Taylor Harrington,  makes sure that we get our daily dose of Seth Godin marketing insights as the Director of Digital Marketing at Seth Godin’s Akimbo Workshops. 

She believes that we're on the brink of something truly magical when it comes to digital communities and connections. We discuss:

What makes a healthy online community?

Does Imposter Sydrome ever go away?

The future of social networks.

How Seth Godin's teams thinks about content creation.

And so much more.

You can say hi to Taylor on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-harrington/)  be sure to mention this episode.

Get on the email list at topofmind.substack.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/topofmind/message

Daniel Englebretson talks us through the tactics and techniques of how to pull off an effective account-based marketing strategy.

We jump into:

How to identify your ideal customers (and build a list for free)

What kind of marketing content you should be creating to get the right kind of attention

Where you should be spending your energy and efforts

And so much more!

Daniel Englebretson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielenglebretson/) is an accomplished B2B marketing expert with an impressive track record. His marketing agency Khronos (https://khronos.agency/) works with businesses to generate return on their marketing investments.

Get on the email list at topofmind.substack.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/topofmind/message

What brands come to mind for these product categories: electric vehicle, tissue, ketchup.

I’d be willing to bet you said Tesla, Kleenex, and Heinz. That’s because those three brands all own the categories in which they compete.

And what better way to dominate your category than by creating it yourself!

In this episode, I’m joined by category designers Kevin Maney (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinmaney/) and Mike Damphousse (https://www.linkedin.com/in/damphoux/).

Kevin co-authored the Category Creator handbook, Play Bigger, and has written extensively on the topic for Fortune, Fast Company, and The Atlantic.

Mike is an experienced sales and marketing executive with two decades worth of experience and numerous businesses under his belt.

Together, they are the founders of Category Design Advisors (https://www.categorydesignadvisors.com/).

Get on the email list at topofmind.substack.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/topofmind/message

Over the last few years, thousands of business to business (B2B) software platforms and tools have emerged. Each promise huge returns in exchange for their large price tags.

Jay Baron (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaysbaron/) joins me today to re-think how much we should be replying on these tools to get our marketing done.

He goes deep into:

Why you need to simplify your marketing tech stack (and get rid of some tools)

How to fix the bottom of your funnel to get conversions

His thoughts on how to use webinars as a live sales call

And so much more.

As always, Tweet me at https://twitter.com/stew_hillhouse to suggest guests or topics you’d like for upcoming shows.

Get on the email list at topofmind.substack.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/topofmind/message

If you’re reading this right now, I’m going to assume that you’re pretty bought into the whole podcasting thing. But not everyone has caught on yet, which makes it an opportune time to get started growing your business with a podcast.

Erik Jacobson is the founder of Lemonpie (https://lemonpie.fm/), a full service podcast company. Previously, he assembled one of the best collections of business podcasts ever called Startup Mixtape (https://www.startupmixtape.fm/).

In this discussion we cover:

Why every business should consider starting a podcast (for internal and external reasons).

What are some new business models that are evolving in the podcast space.

How Erik strategizes a podcast launch to reach the ideal audience.

And so much more. As always, let me know who you’d like to see on the show next by reaching out to me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/stew_hillhouse).

Get on the email list at topofmind.substack.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/topofmind/message

Public relations often spark images of Spin Doctors, 1970’s advertisers (think Mad Men), or Olivia Pope rushing in to save the President from a media frenzy.

Liz Duff joins me to explain why that’s just not true by debunking The 5 Misconceptions around PR. She also lays out the strategy that she’s using at SalesRight (https://salesright.co/) to get the founder tons of earned media through being a podcast guest.

PR and marketing are not the same thing - but if you can learn to do both, you’ll be able to earn more traffic than you’ll know what to do with!

Get on the email list at topofmind.substack.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/topofmind/message

When you’re tasked with understanding the needs of over 40M monthly unique visitors, you develop a skill for figuring out what kind of content people want to see.

Previously, Jim Thompson was the Chief Audience Officer at Billboard Media Group, managing the audience across properties like Billboard Top 100, The Hollywood Reporter, Spin, Vibe, and Stereogum (https://www.billboard.com/). He is now the Analytics Advisor to Team Gary Vaynerchuck (https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/).

We chat about:

How to ask better questions

What exactly is Small Data?

Where he sees media moving in 3 years

Enjoy!

Get on the email list at topofmind.substack.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/topofmind/message