In this debut episode of 'Dear Marketers,' Host Emily Kramer is joined by Jenny Thai, Head of Content at Vanta, and Grace Erickson, VP of Revenue at Cocoon. Together they answer the question: "How do I handle marketing requests?"They share strategies for prioritizing these requests, underscoring the significance of setting clear goals, aligning with other teams, and understanding the motivations behind each request. Additionally, the episode provides insights on managing request processes, with tips on internal marketing and communication. Wrapping up with entertaining anecdotes of outrageous past requests, the hosts offer both practical advice and humor to guide marketers through similar challenges.

Dear Marketers is produced by MKT1 & Caspian Studios in partnership with Typeform.

About our co-hostsEmily Kramer is the creator of MKT1 Newsletter, a marketing advisor, and an investor. She previously led and built marketing teams from the ground up at Asana, Carta, Astro (acquired by Slack), and Ticketfly. She’s helped hundreds of startups with B2B marketing, has over 50,000 subscribers on Substack, and has reached millions through her content. Kramer’s  known for her pragmatic advice, first principles approach to marketing, and her “krameworks”. When not marketing “marketing”, you can find her with her dogs in Oakland, CA or eating ice cream on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.

Jenny Thai is a marketing leader with 15 years of content and storytelling experience at high-growth B2B startups. She currently leads content at Vanta where she’s building full-funnel programs to fuel brand and business growth. Before that, Jenny was Director of Communications + Content at Clearbit and Head of Content at Asana where she scaled the content team and function from Series C to post-DPO. When she’s not thinking about doing some content, Jenny enjoys reading books, eating noodles, and playing skee ball. 

Grace Erickson is a true marketing generalist with 10 years of experience in B2B startups, spanning functions like growth, brand, product marketing, and most things in between. She's currently the VP of Revenue at Cocoon, a Series A employee leave management platform. Prior to Cocoon, Grace led marketing programs at Asana, Carta, and Cleo in various roles, but always with a focus on an integrated customer journey. Besides being a marketing nerd, Grace spends her time coming up with (but not executing) elaborate schemes and browsing Zillow.This episode also features Sandy Mangat, Head of Marketing at Pocus, the AI prospecting platform for building high-quality pipeline, asking us “How do you handle marketing requests?”

Quotes

” When you are getting lots of random requests, ask why. Try to get to the request behind the request to figure out what exactly people are trying to solve. That usually leads you down a line of questioning that gets you to the actual problem that needs to be solved. And then maybe you already have a solution. You don't actually have to do the request.” - Jenny Thai

” A request coming from your CEO is always going to be treated differently than a request coming from an SDR. And that's just how the world works, and to pretend it doesn't work that way is setting everyone up for failure. And so the sooner you can figure out what the rules are for different people, the sooner you can actually move forward.” - Grace Erickson

” I think sometimes founder requests also come in the form of like, ‘Let's run X company's playbook. It worked for them. So why aren't we doing it?’ So a lot of it is internal education too. So first understand what your founder thinks marketing is, but then part of your job is to explain that there're other ways to approach this problem. And it's not just running whatever startup's playbook worked for them.” - Jenny Thai

” I think the best defense against requests is setting goals. You definitely need shared goals and it's the only way you can actually make the right decisions and actually have the why that's so important to give to people.” - Emily Kramer

Time stamps

[00:00] Meet Jenny Thai, Head of Content at Vanta, and Grace Erickson, VP of Marketing & Partnerships at Cocoon

[00:58] Question from Sandy Mangat, Head of Marketing at POCUS: How do I handle marketing requests?

[02:00] Initial Reactions to the Question and Advice

[04:40] Importance of Setting Goals

[07:08] Building Internal Relationships

[12:57] Understanding Team Motivations

[16:59] Sharing and Aligning Goals

[31:21] Handling Absurd Requests

[33:25] Legal Involvement

[34:13] Brand Campaign Challenges

[35:02] Managing Request Processes

[38:15] Balancing Feedback

[43:56] Internal Marketing and Communication

[51:32] Lessons Learned

Recommended products & agencies in this episode

Typeform - Use code “MKT1” for 20% off the Growth Plan

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Ahrefs

Caspian Studios

Connect with: 

Emily KramerGrace EricksonJenny ThaiSandy Mangat

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