In Episode 6 of Tools of the Trade, I get the opportunity to chat with Geoff Atkinson, Founder and CEO of the SEO software company, Huckabuy.”

This podcast was actually the first time that we had met; and there was so much value in this 30 minute chat, that I'm so pleased we did.

We discussed Geoff's journey from starting at the ground level doing Email marketing for Overstock.com, ended up as their SVP of Marketing, and how he took that experience into the creation of his own business, Huckabuy.

We went deep into the importance of SEO, and how an understanding of the technical elements of SEO and podcasting have been key to building Huckabuy and landing clients like Concur, SAP and Salesforce. 

If you want to hear what it's like going from the comfort of a paycheck to running your own business or feel like you need to understand the technical elements and benefits of SEO further, you won want to miss this episode! 

I've long followed the growth of Buzzsumo and have personally known James for a couple of years and am thrilled to have him on the podcast. 

James is the co-founder of Buzzsumo, and for those that are not familiar with Buzzsumo and work in digital marketing, that's probably the first order of the day - go and check out a free-trial.

James has built Buzzsumo from launching the concept in 2013, to serving over 3,000 paying customers and then selling the business to Brandwatch, all in the space of 5 years. 

How have they achieved that? 

Content Marketing

It's not been about churning out content, but having a true understanding of what content works and why - going deep when others choose to go wide. It's a strategy they retain to this day. 

This is a must-listen for those with an interest in content marketing and scaling organic marketing channels. 

The joy of working in digital marketing. I'd not met Tracy or even heard of Wishlist Products until Rob and Kennedy of ResponseSuite (from Episode 1 of Tools of the Trade) introduced us. 

Four episodes in and there's not one growth story that is not unique. Tracy has been plugging away at building his business for years, so it's not the runaway success story that you might hear in the media, but it's a story that shows grit, determination and how maintaining focus over the long term gives the best chance of a positive outcome. 

This is a very timely episode, as more businesses realize the value in community and building deeper relationships with their customers, membership sites are becoming increasingly popular.

Tracy's views on the future of marketing are something I can definitely align with. 

Enjoy the episode! 

Creating something from scratch is hard, we all know it. You need a level of determination and an ability to dance with adversity that many people don't have. 

Jason's story about how Quicc.io came to be is a perfect example of this.

Having started out another product idea, Quicc is kind of a happy accident, and wow, how that accident has worked out!

They are capturing an ever-growing need to caption and transcribe videos and having used the product myself for the last few months, it's now become part of my toolkit - allowing me to caption videos in a few minutes and also re-purpose the transcript of the video as a blog. 

In this episode, I chat with Jason about the initial growth of the business, how they are marketing the business and his take on the future of marketing. 

Join the CMO of Wave.Video, Daniel Glickman and myself as we talk about the changing habits of how users buy software, building a community around a product and how to differentiate in a crowded space.

Daniel is a seasoned SaaS marketer, with a fantastically pragmatic view of how to leverage multiple marketing channels. From the importance of SEO, to their mixed success with affiliates, the challenges of unit economics on direct response marketing and a new model of how to work with influencers. 

I could have spoken to Daniel for hours and given how rapidly Wave.Video have grown over the last 3 years, it's well worth a listen, 

Two episodes in and there's already some absolute gold.

A new survey tool? 

Surely MailChimp, TypeForm and all the rest have this market sewn up? 

It's what I thought until I met Rob and Kennedy, the joint owners and founders of ResponseSuite.

Here's why:

1. How they think about surveys has very little to do with the survey itself, more about how to create perfectly personalized communications for your customers.
2. How they'd built a version of the product on Excel to prove and validate the concept of personalization and the results they and their customers saw.
3. How they've bootstrapped the business and have grown without the reliance on paid advertising.

For anyone that wants to improve their marketing outcomes or learn an approach to scaling a software business without burning tons of cash, this podcast is for you.

I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I did recording it.