November / Best of
I spent most the day Friday in budget chats at Buffer. Want to see something cool? This is the breakdown of our marketing expenses in 2019. This is how I propose it might shift in 2020. We've historically leaned quite heavily on people resources for our marketing. It'd be quite a shift to balance it with a bit more advertising, consultants, and tools. Want to know more about our budget? Feel free to reply, and I'll share. I'd love to hear about your 2020 plans, too!
Wishing you a great month ahead!
— Kevan
Marketing
A mental model for thinking of company vision and marketing strategy.
Why your marketing strategy needs a mental model
I wrote this article after spending some time reflecting on how marketing fits within the vision of Buffer and alongside the other area strategies within our company. Hopefully you might find it interesting or helpful for your situation, too.
kevanlee.com
A technical guide to making multitouch attribution happen
Multichannel attribution is kind of like the great while whale: We're always chasing after it, hoping it really does exist. This guide explains the technical implementation of how to actually get it to work.
conversionxl.com
10 ways to become a creative legend
I quite liked this short list of advice for creative leaders (which I think absolutely includes all marketing leaders).
adage.com
Brilliant video / podcast about the fundamentals of growth teams.
The best ways to think about growth at your company
From Y Combinator, this video / podcast covers some of the essential ways to approach growth: levers for early-stage companies, how to build a growth team, and so much more.
ycombinator.com
The leaked TikTok ad deck
Interesting stuff, especially if you might want to advertise on TikTok someday. Otherwise, it's interesting just to see how social ads are evolving in some new ways.
adage.com
Case study on growing organic traffic
Great and actionable tips in this real-world case study about growing blog traffic organically -- to a blog about motor oil, no less.
moz.com
How social media companies can grow [Sprout Social IPO]
You might've heard a lot about Buffer's business numbers over the years, so it was really fascinating to see the numbers from Sprout Social in their recent S-1 filing. For comparison, Buffer's ARPU is $21 and our LTV:CAC ratio is 9:1 ($450 :: $50). My conclusion: There are many different ways to grow a software company!
crunchbase.com
Management
The virtue of a team-first mindset
The idea here is that leaders prioritize supporting other leaders before their direct reports. What do you make of that? It's an idea we're talking about more and more at Buffer.
attack-gecko.net
Goal-setting template from SuperHi.
Easy, actionable goal-setting template
This blog series is a great entry point into goal-setting both personally and professionally. Could be fun to work through with your team. (Here's the pdf.)
superhi.com
How to improve your workplace
BuzzFeed writer Anne Helen Petersen asked people on Twitter for the ways their company helps alleviate stress in the workplace. There's a ton of great advice in the replies.
twitter.com
Miscellaneous
Book rec: Super Pumped by Mike Isaac
I really enjoyed this inside look at Uber -- how they grew so fast, how they found trouble, how company culture affects everything as you scale. I highly recommend it. The title "Super Pumped" is a nod to one of Uber's 14 company values, if you can believe that.
by Kevan Lee
VP of Marketing currently living in Boise, Idaho. I work with the lovely folks at Buffer.
Say hi on Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn.