It’s time to drop the baggage around the word “influencer.” If you’re a maw-and-paw restaurant, and a local foodie with 300 followers agrees to rave about how bangin’ your pot pie is? Mazel tov! You’re doing influencer marketing. “‘Influencer’ is just a general category for anyone that is able to get an audience to take an action,” says creator economy expert Lindsey Gamble. And whether that action is starting your first creator campaign or signing a viral TikToker with 2 million followers, today’s master is gonna influence the crap outta you. In a good way. Lindsey Gamble Creator economy consultant, […]

There are some lessons you only learn when life hits you hard. This week’s master stared down the loss of his business — “All of Q4 was the biggest punch in the face for me that year. It was the most stressed I’ve ever been in my life.” — and came out the other side with a six-figure agency. Today, he shares the kind of vulnerability and real talk you rarely get from entrepreneurs. And his advice just might help you duck a punch. Ryan Atkinson Founder and CEO at Spacebar Visuals; Host of The UpFlip Podcast Fun fact: In […]

A few years ago, I was in charge of presenting a big marketing strategy deck to a senior executive. My team and I prepared a script that went something like this: “In Q3, we’ll deliver a unified editorial calendar. Subject matter will reinforce key audience pain points. We will increase paid media investments to leverage this series in integrated campaigns.” It sounded so impressive in my head, but the executive just wanted clarity. She asked, “So, what is it exactly? A blog series we promote in paid?” Oops. In that moment, I realized the words I was using were all […]

At my last job I was tasked with launching a newsletter, and was suddenly faced with a bunch of unfamiliar acronyms: DKIM, DMARC, SPF. (Apparently that last one is not related to sun protection?) So I texted Al Iverson (not the basketball player), who’s been working in email deliverability since the dawn of mainstream internet, and asked if he could help me figure out what I really needed to know. Since you (probably) don’t have Al Iverson’s phone number, I chatted with him last week about email deliverability, owned audience, and windmills. Meet the Master Al Iverson Industry research and […]