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This Meeting Could've Been a Podcast drops you smack dab in the middle of the closed-door sessions where Jess Cook (Head of Marketing) and Joshua Perk (CEO) are working to turn their company, Vector, into B2B marketing’s next big thing.
In each episode, they tackle a real, strategic decision together—"Should we hire an agency?", "Should we push free trials or demos?", "What are we going to do with all the swag Josh bought?!"—dishing out pros, cons, knowns, unknowns, wins, challenges, and stories along the way.
Come for the big picture strategy and day-to-day tactics, stay for the jokes that make HR nervous.
[00:00:00] Josh: Oh, hey Jess. It's good to see you. Um, you and your team did some great work over the past year.
[00:00:10] Jess: Thanks, Josh. We did, didn't we? And we hit our goal, which was like the best part.
[00:00:15] Josh: I a hundred percent. You should be so proud.
[00:00:18] Jess: I am.
[00:00:19] Josh: And I'm gonna need you to triple it this year.
[00:00:25] Jess: Come again.
[00:00:39] Jess: Hey, Josh. Remember the time that you tripled my pipeline goal?
[00:00:43] Josh: Yeah. Jess, it was like. Ago, I remember it pretty well. Do you, do you have a problem with that?
[00:00:49] Jess: No, not actually. Uh, I just like to be dramatic. Um, no, that's absolutely where we should be right now. Like, yes, let's triple it. Let's do it. [00:01:00] Um, I don't think it's gonna easy.
[00:01:03] Josh: No, no. But it, it's, my, my job is to be a lunatic CEO and not give you easy, easy things. And you guys crushed it this year. And so instead of like appreciating you and giving you raises, I think you should just raise the bar in three exit.
[00:01:16] Jess: Yes, exactly. You are doing your job very well. Five stars.
[00:01:22] Josh: Our board would be very proud of me.
[00:01:24] Jess: Yes, they would. Yes, for sure. Well, yeah, I mean, we market to marketers and we saw our customers dealing with a lot of the same stuff that we deal with. Um. Which is actually, you know, I think that that's part of the magic of marketing to marketers is like you experience the same things as your customers.
[00:01:43] Jess: You can really have kind of that empathy. Um, and so yeah, I think we, this, what we're doing here today, we're going through our 2026 marketing plan. We're doing our whole, like, hey, we build in public, like to the extreme and we're gonna show everybody all of this, um. Before we [00:02:00] get to the plan though, I wanna go through some of like, the market forces that shaped our plan.
[00:02:04] Jess: Okay. And so I thought it'd be kind of fun. I have my little pickleball notepad and I wrote down,
[00:02:11] Josh: oh God, I'm nervous.
[00:02:13] Jess: I wrote down some like, you know, just, I just wrote the flashcards down. I'm gonna hold them up and I wanna hear like your thoughts and feelings about them. Whatever you're feeling about what I Hold up.
[00:02:24] Jess: Are you ready?
[00:02:25] Josh: I'm ready. I do think this is okay. I'm, I'm nervous for this exercise 'cause I haven't seen your pickle ball, ball, whatever, notepad. Um, but I do think, I do think that this is a cool exercise because I think to your point, uh, when you and I first met, like the first discussion we ever had was like, we market to marketers.
[00:02:42] Josh: And so we knew we could do something special with our marketing, but I think what you and I didn't anticipate was what that meant. It was like every single day we got paid to talk to our peers around like, what's going on in your world? And, and I feel like we've had these. Private, intimate discussions with marketers and they're like, oh my [00:03:00] God, like pipeline's a struggle and all this sort of stuff.
[00:03:01] Josh: And then we'll go have another private, intimate discussion and be like, oh my God, pipeline's a struggle. And what we get to see is like, actually everyone's feeling the same thing. So bring on, bring on the flashcards. Let's see.
[00:03:12] Jess: Yes. Okay, here we go. Are you ready? Pickleball, notepad.
[00:03:15] Josh: Okay. The
[00:03:16] Jess: first one. Oh, wait.
[00:03:17] Jess: Okay. Ready?
[00:03:18] Josh: Oh, organic.
[00:03:19] Jess: Search.
[00:03:21] Josh: Um, all right. First word that comes to mind for organic search. Uh, pure chaos. Um, I think, in fact, check me here, chat, like, I think early 2025 was when we first started to see, like that infamous HubSpot post where it was like a screenshot of their organic traffic, right. And how Yeah.
[00:03:43] Josh: It just dropped off and everyone's like, oh my God. And so I think Jess, like one of our season, one of our first podcasts, you made this joke on like S-E-O-G-E-O-E-I-E-I-O, uh, and we, we've had like a full year to sort of be. In that [00:04:00] new world. And you know, to me, like what we've heard from marketers is like, of course you, we've lost like organic traffic is sort of the, the obvious thing everyone's talking about.
[00:04:10] Josh: Yeah. But the thing that I think people aren't talking about as much is like, we've also lost like visibility and ownership and attribution and like, we relied on the website and form submissions to like prove that all the things we were doing in marketing were working. And I think that's like one of the scariest parts about like losing that owned audience to like zero click search.
[00:04:29] Jess: Totally. I like fellow content marketers. I feel so much empathy for you because that's one of our, like greatest achievements is to go back and look at the organic, uh, traffic we're driving and like, that's so much harder now. Um, and that affects everything. That is like the, the initial entry point that's the top of funnel, like that is really, really, really difficult.
[00:04:53] Jess: Um. I, I'd love to hear just like we're gonna talk about our marketing plan and like how we are actually taking this [00:05:00] into, uh, account this year. But also I wanna talk a little bit about like what we're doing at Vector to help our customers.
[00:05:07] Josh: Hmm.
[00:05:08] Jess: Overcome some of this. Like, can you talk a little bit about that too?
[00:05:11] Josh: Did, did you ask that question? Because when you presented that we were gonna do a live podcast, I said, how are we gonna get ROI out of it? And you said, we'll, shamelessly plug what our own product does. And I was like, cool. Approve. Yes, we can do it. This is
[00:05:22] Jess: the evil genius part of the, of the webinar.
[00:05:25] Josh: Wait, before I answer the question, Jess, someone on LinkedIn described our relationship as evil CE.
[00:05:31] Josh: Snail and angelic marketer, which is,
[00:05:35] Jess: it was like 10 outta 10, no notes,
[00:05:39] Josh: straight disrespect is the way I saw it. But Evil snail is, is all,
[00:05:43] Jess: I mean, if truth is disrespect, like, I don't know. Say
[00:05:46] Josh: yeah. Uh, Jess is from, from Michigan. Detroit, Eminem. So she's just like straight drop in truth that like, I just can't handle That makes sense.
[00:05:55] Josh: You know? Yeah. Um, okay. Your question was organic search. Um, what, like [00:06:00] what are we doing at Vector in our product and for our customers to help them, uh, sort of like Wade through this new era? So yeah, I'll talk about like what we already do, which I think is really, really cool. And then we'll tease some like roadmap stuff, um, throughout, throughout this.
[00:06:16] Josh: Uh, so we already do site de anonymization, right? So like. The way I think about it is you have, uh, fewer and fewer people coming to your website, which means you have less and less at bats to prove what you're doing really, really works. And if you work for someone like me, they're trying to measure you on the like, end result, how many forms, submissions, and, you know, what are the people that I can go sell stuff to, right?
[00:06:40] Josh: So having less traffic is not helpful. So having sites anonymization to say, Hey, here's the people that are coming to our website. Um, maybe not filling out forms, but like engaging in long tail content or bouncing around on competitive pages, being able to. Take those visitors and not [00:07:00] do what everyone else is doing, which is just like feed them to sales and say like, Hey, I saw you on your website, but say like, Hey, we're actually using it for attribution and proof that, uh, marketing is doing the right thing.
[00:07:10] Josh: Like that's something we're already doing for customers. I think it's a really good play. Um, where we're going is like, in my opinion, what marketers don't realize is that this cannibalization that is happening to SEO and organic is actually happening to their ads as well. So like what's happening is people are doing like.
[00:07:29] Josh: Agentic search and like, I think the last metric I saw was like 60% of website traffic is now bots like agents, scrapers, LLMs. And so unbeknownst to marketers, there's this like 10 to 15% of their ad dollars that are actually retargeting bots. Like they look like humans, they look like residential proxies and ips, but they're actually not your ICP.
[00:07:53] Josh: And you're retargeting them thinking they're the right people. So later this year we're gonna introduce bot detection, uh, so that we can build [00:08:00] these really cool exclusion audiences for your advertising so you don't waste your money on those folks.
[00:08:05] Jess: Yeah, no, I don't want that. I want actual people, not Terminator.
[00:08:09] Jess: Thanks. Okay. Are you right for this? I have a very dramatic reveal for the next one. Okay. Lemme go here.
[00:08:15] Josh: Yeah. Ooh, the tear off. Uh, the only, the only time. Paid media. Paid media. I like that.
[00:08:23] Josh: Okay.
[00:08:24] Josh: Um, well, first of all, the tear off reminded me of like the Benson Boone thing that like my wife keeps watching on repeat over and over again when he was at that award show.
[00:08:32] Josh: But
[00:08:32] Josh: I mean, I don't blame her.
[00:08:34] Josh: I don't know what you're talking about. Um, paid media. Okay. Like immediate reaction is like still a lot of volatility. Um, still really black boxy and I think like the thing that I am. Like eager and excited about is like as cold email and cold calling and all the things that our SDRs and our sales teams are [00:09:00] doing starts to get more and more crowded.
[00:09:01] Josh: I think advertising needs to make a comeback. Like it needs to have more transparency. We need to actually be able to tie it directly to pipeline. And so for us, we've got like two or three things we're gonna be giving to our customers this year to help them with that. One is we're gonna introduce ad influence reporting.
[00:09:19] Josh: So we'll be able to take every single touch point that someone's had, uh, whether it's on LinkedIn, uh, or Google, or they click through on your website and be able to tie that back to your ad spend. So instead of going to your CMO or your CEO and said, Hey, we spent all these dollars and got X form submissions, now you'll be able to see like, here's the actual journey at the contact level that people are having with our, with our ads.
[00:09:43] Josh: So that's number one. Yeah.
[00:09:45] Jess: I love, oh, sorry. Just to just interrupt something we already have that I love that I don't wanna forget.
[00:09:50] Josh: Yeah.
[00:09:50] Jess: Is the metric that we have, it's like our killer metric that we have instead of our reporting dashboard already is cost per ICP click.
[00:09:59] Josh: Mm. [00:10:00] Yeah.
[00:10:00] Jess: And I think it goes so well with that.
[00:10:01] Jess: 'cause it's like you can report on cost per click, but if everyone clicking is like a garbage lead or somebody who would never buy your product, like that cost doesn't, that metric doesn't matter at all. Yeah. And so I think we're, we're taking a metric that we've relied on pretty heavily and we're turning into something that you can actually like.
[00:10:19] Jess: Put dollars in the pipeline, like know where they came from and that there are like good quality leads. I think that's really exciting.
[00:10:25] Josh: Yeah, I like, I like that a lot. It's like creating, uh, like two tables at lunch and, and figuring out like which of the leads would sit with you. And if we were mean girls, we would say, you can't sit with us if you're not in the R CCP category.
[00:10:35] Jess: Didn't wear pink.
[00:10:37] Josh: You didn't wear pink. And it's Wednesday. Uh, those are
[00:10:40] Jess: my hoops.
[00:10:41] Josh: So, so fetch Jess, so fetch, uh, man, I remember way too many things from that movie, uh, which says everything you need to know about me. Great. Uh, so that's number one. Ad influence, reporting, those sort of metrics that give, uh, our customers like really good, uh, visibility and frankly defensibility, right?
[00:10:59] Josh: Like [00:11:00] marketers are just always on the ropes trying to prove that they're doing the right stuff to like. Losers like me that don't understand the art of marketing. So I'm excited about that. Um, number two is we're allowing our customers to build larger Google audiences this year. So we used to have a limit of like 50,000 folks.
[00:11:17] Josh: We recently brought it up to like, I think 300,000 folks. And, uh, our aim is like unlimited ad audiences. And the reason that this matters is like on LinkedIn, in Reddit, like you want to target your, like root ICP and some people that are doing, you know, um, intent or showing signals. But in Google you already have this really small Venn diagram of like everyone that's in my ICP, but searching these particular keywords.
[00:11:43] Josh: Right? Yeah. And the likelihood that the, the previous 50,000 limit that we had was going to also overlap with the people that were on Google searching. It just, it wasn't good enough. So we're gonna give them bigger ad audiences, um, which I think will be game changer. [00:12:00]
[00:12:00] Jess: Yep.
[00:12:00] Josh: Love that. Then the last one is we are going to start bringing in LinkedIn ad engagement data for marketers.
[00:12:09] Josh: So instead of just waiting for someone to visit your website or fill out a form, now we can start saying like, Hey, people liked this, uh, ad people commented on this ad. We'll have like a way to bring that signal into your systems, give it to your sellers. So once again, you can say, Hey, not everyone's gonna fill out a form, but like to your sales team, go do something with the people that are engaging with our brand that we're working super hard for.
[00:12:31] Jess: Yeah. Give it to your sellers and give it to your demand gen marketers and be like, create more ads like this. Right? Like what about this ad was so magical that got, people don't comment on LinkedIn ads regularly unless they're thought leadership, right? Yeah. Like people don't do a ton of engagement around ads.
[00:12:44] Jess: And so if you get one, we've had a couple that really have like struck it hot and we'll see that engagement. We're like, okay, what was the magic from this? Like, we need to do more. So I think that's a nice, um, gauge to look at as well.
[00:12:55] Josh: Yep. A hundred percent. And if you need your, your landing pages to look fire, uh, Taz [00:13:00] is in the, in, in the chat.
[00:13:01] Josh: She can hook you up.
[00:13:01] Jess: What's up cha? Landing page. Queen.
[00:13:06] Josh: Queen. All right.
[00:13:06] Jess: Are you ready? I have another one and I'm gonna do my, my drama. Ready?
[00:13:10] Josh: Yeah. Yep. Oh God. I'm, I'm leaving the show. If that says a BM, I'm outta here. Jess. It
[00:13:15] Jess: says ab bm. Oh God. Oh, wait.
[00:13:19] Josh: Um, okay. Like, uh, so here, here's how I feel, uh, as a strategy.
[00:13:27] Josh: Love, love, love, love, love. Like, I think it's gonna catch more fire. I think it's going to be, uh, I actually think it's the marketing strategy that will win all of the marketing strategies this year as a tool. Well, we'll say that. Okay. We'll start. Why as a strategy? It's good. Okay. Here's, here's what I think.
[00:13:45] Josh: Um, cold email, cold calling, never been easier than ever. Building a company with lovable and cursor never been easier than ever, right? So if you take these two things, there's a lot more companies and there's a lot [00:14:00] more emails out there. Those channels are getting super saturated. And I think that the concept of a BM, the strategy of sales and marketing, working together to do one-to-one or one to few initiatives where, uh, gifting and small forum dinners or events can align with some of these noisy channels like email and LinkedIn outreach.
[00:14:25] Josh: Like love, I think, I think the best marketers will win with their A BM programs, uh, this year. Agreed. Tools, um, not, not as passionate about. Um, I, I think that, I think that we all see the sort of falling from grace that these sort of like legacy platforms like Demandbase and Sixth Sense have, have had. Um, yeah.
[00:14:52] Josh: And, and I think that marketers are just getting wise to the fact that they, they need more specificity. They need contact [00:15:00] level, they need to know exactly who's engaging, who's targeted with their, their ads. And so yeah, I think we're gonna see, um, more and more innovation in this space. I think we're gonna see marketers finally leave the big ones and, and start to bring some like real cool tech into their stack.
[00:15:16] Jess: Yeah. And I'm excited for that. I think doing that will give the marketers so much more control. I think these a BM platforms, uh, so many of them were initially designed for sales use cases.
[00:15:27] Josh: Yep.
[00:15:27] Jess: And then they were like, oh yeah, we can squeeze some money outta marketing too. Let's, let's kind of build some stuff for them.
[00:15:33] Jess: And so marketers knowing that there was like this trend of consolidation and they had to go in and use these tools, like they had to use them and they just couldn't get what they needed out of them. And so they had a lot less control than they wanted, but they were under kind of this mandate. And so I think this is gonna be such a good thing for all our friends in marketing.
[00:15:52] Jess: To be able to step away from these because there's better alternatives now and they get more control out of it, which is always,
[00:15:59] Josh: I I [00:16:00] agree. Jackson's in, in the chat said a BM and 2026 is micro events, which like, like, couldn't, couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. Uh, Jess, I think you're gonna talk, as my
[00:16:09] Jess: teenager says, and she's gonna love this.
[00:16:11] Jess: Clock it.
[00:16:12] Josh: Clock, clock it. I just, I, I don't wanna spoil it, but I feel like at some point we're gonna talk about your marketing strategy and I think that Jackson's right about how we're thinking about events. Yeah.
[00:16:21] Jess: Yeah. He's not right.
[00:16:23] Josh: So, um, okay, so a, BM, what are we doing for our customers for it? Um, I think the biggest thing that on the roadmap that I'm so excited about is, uh, company to person level, waterfall ad audiences.
[00:16:36] Josh: And so what I mean by this is we can, we will have the ability to take any company level signal, whether that's our own platform, saying, Hey, this company was on your website, or anything that you're bringing in from, uh, six sense demand base, right? If you've already locked yourself into these, these investments and you're like, man, like I have 'em, but I need to make them work.
[00:16:59] Josh: Take, take [00:17:00] any company. Showing, uh, that's a six. Qa or take any company that I don't know, pull, pull any signal from Clay, you'll be able to pump it into Vector. And we're gonna be able to take that company and waterfall between who all your key buyers are, who are the critical stakeholders that you would want, uh, to see your ads.
[00:17:20] Josh: And essentially what we're gonna allow customers to do is sort of like waterfall retargeting. So if someone from Google comes to your website now, you can retarget all five of the buyers that you wanna see your ads. Even if it was only one of 'em that came to the site,
[00:17:34] Jess: ugh, it gives me goosebumps. That's gonna be amazing.
[00:17:37] Jess: Like what? I can't wait. Ah, like huge. Huge. Huge. Okay. I have one more. Are you ready? Yes. One more dramatic tearaway.
[00:17:48] Josh: Okay.
[00:17:49] Jess: I'm gonna do it slow this time.
[00:17:51] Josh: Oh, tantalizing.
[00:17:53] Jess: That didn't work as well. Sorry. Uh, there we go.
[00:17:56] Josh: Consolidation. Consolidation.
[00:17:58] Jess: I had a little Easter egg about this in the last [00:18:00] one.
[00:18:00] Josh: Yeah. Okay.
[00:18:02] Josh: Um, so I think first and foremost, like acknowledging that consolidation is. Inevitable, it's out of our control, right? Like we, we as marketers, we just do what we're told, right? So if the board says we have to consolidate, or if the board says we need to pick one tool, like we, we don't get to control that as much.
[00:18:21] Josh: Now, I, I am like, from a macro perspective, look at me, Jess, like you using words like macro, um, from a, from a macro environment perspective, I do think that, like what I've seen in venture capitalists, capitalism, what I've seen in just the general world is like things are starting to get a little bit frothy again.
[00:18:38] Josh: So like, I'm hoping we're moving into a world where marketers can pick best in breed technology versus being for forced to consolidate. But I still think for the next year, we're gonna probably feel the mandates from our leadership to like, consolidate and get the most out of their, their tools. And I, this is, this is a little bit scary to me because I think that this was like the trap that got us [00:19:00] as marketers into the six sensei demand base sort of world itself, right?
[00:19:04] Josh: Where it's like sales bot tools. Marketers were forced to use them. Uh, sales reps told us that they were built for marketing and then we found out like, oh, it was built for marketing. As long as you can connect it with Zapier. Uh, like it's just all this sort of stuff that really wasn't built for us. And I think this leaves marketers into a, um, a kind of a, a dangerous space.
[00:19:26] Josh: Uh, I'll pause there 'cause I can rant for a while here.
[00:19:29] Jess: Yeah, no, I get that. I think that's totally fair. So, okay. I wanna know, like, I think there's this whole thing of like, there's, there's kind of like the. All in one, kind of the, the big bloated tools. There's best in breed, right? Like
[00:19:46] Josh: mm-hmm. I think
[00:19:46] Jess: Vector does many things for marketers, like in your mind, are we an all-in-one or are we a best in breeded?
[00:19:53] Jess: And like, what? Where do we fall there?
[00:19:55] Josh: The my, the CEO, uh, like, uh, translator in my head just [00:20:00] basically heard like, all right, we've got a hundred people or so that are gonna be on this podcast live. I need to immediately bifurcate how many of them can buy from us depending on whether they're consolidated or not.
[00:20:10] Josh: Uh, so I'm gonna give you the political answer, which is like, I, I actually, you
[00:20:13] Jess: think, you think my brain, that that's not like I, I can't operate my brain that fast. So I really am curious,
[00:20:22] Josh: Jess, this is, this is why I, the lowest salary in the company, right? That's why I make the big bucks right here, is this sort of thinking, um, foundership is fun.
[00:20:32] Josh: Um, no, like, here's, here's what I actually see, right? Like, customers have bought us, um, for, uh, like to be an insurance plan to six sense. They've also bought us to like be the entire replacement, uh, for an advertising product. So I've seen us be best in both breed. I've seen us be a consolidation play of other tools.
[00:20:50] Josh: I actually, when customers ask us like. How do you play with these? Or how are you different? I actually say word neither, right? Like, whatever your tech stack is [00:21:00] today, we are the one that's actually ensuring that it's driving the right folks, right? So if you've got programs or software that's like driving people to the website through GEO or SEO site, the anonymization, make sure that you're proving that the right people are there, right?
[00:21:14] Josh: If you've got signal based tools that are telling you when people have changed jobs or whatever, like vector's the one that's gonna help you activate those, right? Like it's a really good safety net and an insurance, uh, bet for all the other things you're already doing.
[00:21:28] Jess: Love it. Provo, you are your, uh, your media training's paying off pure work,
[00:21:34] Josh: pure wisdom.
[00:21:35] Josh: Yeah. The, those 12 hours you made me sit through are lovely, I guess, working
[00:21:41] Jess: okay. Uh, yes, they are. Absolutely. Um, I think all, like the whole theme for me that all of this is like creating is a lot of uncertainty. Like, mm. Marketers. I like, I meet with a lot of marketers every week. I'm in a couple different groups.
[00:21:56] Jess: I, people reach out on LinkedIn. I'm like, yeah, let's get some time on the counter. [00:22:00] Let's just chat. And I feel like the major theme is just like, what do I do?
[00:22:06] Josh: Yeah. But,
[00:22:06] Jess: but like, what do I do? Yeah.
[00:22:08] Josh: To
[00:22:08] Jess: like know that everything's working and to drive pipeline and to not get fired and like actually be proud of the work I'm creating.
[00:22:14] Jess: And you've kind of been using a term for this and I I love it so much. Um, what, what have you been calling this general feeling of uncertainty?
[00:22:22] Josh: Well, as a tried and true Lexapro user, myself, uh, I've been calling it pipeline anxiety, right? Like this feeling of like, oh my God, how am I going to do this and stay employed this year?
[00:22:33] Jess: Yeah. And I think that's such a, like that that like handle for it is so spot on. Pipeline anxiety. Like who doesn't feel that? Yeah. What marketer doesn't feel that de like, regardless of your discipline or how long you've been doing it, like we're all here to grow a business. It it, I feel that like every day, right?
[00:22:55] Jess: Uh, yeah. It, it's a lot. So I think the reason people are really [00:23:00] here, like this was lovely, but like, I'm not gonna lie, the people are here to see the marketing plan, are they not? So they are, they
[00:23:05] Josh: are.
[00:23:07] Jess: I think we wanna talk about how we're clapping back at all of these things. Yeah. In our marketing plan for Vector this year.
[00:23:14] Jess: Yeah. And like, what are our goals? What are we doing? Who are we hiring, where are we gonna be? All of that stuff. So I feel like we should like, get into it.
[00:23:23] Josh: Let's get into it. We, as we transition into your strategy for the year, um, can we tell, tell the audience how you go about presenting me this. Got this, this mantra, you, you bring me this like atrocity, uh, of a, of a deck every year.
[00:23:42] Josh: Yeah. And, and one you tied themes into this to like the deck you presented me last year. And, and then also on one of your slides you had the same G three times, which like sent me into like a spiral of laughter. So how did you present your marketing plan to me before we talk about what the marketing plan was?
[00:23:59] Jess: [00:24:00] Okay. Monstrosity, iss a little, uh, rough. I would call it like masterpiece work of our, um, you know, whatever. Yeah. My, what's that called? My, my opus. It's fine. Um, success.
[00:24:16] Jess: Oh my Lord. Okay. Yeah. Um, how I present this to you is, um, I built a story around it and we actually, we did another episode about this. Like, how did I pitch a budget? I built a story around it. Um, I didn't just wanna hand you a spreadsheet. And same thing with a strategy. I don't just wanna like. I don't know, give you an outline of some kind or like a calendar of, um, tactics.
[00:24:38] Jess: Like that's not really what I'm all about. I would much rather get you bought in on the story we're gonna tell this year and like, what are the things we're gonna accomplish in order, what are the things are we going to do in order to accomplish and tell that story? So, um, I think a couple of things you mentioned were like, uh, I don't know.
[00:24:56] Jess: I like to get you and Nick, our COO very excited before [00:25:00] we see this. And so I kind of wanna set up just like the current situation. And I think for 2026, the current situation was like 2025 was a big year for us. We kind of became like this really hot brand, which is exciting. People like us, they're following us, they think we're cool, we hit our goal, right?
[00:25:18] Jess: And we did all of this with two people in marketing, uh, myself and Alex Verden doing organic, basically content. I think for the entire year we spent like. I don't know, $46,000 on ads total entire year. Yeah. And um, so I think the, the theme was like, this needs to be the year where we, uh, we take all of our toe dipping and all of our experimentation that we did in 2025, and we turn them into actual programs.
[00:25:46] Jess: And in order to do that, and I had like the GIF from Jaws Yeah. Was like, we're gonna need a bigger boat. And that was my way of saying, money, please. More money.
[00:25:58] Josh: And then you had this one slide that [00:26:00] like, I think it was, you're like, Hey, we have these three big rocks this year. And it was just, and I just
[00:26:04] Jess: have the rock three times, like the, the picture of him with like, his weird haircut and like the silver chain.
[00:26:10] Jess: It was just like three big rocks and it was like rock. It's just
[00:26:12] Josh: three big rock Johnsons. Uh, yeah. Loved it. Uh, okay.
[00:26:18] Jess: You know, if we're not having fun while we're doing this, like, what the heck are we even doing?
[00:26:21] Josh: I don't know. I don't pay you for fun. I think you should generate more pipeline. But anyways, uh, so what is your, what is your marketing plan
[00:26:28] Jess: here?
[00:26:29] Jess: Three big rocks. Uh, the first one we wanna be everywhere our audience is, and we wanna turn it up to 11. So I think a lot of people that follow us, that know the brand, like no, we're, we do things a little differently. Like, we don't do like just pens and water bottles. We do ghost stuffies and Lego sets and Cars against humanity.
[00:26:52] Jess: And we do, yes, there he is. He's so cute. We do a live podcast where we literally just like share [00:27:00] all our stuff, who cares? Whatever, uh, who's watching? Doesn't matter. Um, so I think we wanna, we want to continue that tradition of just doing things in a way that only Vector can do. Yeah,
[00:27:13] Josh: and we're
[00:27:13] Jess: gonna do that in a couple of different ways.
[00:27:14] Jess: So one of them is events. Jackson, you were right. We're doing some micro events this year. We're also gonna go sponsor some events. So last year we did a couple small sponsorships, and this year we're really stepping it up. So we're gonna be at Drive again, which is really exciting. We're a sponsor for Drive and we're gonna do some experiential stuff, as well as like an, uh, an intimate dinner with some, uh, prospects and customers again.
[00:27:37] Jess: Um, we're going to be at an event called Demand and Expand. Uh, we are going to sponsor that as well. Maybe have a customer speaker. We're gonna do some cool stuff there. Um, but I think on top of all these events we're gonna be at, can I, can I tell like the, the really, like the, the exciting one.
[00:27:55] Josh: I mean, it's, are we giving out the Yeah, I guess we didn't practice this, [00:28:00] but are you talking right?
[00:28:01] Jess: Just lemme know. And I was like, okay. Sorry. You'll find out later.
[00:28:05] Josh: Move on, Jess. Uh, yeah, if you're, if you're talking about the series that I think you're talking about, I'm, yeah. Tell him. Yeah.
[00:28:12] Jess: Okay. So the, the one that we're really excited about that we're gonna kind of layer on top of all of these events that'll already be at, is like a sidecar is something we're calling the Ghost Tour Tour.
[00:28:23] Jess: Um, this is, uh, kind of a small micro event where we are handpicking some prospects, some customers, just some folks that are in our ICP that are at these events or live in the area where these events are. And we're gonna take them out to dinner and we're gonna have a ton of fun. And then we're gonna go on a Walking Ghost tour because, I mean, the ghost is our thing.
[00:28:43] Jess: Um, we're gonna have, like,
[00:28:45] Josh: he's back. He's back.
[00:28:48] Jess: We're gonna have some like concert team merch, right? Where like all the cities that we hit up are on the back. Like it's gonna be so much fun. Um, and so I think that's like, again, one way that we're doing kind of like. [00:29:00] Genius, but also like, what the heck is happening here?
[00:29:03] Jess: Kind of events. Um, which
[00:29:05] Josh: is super fun. I I love that. And it's the, it's like, what's interesting about this is, you know, obviously we're out of budget planning season, but like, just to share a, a tip or a trick that like you did with me is like you, you approached me with something that like felt really expensive, right?
[00:29:18] Josh: We're gonna hit like five or six cities, which is like every other month essentially. We're gonna be doing like an event, an owned event. We're gonna do the ghost tour tours, we're gonna print the merch that makes it look like it's a concert tour and we're gonna invite all these people and we're gonna find like these creepy haunted houses to like bring folks to.
[00:29:35] Josh: And I was like, man, that sounds really expensive, but you did something interesting, which is you piggybacked, I think like at least half of the stops on the tour. Yeah. You piggybacked on other events. Were already going to be at.
[00:29:49] Jess: Yeah, four of the five. So I think like that one just kind of, we're gonna be there anyway.
[00:29:54] Jess: Our audience is gonna be there anyway. Like, it just makes a lot of sense. And we can pick the night that makes the [00:30:00] most sense for us to do something like that. We can really start to figure out who's gonna be there. Uh, for a couple of these, we're sponsoring them. We'll already have the attendee list so we can kind of go through that.
[00:30:10] Jess: Sarah McNamara can work her magic as to like, who should we really like target for this? So a lot of synergy when you, uh, piggyback off an off of an event that's already happening. And then we have one kind of open slot where it's like, where, let's figure out which market maybe feels a little underserved or.
[00:30:28] Jess: A place where we know there's plenty of prospects that we could, um, you know, go to and see where we won't already have an event happening, but like, we really need to hit up that market. So wait, Ellen,
[00:30:39] Josh: Ellen said she did a ghost tour in New Orleans, uh, that still haunts her, which like, she's right. That's the kind of awareness, like I want people to like, wake up from nightmares of like, things that they experience and be like, it's vector's fault that I'm thinking about this.
[00:30:54] Josh: Uh, that's like, you can't, you can't buy that through a Super Bowl commercial. Um, I mean, [00:31:00]
[00:31:00] Jess: I kind of want them to be like, that was so fun. And like, share on social media and everyone get fomo. But that's cool too. Nightmares. Sure. No, not dog.
[00:31:06] Josh: That's gonna be a not for me dog. I want them to like viscerally Remember this company
[00:31:10] Jess: just traumatize them.
[00:31:13] Josh: All right, so we're doing events. What else?
[00:31:16] Jess: Events is a big one. Media sponsorships this year, so be everywhere does not mean you have to be there physically. We're doing a couple different media sponsorships this year where we're, um, sponsoring some communities that get us some kind of newsletter features where we're gonna use that space to create some, uh, really interesting like content type tools, um, uh, calculators or like frameworks people can use, right?
[00:31:41] Jess: That are really, really valuable and helpful. And that can be distributed through the, that newsletter or a podcast, right? So the idea is that. We can only get so far with distribution on our own dollars. There's some crossover and maybe some like new eyeballs and ear holes that we haven't reached yet.
[00:31:59] Jess: Yeah. Out [00:32:00] there, like from other, like media partners that we could work with. So, uh, we are a sponsor of Exit five this year, which is very exciting. Yeah. And a sponsor of Demand Collective, which is, uh, a growing demand gen marketing group, uh, community run by Eric Linson, who used to be a key play, uh, super amazing, um, group of folks.
[00:32:22] Jess: And so we have, we have kind of a nice little interplay there between like this big kind of, um. Every type of marketer in the mix. Yeah. And then this like smaller, more niche group of people who are like squarely in our day-to-day user.
[00:32:35] Josh: I appreciated, uh, Eric is, is great and he's in the, uh, earlier days of building out his community.
[00:32:42] Josh: Uh, but like obviously from key play, he's got a proven track record of, of doing this. And so I was really excited when you brought this one to me because it's like, you know, there's a lot of these sponsorship opportunities that are like really established, really expensive. You drop a hundred thousand dollars on a, you know, inbound, you know, 20 by 20, [00:33:00] uh, booth.
[00:33:00] Josh: This one felt like us, right? Different, new energy. It was got.
[00:33:05] Jess: Totally. Yeah. I'm super excited about it. And it's, it's a distribution mechanism for us. Uh, it's a bit of a loyalty play. Um, you know, he's creating things like, um, a, a salary benchmark report that like, we probably don't have the bandwidth to create, but because we get to partner with them, we get to help distribute all of that.
[00:33:23] Jess: Super exciting. So, uh, events, media, sponsorships, and then influencers. Uh, we did an entire podcast episode about this. This was one of our. Most successful pilots. Last year we turned $12,000 into 1.1 million in pipeline. I won't spill all the details here. You can go back and listen to it. I think it was episode four of this season.
[00:33:42] Jess: Um, but like, we're gonna double down on that. Amazing. Um, yes. Task. I see you, you were one of our influencers. Thank you. You're amazing.
[00:33:49] Josh: Crush it. She crossed it crush. Is this, is this where we tell her we we we're bringing her back for more? Did we already do we already tell her that?
[00:33:56] Jess: Um, I mean, we haven't like negotiated that yet, [00:34:00] so
[00:34:00] Josh: I'm kidding.
[00:34:01] Josh: Yeah, you're expensive. I need to talk to you about budget. No, I was kidding. She's great.
[00:34:07] Jess: Alright. Second goal. I wanna keep moving. We could talk about this longer. Um. I love this goal. This might be my favorite of our three like big rocks.
[00:34:16] Josh: Yep.
[00:34:16] Jess: Be your favorite marketing team's. Favorite marketing team. So I think something we've been doing or you have been doing and a fabulous job of, we've now continued this tradi tradition of yours is like hiring top 1% talent and getting them in here and having them be just advocates of their own role.
[00:34:35] Jess: Like not going out on LinkedIn and talking about, um. Selling vector, but like talking about the cool stuff they're doing at Vector and that, I just wanna continue that. And so, uh, Alex and I obviously are gonna continue doing that. We're growing the team this year. We have hired a, the engine marketer. I'm so excited.
[00:34:53] Jess: And they start next week and I can't wait and I can't tell you who it is, but he's amazing. That's, and ooh, [00:35:00] dropping
[00:35:00] Josh: hint, ski wondering. Yeah.
[00:35:03] Jess: Um, so super excited about that. Um, and so we just wanna continue to grow that like ethos of like, man, what are they, what's in the water vector? Like, they're doing the coolest stuff.
[00:35:15] Jess: They hire the best practitioners. Like, I think it one just helps with hiring in the future, but two, like people just watch so much more closely when you hire the right people and you do the right things. So those are kind of the three, like be everywhere. Turn it up to 11. All of that.
[00:35:30] Josh: I love that. Okay.
[00:35:31] Jess: Oh, sorry.
[00:35:32] Jess: No, I've already moved on. What am I doing? Yeah, guys, come
[00:35:34] Josh: on. Come on. Yeah. What did you don't even know your own marketing plan, Jess. I don't know about this.
[00:35:40] Jess: This is, this is the beauty of lies everyone.
[00:35:46] Josh: You should see the amount of, uh, like, uh, cuts we take when we actually record the podcast. We're, we're doing pretty darn good, I would say.
[00:35:54] Josh: I
[00:35:54] Jess: know. Okay. Wait. Pr pretend I didn't say that. Let's, okay.[00:36:00]
[00:36:00] Jess: Um, okay, so hiring. All right. Department excellence. Um, Alex Burton is the best product marketer I've ever met in my life, like true. Our new demand gen marketer is at the same level in his discipline. Like, I just want to continue hiring people like that and using them to do the best work possible. Like we're moving fast.
[00:36:22] Jess: It's incredible. And all of it is like working together for, for magic. So department excellence like that I think is part of this being your favorite marketing teams. Marketing team.
[00:36:32] Josh: Yep.
[00:36:33] Jess: Favorite marketing team. And the idea is that like, we're just going to continue to grow this company and that is going to be kind of the mandate across the board is just like, keep that like we're setting the bar.
[00:36:43] Jess: Like keep that bar high.
[00:36:44] Josh: Yeah.
[00:36:44] Jess: Um, next one. Marketable moments. Mm. I made when I made like the calendar of like what we're doing this year. Um, you, you didn't think I could do it, but I put exactly and [00:37:00] perfectly spaced 52 little product marketing moments across the top of the calendar.
[00:37:06] Josh: Yep, yep.
[00:37:06] Jess: And, um, and it looked so good, but essentially like.
[00:37:09] Jess: We want to have something in present product that we can talk about every single week. Like we want to. And more than one sometimes. Right? Like we want to be able to, uh, Alex does this incredible newsletter called Ghost to Market Sends every Friday. Yeah. And one of engineering's goals this year is to have enough ships that there's something valuable to put in that newsletter every single week.
[00:37:35] Jess: I love that goal. Like that's an engineering goal.
[00:37:38] Josh: Yeah. That, that was one where it's like. Uh, I, I think every company should strive to try to give this sort of like cross-functional alignment. And by the way, I didn't force that onto engineering. Like when we were going through OKRs in 2026 planning, Andrew, our head of engineering was like, Hey, what if we had something that proved engineering wasn't just building stuff, but building stuff marketing cared about.
[00:37:59] Josh: And so like, we [00:38:00] literally have an OKR tied to like if engineering is delivering enough things that Alex feels are tangible to go into our marketing newsletter.
[00:38:11] Jess: Yes. I love it. So
[00:38:12] Josh: cool. Yeah. And
[00:38:13] Jess: some are bigger, right? Like some are big launches, some are just really small, interesting things that makes our customers lives easier.
[00:38:18] Jess: And we can kind of scale that. But the idea of like, we are moving at a velocity that is just like weekly. Product launches that are worth announcing, which is awesome.
[00:38:29] Josh: Yeah. Okay.
[00:38:29] Jess: Last thing in the idea of be your favorite marketing team's. Favorite marketing team? Vector on Vector. Oh, I'm so excited about this.
[00:38:37] Jess: So demand gen marketers coming aboard and this person is going to run Vector for Vector. And you know, I think right now, like with Alex and I, we've run some ad creative, we've done some tests. I know enough to like be able to like launch a couple campaigns here and there, do some thought leadership ads.
[00:38:55] Jess: We brought on some vendors who have helped us out, but like, we're gonna have someone in-house now.
[00:38:59] Josh: [00:39:00] Yep.
[00:39:00] Jess: Who is going to be able to do all of this for us and really help us build, like what does it look like to use Vector in the best way possible? And I'm so excited to really build that playbook, share that with customers, share that inner content.
[00:39:15] Jess: Like what happens when you know exactly who's on your site clicking your ads. Like how, what changes in all of the things that you do in marketing when you know that. And we are really gonna have. Uh, a huge, a wonderful grasp on that with, with him coming aboard, which is exciting. I like
[00:39:30] Josh: that. I wonder if we could do something like Gong Labs did, where we can start to like publish our own findings with how we're using our, our product.
[00:39:37] Josh: I think something like that could be cool.
[00:39:39] Jess: Yes. Love that.
[00:39:40] Josh: What's, what's your, so you had three pillars. What's your last pillar?
[00:39:43] Jess: Last pillar, build our own crystal ball. Mm-hmm. Um, this is all about reporting. I think last year we did a lot of marketing on vibes. Okay. I, we did like all of our marketing on vibes in 2500%
[00:39:54] Josh: on vibes.
[00:39:55] Josh: Yeah. Not gonna
[00:39:55] Jess: lie.
[00:39:56] Josh: Yeah.
[00:39:56] Jess: Which you kind of have to do when you're doing brand and top of funnel. Like it's, [00:40:00] it gets difficult to attribute. And this year I think we wanna get to a point where we are running up against OKRs. Like we're really feeling good about those. We're hitting those numbers. We're doing like quarterly business reviews for marketing.
[00:40:13] Jess: Every quarter. Everyone's welcome. Like, let's come talk about what we did, where we failed, how can we do better? Um, I wanna be that VP of marketing that like, knows all of those really important metrics off the top of her head. Every week. Right. Like, where are we at against our goal? Yeah. And, uh, this is the year we're gonna get really good at that.
[00:40:33] Jess: And this is the year we're gonna know when we put $1 in, this is how much we get out. Yeah. So I'm excited to build that muscle.
[00:40:40] Josh: I like that. I'm excited too. I am. Uh, one of the things that made our marketing so special is marketing on vibes and just being what our customers needed us to be for them. And so I am, I am skeptical but excited to say, what are the things we need to measure?
[00:40:53] Josh: But like, let's not lose the thing that got us here. So I like, I like your your focus on bringing in some [00:41:00] metrics and Jackson. Yeah. We are gonna start thinking about like our, our agency program. I think Nick, our COO on the sales side is starting to, to think through that.
[00:41:08] Jess: Totally. And we won't, don't worry, Amanda, we won't lose the vibes.
[00:41:11] Jess: They're, they're not going anywhere.
[00:41:12] Josh: Mm-hmm. They're
[00:41:13] Jess: not, Hey Jess, do you know what time it is?
[00:41:16] Josh: What time is it, Jess?
[00:41:17] Jess: It's the time where we stare deep into the camera and we deliver the positive affirmations that all of the marketers here.
[00:41:26] Josh: The words they need to hear positive, the words they need to
[00:41:28] Jess: hear.
[00:41:30] Jess: Let's do it. Alright.
[00:41:32] Josh: Dear marketer, when finance sees your annual plan, they create a new line item called Let 'em Cook.
[00:41:39] Jess: We're like, this is so good. Just like add a line, give 'em all the money, and don't touch it.
[00:41:44] Josh: Just leave them alone. They, they know what they're doing. They're a grown adult, and just give them money.
[00:41:49] Josh: They'll figure it out.
[00:41:52] Jess: They're grown adults.
[00:41:54] Josh: Alright, Jess, what you got?
[00:41:57] Jess: Dear marketer, when you run virtual [00:42:00] events, the webinar software offers up a button to your audience that says Never leave.
[00:42:06] Josh: Go. Gold Cast is just like we live here now, guys, like the the hundred people in this room. This is our house now.
[00:42:12] Jess: This is your home. Never leave. You're all welcome. You can stay as long as you like.
[00:42:19] Josh: Oh, a positive affirmations live hit just like I hoped they would. This is great.
[00:42:24] Jess: So weird. Oh my God.
[00:42:26] Josh: Uh,
[00:42:27] Jess: alright. Hey, this is a new moment in the show, uh, for, specifically for this live, uh, live event. Um, we're calling it Vulnerability Corner and I think people need it.
[00:42:41] Jess: I think people wanna know like, sh what are we worried about? Are we worried?
[00:42:48] Josh: Uh, this is, yeah. Yes. Um, sorry. The reason I'm laughing is like, this is what happens when you, you, uh, give agency and people take ownership because half the time the just [00:43:00] stuff pops up on the screen, like a scroller that says it's time for vulnerability corner and just marketing has just lost their absolute mind, but it's working.
[00:43:07] Josh: Uh, yeah. Jess, we're, we're worried about all kinds of stuff. Um, okay. Me first? Yes. Go for it. Okay. Vulnerability. Um, I'll give you two. I'll give you like something internally that I am feeling nervous about, and then I'll give you something like external for our customers and, and, um, just marketers in general.
[00:43:27] Josh: Um, internally, I think that like, one of the reasons we have so many friends here, like supporting us right now is like. Because we built something really special, right? Like we, like we built a marketing program that like other marketers were like, oh, I kind of actually want to go talk to my friends and this, this thing for an hour when I probably have a bunch of stuff to do now that it's the beginning of the new year.
[00:43:47] Josh: So like being able to keep that thing special while like functionally as A-C-E-O-I build the team. You know, we went from three people to 23 in the last year and we'll probably [00:44:00] double at a minimum this year, right? So, uh, just like keeping those special things while also trying to find mass in our go-to market in our marketing is just like.
[00:44:10] Josh: I don't know. It keeps me up at night and I hope we can keep as special as, as we are today. Um, externally, I am really, really worried about like pipeline system collapse. Uh, and like, I know that sounds like really like lofty and like we've, we hear all these posts on LinkedIn. They're notable. Yes. But like we hear all these posts of like, oh, code email's dying, and these channels are really saturated and like, uh, like they're, they're polarizing and like they're designed to be clickbait and have these conversations.
[00:44:44] Josh: But like, what I do think we agree on is that they're, like I said earlier, there are more companies than ever. There's more access than ever to create noise. And I think this is the year that product and um, [00:45:00] like technical moat is actually not the. The choke point anymore. I think this is the year where, uh, like a marketing team's ability to create distribution is actually the moat, right?
[00:45:13] Josh: Like how do you, how do you get heard when there's so much noise? And I'm nervous about that.
[00:45:18] Jess: Yeah, totally agree. I think that's why brand is so important, and I'm so glad that we capitalize on that early because I think it's more important than ever for that reason. Right? Like, you can do all the tactics, but if you don't do it in a way that stands out, like it does not matter.
[00:45:31] Jess: You're throwing money out the window.
[00:45:32] Josh: So a hundred percent also, yeah. Amanda, this, this section's sponsored by Lexapro.
[00:45:39] Josh: Jess, you, you just got promoted. Congratulations. You're now our VP of marketing. We're, uh, I, I know I only talk shit about you on the internet, but we are so proud of you. We are so lucky, uh, that we made the courageous, uh, decision to hire a content marketer as our first marketer. And you have proven why that is so important and why you are an incredible [00:46:00] marketing leader for us.
[00:46:00] Josh: But like, what sort of anxiety, uh, or Lexapro inducing things are on your mind?
[00:46:07] Jess: I'm also a Lex Pro user, so yes,
[00:46:09] Josh: let's go.
[00:46:10] Jess: Should a sponsor by Pro
[00:46:13] Josh: Lexipro? I dunno what I
[00:46:15] Jess: would do without it. Uh, okay, I think I have a few. So the first one is like, living up to this new role, right? I think, um, had you asked me a year ago, do you wanna be a VP of marketing?
[00:46:25] Jess: Do you wanna be a CMO someday? I'd have been like, no, not for me. Um, but being here and realizing that it was possible for me and that like, yes, I, that, that's a path that I could take. Um, I wanna know more than ever, but I want to live up to this new title. I want to be the best possible leader for my team.
[00:46:46] Jess: I want to build an incredible team. I want to. Uh, I'm still also an individual contributor, so I, I want to be able to like, keep that end of my kind of skillset up as well. So just being kind of like [00:47:00] the, the team leader and being the best puzzle leader is a, is a big one. Um, and oh, the, the other one was, uh, I guess that was kind of like two mixed in one.
[00:47:10] Jess: Yeah. My third one is, um, just, I think it's similar to your first one, which was continuously outdoing ourselves. Yeah. And I think we had such a big year, um, last year that like, how do we keep topping that, you know, like I, I have no doubt we will, but like the links that we will continuously need to go to do that are just going to get further and further.
[00:47:31] Jess: And, and I'm excited by that, but also like gives me a little bit of like,
[00:47:36] Josh: yeah. Yeah. Well I've, I've got no doubt that you'll hit. I have no doubt that all of the marketers, uh, that are in this channel will, will hit it with us. We have, uh, a little bit of time left and, um, there's a lot of questions that have been asked.
[00:47:48] Josh: Did we spend some time over there?
[00:47:50] Jess: Let's do it. Let, we don't get to do this on the normal podcast. This is so fun.
[00:47:53] Josh: I know. I'm nervous. What are they gonna ask? Um, how does this work? Do things just like show up on the screen and we answer them?
[00:47:59] Jess: Yeah. [00:48:00] Uh, there's just magically gonna be some questions that pop up.
[00:48:02] Jess: I think
[00:48:04] Josh: I'm ready.
[00:48:05] Jess: We're ready
[00:48:08] Josh: behind the scenes. They're like, we're not ready.
[00:48:12] Jess: Podcast Gods. Please
[00:48:15] Josh: do, do your thing. Uh, the good news is while they figure it out, we can see, um, some of them on the side. So, uh, Alex, you help us figure it out. Uh, Jess, how is your ideal? This is from, uh, Han. How has your ideal customer profile evolved and how is that shifting your channel strategy?
[00:48:33] Josh: Oh, there we go.
[00:48:34] Josh: Look
[00:48:34] Josh: at
[00:48:36] Jess: nice work team. Alright. Uh, I love this question. Um, I think it's gotten so sharp over the last year. So beginning of last year, we were kind of in the space where we were positioned for both sales and marketing. Um, middle of the year we shifted our positioning to be specifically for marketing.
[00:48:55] Jess: Like we kind of saw like where we were providing the most value. It was [00:49:00] absolutely to marketers who were running ads and using Vector to build ad audiences. And so I think since that point we have just found so many little characteristics of our top performing customers, um, that we've just kind of like added to that, uh, list of like characteristics of best customers, right?
[00:49:17] Jess: And, um. Things like, we kind of know how much money they spend on ads, how many money, how many ads they actually have running at any given time on LinkedIn. We kind of know the makeup of their team, um, things like that. So I think we've just gotten sharper and sharper as we have honed in on our positioning and brought in more customers and seen who uses us best, and then just kind of found those like, uh, common characteristics between them, if that
[00:49:45] Josh: makes sense.
[00:49:46] Josh: I love that. Yeah. That's great. Great answer. All right. Which one's next?
[00:49:54] Josh: I can feel Alex sweating right there. Oh, there we go. Uh, from Connie, if you were a solo market, this is for you, Jess. [00:50:00] If you were a solo marketer, uh, which, which you were at one point, yes. Yeah. Uh, what would your number one priority be and why?
[00:50:09] Jess: Right now it would be, uh, focusing on LLMs. Um, as a one person, I think where you can scale very heavily, uh, to bring more people into uni, your universe is focusing on really good SEO and GEO and figuring out like what are l LMS saying about me right now?
[00:50:30] Jess: What don't I like that they're saying about me? What pieces of content can I create to shape that narrative in the way that I want them to talk about me? And that is exactly what we're doing. And if it was just me, that is like the thing I would be really, really focused on for 2026. Yeah, for sure.
[00:50:45] Josh: I, I like that a lot.
[00:50:46] Josh: And I'm gonna merge this with, I don't know if we'll get to all the questions, but there was one question that I saw that I wanna merge this with in case it doesn't get up there. Connie, uh, Lindsay had asked a similar question, which was like, Hey, from a budget constraint perspective, right? If I had to fight for more budget [00:51:00] or tools, like what should it be?
[00:51:02] Josh: And so like, I think both of these questions, like if you could only focus on one thing or if you need to get more money, um, I think are kind of a similar answer. And by the way, reach out to me and I'll share some of the stuff that like we're using internally, but like we've got this really great narrative and story that you can share with your CEO, which is like, hey, here's how the landscape has shifted, where there's X amount more companies in our space and there's x amount more emails being sent, and so we need.
[00:51:29] Josh: To invest in places that, like traditionally we wouldn't like, stop asking me to just send more emails 'cause it's not working, it's crowded. And so, uh, send me a note and I'll share some of those resources so that we can get you guys focused on sort of the, the right things and, um, getting more budget. All right.
[00:51:45] Josh: I think we have time for one more. All
[00:51:47] Jess: right. Amazing. All right. I love this. Clearly have a unique brand voice. How do you balance weirdness with conversion focused messaging? Oh, great question. Esha. [00:52:00] Um, it's a, it is a balance. Absolutely. Um, yeah, I think there's a time and place for like. Quirky, weird personality, scroll stopping, um, awareness building, and then there's a time for clarity.
[00:52:16] Jess: Mm-hmm. Um, and I feel like Alex is really gonna love that answer. Clarity is like she's the queen of clarity. Um,
[00:52:23] Josh: yeah.
[00:52:24] Jess: That, and that usually comes like, the further down the funnel you get, the less clever and quirky you really wanna be because you really need people to understand like, okay, but no, really, here's what we do.
[00:52:35] Jess: Yeah. And here's why it matters. Yeah. Um, I think. The thing that pulls people into our universe is the weird stuff. We do this podcast, a lot of the video ads that we create, uh, a lot of our just kind of LinkedIn advertising, um, they're a little weird. They get people to be like, what even is this? Like, I've never seen anything like that before.
[00:52:55] Jess: Why is there a ghost there? Right? And then as we get further in and people are like, no, but [00:53:00] really, I wanna know what this tool does. Like we really have to get focused on this is why it's different. This is why it matters and here's why you should try it. Um, so yeah, I think the closer you get to actual purchase, like the, the bit more, you have to remove some of that like weirdness and quirkiness.
[00:53:17] Jess: Um, but it doesn't mean you have to get rid of it entirely like. Even Alex's newsletter, which is very product focused. Mm-hmm. Every single one of them is themed on a different TV show or movie like, right. And so there's all these gifts intertwined, but it builds on the story and it actually like elevates the purpose of like what we're even talking about and why we're talking about this product.
[00:53:37] Jess: So you don't have to get rid of it entirely. It just has to be very clear why it's there.
[00:53:43] Josh: Yeah. And I, I think just like finding opportunities to create content or be helpful in the community, no matter where you can, is like a huge part of it. Like, I was just sitting here thinking there's like, there's like 30 other questions in this q and a that we're not gonna have the opportunity to get to.
[00:53:56] Josh: Right. Justin ask like, Hey, some percentage of marketing is hard to measure. Like how, like, how do you [00:54:00] guys think about this? Like, we should take that and turn that into content. Right. And post about that because clearly these are the things that people are, are thinking about. So Yeah. Um, just be weird and different.
[00:54:09] Josh: It's the only way to stand out these days.
[00:54:12] Josh: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:54:13] Josh: Jess. I think that plan sounds amazing. Uh, what do you think about quadrupling our pipeline this year?
[00:54:23] Jess: Um, Josh, I can't actually like say what? I want to think out loud, but this was a good meeting.
[00:54:30] Josh: This was a good meeting.
[00:54:32] Jess: This meeting. It like could have been a podcast.
[00:54:35] Josh: It could have, and it was,
[00:54:38] Jess: it was, this meeting could have been a podcast as a vector. Production vector lets you build ad audiences from real people that visit your site, click your ads and research your competitors. Imagine seeing exactly who will see your ads by name before you spend a dime. It's a great time to be alive.
[00:54:56] Jess: Marketers go give it a whirl@vector.co. See you [00:55:00] next time.