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Dear Marketers with Emily Kramer & Friends: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Emily Kramer of MKT1
Startup Marketing Advice Podcast Whenever Emily Kramer—creator of MKT1 newsletter—needs B2B startup marketing advice, she turns to the marketers she has on speed dial. Now, you can hear Kramer and these marketing experts, Devon, Grace & Jenny, talk shop and share unfiltered advice on how to improve your approach to marketing. On each episode, we’ll answer a question from a real marketer, like “How do you hire great marketers?”, “Is the company blog dead?” and “Should you make your founder an influencer?” We’ll pack our answers with candid advice, strategies you can apply right away, and proven MKT1 frameworks—plus learnings from our experiences at startups like Asana, Cocoon, Mercury & Vanta. We’ll also bring in guests when we need another expert opinion.
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- Aug 15, 20251h 3m
Dear Marketers, It’s the season 1 finale! Hot takes on case studies, dev marketing, measurement, and more
Dear Marketers, WE HAVE MORE QUESTIONS!Summary: In the final episode of 'Dear Marketers,' season 1, Host Emily Kramer sits down with all her co-host friends to discuss additional questions from listeners. Devon Watts, Head of Product Marketing & Partner Marketing at Mercury, Jenny Thai, Head of Content at Vanta and Grace Erickson, VP of Revenue at Cocoon all weigh on developing positioning for different verticals, getting respect from CEOs, measuring campaigns and more. Dear Marketers is produced by MKT1 & Caspian Studios in partnership with Typeform. Episode 12 is sponsored by Framer and RevenueHero.About our 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.Devon Watts is a long-time startup marketer currently leading Product and Partner Marketing at Mercury. Previously, she ran marketing for the high-growth fintech Anrok, and spent time building her PMM, content, and brand expertise at companies like Yammer, Asana, and Carta. Devon has led B2B marketing teams with anywhere from 1 to 25+ people, and has experience in PLG and sales-led motions. In addition to marketing, Devon loves her kids, being on/in/near the water, her dog Dolores, and eating cheese.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.We also hear questions from Sinziana Ursu, Anna Furmanov, Julia Wiltshire, Elaine Zelby, Sayed Bin Habib, Lucia Giles, Briana Ottoboni, Allie Beazell, Cori Hamoor, Stuart Bramfeld, and Brandi Eppolito. Quotes “A lot of positioning debates that happen are because people don't understand we're positioning for the next three to six months or until things change for these audiences. I recommend not only breaking it down by ICP, but even breaking it down like, in 12 months our positioning might be this. Because that solves a lot of problems too.” - Emily Kramer“ I've seen a lot of companies basically start a new fiscal year and say, we're moving up market. Here's our enterprise segment, it's this head count, we’re gonna set pipeline of revenue goals that start today. And it's like, let's back up 10 steps, because we have zero awareness. It doesn't just turn on overnight. I think that's often a mistake I see.” - Jenny Thai“There are different tiers of campaigns and some are going be bigger than others, but it is important to think about campaigns and understand, are you really running campaigns? How many of them are you running? Because it also serves to give the team focus.…centering the team's energy around this very clear
- Jul 25, 20251h 3m
“Dear Marketers, How has the product launch playbook changed?”
How has the product launch playbook changed?Summary: In this episode of 'Dear Marketers,' Host Emily Kramer and her friends Devon Watts, Head of Product Marketing & Partner Marketing at Mercury, and Jenny Thai, Head of Content at Vanta, discuss the old versus new way of launching products, and what marketers need to know to succeed in 2025. They highlight the shift from one-day events to sustained marketing efforts, the role of internal alignment and the importance of adjusting your launch checklists.Dear Marketers is produced by MKT1 & Caspian Studios in partnership with Typeform. Episode 11 is sponsored by Framer and RevenueHero:About our 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.Devon Watts is a long-time startup marketer currently leading Product and Partner Marketing at Mercury. Previously, she ran marketing for the high-growth fintech Anrok, and spent time building her PMM, content, and brand expertise at companies like Yammer, Asana, and Carta. Devon has led B2B marketing teams with anywhere from 1 to 25+ people, and has experience in PLG and sales-led motions. In addition to marketing, Devon loves her kids, being on/in/near the water, her dog Dolores, and eating cheese.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. We also hear from Krystal Barghelame, Head of Marketing at Guideline, who asks, “ How should we be thinking about product launches in 2025, not just as a single moment, but as a steady drumbeat and system?” Quotes “ I see so many companies spend so much time on the messaging and they haven't spent nearly as much time on understanding their audience or knowing who their exact ICP is and that's backwards. You need to know who that audience is.” - Emily Kramer“ I think that's the trap I see sometimes, where you have your launch checklist and you think that you have to check everything off for each launch. No, this is a starting point. Adapt it to the specific goals and needs of that launch or the specific audience, and then build in additional things if it's not on the checklist.” - Jenny Thai*“If you're truly creating a system, then it doesn't start and end with the launch. It's integrated. These products, stories and moments and improvements, are integrated into your story and you're consistently driving top of funnel, mid funnel and down funnel growth.” - Devon Watts Time stamps[00:00] We’re excited to launch our episode on product launches[01:50] Krystal’s question: how has the product launch playbook changed? [02:35] Lightning Round: Quick takes on product launch strategies[06:48] The old way of launching products[15:26] Your product launch failed - why? [24:56] Product marketing should be audience marketing [36:14] Product launches are a campaign [38:51] The importance of positioning statements[57:2
- Jul 9, 20251h 6m
"Dear Marketers, How do you build an IRL events strategy?"
How do you build an IRL events strategy? Summary: In this episode of 'Dear Marketers,' Host Emily Kramer and her friends Devon Watts, Head of Product Marketing & Partner Marketing at Mercury, and Grace Erickson, VP of Revenue at Cocoon, discuss smart event strategy and how to avoid dollars in trash cans. Emily also phones event expert and friend Kacie Jenkins, former SVP Marketing at Sendoso, who shares practical advice on how to determine which events to attend and key considerations for marketers.Dear Marketers is produced by MKT1 & Caspian Studios in partnership with Typeform. Episode 10 is sponsored by Framer & Customer.io.About our 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.Devon Watts is a long-time startup marketer currently leading Product and Partner Marketing at Mercury. Previously, she ran marketing for the high-growth fintech Anrok, and spent time building her PMM, content, and brand expertise at companies like Yammer, Asana, and Carta. Devon has led B2B marketing teams with anywhere from 1 to 25+ people, and has experience in PLG and sales-led motions. In addition to marketing, Devon loves her kids, being on/in/near the water, her dog Dolores, and eating cheese.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.Kacie Jenkins is our “phone-a-friend” guest this episode. Kacie is the former SVP of Marketing at Sendoso. She also helped take Fastly from a 25-person startup to $200M ARR and a successful IPO; led marketing at Sourcegraph, where she helped grow revenue 4x year-over-year, and also has experience at Ace Hotel Group and Roku leading marketing teams.We also hear from Daphne Hoppenott, CMO at Voyantis, who asks, “ What are innovative ways you've seen marketers leveraging events and how should you think through balancing investing in third-party events versus hosting our own.?”Quotes “ You're comparing events not to each other, which I so often see people do, you're comparing them to the other channels you can use. Events are an opportunity. You choose them because you can show off your product at an event.” - Emily Kramer“ There's a huge opportunity cost to doing events.If you're investing in events, you may not investing in a lot of other things in order to prioritize it, and you cannot approach that level of investment without really scrutinizing your goal, your audience, your central creative asset, etc.” - Grace Erickson*“An event is an experience, it's an extension of your brand. It's a chance to make really strong connections, build relationships, and represent your brand in a way that is much higher recall than any of the digital touchpoints that you might be investing in.” – Kacie JenkinsTime stamps[01:05] Event fun facts [04:08] Today’s question: “ What are innovative ways you've seen marketers leverage events?”[07:25] Avoiding dollars in trash cans [14:17] Lightning round[21:51] Composition versus
- Jun 18, 20251h 0m
Dear Marketers, "What are the most common mistakes new managers make?"
What do new marketing managers get wrong? Summary: In this episode of 'Dear Marketers,' Host Emily Kramer and her friends Jenny Thai, Head of Content at Vanta, and Grace Erickson, VP of Revenue at Cocoon, dive into what new marketing managers get wrong. Moving beyond the basics like bad one-on-one formats and messy decks, they dive into the early mistakes that derail leadership credibility. Dear Marketers is produced by MKT1 & Caspian Studios in partnership with Typeform. Episode 9 is sponsored by Framer and 42 Agency. About our 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.We also hear from Mark Huber, VP of Marketing at UserEvidence, who asks, “ What's the biggest mistake that you see first time marketing leaders make?”Quotes* “ Your job as a people lead or manager, no matter how big your team is, is to basically take the chaos that's happening around you, make sense of it for your team. Then protect your team from that chaos so that they can execute effectively and focus on the impact, versus getting distracted by whatever random shiny object RAM is happening in any given week.” – Jenny Thai“ My thing that I wish someone had told me before I became a first time manager was how much of your job is shielding. Not lying, but shielding and being a buffer or filter between other people and how that's hard.” - Emily Kramer“ Teams of any size, in any org structure, need structure to know what to do when. How to prioritize, whose job it is to do what thing, whatever—teams need structure. As a manager, it's your job to create the right structure for your team. And if your company doesn't have the right structure for your team, it's still your job to figure out what the right structure is within whatever's happening at your company.” - Grace EricksonTime stamps[00:00] Meet Grace and Jenny, and how to pronounce “management"[01:35] Today’s question: What do new marketing managers get wrong?[02:18] Lightning Round: Management mistakes[05:47] Summarizing key management mistakes[07:03] Understanding which projects are high impact[13:49] The babysitter is dead[22:54] Delegation challenges [31:53] Redefining success in management[33:46] Tangible tips for effective delegation[38:52] Proactive performance management[49:27] The role of internal marketing[55:09] Best, Marketer GameRecommended products & agenciesTypeform: Use code “MKT1” for 20% off the Growth Plan<a target="_blank" href="https://www.framer.c
- May 28, 20251h 3m
“Dear Marketers, Is the company blog dead?”
Is the company blog dead? Summary: In this episode of 'Dear Marketers,' Host Emily Kramer and her friends Jenny Thai, Head of Content at Vanta and Devon Watts, Head of Product Marketing & Partner Marketing at Mercury, discuss the company blog and whether it is alive and well. They dive into a blog versus a resource center, having a show versus having a feed, and avoiding random acts of marketing. Together, they discuss the essential factors to consider when creating content for your audience.Dear Marketers is produced by MKT1 & Caspian Studios in partnership with Typeform. Episode 8 is sponsored by Framer and UserGems. About our 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.Devon Watts is a long-time startup marketer currently leading Product and Partner Marketing at Mercury. Previously, she ran marketing for the high-growth fintech Anrok, and spent time building her PMM, content, and brand expertise at companies like Yammer, Asana, and Carta. Devon has led B2B marketing teams with anywhere from 1 to 25+ people, and has experience in PLG and sales-led motions. In addition to marketing, Devon loves her kids, being on/in/near the water, her dog Dolores, and eating cheese.We also hear from Matt Hodges, Founding Marketer at Lorikeet, who asks, “Is the company blog dead?”Quotes “At the end of the day, writing content with a strong point of view that leverages expertise that is built with dis or created with distribution in mind and distribution on channels that your audience cares about is what’s going to help you grow. Don’t get so stuck in this world of optimizing for LLMs and forget the point.” – Emily Kramer “[The company blog] is evolving. It’s not dead, but I think it’s hit middle age. It’s having an identity crisis and it needs to figure out the next phase of its life.” – Jenny Thai“If no one reads your blog, it’s not showing up in SEO, and it's not showing up on LLMs, why does it exist? A lot of people are still doing it, but they no longer know why. And there needs to be an evolution here.” – Emily Kramer“Don’t start with the question, should this live on our website or not? Start with the question of what you’re doing for your audience.” – Devon WattsTime stamps[00:00] Meet Jenny and Devon, plus fun facts[01:39] Today’s question: Is the blog dead?[03:04] Lightning round[07:44] The evolution of company blogs[10:23] “Shows” versus “feeds”[13:26] Distribution should drive content strategy[17:25] What real marketers are doing today[23:39] Should companies still publish long-form content?[31:48] Blogs versus resource centers[33:30] Debating executive blog posts[38:55] Research on top startups’ use of blogs and resources[42:05] Should some content be “nomadic”?[51:16] Optimizing content for humans or for LLMs[57:10] Best, Marketer Recommended products & agenciesTypeform: Use code “MKT1” for 20% off the Growth Plan<a target="_blank" href="https://www.framer.
- May 12, 20251h 7m
"Dear Marketers, When should you do a web or brand design?"
Should you do a brand or web redesign?Summary: In this episode of 'Dear Marketers,' Host Emily Kramer sits down with her friends Grace Erickson, VP of Revenue at Cocoon, Jenny Thai, Head of Content, Vanta, and special guest Kelsey Aroian, Former Senior Director Brand & Creative, Front and Former Co-founder, Paladar Studio. The four explore a highly debated topic in marketing: how to know when it's time to redesign your website, or your entire brand. This episode offers guidance on reasons for brand redesigns, the challenges that arise during these projects, and the complexities of working with agencies, studios, and freelancers.Dear Marketers is produced by MKT1 & Caspian Studios in partnership with Typeform. Episode 5 is sponsored by Framer and 42 Agency.About our 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.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.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. Kelsey Aroian is a brand and creative leader with over a decade of experience building and leading high-performing creative teams and bringing multi-channel brand initiatives to life. Most recently, she led the Brand & Creative team at Front, and previously she led marketing programs at Asana and brand at Designer Fund. She also founded and ran Paladar, a multi-disciplinary design studio. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon and went to summer camp in NH with Emily Kramer for ~a decade as a kid.We also hear from Kevin Branscum, Senior Director of Brand Marketing at Typeform, a form builder that helps you collect zero-party data while providing a stellar brand experience, who asks us “ When do you know it's time for a website or homepage redesign, and when do you know it's time for a full rebrand, if ever?”Quotes*“Rebrands are like therapy for your company sometimes.You want to choose a thought partner who is going to help you make decisions and be a forcing function for you to make decisions to move the work forward. That is a really important piece of criteria and is also going to help your project be set up for success in the long term and move a lot faster.” - Kelsey Aroian*“ People also underestimate when you're building a company, repeated recognition of a brand is massively, massively important. So the risk of a redesign is you can take a step back in like the equity you've built with your existing brand. So, the reason for the redesign has to be significant enough to make up for some loss of equity. And that's why also doing redesign, very, very early is lower risk in that context, right? Because you've not built up very much equity with your brand.” – Grace EricksonTime stamps[00:00] Meet Jenny, Grace, and special guest Kelsey Royan[03:30] Web redesign vs. full rebrand [07:15] Types o
- Apr 28, 202552 min
“Dear Marketers, Is sales & marketing alignment harder than ever?" (part 2/2)
Is sales & marketing alignment harder than ever? (Part 2/2)Summary: In this episode of 'Dear Marketers,' Host Emily Kramer and her friends Devon Watts, Head of Product Marketing and Partnerships at Mercury, and Grace Erickson, VP of Revenue at Cocoon, tackle the often intense topic of sales and marketing alignment. The discussion dives deep into the complexities of aligning these critical go-to-market functions. Together, they discuss the impact of Account-driven GTM, the role of centralized Rev Ops teams, the nuanced debate over variable compensation for marketers, and the evolving use of AI tools. This episode is part 2 of 2, listen to Episode 5 for part 1. It offers actionable insights and strategic recommendations for driving greater synergy between sales and marketing teams.Dear Marketers is produced by MKT1 & Caspian Studios in partnership with Typeform. Episode 6 is sponsored by Framer and UserEvidence.About our 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.Devon Watts is a long-time startup marketer currently leading Product and Partner Marketing at Mercury. Previously, she ran marketing for the high-growth fintech Anrok, and spent time building her PMM, content, and brand expertise at companies like Yammer, Asana, and Carta. Devon has led B2B marketing teams with anywhere from 1 to 25+ people, and has experience in PLG and sales-led motions. In addition to marketing, Devon loves her kids, being on/in/near the water, her dog Dolores, and eating cheese.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.We also hear from Kira Luscher, Head of Marketing & Growth at Valence, the widest deployed AI-native coach for enterprise, who asks us “How can sales and marketing get aligned in 2025?”Quotes*”I actually think the whole thing is broken if I'm really getting into it. I think marketing rules no longer make sense. I think the delineations make no sense. I think the marketing and sales breakdown doesn't make any sense anymore. I think we need to burn it all down and rebuild the org. And I think that is going to happen slowly. But if I was building a company from scratch and building a go-to-market team from scratch, I would do it radically differently from how it is done. And I think the companies that are doing that and rethinking how it's done are going to win, because the systems are different and the teams need to be different. And that is how radical or extreme I think the shifts are to this.” - Emily Kramer*”It hurts when teams are pointing fingers, trying to take credit, trying to over-claim influence and game the system. It especially hurts when compensation specifically for SDRs has a lot to do with outbound meetings booked. And I think that's where good attribution systems fail, because people think that attribution and how people's commission is being figured out is the same thing. And it's not like your attribution system can actu
- Apr 21, 202559 min
“Dear Marketers, how can sales and marketing get aligned in 2025?" (part 1/2)
How can sales & marketing work better together in 2025? (Part 1)Summary: In this episode of 'Dear Marketers,' Host Emily Kramer and her friends Devon Watts, Head of Product Marketing and Partnerships at Mercury, and Grace Erickson, VP of Revenue at Cocoon, explore the complexities of aligning sales and marketing teams. The discussion highlights the rising pressure on marketing to show ROI, the shift from MQLs to pipeline-focused metrics, and the increasing blur between sales and marketing roles due to AI and automation. Special guest Jaleh Rezaei, CEO and co-founder of Mutiny, shares insights from her recent report on sales and marketing alignment, emphasizing the importance of data integration, feedback loops, and treating marketing initiatives as products. The episode also features a debate on whether moving SDRs under marketing is beneficial.Dear Marketers is produced by MKT1 & Caspian Studios in partnership with Typeform. Episode 5 is sponsored by Framer and Brand24.About our 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.Devon Watts is a long-time startup marketer currently leading Product and Partner Marketing at Mercury. Previously, she ran marketing for the high-growth fintech Anrok, and spent time building her PMM, content, and brand expertise at companies like Yammer, Asana, and Carta. Devon has led B2B marketing teams with anywhere from 1 to 25+ people, and has experience in PLG and sales-led motions. In addition to marketing, Devon loves her kids, being on/in/near the water, her dog Dolores, and eating cheese.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 features an expert segment with Jaleh Rezaei, CEO and co-founder of Mutiny, which helps B2B companies generate pipeline and revenue from their target accounts through AI-powered 1:1 microsites and account intelligence.We also hear from Kira Luscher, Head of Marketing & Growth at Valence, the AI-native coach for enterprise, who asks us “How can sales and marketing work better together in 2025?”Quotes*”Marketers are so full stack and do so many things and it's often not recognized. So one of the saddest things for me is when organizations treat marketing like a service organization to sales or like a channel feeding sales. 'Cause that just starts this problem. If that's the culture of your company as a marketer, you're gonna have a real hard time driving sales and marketing alignment no matter what happens. So the first thing you need to do is really reflect on if this can shift. If you're leading a marketing team, how do I make it not be seen as a service organization to sales? And that's gonna take a lot of time. The biggest deal breaker for sales and marketing alignment is when marketing is thought of as a channel or a service organization to sales.” - Emily Kramer*”Now that I've spent so many years in product, it’s like when you ship a product, you spend so much time iterating it. Whereas in marketing and sales, we ship these huge programs that are the interface between two teams that we've never done before. And then nobody optimizes it. There's no feedback loop and feedback was a huge the
About Dear Marketers with Emily Kramer & Friends
Startup Marketing Advice Podcast Whenever Emily Kramer—creator of MKT1 newsletter—needs B2B startup marketing advice, she turns to the marketers she has on speed dial. Now, you can hear Kramer and these marketing experts, Devon, Grace & Jenny, talk shop and share unfiltered advice on how to improve your approach to marketing. On each episode, we’ll answer a question from a real marketer, like “How do you hire great marketers?”, “Is the company blog dead?” and “Should you make your founder an influencer?” We’ll pack our answers with candid advice, strategies you can apply right away, and proven MKT1 frameworks—plus learnings from our experiences at startups like Asana, Cocoon, Mercury & Vanta. We’ll also bring in guests when we need another expert opinion.
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