Modern marketing looks a lot like…product?

How to think like a modern marketer, adapt to 2023's tools, and learn from Anrok's marketing team.

Jul 13, 2023

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I love seeing what’s possible when marketers think like product orgs and use the modern tools available to them to make high-value content. Yet, I recognize incorporating new tools—some as new a few weeks or months ago—can be overwhelming and intimidating. So I wrote this newsletter and made a video with some early-stage marketers to help.

This newsletter began when I saw a web project shared on LinkedIn from early-stage startup, Anrok. I thought this project was a great example of where “content marketing” and marketing in general is going. So I asked the creators, Devon Watts and Halley Johnson, to join me for a talk to explain very tactically how they created their recent project and how they’re adapting to the fast-changing, wild world of marketing in 2023.

This newsletter is divided into 2 parts to show the importance of adapting to changing marketing trends and tools:

Part 1: An overview of a project created by Anrok that shows how modern marketers can use the latest no code, automation, and AI tools to add value and drive growth. Includes a 13-min video segment of a talk with Devon Watts and Halley Johnson of Anrok marketing (full 30 min video available for paid subscribers).
Part 2: Why marketing orgs need to become more like product orgs. It includes a breakdown of the skills you need to learn to be a modern marketer–or the skills you need to hire for when bringing on your early marketers at startups.

Part 1: Marketer Made

A Breakdown of Anrok’s Sales Tax Index

I chatted with Devon and Halley to dive deep into The SaaS Sales Tax Index, the project I mentioned above. Now, I don’t love sales tax, but I got really amped up about this project—and not just because Anrok, a Series A startup that automates sales tax compliance, is an MKT1 Portfolio company. The video from this chat (shared below) is now the first in a new series I’m calling “Marketer Made”.

Why did I get so excited? Neither Devon or Halley are engineers, yet they built 50+ dynamic web pages that update based on data in Airtable plus a lead capture flow—in less than 2 weeks. Devon and Halley’s small team of 3 at Anrok exemplifies what it means to be a modern marketing org leveraging all tools available to them. And the results are really helpful resources for prospects and customers.

What they built

Anrok built a state-by-state SaaS sales tax index for SaaS companies to help companies determine where their product is taxable
They created a “hub” page for the overall index and summary of all states, 53 subpages for US states and territories, and a conversion flow (with follow up emails) to sign up for Anrok as the CTA.
They used Byword.ai, Whalesync, Airtable, Figma, and Webflow Collections to make this possible.

Like any good project, they started with MKT1’s GACCS brief

More on the GACCS brief in this newsletter

Before you create anything of substance in marketing, I recommend you break down the project using this quick brief format: Goals, Audience, Creative, Channels/Distribution, Stakeholders. Here’s the GACCS for Anrok’s Sales Tax Index:

Goal: Create a sales tax index that provides answers to questions about state by state taxability.
- Increase SEO traffic
- Ultimately, drive qualified leads and revenue
Audience: Finance leaders at SaaS companies trying to figure out evolving state by state tax requirements
Creative: Reflect the ease of using the Anrok product in the page design and make it very specific to the SaaS audience.
- Be concise and get to the point–don’t waste anyone’s time.
- Make visitors understand the complexity of figuring sales tax out for their business, and therefore the necessity of using tool like Anrok
- Competitors serve more company types/a large audience, make that an advantage for Anrok by being specific to SaaS
Channels: Anrok Website. New “Hub” page for sales tax index with 53+ sub-pages
- Primary driver of traffic: SEO
- Secondary drivers: Outbound & Social
- Down funnel: Follow up email with an additional lead magnet that is more specific to the prospect’s business
- CTA: Sign up for Anrok at bottom of all pages
Stakeholders: Owner: Halley, Marketer; Reviewer: Devon, Head of Marketing; Contributors: Eng team who has this data in Airtable & sales tax team of experts for content

Why I love this project

Devon and Halley really think of “content marketing” as another product Anrok creates—which is a philosophy I recommend all marketing teams adopt.

Some other reasons I love this project:

Takes advantage of existing assets: Taps into data the team already had and used to build the product.
Value to their audience! Provides useful information without the audience having to jump through hoops (aka a million form fields).
Clear way to distribute: Can quickly rank for many keywords using a programmatic approach to making pages to drive traffic.
Generates high-intent leads: If someone is looking for this information, they are likely in a relevant role and don't yet have a solution like Anrok.
Marketing team built this themselves: Using no-code tools, generative AI, and dynamic content.
Other teams at Anrok love it: Sales wants to use it. Engineers think its a great use of data. Cross-functional love is a great sign of a successful marketing project.

More from MKT1

✂️ Templates and resources for paid subscribers: Paid subscribers can find all MKT1 templates here and a 30-minute video describing how Devon and Halley created Anrok’s sales tax index at the bottom of this email.

🧑‍🚀 Job board: See roles from the MKT community. Paid subscribers can add jobs to our job board for free.

📖 Keep reading: Paid subscribers get access to the rest of this newsletter which includes why marketing teams must think more like product orgs and 5 new(ish) concepts you need to master as modern marketer.