Shift happens.
After 3 years in the email marketing industry, I’m departing WhatCounts as Director of Inbound Marketing and moving over to SHIFT Communications as Vice President, Marketing Technology.
Why the change? For almost a decade, I have been focused on the bottom half of the sales and marketing funnel. From the moment someone comes into the audience – via search, newsletter subscription, PPC, etc. – I’ve developed ways of converting them into prospects, leads, customers, and evangelists. I’ve got a fairly good handle on the process and have now replicated it for 3 different companies with good results.
The question that has been nagging me in the past few years, however, is this: how do people figure out you exist in the first place? In the past, I’ve viewed things like awareness, brand building, and PR as unquantifiable wastes of time, but I now view that as ignorance on my part, rather than being inherently flawed marketing mechanisms. How do people find out about you? Sure, you can buy lists and spam the daylights out of folks, but that has relatively little ROI. I realized that for all of the bad pitches I’ve received (and there have been so, so many) there must still be some value to brand building, PR, and awareness or that entire industry would have ceased to exist a long time ago.
My mission, my quest if you will, is to figure out the top half of the marketing funnel. What effect does brand advertising have? What effect does PR have? What effect does brand building have? Most important how do you quantify it? How do you assess it objectively, intelligently, and efficiently so that you can pick the mechanisms that will work best for your company and grow the audience so that you can then use lead generation, demand generation, conversion, and all of the marketing tools that I’m comfortable with.
To the PR world, I’ll be helping SHIFT offer my services to existing and future clients. If you’ve ever wanted to have me look at your marketing funnel or your marketing strategy, audit it, and give you a plan of action to fix things up, I’ll be offering that through SHIFT now. If you’ve ever wondered if your analytics are telling you the right information and delivering real value to you, I’ll be offering that through SHIFT now, too. Ever wanted a social media marketing agency? SHIFT can do that and you get me as a bonus. Everything you’ve come to know me for isn’t going away – rather, it’s being connected with the top half of the funnel as I learn and become proficient in it, in my quest to learn the totality of the marketing profession.
I invite you to join me as the quest continues! Want to work with me at SHIFT? Click here to let me know!
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YAY! Congratulations, ninja!
Thank you muchly!
Boom.
The dynamite has gone off.
This is great news, Christopher! Knowing how many great minds have worked at Shift at one point or another, I’m sure you’re joining a top notch team, and your unique knowledge of technology and marketing will bring a new angle for Shift’s clients to find success. Congratulations!
Thanks sir – much appreciated!
Enjoy! It’s a good time of the year for new fresh things 🙂
Thanks!
Congratulations Chris! Best of luck in the new role.
Thank you!
Congratulations Chris! You’ve earned it!
Regards,
jim
Thanks, Jim!
Gasp! PR! Next thing you know you’ll be shepherding a herd of unicorns. 😉
Seriously, this is a great move for you and the fine folks at SHIFT. I love seeing smart people come together. Best wishes on the new gig!
Thanks, Scott!
CONGRATS!!!! That’s fantastic news!
Thanks, Leslie!
Good luck on your new endeavor. I think you implicitly have a handle on what you’re doing, and your new job requirements, based on all that I’ve read here. I just hope that your content won’t suffer as a result of learning something new.
Hopefully the opposite!
Huge congratulations to you, Chris! This is fantastic news.
Thanks, Jason.
Congrats to you! Looking forward to hearing about all the wonderful things you’ll learn along the way.
Me too – thanks!
Congratulations, Chris. They are lucky to have you.
I am so excited to tune in to MOC to hear more about the news. I expect even better things from you in 2013, which is hard to imagine.
Way to go!
Thanks, Dave.
Wow, congrats Chris!
Thanks, Tim!
Admittedly I’m a little sensitive to it, because I have worked in PR for 15+ years, but I’ve certainly detected a little disdain for PR with you and John on the podcast (and I say that respectfully not to start a pissing match).
So, my question, what happens the next time a SHIFT colleague inadvertently sends a pitch to the Marketing Over Coffee podcast asking you to interview startup X or Y about their digital ad technology product 🙂
Jeff – part of that was my own ignorance. That’s one of the reasons I’m here – to see what’s real and what works and measure it.
And if a SHIFT colleague does that, they get a visit from me.
Congratulations Chris! And I look forward to hearing about the quantification of the top side of the funnel.
Me too 🙂 Thanks, sir.
Good to hear that Chris has landed another good daytime job. Hopefully, it means he’ll continue meeting John Wall at the doughnut shop to share their combined wit and wisdom with all of us moochers who are addicted to their podcast ‘Marketing over Coffee’ and, of course, to the caffeine.
We shall endeavor to continue serving up the coffee!
Congratulations, and best wishes, Mr. Penn!
Thank you!
Delighted for you, and really excited to have your big brain on top of the funnel stuff.
Thank you sir. I look forward to seeing what we can cook up!
Congrats on the shift! Excited to observe your work with them.
Thanks, Stacey!
Congratulations! Best of luck.
Thanks, Slavik. I know who to call for promos too 🙂
Congrats on the new role; I think you’ll have fun digging into the ‘other side’ of the ‘force’. Just don’t hurt ’em too badly with the Ninjitsu, okay? 😉
Thank you!
Congrats, Chris. Great get for Shift Communications.
Thanks sir. Hope all’s well your way too.
Congratulations Chris! Well done.
Thanks, Phillip!
I’m going to say congrats to @TDefern, because he landed a prize, as well as congrats to you Chris!
Well played.
Thanks, Howard!
Congrats, Chris!
Thanks, sir.
Couldn’t imagine a better fit. Congrats @cspenn:disqus . And congrats to SHIFT.
Thanks, sir. Hopefully I will have fancy new slides to show off at Social Fresh 🙂
It seems I’m a few days late to hear about this. But I second Jason’s comment. Very happy for you and SHIFT. Keep learning. We always enjoy learning from you, especially at Social Fresh. 🙂
Congratulations, Chris! Wishing you all the best.