Would your marketing make YOU buy?
TL;DR: Audit your own buying behavior, solve expensive problems, and remember that AI will never out-human humans.
Read time: 5 minutes
The following is a conversation with Eryn Lueders, Head of Marketing at Basis Theory.
Tell readers about you.
My whole career has been working in high-growth SaaS environments. I love being scrappy. It’s fun to keep pace with the rapid evolution of this space.
I’m also a recovering performance marketer. I was the hyperspecialist measuring everything. But I've evolved a lot. I see the massive value in holistic storytelling, branding & positioning.
Did you feel over-indexed on performance marketing?
Absolutely.
For many years, I was constantly tweaking & running endless A/B tests. It felt like a black hole. I was too absorbed in the tiny details.
How has it changed for you?
Marketing has to work in context.
I’m currently a marketing team of one. So I don't have the luxury of getting lost in minutiae.
My approach is a lot broader now. I ask myself, "Would this work on me as a prospect? Would I buy this in their shoes?"
If it resonates with me, it's likely to with others.
It’s really that simple and that’s how I keep pace with buyer behavior: by constantly auditing and observing my own behavior.
Was there a certain point when you realized that? Or was it a process?
It was gradual.
I’ve been through the end-of-quarter fire drills with companies. It’s given me the experience to understand that good marketing can’t solve for lack of PMF.
We often think we know what's working, but in reality, there's a lot we don't understand.
Markets emerge. Behavior evolves. It’s something you follow along with, not design during internal meetings.
I love that approach of considering “Would I buy this?” when writing copy. It’s a reality check. Buyer behavior is always shifting. And companies lag on this big time.
I’ll give you an example.
Right now in 2024, there’s too much content online to sift through. And a lot of it’s great content. But there’s simply too much of it.
People are retreating to their trusted networks instead of reading 200+ pages of info to make a decision.
It’s a huge reason why closed-off niche communities are so authentic & rich with dialogue.
The fact that marketers & salespeople haven’t exploited them is what makes them goldmines for storytelling inspiration.
When I think about my buying habits, my decisions are usually influenced by people. Not “content” in and of itself.
Traditional inbound is facing diminishing returns. It needs to evolve.
There’s too much content out there for buyers to absorb. Buyers are making decisions based on WHO the message is coming from.
How does that impact your storytelling?
I can quickly adapt and pivot, staying in step with evolving buyer behavior.
If there's a new angle or trend emerging, I can explore it right away. That’s my current 80/20 rule.
‘Good enough’ is actually good enough because buyers want you to evolve with how they prefer to buy. They don’t care about arbitrary definitions of perfect.
I ship lots of work fast for that reason.
How do you recommend marketers at larger companies get alignment?
Carve out time for internal outreach with sales / CS / product. It's the digital equivalent of stopping by someone's desk for a chat. You can learn so much about customers this way.
I’ve never understood the sales/marketing tension. The company wins when sales wins.
Who will be the winners in the next 5-10 years?
It all comes down to what people are actually willing to pay for every month. There's often a gap between what people say they like and what they'll spend money on.
Staying in-market is non-negotiable if you want to stay up-to-date on hard problems customers are willing to keep paying for.
Master tools like Gong, ask nuanced questions that show you’ve done your homework. Executives will give you a seat at the table if you do that.
That’s a crucial distinction.
A business doesn’t really exist if there’s no paying demand for its offerings.
It reminds me of AI. There are hundreds of new AI tools hitting the market every week. But I wonder which ones will be around in 5-10 years?
There’s a lot of VC money flowing & really slick demos. Riding the hype wave with flashy marketing is one thing and that’s great. But building a sustainable long-term business is a whole different challenge.
If your unit economics don’t make sense & you don’t have PMF, none of it really matters.
Plus, AI will eventually become a background feature. I don’t even think we’ll call it “AI” anymore. It’ll just be software.
Closing thoughts?
There’s nothing better than face-to-face human interaction. You see this with the big return of in-person events.
No matter how sophisticated AI becomes, the need for human connection remains.
People inherently crave other people.