Louder Than Words with John Bonini
47 episodes - English - Latest episode: 14 days ago - ★★★★★ - 40 ratingsWhy do certain brands and creators become your favorite while others are forgotten? Why do they seem to effortlessly garner so much more attention than everyone else?
Turns out, it’s not the tactics. They’re using the same tools and doing the same things as the rest of us.
So, what’s the difference?
Since 2015, Louder Than Words has hosted the world’s most prolific marketers and creators to explore how they cut through the noise to build unforgettable brands. Hosted by John Bonini.
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Episodes
#47 | Ross Simmonds | The Long Game of Content Marketing
April 11, 2024 04:01 - 50 minutes - 117 MBThis week, John sits down with content legend Ross Simmonds. Ross is the founder and CEO of Foundational Marketing, an agency focused on distribution, as well as the (new!) author of "Create Once, Distribute Forever." Discussed in this episode: Leading with value is crucial in content marketing to avoid being banned or blocked from platforms. Content creators should prioritize distribution to reach a larger audience and maximize the impact of their work. Content has the potentia...
#46 | Emily Triplett Lentz | Behind the Content at Basecamp, Help Scout, and Calendly
April 03, 2024 04:01 - 47 minutes - 110 MBThis week, I sit down with a friend and and someone whose work I've long admired––Emily Triplett Lentz. Emily has one of the most prolific and legendary resumes in content marketing, working for brands like Basecamp, Help Scout, Loom, and currently, Calendly. Things discussed in this episode: Community plays a crucial role in content marketing as it helps build trust and loyalty among target audiences. Basecamp's non-traditional approach to content, driven by strong opinions an...
#45 | Chris Savage | Content Is the Product
March 20, 2024 10:30 - 54 minutes - 125 MBThis week, John sits down with Chris Savage, co-founder and CEO at Wistia. The team at Wistia has always approached content differently than most other companies. They host, and film, parades. They buy and refurbish old station wagons. They record original music. All for the content. In this episode, John geeks out with Chris to learn all about the how and why behind Wistia's unique flavor of content over the last 17 years. Discussed in this episode: Creativity and quality are e...
#44 | Brendan Hufford | The Importance of Creativity & Consistency in Building a Brand
March 14, 2024 11:00 - 52 minutes - 121 MBIn this episode, John hangs out with recovering in-house marketer, now founder of Growth Sprints, Brendan Hufford. In the past, Hufford worked in both growth and SEO for companies like ActiveCampaign. Now, he works with SaaS companies to help take them grow through short, focused sprints using his SaaS Growth Sprint framework. Discussed in this episode: Navigating bureaucracy requires understanding the value of stair stepping and starting with a V1, V2, V3 approach. Transitioni...
#43 | Rand Fishkin | Designing a Business (and content) for Meaningful Engagement
March 07, 2024 12:00 - 52 minutes - 120 MBThis week, John is joined by Rand Fishkin––one of the true OGs when it comes to B2B content marketing. Rand is the founder and former CEO of Moz and the current founder and CEO of SparkToro. He's also the author of Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. Discussed in this episode: SparkToro's three-year retrospective The evolution of Rand's marketing approach involved a shift from less strategic and more experimental tactics to a focus on scalabi...
#42 | Amanda Goetz | The Messiness of Finding Your Content Niche & Going Independent
February 29, 2024 11:30 - 48 minutes - 110 MBThis week, John sits down with Amanda Goetz. Amanda is a 2x founder, 3x CMO, and now a full-time brand builder and creator on personal and professional growth inspiring 150k people each week through social and her weekly newsletter, Life’s a Game. Amanda shares insights and experiences on: Her experience transitioning to full-time content creation (and she’s worked through the anxiety that induces). How/why finding validation and proof points, such as audience growth, engagement...
#41 | Dave Gerhardt | Building & Monetizing a Personal Brand to $1M+
December 20, 2023 11:00 - 1 hour - 161 MBYou know Dave Gerhardt. Maybe it's from his days running marketing at Drift. Or from his time hosting the Seeking Wisdom podcast with David Cancel. Or, maybe you've heard of (or are a member of) his B2B community, Exit Five. Point is, if you've been working in B2B marketing at any point in the last decade, you know Dave. In this rare podcast interview, Dave goes into detail on everything that's led him to this point––the solo founder of a $1M business. You'll hear what he lear...
#40 | Amanda Natividad | Defensible Content
December 14, 2023 13:35 - 43 minutes - 99.7 MBWe’re back! The first new episode of Louder Than Words in more than 6(!) years. Today, John welcomes marketing and creative extraordinaire Amanda Natividad to talk about her own journey as a creator filled with uncertainty and self-doubt to a full-blown influencer, how she approaches creating content that’s unique and more defensible, and how the freedom to create on her/their own terms at SparkToro works to their benefit. Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this epis...
Lindsay Pettingill: Airbnb's 4 Principles For Marketing Experimentation
July 21, 2017 03:07 - 41 minutes - 33.2 MBAirbnb runs about 700 experiments in a given week. Here, I chat with data scientist Linsday Pettingill on the culture and principles that allow their team to move so quickly and efficiently, and how others people can transpose these ideas to their own work.
Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown: How Successful Companies Drive Extraordinary Growth
April 25, 2017 06:11 - 56 minutes - 44.9 MBWhat do companies like Facebook, Dropbox, Airbnb, Pinterest (and others!) all have in common? Not just a great product, but a methodical, measured approach to driving extraordinary growth. In this episode, Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown (founders of GrowthHackers.com) unpack the principles behind these methods.
Scott Monty: The Moves That Helped Change Ford Motor Company's Image
August 24, 2016 21:13 - 46 minutes - 37.6 MBScott Monty, former head of social media at Ford Motor Company, talks about his decision to join Ford in 2008 and the specifics of what went into the social and branding strategies that helped turn the company’s image around.
Jason Fried: The Basecamp Founder on Bypassing Perverted Growth for Profitability
July 28, 2016 20:45 - 37 minutes - 30.3 MBJason Fried, Founder and CEO of Basecamp, talks about the (rare) art of making more money than you spend instead of aiming for growth at all costs.
Christian Rudder: Growing OkCupid from Underdog to Generating 30,000 First Dates Every Single Day
July 12, 2016 21:59 - 35 minutes - 28.5 MBChristian Rudder, cofounder of OkCupid and bestselling author of “Dataclysm: Who We Are When We Think No One is Looking”, talks about OkCupid’s algorithmic approach to growing past its competition.
Tucker Max: How to Turn Your Ideas Into Books Without Actually Writing Them
June 08, 2016 22:18 - 37 minutes - 30.4 MBTucker Max, bestselling author of "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell", talks about the inspiration behind founding his new company, Book in a Box, and how they’re helping people turn ideas into books.
Jay Acunzo: Connecting People That Are Bothered By "Suck"
June 02, 2016 23:13 - 54 minutes - 43.5 MBJay Acunzo, former marketer at Google and HubSpot, talks about the inspiration behind his current passion project Unthinkable.fm, and how he’s helping connect marketers everywhere that are bothered by “suck.”
Meghan Keaney Anderson: HubSpot's VP of Marketing On Why Content is Moving Away from the Website
April 10, 2016 18:45 - 56 minutes - 45.4 MBMeghan Keaney Anderson, HubSpot's VP of Marketing, has been with the company for five years. Here she talks about the levers that have inspired growth and why content and SEO will be radically different over the next five years.
Jess Iandiorio: Drift's VP of Marketing on Building A Customer Growth Strategy
April 04, 2016 03:13 - 52 minutes - 41.9 MBJess Iandiorio, VP of Marketing at Drift, details prescriptive tips on how brands can start building a more effective customer growth strategy and retain more customers.
Keith Frankel: "You can be honest without being an asshole"
March 28, 2016 02:32 - 1 hour - 48.6 MBKeith Frankel talks in detail about the career that has taken him from the competitive board rooms at MTV to the rose-tinted offices of the tech world and the experiences therein that led to his mission to never lie again.
Neil Pasricha: The Bestselling Author On Discovering the Simplest Formula to A Happy Life
March 13, 2016 23:37 - 56 minutes - 45.3 MBNeil Pasricha, best known for his blog–1000 Awesome Things–and subsequent "Book of Awesome" series talks about his new book, "The Happiness Equation", and how he discovered the simplest formula to a happy life.
Jason Zook: The Guy Who Made $1 Million Wearing T-Shirts
February 01, 2016 19:51 - 52 minutes - 42.3 MBJason Zook, best known for making over $1,000,000 wearing t-shirts and selling his last name (twice), talks about creativity, hustle porn, and preparing for success.
David Heinemeier Hansson: The Cofounder of Basecamp on Rejecting Money & Living Happily Ever After
November 18, 2015 22:54 - 53 minutes - 42.9 MBDavid Heinemeier Hansson on why Silicon Valley culture gets it all wrong.
Nataly Kogan: The Road to “Happier" from Communist Russia
November 10, 2015 21:51 - 29 minutes - 23.9 MBNataly Kogan, founder of Happier, talks about escaping communist Russia at 13 and her life’s work of helping others find happiness in small, bite-sized, everyday moments.
Jeff Sheldon: The Founder of Ugmonk on Fighting Obscurity & Selling Your First 200 Shirts
November 06, 2015 16:56 - 39 minutes - 31.9 MBJeff Sheldon, the designer and founder of Ugmonk, talks about growing his side passion project into the well-known lifestyle brand it's become today.
The Austin Kleon Episode
October 26, 2015 04:33 - 1 hour - 57.3 MBAustin Kleon, the New York Times best selling author of Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work, chats on everything from the importance of being boring, how he collects ideas, the Talking Heads, and much, more more.
Ann Handley: Spandex & Volkswagen – or How Anyone Can Overcome Their Writing Woes
October 15, 2015 22:44 - 36 minutes - 29.1 MBAnn Handley, the world's first chief content officer and best selling author of Everybody Writes, talks about overcoming her own distractions to be a better writer (and why delivering newsletters in her neighbor's mailbox as a child was not scalable.)
Joe Pulizzi: How to Start Something By Selling Nothing
September 29, 2015 16:41 - 43 minutes - 34.8 MBJoe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute and author of Content Inc., talks about how many successful companies experience "happy accidents" in the way they grow their content marketing strategies.
Joanna Wiebe: On Accidentally Quitting Her Job & Creating a Movement Around Conversion Copywriting
September 23, 2015 19:28 - 46 minutes - 37.2 MBJoanna Wiebe, creator of Copy Hackers, talks about her journey toward starting her own copywriting business, which includes accidentally sending her old boss a resignation email.
Andy Crestodina: The Art of Being An Objective Content Marketer
September 02, 2015 20:51 - 45 minutes - 36.3 MBMasterful content strategist Andy Crestodina details the art of being a successful content marketer in an ecosystem polluted with noisy opinions, experts, and "gurus."
C.C. Chapman
July 28, 2015 15:08 - 49 minutes - 39.8 MBLegendary speaker and consultant (and the man who literally wrote the book on content marketing) C.C. Chapman discusses his journey into content and the world of digital marketing.
Jen Giese: The Photojojo CEO On Growing from a Simple Newsletter to a Community of Millions
July 27, 2015 21:56 - 42 minutes - 34.3 MBJen Giese details the rise of Photojojo, what started as a simple newsletter for DIY photographers, to the massive online retailer it has now become.
Marcus Sheridan: "I'm Not a Genius..."
July 14, 2015 21:01 - 56 minutes - 45.6 MBLegendary marketing speaker Marcus Sheridan take us inside those dark days in 2008 while he was struggling to turn around his business, and how along the way, he learned lessons that he now shares with the world.
James Chartrand: How Adopting a Male Pen Name Earned Me More Business, Respect, & Money
July 07, 2015 16:23 - 37 minutes - 30.4 MBJames Chartrand, the masterful copywriter behind Men With Pens, talks about her career arc and how adopting a male pen name has made all the difference in earning business, respect, and more money.
Seth Godin
July 06, 2015 21:04 - 38 minutes - 30.8 MBSeth Godin talks fear, talent vs. compliance, and why he announced his candidacy for President of the United States.
Chris Guillebeau: The Author of "The $100 Startup" on Bringing Your Ideas to Life With Little Money
July 01, 2015 02:35 - 40 minutes - 32 MBChris Guillebeau, author of the bestselling "$100 Startup" chats about traveling to every country in the world, why he's always been unemployable, and how to finally get started on bringing your ideas to life.
Scott Belsky: The Founder of Behance On the "Early Innings" & Making Your Ideas Happen
May 26, 2015 18:36 - 41 minutes - 33.1 MBScott Belsky, founder of Behance and also VP of Product at Adobe, talks about how to successfully execute your ideas and why he finds it helpful to always think he's in the early innings.
Joe Lazauskas: Contently's Editor in Chief on Effort, Excuses, and Going Back in Time
May 18, 2015 20:29 - 48 minutes - 38.7 MBContently's editor in chief discusses all things content related, including how he'd recreate his success at other companies. (Hint: They'd have to be foreword-thinking.)
Ryan Holiday: Candy Crush & Porn – How to Compete (& Hack)for People's Attention Online
May 12, 2015 20:29 - 28 minutes - 23.1 MBBestselling author Ryan Holiday talks about why he dropped out of college, how he landed opportunities with Tim Ferris and American Apparel in his early 20s, and the basics of growth hacking and how to compete for attention.
Bernadette Jiwa: How to Make People Fall In Love With Your Brand
May 07, 2015 15:56 - 30 minutes - 24.2 MBBernadette Jiwa has written four #1 bestsellers on the art of brand storytelling. Here she discusses how to make people fall in love with your brand and idea. For more, check our Jiwa's 20 Keys of Brand Storytelling here: http://thestoryoftelling.com/what-is-a-brand-story/
Johnny "Cupcakes" Earle: Stop Making Excuses & Start Making Stuff
May 04, 2015 02:35 - 39 minutes - 31.9 MBJohnny "Cupcakes" Earle discusses his entrepreneurial upbringing, how he started 16 businesses before he was 16, and why he still gets excited about selling t-shirts.
Helena Price: Silicon Valley's Most Wanted Photographer
May 01, 2015 01:44 - 47 minutes - 37.7 MBHelena Price quit her job in tech to take photos. Now, just a few years later, she's the most sought after photographer in Silicon Valley, doing work for some of the biggest brands on the planet.
Demian Farnworth: How I Rose From Obscurity & Became Copyblogger's Chief Copywriter
April 27, 2015 01:15 - 49 minutes - 40 MBCopyblogger's Chief Copywriter discusses his dark days as an obscure writer, how his passion of writing evolved, and eventually, landed him the job of his dreams.
Oli Gardner: Cofounding Unbounce & How to Convert in the Top 2% of Landing Pages
April 23, 2015 02:28 - 1 hour - 51.2 MBUnbounce cofounder Oli Gardner chats about the origins of his company, how to execute more effective split testing, and the hardest thing he's ever done.
Elle Luna: Navigating The Crossroads of Should & Must
April 20, 2015 13:15 - 57 minutes - 46.2 MBElle Luna rose to internet fame in 2014 after posting her article "The Crossroads of Should & Must" on Medium. After 5 million views, a publishing deal, and a brand new book, Elle discusses what it takes to follow your passion.
Justine Jordan: The Miseducation of Email Marketing
April 14, 2015 02:12 - 43 minutes - 34.7 MBLitmus marketing director Justine Jordan chats about bootstrapping, managing a team, and all things email marketing.
Jessica Hagy: How to Be Interesting, Go Viral, & Have The Coolest Job Ever
April 09, 2015 03:37 - 48 minutes - 38.9 MBJessica Hagy is an artist and writer best known for her award-winning blog, Indexed. In this casual chat, Hagy discusses how she went viral, quit her job in advertising at Victoria Secret, and now has the coolest job ever.
Chris Savage: How Wistia Grew from a $60k Dream to the Industry Standard in Video
April 06, 2015 13:22 - 47 minutes - 38.4 MBWistia cofounder Chris Savage discusses how the idea for the company was first hatched, their initial aspirations, and the most important things he spends his time on.
Pamela Vaughan: How the HubSpot Blog Drives 2 Million Monthly Views
March 29, 2015 15:53 - 47 minutes - 43.4 MBThe HubSpot Blog has grown to drive 2 million monthly views. There aren't many people more responsible for this growth than Pamela Vaughan, manager of optimization and growth of HubSpot Content. In this candid interview, Pamela discusses how she joined HubSpot in 2008, how the landscape has changed since, and how other marketers and bloggers could achieve similar growth.