Ashley Faus

Kogan Page Publishing

My book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI" features three frameworks to help marketers build trust and attract, convert, and retain customers.

Key messages:

-	Trust is the key: People buy from people they trust, and people trust people like themselves. As marketers, we need to build trust with our audience to win and re-win their hearts, minds, and wallets.

-	The human connection becomes more important in the age of AI, because more technology makes it harder to find people you can trust and make authentic connections.

-	The Playground mindset shift: Marketing needs to evolve to match the modern journey. It’s no longer about rushing people to a purchase, it’s about building trust and rapport for long-term value exchange.

-	The Social Media Spectrum (communication, conversation, community): Social media continues to evolve, but too many brands are still focused on driving and participating in conversation about the brand, instead of meeting the audience where they are and fostering community.

-	4 Pillars of Thought Leadership (credibility, profile, prolific, depth of ideas): Thought leadership helps build trust, but it’s not the only type of content or creator that you need in the marketing mix.

Author, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI"

Atlassian

Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Portfolio

Director of Integrated Product Marketing

Product Marketing Lead, Software Teams Content 

Sr. Manager, Integrated Media

Sr. Corporate Communications Manager

Skyport Systems

Skyport Systems, acquired by Cisco, provides secure, hyperconverged infrastructure to modernize the DMZ, protect Active Directory, and secure legacy applications and remote branch operations.

Sr. Product Marketing Manager and Content Strategist

Palerra

Palerra, acquired by Oracle, pioneered the API-based Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB).

Sr. Manager, Content Strategy and Marketing Communications

Duarte, Inc.

Strategy and execution for all things marketing.

In addition to previous duties, manage budget, forecast, and annual planning for marketing strategy.

Sr. Marketing Manager

Manage a team of creative experts
Marketo integration, strategy, and execution
Analytics/KPI reporting and analysis
IP launches - Resonate multimedia, Slidedocs, Persuasive Presentations eCourse
Email campaigns, social media, and ad campaigns
Website branding and content updates
Editorial content strategy and execution
Executive presentations

Marketing Manager

Killick Aerospace

Killick Aerospace encompasses several companies that provide engine maintenance, accessory maintenance, airframe support, and parts and engine sales to the aviation industry. I oversaw the marketing activities for all companies in the Killick Aerospace portfolio. My duties include, but are not limited to:

Work with management and IT department for requirements gathering, implementation and documentation of CRM strategy 

Manage 3rd party programmer to update company websites, content manager for company websites

Manage relationships with outside vendors including designers and promotional representatives 

Coordinate all aspects of trade show exhibits, including marketing collateral, shipments, promotional items, and travel logistics

Co-creator and co-manager for print advertising budget

Track and measure success of marketing activities, including website traffic/SEO, referral lead source, and email campaigns

Marketing Coordinator

UserTesting.com

I helped research and implement a social media strategy, including Twitter and reaching out to bloggers. I also helped with customer service.

Independent Contractor

Solar Designs, Inc

Account manager for the company’s largest project, a commercial solar installation, worth $150,000

Improved profit margin by 5% through bulk-price negotiations with supplier

Grew affiliate partnerships from 2 to over 50 within 8 months, used direct Marketing to offer qualified leads and guaranteed revenue to new partners

Increased revenue opportunity by creating a training package for installers

Strategic analysis of customer and installer needs, led to over-hauling information-gathering form and presentation of final customer proposal

Wrote proposals with details about solar system design, environmental impact, and financial implications including up-front costs, rebates, ROI, and payback

OpenTech Media, Inc.

Research, layout, and copy for corporate brochure and website to present a more cohesive message to customers

Virion Interactive Agency

Competitive analysis, post-project analysis, client invoicing and work order processing

Account Management Intern

Director of Integrated Product Marketing, Atlassian

Marketer, writer, speaker by day... singer, actor, fitness fiend by night!

I've handled all aspects of marketing strategy and execution, from product marketing, to demand-gen, to content and events. I love telling the high-level stories that resonate with an audience and connecting the dots between types of assets and distribution channels.

My writing has been published on TIME, Forbes, The Journal of Brand Strategy, and The Muse, and I've spoken on various marketing topics for INBOUND, Harvard Business Review, and MarketingProfs.

Visit https://ashleyfaus.com/ for more information about my book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI".

(Views are my own)

When you're friends with smart marketers, you feature each other as an example when you write a book 😀

Devin Bramhall released her book recently, and she featured my Playground framework.

I released my book in May, and I featured her community work from her time at Help Scout.

Per usual, there's a blooper pic if you swipe through 😂

Buy "Human-Centered Marketing": https://amzn.to/480QQLI

Buy "B2B Content Marketing Strategy": https://amzn.to/4i3SLne

(Thanks to MarketingProfs B2B Forum for the cozy background and in-person photo opp 😊)

Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Portfolio at Atlassian

I don't have many rituals before I step onstage to speak.

But I DO love my glitter face mask tradition 😀

Excited to speak about building trust in the buyer's journey MarketingProfs B2B Forum this morning, 10:20am EST!

Grateful for another award for my book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI" 🎉

Need a gift for yourself or a marketer you love? Get 40% through December 1st!

Grab a copy: https://lnkd.in/eJWZHRF8

Need some light reading en route to allllll the Thanksgiving dinners?

Free sneak peeks:

Thought leadership: https://lnkd.in/eXCZ2qPf

Buyer's journey playground: https://lnkd.in/esQDz9EK

Congrats to all the winners: https://lnkd.in/emxkNFZ2

When I was VERY early in my career, I had to make an expensive decision on behalf of the business.

I was SO worried about it!

Tons of money.
Literally minutes to make the choice.
No time to call my boss for approval.

I decided to spend the money, and trusted that my boss would be ok with it once I finally talked with her.

Y'all... It was paying $50 for valet parking.

But at that time in my life, $50 for parking seemed absurd.

At that time in my career, I wasn't well-versed in how businesses expenses and vendor agreements worked.

And I was genuinely worried about confirming with a vendor that they could pay $50 for valet parking because they were running late to film a customer testimonial during a big conference.

My boss was thrilled that I made the decision to spend the $50 on faster parking vs. potentially losing the filming slot with the customer.

Now as a seasoned marketer, I cringe at my younger self, thinking how silly it was for me to even worry about $50 valet parking. 

OF COURSE that is a no-brainer call!

But... does your team know when it's a no-brainer decision? 

Do they trust that their leaders will back them up when they need to make real-time "expensive" choices?

Do they have a framework for when to escalate?

If you're rolling your eyes at folks making bad calls, it's worth taking a step back to understand whether they have context and trust to make good calls.

Because it's ACTUALLY expensive to do things cheap.

"Which bakery did this come from?"

"Wait, YOU made these!?!"

"You should open a bakery..."

People say this to me frequently when I bring treats to the office, the theater, birthdays, etc.

There's some AMAZING commercial-scale bakeries out there, AMAZING home bakers out there, and everything in between (including my amateur baker status).

After baking treats and buying treats over the years, I've started applying my marketing nerdery to the questions of perception, compliments, trust, etc. in this space.

And so, I'm curious...

In the comparison below, which option would you pay more for?

How much would you pay for a dozen of the cupcakes shown in the picture?

Assume that each option has comparable cost of goods sold, etc. to not bias the results too much, and you can make whatever assumptions you want about where the cupcakes came from, who took the pictures, if they're AI-generated vs. human, etc.

Please nerd out with me about the intersection of my baking hobby and my marketing brain 😋

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." - Goodhart's Law

I've been on a bit of a metrics and attribution kick lately, and I talked a bit about Goodhart's Law in my conversation with 🍁 Glenn Schmelzle on the Funnel Reboot podcast.

The heart of it is something that marketers continually struggle with...

We know we gotta measure.
But we know we can't measure everything.
And without everything, it kinda feels like we have nothing.

The problem is that we're so focused on capturing every. little. detail. in a way that we can easily show in a dashboard, but we miss the big opportunities that actually help people move through a buying process.

We talked about the core frameworks in my book that help you do just that: create a journey that helps the HUMANS make decisions, take action, and solve their problems (and yep, drive revenue for your business)!

Hear the full episode: https://lnkd.in/emxHSDgk

Grab a copy of the book: https://amzn.to/480QQLI

Vimeo

Promoted to centralize and lead global content marketing, a department that drives revenue growth and brand affinity, focusing efforts on integrated campaigns, editorial and thought leadership programs, and educational content.

- Reframed content marketing's role in integrated campaigns, creating full-funnel content strategies, anchor content, and limited video series
- Managed $900K annual budget, seven direct reports, and up to 40 freelance writers, editors, video producers, and content agencies
- Led the team behind the programming for our flagship event for marketers, “Outside the Frame,” which drove 10k registrations and over $1M in revenue 
- Created an ambitious website strategy, breaking the blog into distinct content discovery journeys to increase high-intent organic traffic and conversions

Head of Content Marketing

Established Vimeo’s first-ever SEO function in order to capture high-intent, non-brand organic traffic by scaling website and content to meet search demand

- Launched a new 80-page hub, ranking on page one for 7,000 new high-intent keywords and driving more than $350,000 in net new bookings within six months
- Increased page one visibility by 3x by overhauling editorial workflow, increasing publishing volume by 40% with a focus on optimization and subject matter expertise
- Managed $500K annual budget, six in-house strategists, a deep bench of 25+ freelance writers, and several agencies and contractors

Director, SEO

I first joined Vimeo to build out their first-ever B2B marketing program and create a true enterprise content function. 

- 3x’ed close rates from content and 5x’ed content-influenced ARR in year one
- Overhauled B2B strategy by focusing on three primary personas (down from 27!)
- Pioneered innovative programming formats for industry conferences while launching Vimeo’s first owned event series, Streameo, which directly created $4M in pipeline
- Launched new, video-first programs like a weekly LinkedIn live show and proprietary research on video in the workplace

Lead, B2B Content & Customer Marketing

Silverback Strategies

Silverback Strategies is a performance marketing agency, specializing in data-driven paid search, SEO, and content marketing strategies. I started there as a Sr. Content Marketing Manager and was promoted after six months to lead the department as Director.

- Contributed to agency new business initiatives, hitting the departmental goal of $100K monthly revenue nine months earlier than projected.

- Created and implemented goal-oriented content strategies for B2B and B2C clients, communicating progress weekly, monthly, and quarterly.

- Hired, trained, and managed a team of four client-facing content strategists, collaborating with Creative, Paid Media, Development, and SEO teams to build holistic digital marketing campaigns.

- Clients: Mattress Warehouse, Washington Speakers Bureau, CQ Roll Call, Charles Koch Institute, K12

Director of Content Marketing

Senior Content Marketing Manager

Tracx

Tracx was a social listening platform that helped marketers and analysts track conversations, measure trends, and drive revenue from social channels.

- Doubled MQL volume by spearheading high-converting webinar program featuring industry influencers and pairing it with tactical, topical guides. 

- Produced highly shareable, research-based blog posts and infographics, optimized to rank for target keywords. Managed freelancers and in-house contributors and edited all content for brand consistency.

- Ran company’s social media accounts, created all social-first content, and functioned as in-house designer for sales collateral and event needs.

- Worked with CEO, CMO, and Head of Sales to clarify brand messaging, redefine audience personas. and update sales collateral.

Director, Content & Brand Marketing

Brazen

As the second person on the marketing team at Brazen, I led our inbound and content marketing from strategy to execution. I wrote or edited all posts for our blog, which went out to more than 50,000 subscribers. I also created ebooks, case studies, and online events; managed Brazen’s social media presence across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn; managed partnerships and PR initiatives with the help of an outside agency; and helped with other lead-generating and content creation projects as needed.

Key Accomplishments:
- Wrote or edited over 100 pieces of content, including blog posts, case studies, ebooks, and more
- Increased social shares of content by almost 1,000%
- Increased MQLs from content marketing by 47%
- Built and implemented a content marketing strategy from scratch
- Identified four primary buyer personas through market research, surveys, and customer interviews
- Relaunched Brazen blog with a new design (that I provided wireframes for) and a renewed focus on our target audience
- Redirected our keyword strategy to leverage our search authority while 
- Guided Brazen through our transition from Marketo to HubSpot
- Led the hiring process for three separate marketing team members, personally managed two summer interns, and regularly managed dozens of freelance writers and consultants

Manager, Content & Communications

HubSpot

Plan, execute, and analyze HubSpot’s social media presence across several networks totaling in more than 1.65 million followers. Key duties include creating and curating content, writing social copy, designing social images, running continuous optimization testing, strategic analysis, and coordinating with teams across the company, including PR, content, campaigns, creative, international, and culture.

Accomplishments:
▪	Increased monthly leads from social channel by 86% since August 2014.
▪	Consistently come in above goals for traffic, leads, engagement, and follower growth.
▪	Doubled follower growth in a month using a modest paid strategy combined with organic engagement plays.
▪	Started a popular Twitter chat to engage audience, connect with influencers, and increase reach.
▪	Rolled out Canva for Work to empower team to create more visual marketing assets.
▪	Rejuvenated Pinterest page and reversed Facebook lead decline.
▪	Set goals and created new systems for tracking metrics and reporting on progress.

Awards:
▪	HubSpot Facebook Page won a Sherman award in May 2015.
▪	Personally named one of two "2015 Rising Stars"​ by HubSpot's marketing leadership.

Social Media Manager

Intermarkets, Inc.

Develops original and on-brand copy for ads, brochures, website content, PowerPoint content, blog posts, social media posts, and more. 
Contributes to the creation of innovative marketing and advertising concepts. 
Efficiently and consistently produces high-quality content in a deadline-driven environment. 
Writes clear, concise, and strategic messaging that supports key marketing initiatives and drives business results
Writes audience-centric copy that uses the appropriate voice for a particular customer, audience, or industry
Creates and schedules content for the Intermarkets Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts
Creates and shares topical blog posts that fit into the overall marketing plan

Creative Copywriter

Alban at Duke Divinity School

Created and promoted print and digital books for a small, non-profit publishing company specializing in non-fiction congregational books.
~Learned and mastered a Scribe process for streamlining the styling and coding of books, from the writing/copyediting stage in Microsoft Word, to the typesetting stage in Adobe Indesign, to the final eBook creation stage.
~Created eBooks for multiple digital platforms using PERL scripts and my knowledge of HTML and CSS to convert IDTT into usable HTML.
~Produced a weekly newsletter called the Alban Weekly. Edited content, formatted Ektron web page and Constant Contact email, and created ad copy and images for the promotion of Alban materials.

Digital Publishing Associate

Simms Showers LLP

Edited and published a ten-page bimonthly newsletter on the current changes in non-profit and church law and tax law.  Edited articles written by lawyers at Simms Showers, LLP, laid them out in a Publisher template I designed, then converted them to PDF for distribution to our subscribers.

Editor of NPChurch Law Legal Trends Newsletter

I have spent more than a decade telling stories about technology and the people who use it. I am obsessed with developing content that inspires, educates, and delights, and I build content programs that serve as the strategic storytelling arm of the marketing team. I excel in balancing long-haul, brand-building programs with innovative experiments that drive immediate impact.

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