Bridging Content and Product: Alisa Meredith's Evolution in Marketing

Ever wonder how a content marketer becomes a product marketing powerhouse?

In this episode, we sit down with Alisa Meredith, a seasoned marketing professional with over 20 years of experience in content strategy and product marketing.

Alisa shares her journey from running a marketing agency to creating and leading a production unit at Tailwind and refining her project management skills at Semrush. Along the way, she opens up about the challenges she’s faced, offers advice for young women entering the marketing field, and discusses how she’s embracing the future of AI.

Known for her compelling storytelling, strong analytical skills, and expertise in content marketing, Alisa provides a candid look at her path from content creator to product marketing manager. Whether you're an aspiring marketer or a seasoned professional, this episode offers an inspiring and insightful glimpse into her evolution in the ever-changing digital landscape.

Follow Alisa Meredith:

• LinkedIn: Alisa Meredith

Additional Links:

• Semrush
• Chat GPT
• HubSpot
• Pinterest

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Chapters

• 0:00 Alisa's Background in Marketing
• 2:04 Pinterest Marketing
• 3:45 Content Marketing
• 6:16 Challenges to Overcome
• 8:17 Tailwind
• 9:24 Advice for Young Women in Marketing
• 12:04 Future of Marketing
• 13:11 Product Marketing
• 15:11 Embrace AI and Be Curious

Transcript

welcome back to another episode of the free dive podcast I'm your host Kristy Billingslea today I have with me Alisa Meredith welcome Alisa 

hey thanks Kristy happy to be here yeah we're so happy to have you um I've known Alisa for quite some time and I was really excited to uh invite her on and share her story with us so um let's just dive right into it um do you want to just give us a bit of background into your story and your history um you've you've done quite a few things in the marketing field um why don't you give us background in how you got started and and what your story is 

sure um I got started way back in 1999 I was working at a refurbished telephone manufacturing place in Portland Maine so um they needed somebody to do a newsletter and then they needed someone to write content for the website and eventually they need a website developer so I took on those roles uh and then I went into business for myself so running a social media and content agency which then morphed into a HubSpot agency and then I kind of started focusing more on Pinterest and Pinterest advertising um so I've had some really fun opportunities there yeah yeah and then I just I worked at Tailwind a startup a small startup and now I am at Semrush in product marketing so yes I have done a lot of different marketing jobs 

yeah I want to pick your brain for a second because I'm so interested in the Pinterest marketing that you did because Tina Gammon talked to us about your brilliant knowledge and working with you on uh on Pinterest and just how much she just loved you with working with Pinterest like how did you get started in that 

oh goodness um I I was just curious when Pinterest came out I thought is there going to be a marketing use case here and that was before they had business profiles or anything it was brand brand new so I started thinking about it and then I wrote about it so I created a downloadable ebook um just to kind of put my thoughts out there and it got a little bit of attention and somebody actually the client that Tina worked on came came through an email and he said well how do you do this how do you do that and then he finally said can you just do it for me so I thought wow okay I guess that there's something here and just enjoying it's always wonderful marketing when you can see the real results of what you're doing so rewarding um and that definitely was a case there so then I was hooked um and then social media examiner needed someone to teach like a a last minute online session about Pinterest ads and they asked me i' had never done any Pinterest ads advertising so I to just go learn all about it and then teach a class and that's how got started 

I totally forgot all about social media examiner I used to I used to use them all the time totally forgot about them 

they're still around they're still around 

so when it comes to HubSpot so we're a HubSpot um agency how did you get started working in HubSpot are you still connected to HubSpot today you know what was the connection there 

oh yes so as I was trying to learn about content marketing so I I did content marketing actually in my first marketing job not realizing what it was so I took um really complex and horribly boring telephone manuals uh and rewrote them yeah so that people could actually use them and I I just put them online and so I I didn't have any at that time no strategy behind it I just thought like this is ridiculous who is going to understand this who is ever going to want to use this um and people appreciated it so I was kind of hooked on content marketing at the time but I didn't really know what to do with it um and then I I became involved in this um agency called Scalable Social Media and I was initially just doing I think I was just doing social media at first but then I realized like for one thing it's so hard to get these business owners to talk to us so we have something interesting to post but also you can't just social media which I know it sounds so basic to you and me right now but this was like 2009 when everybody saw all every Facebook pages updates in their feed it was a totally different world but I still knew like this is not enough you have to have something behind this so I got into every HubSpot course that was available and just read and read and eventually um I had a client that I thought would be a good candidate for HubSpot so um I brought them on as an agency we were probably the smallest HubSpot agency in history well it sounds like they were it was useful to you to use the tools that they had oh absolutely and I had um I I think of her as my advisor Jill we're still in touch a little bit uh she just she was a a fantastic business coach right like that wasn't really part of the deal but that that's what I got from HubSpot was a fantastic coach she helped me get that one client on and and she was just fantastic so very good feelings about HubSpot in general and Jill especially yeah 

so in your years of marketing was were there any particular you know challenges that you have faced uh working in the marketing industry 

yes I think partially it's just is the change the pace of change in marketing is um yeah relentless but it I think it makes life interesting so yes it's a challenge but I like a challenge um so that's good and then just always there's always something you don't really know how to do or you haven't tried yet and so I've just tried to always say yes so when someone asked me one time many years ago can you build this website on WordPress for me I said sure I mean I knew I could do it but I hadn't done it um so just having the confidence to say yes and and try things has been really helpful do you feel like you like really grew through that process or or um found new avenues of things that you love because you were willing to say yes to things oh absolutely I mean it was um that was one example the other example was the the Pinterest ads right oh we had a speaker drop out can you fill in last minute and teach Pinterest ads I'd never run one sure I can and that became I have to say website design was not anything I ever really liked um but Pinterest advertising was fantastic especially at first because um in the platform you never pay you didn't pay for a click on a pin you play paid for a click on the PIN to a website which really kind kind of helps bring up the quality of the leads you get from Pinterest so uh yeah I was hooked on that yeah 

so what through that was there any particular project um besides besides that besides Pinterest just through your career that you were like particularly proud of or excited about 

yeah so when I was at tailand we were launching a product for for Pinterest I mean not for the company Pinterest but to be used on Pinterest so there was a lot of need there for customer research um and learning you know speaking in the voice of the customer um there was also a need to set up a whole production unit for design that would work with the engineers in the back end um so I got to do that and it was just a great opportunity to see you know my work out there and being used that was fun 

so one of the things that we've um we've talked about you know we've um we've made a goal to interview women in in marketing this last year and highlighting you know Wonderful women in marketing but we've also highlighted the particular challenges that women face in marketing um but also also the successes of women have in marketing do you have any advice to give to young women aspiring to have a career in marketing 

uh I mean I think the biggest one is what I already said just say yes if even if you're not confident that you can do something go for it just try it what's the what's the worst that could happen and it is difficult I mean it's no secret that there are biases against women in in all areas of of work life but um you know we just have to learn to be better at promoting ourselves as well one thing I was really bad at um originally was not keeping track of my winds yeah right so when if you go job hunting or you're going to update your resume and someone says okay what are the numbers we can put on here you better have numbers right so I increased leads or I did this or like you've got to have actual numbers to back it up so I wasn't good at that um but I am now so keep a document just a running document of your wins um I also think it's good to keep a document of accolades I guess you could say like if someone's donees something wonderful about your work that really makes you feel good take a screenshot of it put it in your document and look at it from time to time because it's easy to get down on ourselves or think about our mistakes or feel like is anything I'm doing working um that's just a good reminder that yes you are making an impact yeah 

oh I totally agree that's and that's great advice in fact we've talked about that in a in a previous episode that um it it's a little bit of a joke around here because I keep um I keep screenshots in my phone and um um of anytime something goes well or someone says something nice about my work and I've almost gotten a little bit too like too generous with it so now there just like tons and tons of like screenshots in my phone of like things that are like that was barely even a win for me but you know to your point it's like that really helps yeah it really helps in those moments when you're kind of doubting yourself and like am I actually good at my job can I actually do this you know to be able to have that that tangible evidence of like no I'm doing this I'm doing good I think that's great advice so 

I'd love to see your portfolio 

yeah I have to share some with you so looking back like looking back at your career things that you've done things that you want to do in the future like how are you you've seen you've seen a long history of of marketing how are how do you um how do you envision the future of marketing and where where would you like to picture yourself in that future 

goodness the future is tomorrow I mean it it's I wouldn't even know where how to predict what it will be um I am thrilled with AI for the most part I I'm really loving chat GPT um and Claude and all those LS where you can get to chat GPT or whatever model you like best to do a little bit of the grun work for you to help you to brainstorm so I think I've seen my productivity increase greatly using those tools and I think it will I think it will just continue um just doing the work that frees up our brains for the creative part that really only humans can do at this point anyway I'd like to think there always be un for us in marketing and do you have any like do you have any plans for yourself do you have any goals for yourself anything like that well um I'm in a little bit of a new position newish position at this point in product marketing which is very different from content marketing or from running a marketing agency or um some of the other things I've done and for now I just I really enjoy that it's a very independent role but you get to be kind of the bridge between um marketing and product and sales and customer support so I really like trying to pull all those pieces together and I think I just want to enjoy that and build my skills in that area for for a while um it took me a while to get here so I'm just enjoying it yeah 

and you're not working so much with content marketing anymore but do you still enjoy working with Social media even for just um even just uh whether it's for companies or for yourself 

no no I don't I don't do anything with content anymore and with social media no I mean every once in a while I'll I'll post on LinkedIn or I'll post something I painted or I went to the beach on Instagram but no uh I'm it's shifted a lot to where I'm really happy kind of being behind the scenes I'm enjoying very much and I never was big on doing social media for myself anyway so uh yeah I just like being the the voice of the customer in the background 

you've left Pinterest behind 

well I still need recipes just like everybody else um but as far as marketing yes I haven't haven't done any client work in about a year and a half so no just enjoying it for fun well that's great well anything else that you want to share with us um any advice any tips for those in the marketing field you you've probably covered this quite a bit but I would say with AI I think initially most of us were a little afraid um we're hoping it wouldn't catch on um but really there's a tremendous amount of opportunity there to increase your own productivity um so build your skills even um so I would say when something like that comes along there are going to be people who lose out like i' I've seen quite a loss in the content marketing um job market right so companies thought oh I can use chat GPT to write all my content for me but if if you were in that position like how can you use this technology for your benefit instead so there are always people who are going to make out well with advancements like this and it partially is up to you um if that's going to be you or not so just be curious like I think marketers really are curious Bunch um we want to try things out and and learn more I would just say when you stop learning maybe it's time to start doing something else because you really you really have to to keep enjoying and being good at marketing yeah oh I totally agree with that you really have to be willing to keep up with the the GR growth and the the new things that are coming and AI in particular we've had so many conversations with almost every guest we've had have we talked about Ai and the need to to learn it and accept it so I to that's great advice totally agree yeah it um accept it and learn to love it because it's it's here to stay yeah 

yeah well thank you so much we really appreciate all your insights and getting a bit of your background and your story um how do we find you should we find you you're not on social media as much anymore but do you have any plugs that you want to share with us 

um I mean you can find me on LinkedIn Alisa Meredith happy to connect yeah I think that'd be the best place great 

well we'll leave it at that then awesome 

well we we thank you so much for being here 

thanks Kristy 

we'll see everybody next time