🎙️ Episode #22

Why Inauthentic Marketing Is Holding You Back – Goran Mirkovic

Show Notes

This is the first episode of the season and the one where we explain why Goran is joining as the new co-host. We dig into why marketing is the bridge between a great product and a great business, how marketing is evolving, and why you should be really specific about whom you target and when. 

The episode also explores key themes like understanding your audience, avoiding common marketing mistakes, and the growing importance of being authentic and ultra-specific with your marketing. Goran also provides actionable advice on crafting simple but effective marketing strategies, the role of storytelling in connecting with customers, etc.

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Thanks to Goran for joining us and providing such valuable advice about authentic and effective B2B SaaS marketing. Join us next week with Lindsay Tjepkema, 3x founder, brand strategist, startup advisor, and one of the leading voices in B2B marketing. 

plugin.fm is brought to you by Freemius, your all-in-one payments, subscriptions, and taxes platform for selling software, plugins, themes, and SaaS. If you enjoyed this episode, head over to plugin.fm to check out previous episodes.

 

Episode Contributors:

Goran Mirkovic — Guest and co-host

Patrick Rauland — Host

Vova Feldman — Content quality control

Zee Hazan — Audio and video quality control

Emiliano Pioli — Audio and video editing

Scott Murcott — Content research and preparation


Chapters & Episode Notes

0:00Introduction: Meet Goran Mirković: From SEO Specialist to CMO at Freemius

1:32Season 3 Preview: Simplifying Marketing with AHA Moments and Real Stories

04:39The Marketing Struggle: Is it Harder for Software Creators?

8:57Unlocking Growth Through Smart Strategies: Real-World Case Studies

13:20Finding What Works: Going Beyond Metrics to Understand Your Audience

17:19Standing Out: How to Differentiate Your Software in a Crowded Market

21:52Staying Ahead of Trends: Navigating New Marketing Channels and Platforms

27:02The Indie Hacker Dream in the Age of AI: Opportunities and Challenges

32:20Specificity, Authenticity, and the Evolving Purpose of Marketing

38:23The Essential Role of Marketing in Business Success

40:37Outro

Transcript

Goran: You can copy someone else’s strategy, spend $500k, and still get zero results.

Patrick: Joining today is Goran Mirković, a content marketing specialist and the CMO at Freemius.

Goran: When you work in a fast-paced marketing environment, you get stuck in this wheel, just thinking about chasing numbers and viewing success from a whole different perspective.

Patrick: This is the first episode of season 3, and we have a little surprise for you this season.

Goran: But the key is still how you can align with your audience’s values.

Patrick: Welcome to the show, Goran.

Goran: Thanks for having me, Patrick. I’m excited to be here.

Patrick: You are the CMO at Freemius, obviously you have a lot of marketing experience, so I guess I want to start with who is Goran and what are some of the things you’ve done?

Goran: That’s a tough question. I wish I could say Goran is Batman, that would make this season much more interesting. But all jokes aside, I’m an SEO and content marketing specialist with over a decade of experience in B2B SaaS marketing. I’ve always been fascinated by growth, how businesses scale, what drives customer behavior, and how great ideas become impactful realities. This has been with me throughout my career. In a nutshell, that’s it.

Patrick: Fantastic. So, we haven’t officially said what we’re talking about this season, but you’ll be joining us as a co-host for season 3. What’s the goal here? What are you trying to do and what are you trying to add to the conversation?

Goran: When we surveyed our audience a couple of months ago, we noticed that most people were interested in marketing-related topics. Marketing was a big challenge for them. Since we are in the business of helping our audience solve their problems, we decided to pivot and make this entire season focused on marketing. To be completely frank, my job here is to simplify things for our audience. Many software makers see marketing as an overwhelming, mysterious beast. My job is to demystify it and show them that it’s not about doing everything; it’s about doing the right things at the right time. I’ll be focused on bringing guests with impressive marketing experience, and we’ll talk about topics that are interesting to our audience. The overall goal after each episode is for listeners to have that AHA moment and gain the knowledge and motivation to go and experiment, leveling up their marketing game.

Patrick: And I’m hoping not just for one AHA moment, but for numerous AHA moments. You also have a lot of individual stories that encapsulate a point. So, I think you can bring a lot of those, like “this happened with this client, and it helped me in this way,” which is really helpful with marketing.

Goran: Definitely. I’ve been in this space both on the agency side and in-house. My experience from the agency side is interesting because the cool thing about working for an agency, the ones I worked with, is that we had a lot of clients, well-funded and also some who were not well-funded but still interesting. I also worked a lot as a freelance marketing strategist, so I think I can share stories that inspire. The purpose here is to push the conversation beyond the standard marketing topics you see on podcasts. One thing that’s part of this season, if it makes it through the post, is that most guests will say, “That’s a tough question.” I hope that’ll be really interesting because we want to bring real value to this season.

Patrick: We’ve already talked about why you’re coming on, and the topic for season 3 is marketing. I want to dig a little deeper: Is this hard for every business, or is it mostly hard for software creators?

Goran: I think every business struggles with marketing these days because marketing is ever-changing and ever-evolving from any standpoint. Like, if you just think about the channels, there are constantly new channels and new behaviors on those channels. So, like, the tactics that used to work, for instance, on LinkedIn two years ago, are now not a thing. What’s also interesting about marketing is that there are constant changes in human behavior. Consumer behaviors are constantly different, and oversaturation with specific practices, content, and frameworks is making people shift from what was once considered good practices to something completely new. For the software audience, especially people selling B2B, the buying process is a lot more complex than in B2C. These customers usually require a lot more touch points and a lot of education before they convert. It’s not like, for instance, I’m a big fan of Jordans, and so for me, my buying decision is, “There’s a cool new colorway of like Jordan ones, and I will buy that because it’s visually appealing to me and kind of fits my style.” But if I’m buying software, especially one that requires me to change some processes or adapt to a different framework, this is something that I really need to think about and be convinced that it’s worth the whole new restructuring and every change. Speaking from someone, like if we’re talking about our audience, most of the people are actual software creators, not marketers. So to them, like, marketing is not really that intuitive; it’s completely different from developing because if you do X and Y, like, this will happen. But marketing is kind of complicated in a sense—you can copy someone else’s strategy, spend 500k, and still get zero results.

Patrick: I agree with you. I think every business struggles with this. I was just going to say, I think when you go digital, it’s easy to be drowned out. Local businesses have this advantage of like, “I know my neighbors, and I know who they used for their plumbers and their electricians, and I know my favorite coffee shop down the road.” It seems like you can be totally drowned out, whereas in the real world, that doesn’t quite happen. So, marketing just feels more important. I think our goal here is, we don’t want you to be on page five of Google search results. We want you at the bottom of page one, or if you get really, really good at your craft, maybe you’re at the top of page one.

Goran: Yeah, but you know, in a sense, like, when you kind of peel it down, the same principles still apply. Most people focused on digital are just, unfortunately, detached from their audience. Like, we all say that we are customer-centric and whatnot, but my experience coming to different businesses and seeing how they interact with their customers, and what’s their marketing strategy based on, it’s not really based on a two-way conversation with their audience. So, a plumber, for instance, talks to his audience; he does a great job and establishes a relationship, and that’s why they refer him—or her—to other customers. In a digital place, it’s basically the same, right? If you frequently talk with your audience, if you survey them, if you listen to them, if you adapt to their needs, offer them value, go the extra mile for them, the same thing will happen. They will literally champion you; they will build a bond between your digital business. So the principles are basically the same, but the mechanics of how you do that are completely different and much harder, which, you know, obviously, is a challenge.

Patrick: In a world where every software company says, “We save you time and money,” Goran provides an interesting lens about how you can go a little deeper than that. Keep watching.

The other thing you brought up was switching costs, right? Like, it’s very easy for you to throw out an old pair of shoes and put on a new pair of shoes—there’s two minutes of switching costs there. With a lot of software, it’s very expensive in terms of time and money. Do you have any case studies? Do you have any experiences, any examples, where you implemented a new strategy and all of a sudden it unlocked something, and it’s kind of like you had one of those growth curves?

Goran: Yeah, I have many of those, but I’ll highlight one. Again, I don’t want to name drop because this is not a paid promotion, but yeah, one of the most interesting strategies is that I worked with a founder who had a very small but passionate user base. They were in the productivity space, and instead of spending money on ads or an expensive SEO program to build a massive top of the funnel, they leveraged customer feedback to create user-generated content. So, they took these stories, these personal use cases of how their audience was using the product and how it was affecting their overall production and bottom line, and turned those stories into blog posts, social media content, and case studies. Not only did it help build trust and credibility, but it also helped them later on with organic SEO and word-of-mouth marketing.

Why was this really helpful? Because it didn’t focus on compiling traffic and vanity metrics. It actually doubled down on the bones that were already in place, and because of that, it turned the users into more of partners. In the end, believe it or not, after six months, it helped increase new sign-ups from organic referrals by 50%.

So, I think one of the key takeaways here is what I always try to do: think beyond just traffic and metrics. What’s really there? What’s working, and how can we double down on that and scale it, building the actual marketing strategy on the good bones we already have?

Another interesting case study that I can always talk about—and this is still one of my favorite brands—had a complex product that was more enterprise-facing. It was a tool for brand building with software, obviously, but the platform was so robust that most of the users or potential targets we were aiming for didn’t really understand how it could impact the entire company, like every vertical individually. Since we were targeting people who were CMOs, we had to think about what these people care about. A CMO cares about improving processes, hitting performance goals, and reducing costs. So, we built a master white paper that basically showed how much time they were saving with this software across departments, like not having to tag a designer or a developer or a stud. It was basically simple napkin math that, in the end, resulted in the company getting over 300 enterprise-level leads just through one resource.

Again, I think the principles of marketing are very simple in a way that you have to figure out how to make your audience’s or potential customers’ lives better, and how to speak to them through a channel—a narrative—that actually reflects the pain points they are trying to solve.

Patrick: Okay, so you brought up one of my favorite things in marketing—this wonderful quote by John Wanamaker: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” I feel like that’s so true in marketing, right? So, you said a few minutes ago, “We doubled down on what’s working.” It’s so hard to know what is working because, you know, you can write a blog post and it only gets 10 views, but then maybe all 10 of those convert, right? Like, it’s possible. Unless you have really good analytics tracking—and Google Analytics is a disaster—but unless you have really good customer journey flows mapped with UTM tracking, blah, blah, blah, you don’t know if 100 people went to this blog post and all 10 of them bought your product, or if 1,000 people went to this blog post and only one of them bought your product. It’s really hard to know which one really matters. So, actually, let me ask you this, Goran: As a gut feeling, how do you know what is working in marketing?

Goran: That’s a great question, and it doesn’t have a simple answer. As someone who has been working in agencies where we just reported success by looking at some metrics and numbers, I honestly think that this approach is not really effective because the numbers can blind you, right? So, what I really do, and what I think everyone should do, is just knock on people’s doors. So, you have this user base and you can track, like, for instance, how long someone has been active, why someone has churned, and stuff like that, and you just need to give people an incentive to talk to you, right? This is the only way you can actually learn what works. You can do it by sending surveys, doing one-on-one calls, conversing with people on social media—not as a brand, but as a figure from the company—and then reflect that understanding in your messaging.

So, for instance, instead of listing products, focus on the outcomes your audience cares about. Like, if you’re marketing, let’s say, a task management tool, don’t sell people task automation—sell them the freedom to focus on what matters most to them. This is how you build trust and credibility and show people that you truly understand what problems they have and where they want to go. If you connect that in your marketing and messaging—understanding the problem and where your audience wants to go—I think you can win. But it’s hard work. Nobody actually wants to directly talk to people and blow up their inbox, but I think it’s a practice that’s underutilized because people still want to be heard, especially if they’re your paying users or someone who tried your product for God knows what reason.

Patrick: There’s something really powerful about understanding your user base. And then I’ve experienced, at companies at a much larger scale, where we’ll send out a survey, we’ll get 10,000 responses back, and then I will find 20 people who have an interesting response, and I’ll email those 20. So, there’s a lot of data you can dig into. I love that.

Goran: But you know, when you work in a fast-paced marketing environment that has some top-level growth objectives coming from the top down, you get stuck in this wheel of chasing numbers and just thinking about success through a whole different perspective or objective, however you want to think about it. But the key is still, you know, to think beyond it and just focus on how you can align with your audience’s values. I think this is the secret sauce to marketing—just aligning with your audience’s values as closely as possible. And yep.

Patrick: Let me go back. You said something just a minute ago about how you don’t want to say “task automation” essentially means we save you time and money. My criticism of that is I feel like every piece of software says, “We save you time and money.” So, how do you stand out when everyone says we save you time and money? And I think, here’s the real question: Should you zig when everyone else is zagging?

Goran: I think, you know, just saying “we save you time and money” is generic. If you’re talking with your audience, you know the exact phrasing of how they talk about their problem, right? So, like, if it’s task automation, and their problem is, I’m just going to give a really bad example off the top of my head, moving to cutting the time needed to spend in AANA, for instance—if you have that really boiled down in your messaging and that was your narrative throughout the development of your product, you can really own those values in the product. And like, most people will actually shop out of frustration for tools. I think if you really nail it, it’s important. But to answer your second question, this will probably be the laziest marketing answer ever: It really depends. Going in a different direction just to be different is not really helpful to anyone. But if you find that small space that people are not capitalizing on, for instance, I think the brand name was “Superhuman”—I have to double-check, the guy actually made a piece of software because he hated Gmail, and all of his customers were people who hated Gmail. Before he even launched the product, he was just having an open survey, listening to people talk about their problems, what they hated, and so he encompassed all of that into his product throughout the entire roadmap. He really found a micro, oversaturated market.

Patrick: I love that. A huge amount of people that use email use Gmail, and there’s obviously problems with it. There were design decisions made, so some people don’t like those design decisions. So, if you just zag and go, “Hey, 20% of all the people on Gmail don’t like this, let’s create a softer product for that,” I’m going to fight for that for season 4. We’re going to talk a little bit more about niches, maybe in season four. Nice.

Goran: But yeah, I still think, as we remember all the conversations that we had this season, you know, what most people said is: don’t go after everyone. Right? Specificity is definitely what you want to get from this season. You should be really intentional and specific with your marketing, versus just going after some keywords because the volume is high and the competition is low. You really need to have a clearly defined audience, almost to a micro level, to know how you actually help someone win.

Patrick: Let’s talk about personas for a second. You have your first 50 customers, and you’re like, “I think, from what I understand in my audience, the archetypical person is like Matt, who has these requirements.” Is that a good place to start?

Goran: Yeah, it could be. If you, for instance, have conversations with people and you notice a pattern, it’s worth at least trying and experimenting to see how far you can go with it, right? Because, you know, specific tools or even brands have specific language. For instance, when they doubled down on skater culture and stuff like that, they found who Matt or Steve was, and they still, you know, really followed Matt and Steve and tried to provide Matt and Steve what they liked. So, I think it really depends on how far you can go with it, but if you find something, it’s always worth pursuing it, experimenting, and seeing how far you can go. Marketing is like that—you have a hypothesis, you test it out, see how it performs, and then you iterate from time to time depending on the feedback you have.

Patrick: There’s always a new marketing channel to explore, and it can be a lot of work to stay on top of every new platform. Goran and I discussed how you can master the skills in one platform and how that can help on future platforms. That’s coming up in a few minutes.

So, I think we’ve done a pretty good job just defining why marketing is really challenging. We’re going to talk about a lot of these things in specific episodes, but I think we’ve done a good job of, like, this is why marketing is challenging. We’ve mentioned already there’s always new trends, there’s always new platforms, and there’s always new technologies. I think a very viable strategy is, if you can identify a new platform before it’s ginormous and you can get in early, that can really help your marketing. So, I guess a question for you is: how do you evaluate marketing trends, software trends, platform trends, and how do you decide when you go, “Oh, this is a new platform we should invest in now?”

Goran: Part of doing marketing is being omnipresent in most online conversations and just following everything that’s going on. And obviously, as an early adopter, where all the hype is, you can actually benefit from the first wave of, for instance, a surge of new blue-sky users. So, I think every platform is like that. Most of them don’t really stick around, but that’s also okay. If you see something, if you get some positive signals, like, “Oh, there’s a new channel,” or there’s a new trend you noticed in analytics or something with AI that you can bandwagon on, I think it’s always worth a shot. Even if it doesn’t pan out or last for four years, for instance, there are people who actually benefited from Vine back in the day. And even though it didn’t live long enough, there was another platform afterward, TikTok, that almost had very similar principles, which you’re now equipped to kind of nail because you did something similar. So, yeah, marketing is tough in the sense that you’ve got to follow folks around, facilitate conversations, post questions, participate in even physical gatherings just to be on top of the curve, in addition to reading and following what’s going online. So, yeah, marketing means living it, regardless of whether you want to or not. But it’s the job.

Patrick: Let me ask a little bit more of a philosophical question here. I think maybe, as I’ve gotten a little bit older, I’ve wanted to spend a little bit less time online. I try to go to the game store on Thursday nights and play board games, miniature games, in person with people. That’s just an example of how I’m trying to be very intentional with my time now. Do you need to spend time online to be a digital marketer? If you’re trying to spend less time online, can you still be a digital marketer?

Here’s the corrected version with proper capitalization and punctuation:

Goran: I don’t really think so. Because, like, first of all, yes, the same marketing principles apply from, like, the Stone Age to now, but the terrain is changing, and there’s constant innovation. The world is moving forward, like it or not. Yes, I agree that everyone needs some time to unwind, move your head from the screen, and think about something that’s not marketing or the internet to be fully recharged. But I don’t think you can be a successful marketer if you, for instance, haven’t logged online in six months or a year. What happens in marketing in a year is literally a lifetime, you know? So I don’t think you can be fully detached. Obviously, you should have some time away to either collect your thoughts or just find inspiration, because you’re the innovator. You’re the one who tests, updates playbooks, and has different ideas and formulas. You can find that anywhere, but yeah, I don’t think you can just zone out for two years and be like, “Hey, you know, things are the same.” Not really.

Patrick: Yeah, just to put a point on that, I’ve been on Twitter since, I think, 2008—something like that—and it’s wild how much it’s changed. The first 10 years were very similar, and then it’s wild how much it’s changed in the last two. It’s just gone through a shocking number of changes—just what people talk about and how the algorithms changed. It moves very, very quickly in the marketing world.

Goran: Yeah, just imagine that you’re an SEO expert and you took a year off. You went, for instance, to Thailand to just chill. Then you came back yesterday, opened your computer, and you were like, “What?!”

Patrick: So, I got one more, I think, major question that I want to get your thoughts on. I think there’s this wonderful term floating around, “Indie hacker.” But is the indie hacker dream still alive? Can you build, you know, a one-man or a very small company—and usually bootstrapped, right?—just you and a little bit of money you have? Can you start your own business and succeed in today’s world?

Goran: I think so. We have customers who are still, like, indie hackers, and you know, building businesses, selling businesses, just, you know, crushing it. And like, kudos to them—they know who they are if they’re listening. But yeah, I just think, like, as everything gets harder, the world of software is evolving, and the tools creators need to thrive are, like, even more difficult than ever. And, you know, I think, like, rising competition and customer expectations are making it critical to combine a great product with smart marketing. Now, versus, like, the older days, you could have a great product and, like, list it somewhere and get discovered, and it’s awesome. So yeah, I think, like, for an indie hacker, there are so many more elements that come into play than just having a great product to be successful. Not everyone has, like, the juice to be the Swiss army knife, but those who have and who are, like, still doing a little bit of everything can crush it, sure.

Patrick: Yeah, there’s something very… that’s something I’ve always identified as a generalist. And because I’m a generalist, it’s like, I understand enough about design, I understand enough about user experience, I understand enough about marketing, I understand enough about engineering. I’m not the best in the world at any of those, but I have all the basics, and I can build a tiny little MVP. Then once, you know, it’s working, you can invest and hire people that help you fix the little things that you can’t do yourself or don’t want to do yourself. But the last year has been dominated by AI. Actually, I think almost exactly a year ago, ChatGPT came out. The investing startup world has gone bananas for them. And if you’re doing anything with AI, you can raise millions of dollars. Does that create an opportunity for other software creators, or should you just only pursue AI and whatever the current trend is?

Goran: I think, like, AI, in a sense, especially ChatGPT, if we’re talking about content generation specifically now, has just created more noise and content that is not really good. It’s very surface-level. And as you know, like, with the whole EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) thing, like, you know, Google is trying to kind of battle that to a certain extent. But I think, like, primarily, when we think about EAT, is what you want when you search. So, I want content that’s, like, you know, has some form of authenticity. I can see that, like, the topic that’s covered is actually covered by someone who knows about something, right? It’s not just like, you know, giving me some statistics or some claims without literally backing it up with experience and authority. And yeah, I think, like, the content and even the information we consume, especially in this realm, is not specific enough. So, yes, AI is, like, driving fatigue in a sense with the content that’s coming at you. But I think it’s also kind of building a whole different current where people are now becoming super selective with what they consume. And they don’t even consume content based on, like, “Hey, is this particular piece good?” It’s like, “Who wrote this piece? Do I know this person?” And I have to have, like, a little even deeper connection with someone to kind of understand that if they’re, like, a legitimate source just to even care from the start—not just to even click on it, but even to just kind of glance over something at this stage. So, yeah, I think AI is driving, like, both noise but also, like, a completely different current of content that is building more demand for, like, deeper-level messaging and thinking.

Patrick: Part of me thinks that because the world is just—I’d say the investing world is just obsessed with it. I’ve heard it described as, like, as important as, like, mobile phones in 2008 or, you know, smartphones, I should say, in 2008. Or maybe almost quite as impressive as the internet. You can invest in it. It seems incredibly powerful. But also, because everyone’s investing in it, you can kind of also go over here and still do rudimentary software stuff that other people are ignoring. So, just, it’s a very interesting landscape, I think, for indie hackers.

Goran: I just think, like, the next big thing in AI that could really be valuable is, like, the rise of AI personalization, you know? That will actually redefine how we market. So, I’m talking about dynamic website content, tailored email campaigns—basically anything that will assist you in creating hyper-relevant experiences faster. Right? I think this is, like, the next big iteration in AI.

Patrick: Let me ask you this: If you could give people one perspective, one lens, one way to look at the world, one way to look at the season, what is one thing you’d give someone? Like, what is the right approach to take? Could you give someone that perspective, that approach, that they should have with marketing, you know, a fledgling software business?

Goran: Yeah, I just think, like, when you finish this season, one thing that I’m hoping will be a takeaway is to invest in specificity and authenticity, right? In any form that you can. Like, obviously, it’s awesome if you can, like, do that to your entire approach. But just because, like, we have so much noise around us in, like, every form of, like, information—from, like, you know, getting CVs to hiring to whatnot—being very specific with what you want and, like, determined, is definitely the key. Even, like, in all types of communication—from, like, as I said, from hiring to marketing to people.

Patrick: Fantastic. Specificity and authenticity. Specificity is interesting, but I definitely agree on authenticity, where it’s like you just have to be authentically you. I feel like in the world we live in, we crave it, right? It’s like, you know, you look at Instagram and it’s always people who are, like, ripped or whatever, and it’s—it’s not that it’s untrue, but people are only showing you the best 1% of their lives. So, it does feel fake when everyone does that. So, anyways, I love the key of authenticity there. I think that attracts people to you.

Goran: Yeah, because now it’s, like, a whole dimension, right? You have so much content and so much information coming at you, and specific things influence which information you will consume. Like, maybe, like, you want to listen to me because of the way I talk and look—that’s more appealing to you than, like, someone who is more formal, right? Or vice versa. Those are still, like, the little things that can, like, flip the switch. And I think, like, really owning in on what’s your personality and what makes you unique, what makes you special, is, like, what people will eventually choose. Like, information is already there; I just have to, like, pick a curator or a voice that is best suited for me.

Patrick: There’s a big difference between hiring in-house marketers and a marketing agency, and that’s because they have different incentives. Listen in as Goran shares why marketing agencies might not have your big-picture goals in mind.

So, you’ve done agency work—I think you mentioned animals earlier—and now you’re leading a marketing team at Freemius. How has your purpose sort of evolved throughout your career?

Goran: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, in my agency days, my purpose was to deliver results for clients. It was basically about executing campaigns and strategies that move the needle. While rewarding, I think it often felt transactional. But at Freemius, my purpose has evolved to building something lasting. I’m not just optimizing for growth; I’m shaping how the brand supports and empowers software creators. It’s about creating systems and strategies that deliver value long-term after the campaign ends. So, I think this shift from short-term execution to long-term impact has been deeply fulfilling for me, and you know, contributing to how Freemius is evolving.

Patrick: I know it does seem like marketers, in general, have to prove themselves quickly, so it’s always a short-term game. That’s how you’re judged, right? It’s like, if you’re hired for SEO, it’s like, how many clicks can you bring us in the next three months maximum? You don’t have a year to build systems. I think that’s a strong reason to hire a marketer in-house, just because it seems like it’s really hard to get away from that incentive system of short-termism. If you can, at some point, grow your business and hire a marketer in-house, then I think they can start planting those seeds to have, you know, a tree so your business has a tree 10 years from now to cast shade on it.

Goran: Yeah, I think marketing agencies are set up for failure, to be completely honest, because a lot of them work on some sort of six to twelve-month retainer—that was the case previously. But now, a lot of agencies, especially content agencies, renew their contracts at the end of every month. So, there is this enormous pressure to make an impact, especially if, you know, you sell to a customer based on their budget. So, you maybe get a customer who says, “We want a 10x traffic or leads,” or whatnot. If you literally ask them why, they’ll freeze. Potentially, you know, and then you get to a point where they have massively aggressive goals, and they are paying for, let’s say, four articles per month or something like that. So, as an agency, you’re immediately set up for failure, and there’s so much pressure to execute someone else’s strategy, even though you might know that it’s not the best.

So, as an in-house marketeer, you get at least a year to set up a process, or like, depending on whom you’re working for, it’s just a better platform. And if you do a good job, you can still leverage an agency but for execution, and you need to have realistic expectations from them.

Patrick: Got it. I like that. Let me ask, I think sometimes I think about critical constraints in business. It’s like, what is the thing that’s limiting you most? And if you can get rid of the biggest limiter on your business, your business can kind of grow and succeed. So, my question for you is: Is marketing the missing link to succeeding online?

Goran: I think marketing is the bridge between a great product and a thriving business. So, you can build the most innovative software, but without the right messaging, the right channels, and engagement, it’s just sitting in the dark. And I think, like, this season what we are actually trying to do is pull back the curtain on how marketing can be your superpower, whether it’s content that resonates, SEO strategies that drive traffic, or community engagement that builds trust. I hope listeners will walk away from this season with a toolbox of what they need to build that machine to help their software business be successful.

Patrick: There’s a belief I have that if you have the best product, people will eventually find it. But you might be out of business by the time that happens. That’s kind of my thought: Yes, theoretically, you can build the best product in the world, and you don’t need marketing. Theoretically, like, here’s a good example: if you built a pill that you take and it cures all cancer, I don’t think you need to do any marketing. I think the world will do the marketing for you. But unless it’s that revolutionary, the world isn’t going to do the marketing for your business. You need to do the marketing for your business, and you will probably go out of business if you don’t do the marketing the right way. So, then it’s like: if you want to have agency, if you want to control your business, you have to control marketing. And you don’t want to be just average at it, because then you’re on page five of Google. You want to be good at it. So, for you to control your business, you need to be at least proficient, if not really good, at marketing. So, I like the way I think you framed that.

Goran: Yeah, but let’s say you actually build that pill, right, and you live in a forest on top of a hill, and you don’t have anyone to tell what you’ve done. It will go nowhere, right? So, like, marketing has many different forms. Word of mouth is still marketing, but getting the word out, regardless of how good the product is, you can’t really expect people to magically find you.

Patrick: Goran, I have learned a lot, and this is just the primer for season 3. I know the conversations that we’ve already recorded and will be coming out in the coming weeks have even more goodness in them. Do you have any final thoughts before closing this episode out?

Goran: I think my main desire or ask is to just give this season a chance. I think the conversations are unique, and I strongly believe they are very valuable. So yeah, expect a lot of aha moments and a lot of really honest conversations about marketing and strategy that you can take to heart and just apply. So yeah, I hope you love the season as much as I loved recording it, and a special thank you to everyone who contributed—you’re the best. And yeah, I’m really excited to see this live.

Patrick: Thank you, listeners, for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, like, subscribe, and tell your friends so we can carry on enticing awesome and influential guests to join us and share their remarkable journeys. If you subscribe to the plugin.fm website, you will get early bird access to our future content—right now, that’s the whole season, so go ahead and do that. plugin.fm is brought to you by Freemius, your all-in-one payments, subscriptions, and taxes platform for selling software, plugins, themes, and software as a service. If you’re struggling to grow your software revenue, send a note to [email protected] to get free advice from Freemius’s monetization experts. My name is Patrick Rauland, and thanks for listening to plugin.fm.

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