Stop Sending Boring Newsletters: Lessons from MKT1's Emily Kramer

[CdelP]

Hey, Community!

Curt with Masters in Marketing here!

"What's that?" you're thinking. (Yes, I can see what you're thinking. I eat a LOT of carrots.)

It's HubSpot's newest newsletter, featuring exclusive interviews of top marketers—like VPs from Liquid Death, Oatly, and the Brooklyn Nets!

In a recent issue, my friend and colleague, Caroline Forsey, interviewed MKT1's Emily Kramer about her top lessons for email marketing. 

MKT1 has over 48k subscribers, so she's definitely doing something right! But one bit of advice that stuck out to me as maybe a little controversial:

To get buy-in from above, Kramer recommends telling execs to think of Marketing like a Product team... NOT like a Sales team. 

"The biggest challenge in my career has been selling marketing. Early in my career, I didn't understand the delta between what I understood about marketing, and what founders or other teams knew about marketing."

I'm on board for not comparing Marketing with Sales. But is Product the right metaphor?

What do you think? ❓How do you sell Marketing to your leadership? 

~ Curt 

[IrynaGorbachova]

I absolutely love this idea, maybe because my past background comes from Product as well.
But anyway, in fact, how do you even put marketing from Product away these days? It's all so much connected.

[Jigar_Thakker]

Hey @CdelP  and community!

Love the newsletter and Emily Kramer’s perspective! Comparing marketing to a Product team is such an interesting take—it really captures the strategy, experimentation, and customer focus that marketing brings to the table. That said, Product teams often get more freedom to experiment, while marketing is under constant pressure to show ROI.

When I "sell" marketing to leadership, I focus on:

• Showing measurable results to back up the impact.
• Highlighting how marketing builds long-term brand trust and loyalty.
• Positioning marketing as the glue that connects Product, Sales, and Customer Success.

What do you all think—does the Product team comparison work, or is there a better way to frame it?

[Jnix284]

@CdelP I LOVE the idea of thinking of Marketing as a Product team instead of a Sales team. This has given me a lot to think about from previous roles and scenarios that might have played out differently. I enjoyed the full interview and am looking forward to more from Masters in Marketing - thanks for sharing!

[Ayishaarian]

Hey Curt!

Great post — I love the idea of marketing being seen more as a "product team" than a "sales team"! Emily Kramer's perspective is spot-on. In my experience, aligning marketing with product development makes so much sense because both require creativity, strategy, and a deep understanding of the audience. It's about creating something that resonates with your target audience, just like you would when designing a new product.

This approach also reminds me of something that might seem a bit unrelated but actually shares some parallels — the art of P!nk's concert set design. If you think about it, the design and production of her live shows are like a product in themselves: carefully crafted, audience-focused, and built to deliver a memorable experience. Just like marketers need buy-in from leadership to bring their vision to life, P!nk's creative team needs that same support to execute a performance that blends art, technology, and fan engagement. Both marketing and concert design require creativity, careful planning, and alignment with the bigger picture.

To answer your question: I think selling marketing to leadership is about framing it as a strategic "product" that will enhance the overall brand experience, much like any other initiative. When you show how marketing drives value and connects with the audience, that’s when you get buy-in.

Thanks for sharing, and I’d love to hear more thoughts from the community on this!

[CdelP]

Hi, Ayesha! That's a really interesting comparison! I'd never thought about it like that, but concert design definitely has a lot of overlap with experiential marketing, too. 

And a good point about always bringing it back to driving value and connection. That's the end goal for us all, isn't it?  

[MiaSrebrnjak]

Thanks for sharing @CdelP!

I wanted to tag in a couple of Marketing experts and ask them about their experience: 

Hi @HubSpotMaster, @Dan1, @Ian_Matt, @gabriel-nextiny, @boostmyemail, how do you pitch your marketing to leadership or customers?

Any advice on how to get buy-in for your marketing campaigns from above?  

Thanks, 

Mia, Community team 

[boostmyemail]

I don't sell hard in the traditional sense, but I have 3 pillars I establish leading up to the sales call:

1. "Expertise." I don't pretend to be a savant, but I have enough history under my belt and talk about email enough publicly that people usually trust that I know what I'm doing

2. Output. Most marketing advice says to talk about benefits rather than features... when it comes to my one person biz tho I do the opposite. Most VP's have been burned by employees that don't do much, so rather than promise results I promise a process that hopefully leads to the results they're looking for. If they know they'll get good work out of me, that helps.

3. Flexibility. Since I promise output, I don't lock into any long term contracts, and therefore they can shed me each month. That puts me on the hook to deliver, and gives them low risk. That's nice for them. 

[CdelP]

Hi, Michael! #2 is really interesting to me, because -- you're right-- most advice is to focus on the benefits. 

But while you can't really promise specific results (due to so many variables) you can definitely promise output!

[MiaSrebrnjak]

Nice, thanks @boostmyemail! 🙂