What does it take to fast track your career from Content Marketer to Vice President of Marketing in just four years? We interviewed BrightFunnel’s VP of Marketing, Dayna Rothman to find out how she ascended so quickly from content marketing at Marketo to her current position.
Read on to learn about her superpower, her passion for modern marketing strategies and technology and her fearless approach to accomplishing her career goals.
David: Tell us about the cultural experience you had at Marketo.
Dayna: Marketo was the beginning of my career. I didn’t even know what content marketing was at the time. It was exciting to hear about what they were doing, learn about content marketing, and sharpen some of my business skills while I was there. I had the opportunity to work with some incredible people. John Miller taught me everything I know about content marketing and was an amazing mentor. I wrote tons of content and learned about what was required to run a marketing machine, which prepared me to expand my career beyond content to managing marketing holistically. It was a hard, driving environment, and we had a lot to do, but it was a great experience.
David: You are a machine—the amount of content you created on these relevant topics, the definitive blog series and eBooks and webinars… it was like your own publishing department.
Dayna: We were definitely prolific, and we used the content we produced for the campaigns we ran. It was a small team, too. We put in place a lot processes for getting stuff done quickly and with high quality, which sometimes required finding the right outside resources for design and writing. If I was to have a marketing superpower, it would be writing really fast. I was able to put out a high volume even when working by myself. I understood John’s expectations, and that helped me get things done quickly.
David: You wrote Lead Generation for Dummies. What was the inspiration?
Dayna: I was at the right place at the right time. The publisher approached me because Marketo had already produced so much content, and they saw us as the experts on Lead Generation. I still had to do a full book proposal, which they proposed to their team. Marketo was very supportive about building peoples’ brand across the organization. I was challenged to go outside my comfort zone all the time. And they supported me throughout this independent project, as well. Writing the book was advantageous for me, and also for Marketo.
David: What brought you into the area of predictive analytics at BrightFunnel?
Dayna: I was ready for a new challenge. I met the CEO of EverString and was supposed to run the content team there. They were doing machine learning and predictive analytics, and I would have the opportunity to expand my skillset beyond content writing. Over time, I found I knew a lot about running marketing operations from my experiences at Marketo, so I ended up taking over the marketing department at EverString.
Then, as I began to build out the MarTech stack at Everstring, I discovered BrightFunnel. The platform became essential to our marketing strategy. I was so passionate about the platform, that when an opportunity came up to work for the company I jumped on it. At Bright Funnel I’ve been able to build out the core marketing team, but I also run field marketing as well—it’s a new set of interesting and exciting challenges for me.
David: You started off in marketing roles, spent years at Marketo as senior content marketer, and you’ve moved to VP of marketing at Bright Funnel. That’s a huge and fast ascension. What advice would you give to your younger self? How can other women make other contributions and have the success you have?
Dayna: When I was younger, I was pretty shy and uncertain. Marketo changed a lot of that for me. I learned to speak up, and people listened to what I had to say. I would tell my younger self to trust in yourself and keep pushing forward. You have interesting things to say that people care about. And don’t be apologetic.
As women move up in their career, they should speak their mind and not be concerned about being perceived as aggressive. This attitude has enabled me to have the seat at the table. I see myself as equal to everyone else on my team. I’m forthcoming with my thoughts and what we should be doing. I’ve always been kind of a scrappy person, I worked full-time through college and understood what it was like to support myself. As my career moves up, taking over roles in companies that I’ve never done before, the way I’ve always played it is I am confident I can figure it out. And that will resonate with leaders in any company.
About DemandGen Radio
DemandGen’s PodCast Series features interviews with top industry experts, thought leaders, authors, marketing technology firms and senior marketing leaders from around the world about their methods and technologies for high-performance marketing. A replay of the full podcast with Dayna Rothman at www.DemandGenRadio.com.
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