The top marketers to follow... if you want to grow
Believe it or not, but following actively and continuously top marketers in the last 12 months makes me grow as a marketer more than years of practice. And I have 15+ years of working experience.
You too are interested in learning the latest Marketing trends or gaining insight on the best ways to tackle some of your strategy, advertising, or operative challenges in Marketing? I selected for you the best Marketing experts you can learn from in an uncomplicated way. These Marketing specialists provide invaluable news, tips, and resources for all of the Marketers who are looking to do great Marketing - Reach a new level in your marketing mindset by taking a look below at the best marketing experts and the most appropriate platform to follow them.
Following top marketers: why it is powerful
I strongly recommend to young marketers (and more experienced ones too!) to follow top marketers from the very beginning of their marketing career... and never stop doing it. Here is why in 4 points:
You learn from the bests, at strategic as well as operative marketing levels, with always very precise and actual insights consolidating years of experience and thoughts. In the end, you will notice, more you know about marketing, the more you like it. The experience speaks,
By mentioning marketing examples or resources they like, the marketing specialists make your marketing references more numerous and diverse. It opens your mind, what develops your creative agility, and your marketing toolbox.
They have an extended network. So following one top marketer means opening the door to meeting a lot of other great marketing experts.
Following actively top marketers means that you get constant insights. I deeply believe that it is crucial in marketing to keep learning all the time.
Wishing to be in contact with great minds of the marketing world is good. But how to make this possible? Which top marketers should you follow? I did a short selection to help you.
Best marketers: my criteria of selection
The top marketers I picked have the following in common:
The marketing specialists are recognized by their peers as such. It means they have a community of marketers who interacts with them regularly and shows appreciation for their insights. The size of the community doesn't matter, but the level of engagement of the members and followers does.
The marketers I put in my listing are mainly focused on B2B marketing. This is a personal choice because I am very much interested in B2B vs B2C marketing. I also consider B2B marketing as more complicated and therefore, requiring even higher expertise.
"My" top marketers also share constantly and actively marketing insights, no matter if it is on Linkedin, on a podcast, through a newsletter, etc. They all are willing to share their knowledge and expertise with others. This is part of their mindset.
Convinced? Then, let's meet top marketers!
The best marketers to follow
When I think of tough marketers, I spontaneously have in mind these three marketing specialists: Danny Asling, Dave Gerhardt, and Louis Grenier. These three marketers that I consider as the best marketers to follow boosted my marketing mindset a lot in the last 12 months. Maybe yours too soon. Let me do the presentations.
Danny Asling
I don't know him personally but for me, Danny is one of the best B2B marketers at this moment. He is British and has this nice accent and touch that naturally build a pleasant personal branding.
He is a specialist in B2B marketing for SaaS, and namely: positioning and brand building, strategic narrative, demand and lead generation, and predictable revenue stream. He worked for global brands like Zendbox, For dummies, and Google, among others.
A good way to learn from Danny is to follow him on Linkedin. But you will definitively improve your marketing expertise at a much higher level by registering to The Marketing Crowd. It is a private marketing community for world-class marketers with over 700+ global members that he founded last year. The Marketing Crowd is available on the very interesting platform, Patreon. The membership costs around 7 € per month and it brings you a lot, but really a lot, of value. I am a member since January and I am addicted. I like and comment on almost every post. On The Marketing Crowd, you will find a lot of long and qualitative posts around marketing strategy, copyrighting, and storytelling, career advice (like managing up), to name some of the main topics. In addition, within this private marketing group on Patreon, Danny organizes a book club around marketing and Q&A sessions. Worth noting: Danny has the discipline to publish great content almost every day. Respect!
Dave Gerhardt
If you don't know Dave, imagine a slim guy, very energetic and who is falling in love with marketing every 5
minutes. This is Dave. He lives in Boston, has two very small children, does gym every morning, and is today the CMO of the SaaS company, Privy. He was previously the successful Marketing VP of the genius Drift.
When you listen or read Dave, you have to make sure that you drank at least one (Italian) expresso, even though two would be better. Indeed, Dave is a specialist in concentrating a lot of highly valuable marketing insights in very few minutes. This is especially true for all that is related to copyrighting, content marketing, brand positioning, and stakeholder management (with your CMO, or CEO).
Like Danny mentioned above, Dave is on Patreon, with "DGMG" (you have to understand: Dave Gerhardt's Marketing Group). There you will find very good content, especially regarding social media, Linkedin, the CMO job, and content. Interestingly, you will not only read posts, but you will also have the possibility to listen to private podcasts or watch videos. It costs around 11 € per month. Even though I enjoy the content a lot, I have to admit that I would wish for more constancy in the rhythm of publications.
The thing is that Dave is very active on other platforms too: on Linkedin, on YouTube, on Facebook (through a private group). He also recently launched the DGMG university containing expert interviews, marketing templates, and live Q&A sessions. In addition, he publishes a newsletter for those who didn't learn B2B marketing in school (and the others!) but want to learn it right., and he manages the great DGMG podcast.
I am not active on Facebook anymore for one year and a half, but it seems that this is where you should follow Dave to make the most of his insights. Good to know: your DGMG membership on Patreon gives you access to the private Facebook group without any additional cost.
How does Dave Gerhardt find the time to make and share all his passionate thoughts? No idea. I assume, he never sleeps.
Louis Grenier
With Louis, we have at least one thing in common: we both are French (nobody is perfect) and consciously decided to keep our accent when speaking English or any other foreign language (but can a French person anyway hide his accent?...). And speaking English, Louis does it at every minute because he lives in Ireland, and manages the wonderful marketing podcast (and newsletter), "Everyone hates marketers".
I write "wonderful" for two reasons. First, because of the style (not only the accent), with Louis speaking very fast and very goal-oriented. Second, because of the very high value of the actionable examples and advices that are shared. Listening to one episode of "Everyone hates marketer" is equal to one month of marketing experience. So, be ready, with Louis, you will become old very fast.
Independently from his podcast (and his newsletter. And his courses), I respect Louis a lot for his expertise in brand positioning and radical brand differentiation He has 10 years of experience in marketing and worked with businesses like Dropbox or Hotjar. He is especially good at challenging your bias and suggesting concrete solutions in a very structured way (and adding a lot of "f*ck" along the way - Maybe too often? But this is part of his branding too. F*ck.). Indeed, his mission is to "fight marketing bullshit with radical differentiation". That's why I consider him as one of the best marketers of today.
My top marketers in one infographic
In a way, the marketers I selected behave like influencers, in the area of marketing. And who can be better at this exercise than a marketer?...
Here is a summary:
Looking to list more top marketers
For this first publication about marketing experts, I kept the list very short, but with a detailed presentation of each top marketer. However, I have other names in mind and I plan to expand the selection. If you have any sugesstion, feel free to contact me! Merci!
Copyright pictures: Danny Asling, Dave Gerhardt, and Louis Grenier.