Could you tell us about your role and journey into Technology?
I’m the Co-founder and CEO of a content generation platform called Cohley. My journey into tech has been an interesting one and I’ve been very fortunate to be connected to some awesome success stories.
I started my career Wildfire Interactive where we were focused on helping brands run Facebook campaigns and attract visitors to their respective pages. This was at a time when brands believed that their Facebook pages were going to be equally as important as their websites. Google bought Wildfire in 2012 and I subsequently spent a few years learning from some of the best and brightest over there.
How big is your Marketing and Sales teams? Give us a sense of your Organization structure?
We have a Marketing team of 1 currently but we’re looking to add a demand gen marketer in the near future. We have a Sales team of 8, and the two teams will be very much connected at the hip. Our Marketing team will not only have MQL goals, they’ll have revenue goals tied to those MQL targets as well.
We primarily invest in LinkedIn and Facebook ads but we’ve recently experimented with sponsoring relevant newsletters that are target audience regularly start their days with (The Hustle, Morning Brew, etc.).
What is Cohley.com and who are your current customers?
Cohley is changing the way that brands generate content. 59% of marketers fall short on having the necessary assets that they need to optimize ad channels and personalize their content, and in short we help them address that challenge by connecting them with our extensive network of creators, photographers and designers. They spend a lot less money and improve performance in the process.
Think of it like Upwork for content creation with the added benefit of the platform making content recommendations for specific demographic targeting and ad initiatives.
How do you define Content Personalization? Which technologies are garnering the maximum mileage in this sector?
For us, helping our customers personalize the content that they use to communicate and build relationships with specific consumer groups and demographics is everything. We know that personalization is no longer a “nice to have” for marketers, particularly when targeting Millennial buyers, and in order to meet that demand they need more content than they’ve ever needed before.
This isn’t just for Content Personalization, this is also for multi-variate testing within those niche audiences.
What Marketing-related challenges do you meet every day? How does technology and collaboration tools help you to overcome these?
Naturally, I’m always looking for new channels that can produce low-cost MQLs. Understanding who are target audience is and where those individuals spend time online is another challenge that we’re constantly digging into.
The same way that we encourage and facilitate ad testing with our clients, we hold ourselves to that same approach and mentality.
Which Marketing, Sales, and Customer Support technologies do you leverage at Cohley?
Copper CRM, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Outreach, Jiminny, Seamless.ai, G Suite, AdHawk, MetaData.io, MailChimp
How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a Business Leader?
For me, it’s really about looking for operational efficiencies while continuing to value real connections between real people. Let AI automate as many of the remedial tasks as possible and apply critical thinking from sharp team members to interpret the right data sets to act as decisively as possible.
How do you inspire your people to work with technology?
By demonstrating how the tech will make them more successful in their roles. Without a clear understanding of personal benefits adopting new tech just feels like work.
One word that best describes how you work.
Tirelessly
What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
Jiminny for call recording and subsequent training has been huge for us.
Which superhero character/ movie do you most profoundly relate to:
That would have to be Deadpool…he’s an unorthodox, crass superhero with a chip on his shoulder and I think it’s endearing!
What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
To-do lists and designated time for undistracted deep work on a single project or task.
What are you currently reading?
I’m currently reading “9 Lies About Work” and I consume information in newsletters, go-to websites, Instagram, Twitter and Podcasts.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Ben Horowitz told me that the advice he likes to give founders is to “Run towards the pain and fear…if you avoid the painful hurdles in front of you, that’s when you’ll experience real pain.” I reference that constantly.
Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?
I’m extremely consistent day-to-day, and that consistent energy and output added up over months and years has really built up for me.
Tag the one person (or more) in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:
Jeremy Levy
Thank you, Tom! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.
Tom is the Co-founder and CEO of Cohley, an NYC-based tech startup that helps brands generate content via third party creators.
Cohley helps brands ranging from Casper to Ann Taylor generate the photos, videos and text reviews that they need to optimize digital channels.
The MTS Martech Interview Series is a fun Q&A style chat which we really enjoy doing with martech leaders. With inspiration from Lifehacker’s How I work interviews, the MarTech Series Interviews follows a two part format On Marketing Technology, and This Is How I Work. The format was chosen because when we decided to start an interview series with the biggest and brightest minds in martech – we wanted to get insight into two areas … one – their ideas on marketing tech and two – insights into the philosophy and methods that make these leaders tick.
