Head of Content @ LASSO | Co-host of That's Marketing, Baby | Delivering daily cheat codes for small content teams

I'm a creative director turned content marketer and strategist with more than 20 years of experience conceptualizing and executing breakthrough work for B2C brands like Eggo, Rice Krispies, Blue Cross, Cottonelle, and McDonald’s, and B2B brands like Fastly and Island.

I have a knack for leading cross-functional teams toward a common goal, bringing order to the oft-chaotic creative process, crafting insight-driven global campaigns, and bringing stories to life via long- and short-form content.

Jess Cook

I've worked with a lot of talented people over the years.
 
But every once in a while, you meet someone who just 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘪𝘵 in every way that matters.
 
Annalisa Rodriguez is one of those people.

I had the privilege of working with her for a short time at Fastly.
 
And this week, she joined Vector 👻 as our Sr. Content Marketer Manager — a sentence that makes me so happy I could cry.
 
Annalisa has a journalism background that shows in everything she touches. Long-form, repurposing, content design... she's equally amazing at all of it.
 
But what makes her truly special is her ability to take the things people 𝘴𝘢𝘺, turn them into content that makes readers 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭, and connect it all to results when buyers 𝘢𝘤𝘵.

(Read: not a common skill.)

Bonus: she's already vibing with us in Slack, and keeping our cat-loving hearts fed with pics and videos of her kitties, Oreo and Darkness. 😻
 
With Annalisa on the squad, we now have four marketers at Vector. And for the first time, a real three-legged stool:
 
→ Product marketing 
→ Demand gen 
→ Content

(i.e. I feel like I just collected ALL OF THE POKEMON.)

Annalisa's going to be sharing how she builds content here at Vector. You'll want a front-row seat for that, so go give her a follow.

Then stand back, 'cause sparks are 'bout to fly, y'all.

Just back from an incredible week at Above the Fold where I ran six content workshops over two days. I have but three pieces of photo evidence I was even there.

1) Schnitzel dinner with my ride or die agency guy, Justin Dunham. We've had two Zoom calls a week for nearly 5 years straight and had yet to meet in person. It was worth the wait. (For both the hang and the schnitzel.)

2) Got to meet my buddy from across the pond, Luke Winter - the man, the myth, the legend behind our "Next best way" ads. We talked shop (obvi), and concerts, and about what we do when we're not at our desks. His hair is just as fab in real life.

3) My parents were also flying out of Detroit at the same time as me - something we only realized a few days before. So we met up for an early bird special before boarding. They paid, of course, because I'm only 42. 🥰

So glad I went. So glad to be home. So ready for this damn snow to melt.

I have a rule I live by in marketing: Test small before executing big.

It's why I ran an influencer pilot before making it a full program.
Tested new messaging in ads before our repositioning launch.
And why I'm so excited about what we're announcing today...

Vector 👻 𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁-𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘆 𝗔𝗱𝘀. 🎉 

Here's the metaphor that's been living in my head for this:

Clay is the proving ground. 🏁
It's where GTM teams experiment with signals, build enrichment workflows, test what actually predicts buying behavior, and figure out which audiences are worth activating.

Vector is the Autobahn. 🚗
Once you know what works? You open it up. Contact-level targeting, live audience updates, suppression logic that actually follows your buyers—running modern ads playbooks at full speed.

This isn't hypothetical for us.

It's exactly how Kelly and Sara have been building Vector’s ads program.

• Kelly uses Vector to identify accounts and contacts signaling intent. 
• Sara uses Clay to enrich and score those ICP contacts. 
• Then, they use Vector to activate those contacts across LinkedIn and Google, keeping our paid targeting aligned to real buyer signals as they move through the funnel.

When your team’s already living the use case, you know you're onto something.

Grab some time to see it in action: https://lnkd.in/eugn7rJh

I love a good Uno reverse. 

Especially when it's aimed at Joshua Perk 👻.

In the season two finale (!!!) of This Meeting Could've Been a Podcast, Josh and I take you through our entire website redesign process: from the awkward "you literally told me no when I suggested this six months ago" conversation (haha), to how we worked with our design agency to build the new look and feel, to the 37-item launch checklist 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 (Josh) did not see coming.

But one of my favorite takeaways from the entire project goes a little something like this...

The second someone lands on your site, they start to form an opinion about your product. 𝗔𝗻 𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺.
 
They assume the same level of polish and thought put into your website go into your product, too.
😒 If the design feels dated, they assume the product UI is clunky.
😒 If product screen shots feel too mocked up, they assume the product isn't robust enough.
😒 If it's hard to figure out what you do, they assume the product is just as convoluted.

A lot of teams either go full nuclear on a redesign and lose everything distinctive about their brand, or they're so precious about what they have that the "redesign" is just a fresh coat of paint on the same old house.
 
So when Josh and I sat down to figure out what to actually change, we built three buckets.
 
𝗕𝘂𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝟭: 𝗞𝗲𝗲𝗽. These are the things that make you you. The stuff your audience would immediately recognize and miss if it disappeared. You don't want to lose them—you want to evolve them. Same personality, better haircut. For us: Ghostie, bright colors, bold statements with a wink.
 
𝗕𝘂𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝟮: 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘂𝗽. These are the things that aren't bad, exactly—they're just limiting. They paint you into a corner or kill your flexibility, even if people associate them with your brand. For us: super saturated color usage that made text basically impossible to read.
 
𝗕𝘂𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝟯: 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲. These are the things actively working against you. They're building a perception you don't want—making you look smaller or less sophisticated than you actually are. No sentimentality. They gotta go. For us: all-caps headlines and ghost visuals in spots that should have had actual product screenshots.

The reason I love this framework is it gives you permission to make bold changes while protecting the things that actually matter. Before we kicked off the project with our design agency, Josh and I literally listed out which parts of our brand fell into which bucket. It made every every design decision after that so much cleaner. 🤌

The FULL second season of is out now! Just search This Meeting Could've Been a Podcast.

Justin Simon

Hey there! I’m Justin Simon.

👉 3x Head of Content
👉 Launched 3 podcasts with 50K+ downloads
👉 Helping marketing teams turn existing content into 100x ROI assets (without creating more)

Most marketing teams are stuck creating content that no one sees. They hit publish, cross their fingers, and hope it ranks. But hoping isn’t a strategy.

The truth? You don’t have a content creation problem. You have a distribution problem.

I help small marketing teams remix what they already have and build a system for consistent content distribution across multiple platforms. You get more reach, more leads, and less burnout.

📈 Does it work?

- One client tripled their content reach in 90 days without writing anything new
- My own content repurposing system has helped generate millions of views evert year
- The Distribution First Playbook has helped 1,000+ marketers rethink their content strategy

📩 Let’s connect

If you’re tired of watching your great content sit around, let’s fix that.

DM me here or grab my free playbook: https://course.justinsimon.co

Founder

I build distribution strategies for marketing teams who want to get the most out of their content.

I’ve been dragging my feet on announcing this.
Because if I’m honest, I've been procrastinating and dressing it up as “getting ready.”

Sooo, here it goes. 

I went back in-house at the end of 2024. And it's been amazing. The team we're building and the work we're doing has been incredible. 

But I've also missed coaching and consulting. 

Since 2022, I’ve coached dozens of marketers. Some 1:1. Some in small groups. 

And I realized pretty quickly that I love working closely with people. 

The marketers I work with are high performers. Their teams are producing good content. They’re not beginners at this stuff.

But after they hit publish, most of that work just sits there. And the only way they show their value or move the needle is to create something new. 

That cycle sucks. 

And what they're actually looking for is leverage.

- More value from what already exists.
- Clearer systems.
- Better decisions about where to focus.

And that’s the work I’ve been doing behind the scenes for years.

So instead of waiting until this thing is perfectly packaged, I’m just going to say it out loud:

I’m opening back up for coaching.

One client I worked with 3x'd brand account reach on LinkedIn in 3 months. All with existing content. 

And within 6 months they were driving the highest number of trials ever driven from social. 

Today their investment is still compounding. Her team continues to use the templates and strategies we built to drive results every month. 

She told me it was the first time she really started paying attention to distribution as part of her content strategy. And it made a massive difference.

If you're a marketing leader who knows you need more leverage:

→ You're creating good content but it's not working hard enough for you
→ You're on the verge of burning out (and it's not even Q2)
→ You know your team is capable of more, but something's holding you back

DM me. I'm happy to hop on a call and see if we're a fit. 

And if I've worked with you before (even informally), drop a comment and say hi!

Let's go!

You Don’t Need More Content. You Need More From It. I Help Marketing Leaders Build Distribution Flywheels to Scale Content Without Doing More Work.

I almost didn't send this email. I had been putting it off for 6+ months. 

After years of sending a weekly email newsletter I stopped cold in August. 

I was exhausted and uninspired. 

And then the hardest thing became starting again. Because every week I didn't send something the doubts grew louder and it became easier to just do nothing.

Well, last Friday I finally sent an email letting folks know I was switching up my platform. I made a simple ask to let me know they got the email. 

But what I got in return was so much more. 

I got dozens and dozens of responses from folks. And so many with kind words and encouragement. 

It was literally the exact opposite of all the fears I had built up...

- "What if no one responds?"
- "What if the new platform bombs?"
- "What if everyone unsubscribes?"

None of that happened.

If anything, it reminded me that there are real humans on the other side of this screen. 

Anyway… I’m writing again.

And it feels good to be back.

Dang it. I love this stuff. Some quick math behind an 11.5x content repurposing multiplier:

• Podcast downloads: 1,023
• Views on YouTube: 1,056
• Clips on Linkedin: 17,933
• Email views: 4,206

The total people who consumed podcast content goes from:

2,079 → 24,218

An 11.5x increase.

It's simple. But it's not always easy.

Amplifying content takes work.

And when you present distribution this way you can get a benchmark, set goals around it, compare it to pipeline, and see the correlations.

taplio

The Battle

Jess Cook

Justin Simon

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreJess Cook's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJustin Simon's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Jess Cook

Justin Simon

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Jess Cook's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJustin Simon's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreJess Cook's LinkedIn Performance