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.

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.

Parry Headrick

Founder at Crackle PR ⚡️Text me if you need tech PR: 415.246.8486

I’m founder of Crackle PR, a b2b tech public relations agency that works with good companies only. With over 20 years of experience in the PR industry, I have led marketing, communications, and new business functions for award-winning PR firms, serving clients in the B2B sector. 

As a PR agency leader, I am transparent, picky, and fearless. I do the right thing for my clients, my team, and my community. I am a big idea guy, a stellar writer and content creator, and a media trainer and counsel to the C-Suite. Text me if you need tech PR: 415.246.8486.

Founder 

Crackle Communications is a tech public relations agency that works with good companies only. We know communications, social media, branding and creative services cold. We’re a remote-first PR agency built for now, with deep experience connecting stories to their audiences. Warning: we’re transparent, picky and fearless.

My LinkedIn feed is filled with copywriters desperate to find work. 

People say AI can’t replace human writing. 

Most folks say they use AI for ideation, feedback, etc, but not to actually *do the writing*. 

Maybe. 

But I’m seeing so much terribly boring, formulaic, insipid marketing copy and LinkedIn posts that I’m thinking the correlation is real:

Human writers are losing jobs to AI. 

We just aren’t admitting it yet because it feels icky to say. 

But I’ll die on this hill: 

Strong writing is now—and will always be—the number one trait I look for when hiring for my team. 

Because great writing is a massive differentiator in AI’s sea of sameness. 

Don’t sleep on the humans. 

This is the way ✊

Founder at Crackle PR 🎙️ Text me for tech PR: 415.246.8486

💥 We don’t know if the economy is about to tank. 

But we do know this: 

PR isn’t a “nice to have” that can be cut to save costs any more. 🔪

Not this time. 

As CEO Gregory Galant of Muck Rack  correctly notes, PR is no longer just “brand-building”: 

It’s a performance channel. 

Large Language Models like ChatGPT heavily favor *earned media* in their answers to your questions. 

👇







Helllloooo, PR 👋


Vroom vroom 

🏎️💨

This is the way ✊

👋 PR pros: Don’t sleep on earning niche/industry coverage for clients. 

And this part is important AF:

All LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude, *do not cite earned media equally*. 

To wit: According to a study by Muck Rack, ChatGPT tends to cite large, mainstream publications in its answers. 

Meanwhile, Claude favors: 

-smaller pubs
-niche trade outlets 
-specialized media sources  

That’s a HUGE distinction. 

Another key point, according to Muck Rack: Claude defines “recency” differently

“ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Claude all have a bias toward recent content.

But the way they define ‘recent’ differs:

Claude has a citation sweet spot in the past 10 weeks, whereas ChatGPT shows a sharp citation drop-off after about one week. 

If ChatGPT rewards immediate visibility, Claude rewards sustained relevance…

For PR teams, this suggests:

✔️Coverage doesn’t “expire” as quickly in Claude’s ecosystem

✔️Stories published 2-4 weeks ago still have a strong influence

✔️A consistent drumbeat of earned media over several weeks may have a different impact compared to one big moment,” Muck Rack says. 

One thing is clear: earned media is more important than ever as LLMs gain prominence over traditional SEO. 

Final thought: 

**It’s critical for marketing & PR partners to use actionable, fluid data to win the visibility game over the long haul. 

Hat tip to Muck Rack for keeping it real ✌️

This is the way ✊

🚨 DON’T: Hire a PR agency if you don’t have the time or resources to truly partner with them. 

DO: Hire a PR agency when you prioritize it as a key business driver. 

Because it is. 

Especially now, when LLMs heavily cite *earned media* in their answers to “which company has the best ______?”

But PR agencies can’t do it alone.

You’ve gotta put skin in the game. 

This is the way ✊

👇

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Jess Cook

Parry Headrick

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The Battle

Jess Cook

Parry Headrick

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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

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