Helios Marketing LLC

Great marketing will never be easy, but it can be simple. Learn how Helios can help you build your unique story into a marketing engine that brings in new clients and business, drives up retention and makes your organization a place where people are proud to work.

Services and pricing are available at www.heliosmarketingllc.com

Founder

DHI Group, Inc.

At DHI Group, I led brand strategy and execution, product marketing and content marketing for DHI Group, Inc. (DHX: NYSE). My talented team and I helped to craft, refine and deliver the Dice brand and product story to all of our most important stakeholders. 

At Dice, our vision is to empower people to transform the world through technology, and our mission is to be the trusted partner for every technologist throughout their career, and for the organizations who rely on them, by providing unparalleled access to meaningful opportunities, connections and information. The Brand, Product Marketing and Content Marketing team, which includes Brand Strategy, Product Marketing Strategy, Content Marketing Strategy, Go-To-Market, Sales Enablement, Thought Leadership, B2B and B2C Content, Media Relations, Social Media, Design and Community Management, strives to convey who we are, what we do and why we do it in every interaction, and to show up in the same way (the right way) consistently; we aim to be empathetic, optimistic, inclusive, empowering and engaging, and to be the type of brand and product that people fall in love with.

Vice President, Brand, Product and Content Marketing

As Senior Director, I led the organization's content strategy for our client (recruiters and employers) and consumer/user (tech professional) audiences. I also led our media relations and social media programs, supporting our amazing resources in both positions (both are one-woman shows, and do a fantastic job not only keeping the lights on, but continually evolving). Our team also built Dice's community management program - we've hired a Community Manager, created a cross-functional strategy, and launched our pilot program in the span of just a few months - and created a successful influencer pilot program in 2021.

Senior Director, Content and Public Relations

Financial Planning Association (FPA)

As Head of Marketing and Membership, I was responsible for the development and execution of the association's marketing and membership strategies. I oversaw marketing and communications strategy and execution for large signature events. 

Additionally, I led brand and content strategy, as well as the organization's messaging strategy. Further, I managed communication distribution mechanisms, such as email, digital advertising, social media, and other recruitment and retention strategies. 

I also spearheaded organizational process management, as well as collaborate with other senior management team members in developing and executing website and digital strategy. Finally, I served as an expert contributor to the Practice Management Blog and the Journal of Financial Planning.

Five key accomplishments I’ve had in this role include:

★ Served as the board liaison for membership, marketing, website and brand initiatives.
★ Led an organization-wide rebranding strategy and full-scale website overhaul, incorporating FPA's first association-wide content strategy.
★ Designed content for and launched the organization's first app, the FPA Next Generation Planner, surpassing 800+ downloads in its first month.
★ Developed and executed the launch of the Join FPA microsite, the FPA "First-Year Member Experience" and a new member onboarding program.
★ Achieved social media following growth of 25% across all of the organization's platforms.

Head of Marketing and Membership

Jackson

As the Director of Digital Communications and Strategy, I led the organization's brand strategy, research, digital communications, social media and content marketing programs and initiatives. I oversaw the development of electronic and web-based communications, such as websites, email and social media. Moreover, I maintained responsibility for strategic planning, material creation and execution of the Center for Financial Insight investor education website, in addition to development of presentations and speeches for executive management.

In this role, I had 5 notable achievements:

★ Participated as a Featured Speaker at 2016 Content Roundtable at Facebook Headquarters (Menlo Park), and on Digital Branding at Prudential plc Communications Conference 2015 in London.
★ Received a Content Marketing Award from the Content Marketing Institute in 2016.
★ 2014 PR News “Rising Star of PR 30 and Under.”
★ Designed and executed the company's website strategy, tone-of-voice and messaging guidelines, in addition to communications and content style guide.
★ Received six writing awards at the 2015 Communicator Awards, including a Gold Award of Excellence, and a Grand Award at the 2015 APEX Awards of Excellence.

Director, Digital Communications & Strategy

National Planning Corporation (NPC)

In my last position at the National Planning Corporation, I headed the creative direction for the organization's marketing materials and communications, campaign management, social media and analytics.

One accomplishment I had in this role is:

★ Developed the organization's first social media and content strategy, and launched the brand on three social platforms.

Director of Marketing and Communications

Jackson National Life

Associate Production Manager

University of Denver

Editor-In-Chief

I help business owners, founders, CEOs and CMOs attract and retain their ideal clients by identifying, crafting and telling better stories.

I've talked to so many leaders who feel like their marketing programs are stuck. Their stories aren't propelling them forward, and they might even be holding them back. They don't feel like they have a solid foundation, so everything they try feels shaky and unstable.

If you're feeling like this, and your stories and your messaging are not driving engagement, leads and revenue, let's talk! 

Here's what I offer my clients:

- Content strategy development, refinement and execution
- Strategic narrative and core story development and refinement
- Corporate and crisis communications strategy, plan development, messaging support and support
- Public and media relations strategy, development and execution
- Social media growth strategy and execution
- Website content and UX glow-ups
- And my personal favorite: Hire me as your go-to marketing and communications advisor on a contract basis, and I'll help you with all of the above!

Why go with me over all of the other services out there? I'm so glad you asked:

- Empathy and Experience: I've probably been in your shoes before and know what it's like to try to solve the stickiest problems within your organizations. I bring almost two decades of experience as a marketing and communications leader, and that includes time spent at large enterprises, small and mid-size firms, public companies and associations. I haven't seen it all, but I've seen a heck of a lot!

- Business Acumen and Stractical Skill: If your marketing program isn't tied directly to your business goals, it's just a fun hobby. I understand the necessity of making a business impact and every part of your strategy will point that direction. I also bring a unique combination of strategic guidance and roll-up-my-sleeves tactical skill; it's more fun that way and a lot more effective.

- Knowledge Across Industries and Disciplines: I've held roles in finance, tech and human resources. Within those companies, I did the work and led teams in disciplines across content marketing and strategy, brand strategy, creative direction and management, product marketing, media and public relations and executive communications. You need a partner that brings both breadth and depth, and that's me.

- I'm Really Cool: OK, I haven't been cool since 2007 (and even then, it's debatable). I am fun to work with, and I promise to make you laugh and smile while we're working hard together. In my book, that counts for something!

Give to your food bank.

Anything helps, and with 42 million people about to lose access to food aid, they are going to be even busier than usual.

Most are accepting emergency gifts and are making it as easy as possible to donate money on their websites and food items at pantry locations.

You can find your local/regional food bank through the Feeding America website.

I don't care what your politics or religious beliefs are or what you think of food stamps/SNAP as a policy. What's expected to happen in a few days isn't about any of that.

If you're a human being, you should never want another human being to go hungry. 

If you can help, help.

Dan Martin

Marketing, Communications and Strategy Consultant I Simply Great Newsletter I Founder and Owner @ Helios Marketing

You know that desperately sad thing people say about how you didn't know when you ran out the door that day that it would be the last time you played outside with your group of childhood friends?

I've found myself wondering if some organizations have a similar moment. A point in time that doesn't feel particularly seismic, but it ends up being the beginning of a path toward things to come.

When things go badly, can you identify the turning point? 

Was it something obvious like the mass layoff where the CEO lied about restructuring because of the "efficiencies gained from AI" to cover up the fact that the customer retention rate was 24% and dropping?

Or was it something more subtle, like that meeting where My-Name-is-Spencer-But-Everyone-Calls-Me-Truck said, "To build a more scalable and resilient business, we need to move upmarket and work with more established brands," and everyone just agreed with him?

I wonder if we would be more careful with our impulsive decisions or smashing initiatives through without proper diligence if we thought about them the same way as the childhood example. Perhaps and perhaps not. 

On a more optimistic note, though, the same could absolutely be true for a positive turning point.

That meeting where Saria laid out a plan for reworking our renewal strategy to do right by customers, even though it would cost the company money in the short term, and it was approved? Looking back, that might have been the day the graph started to flatten out, then eventually go back up. 

We spend a lot of our days making decisions, many micro, some macro.

Since we rarely know which is which in the moment, take each one seriously.

We’re about to enter a Golden Age for truly mission-driven organizations.

There was a time not too long ago when “mission-driven” was the marketing term du jour for companies to latch onto. 

Don’t have a mission or purpose beyond making money at the expense of morality and integrity? Doesn’t matter! Just say you’re mission-driven and watch the bills roll in!

This of course devalued the terms, throwing out the organizations who actually had a deeper purpose and who had stuck to their values with the rest of the dirty corporate bathwater.

The subsequent DEI debates have further muddied the waters for these organizations, so much so that I’ve heard from multiple business owners that they’ve been advised not to broadcast or promote their core missions in their marketing.

We’re nearing another inflection point, though, and this one will bring these organizations back to their rightful place: as real challengers to the biggest and most pervasive brands and products available.

People have finally begun to lose trust in Big Business.

One too many boldfaced lies. One too many broken promises. One too many mass layoffs while the company reports billions of dollars in profit.

We lost trust in the government and fled to these corporations, hoping that they would use the money they were basically printing to make the world a better place. And they let us down so completely that we’re now worse off than we were before.

As that trust gap continues to grow, we’ll be looking for someone or something to fill it, and I think we’ll seek out the opposite of these faceless, remorseless behemoths: 

the organizations who are making money, but whose true motives are to be helpful, be kind and to allow customers,  communities, and especially those in need, to thrive.

This doesn’t mean people will begin to support organizations who have a big heart and a bad product; the products and services still need to be good and relevant.

It means that they will start to seek out the B Corporations, the “for every dollar” companies, and those who are clearly trying to put in more than they take out.

If you’re one of those organizations, and especially one whose values and mission have survived in a time when so many have capitulated (and shown their true colors), it’s time to double down.

And for the love of all that is holy, please don’t listen to the advice about smothering your mission.

Instead, shout it from the rooftops as often as you can. 

Show in every possible instance how an organization can succeed in a traditional sense while also providing one or many benefits to society. 

Because when you do, you’ll attract more than customers; you’ll inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs and leaders to commit to doing business the right way.

Buying products from extractive companies right now is like buying cigarettes in the 1970s.

In the ‘50s, cigarette companies were still running ads showing doctors smoking and blatantly lying about the health risks of lighting up.

In the ‘60s, reports began telling the truth about the links between cigarettes and lung cancer, but it took time to turn the tide of misinformation, and consumers remained unsure of what was true.

But by the 1970s, the evidence was damning. If you continued to buy cigarettes in that era, you knew everything you needed to know about how bad they were (and how exploitative the companies were), and you had to decide to make the choice anyway.

Over the last decade plus, we’ve been conditioned to idolize massive tech companies, been told that there’s no other way to get the products they provide, been aggressively reminded that their models are “innovation” and “the future.”

And like cigarettes in the 1950s, it sounded good, the savings felt good, and being part of the “new way” was exciting and novel.

Now, we know better. 

We know these companies pay many people poverty-level wages and force them to work in terrible conditions.

We know that they take advantage of small businesses and partners and creators, making it nearly impossible for them to make money from their own products.

We know that they report billions in profit while laying off staff in the thousands.

So if we buy from them this holiday season (and any season), we do so knowing exactly what we’re supporting.

Here’s what to do instead: 

- If possible, go directly to small business and creator sites and buy from them. You may pay a few extra dollars in shipping, but if you can afford it, you’re doing them a big favor.

- Look for the B Corp insignia. B Corp Certification is a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials. Buy from these companies.

- Tell others what you’re doing. There are still people who feel like they don’t have other options, and we can help them stop supporting companies who have done so much damage and get their money to the people who actually deserve it.

People who have never worked in a corporate environment don’t know how hard it is to contort yourself to fit the mold.

You need to have some skill (or at least be able to pretend), but you can’t have too much or the wrong person might feel threatened.

You need to have enough confidence to speak up at the right times in meetings, but you can’t push back on sacred cows or certain people (and the only way to find this out is to step directly on the pressure plate).

You need to be known as a hard worker who cares about your job and the company, but you can’t be known as someone who cares too much or be too serious.

You need to be funny and engaging and go to every post-work event, but you can’t be known as someone who has too much fun.

You need to be deemed likable by all levels of staff, but not so much so that you’re deemed weak or soft.

And we’re really surprised that more people struggle in these environments than feel successful?

Imagine how much time you have to waste every day managing to the impossible balance outlined above. 

And then imagine how much time that leaves for thinking, actual collaboration and work.

Nothing - not problems in product, sales, marketing, ops or all of the above - sucks the life out of an organization more than these unspoken daily trials and compromises.

(Please add any of the weird corporate balancing acts I missed)

Things that can make a huge impact that nobody wants to do:

- Documenting every core process, reviewing each step in each workflow, and making adjustments to get rid of friction and make things easier for the customer (or individual going through the process)

- Putting together a simple plan and template to source and create short case studies/customer stories from every satisfied client, working with members of the sales, customer success, service and other teams who need to be involved to share accountability and get buy in, and starting to run the process (refining as you learn)

- Gathering all of the narratives, mission statements and talk tracks floating around the organization, reviewing them against as much information from recent high-level discussions, calls and meetings as you can find, and creating updated versions (multiple options) to share with the executive team in a presentation 

In many organizations, even if marketers know they should be doing these things and want to do them, they rarely appear high enough on the priority list to make the cut.

Yes, each takes effort and, besides the narrative, may not feel particularly exciting. But the number of times you will use and fall back on the work makes them all exponentially valuable.

If you can, find the time to take them on.

No, Adobe Acrobat, I don't want your AI tool to summarize this one-page PDF.

Why? Because I use my ability to read information, comprehend it, analyze it and use it in almost every aspect of my life. I won't outsource that because I know how easy it would be for that muscle to atrophy.

And what could I possibly be doing where I can't take the time to read a single page of text (including white space and images)?

To me, it's what most of the endless debates about generative AI boil down to: why are you using it?

If you're so busy that you can't read a single page, shouldn't you be looking at what's taking the rest of your time?

If you have AI tools constantly analyzing and summarizing documents and other longer-form information for you, what are you doing with those summaries and analyses (be honest)? 

Teachers don't punish you for using Cliff Notes only for laziness; it's also because a summary lacks nuance and context, and therefore doesn't teach you much of value.

If you've outsourced emails, social posts and comments, and even making your own videos, how much time have you actually saved, and what are you using that time for instead?

There are times when these tools can be incredibly valuable. In almost every instance, this happens when there's a clear benefit we're getting from the output, and when we're putting just as much work in on the front and back end as we would have without these tools.

If the answer to the question of why we're using it is "I'm too busy," my stance is that it's often better to not do something at all than to outsource it entirely to Gen AI.

I think it gives us the illusion of productivity and efficiency with none of the benefit. "I wasn't able to do this before and now I can do it all!"

But the reality is, you didn't do it. A machine did. 

Unless you have a plan for what to do with it that involves you using your brain to get it to a place where it's even remotely usable, you're checking a box, and likely hurting yourself by showing someone you don't care enough to make an effort for something that's important to them.

Our job is to decide whether we truly need these tools to help us check a bunch of things off our to-do lists or if, instead, we need to do the deeper, harder work of re-prioritizing the things that matter in our lives.

Shout-out to all the parents who worked extra time over the last weekend and in the early mornings and nights this week so they could be present with their kids on Halloween.

You could have begged off and said you were too busy at work, that you had too many other things to do, that you needed a break.

All of those things are true, and yet you pressed on and made sacrifices so you could experience this with them at a time when they're still enamored with the magic. 

Your younger kids may never know what you put in to make their Halloween (and other holidays) happy. 

Part of what makes the work parents do during these times of year even more heroic is that they don't let their children see what it takes to get it all done.

You may not be able to give them everything they want, but tonight, you're giving them the only thing that really matters and the one they'll remember the most: the special time with you.

❤️

If you're going to have a rewarding career in marketing or communications, you have to enjoy doing the work.

We tend to treat the marketing career path like many other disciplines: 

Start as a tactician, work your way up to a managerial role where you're able to delegate some of the work, then finally graduate to being a VP and doing none of the work (your entire job is supervising others while they do the work, telling them how to do it, and "Being In Meetings").

That might work elsewhere (you tell me), but it doesn't work in marketing or communications.

In my experience, the further you get from the work itself, the less effective you become (even if you are running a large team at a large organization).

This is in part because marketing is constantly changing along with the world, making it important to keep up with what people are talking about, why they're talking about it, and how their shifting needs are shifting their behaviors...

...and in part because the foundations have never changed, but still require a deep expertise and muscle memory to do really well.

It's also because these professions are not exact sciences.

Anyone who is telling you they have tried-and-true ways to generate X high-converting leads in X timeframe, guaranteed press in national publications or a campaign that's going to drive X number of high-converting users to your landing page is...lying.

A big part of our job is working as hard as we can to understand the people we're trying to reach, create things that we thing they want and need, and build experiences that allow them to learn more about our organizations and products at their own pace.

That requires a ton of different hypotheses and failed experiments, which always require more doing than talking.

Marketers and communicators don't have the luxury of stepping completely away from writing, designing, creating, running events, updating the website, producing videos, putting together pitches and releases.

These things ARE the work of marketing, and even if your only job is telling others to do these things, if you can no longer step in and do them yourself, your instructions and suggestions are going to be worse than useless.

The good news is that the work is supposed to be the fun part. 

If you’re aggressively trying to get away from doing it, you might want to consider another profession.

If all the posts about people "playing 4D chess" right now are true...

...we should be a lot more worried about the productivity implications of people playing a game in a dimension we don't even exist in than we are about the AI bubble.

Why is nobody talking about this?

😂 😭

Remember eye contact?

That feeling when you'd sit down across from someone, and they would look you in the eye(s) as a way to show they were listening and that they actually cared about what you were saying?

Those were the days.

I had a wonderful catch up with Elizabeth Kosar yesterday, and she is a master of the lost art of eye contact. It made me realize how it's fast becoming more of a rarity these days, and I hope we can turn that trend around!

If you have kids, you're a teacher/mentor, or you're managing folks newer to the workforce, teach them about the importance and value of respectful eye contact.

Being engaged and interested is still the most effective communications hack there is.

(I also realize that this is a "get off my lawn" take and am confirming here that I don't care)

Why is something that turns out to be insignificant or lacking in substance a "nothing burger?"

If there's no meat between the bread, it's not a burger anymore. The meat IS the burger.

Here's what you can do with this information:

1) Get really mad and debate me. I wouldn't advise this, because it will be impossible for me to take it seriously, which will only make you madder than you already are.

2) Learn the history of hamburgers (the Hamburg Steak!). This is what I did after someone said "nothing burger" and I realized the term annoyed me. Knowing is half the battle!

3) Think about how you're going to avoid saying "nothing burger" from now on. Is there a better option? I'm not sure. Is saying nothing at all better than "nothing burger?" Probably.

Follow me for more hard-hitting insights. (And have a great weekend)

I get it. You're hustling, you're putting in the work, and someone told you that, if a tactic converts at 0.0001% percent, it's still a win regardless of how sleazy and intrusive.

I promise you, it's not. Please stop finding my phone number and texting me about your lead generation services. I don't want them. 

And even if I did, getting your text out of the blue ensures I will never consider buying anything from you or your company, regardless of how much I want or need what you're selling.

If you send me a thoughtful cold email about a product that's relevant to me, I'll open and read the whole thing. If it's clear you put in the effort to learn at least the basics about me, even if it's not the right time, I'll respond to let you know.

But texts out of nowhere, calendar invites on my work or personal calendar, immediate pitches in DMs, bait-and-pitches in my website contact form? These are never going to get you what you want, because I haven’t opted in to receive them from you.

So, what can you do instead? Follow Samantha McKenna and Jen Allen-Knuth for excellent outreach tips you can use right away. 

I'll also say that 5 minutes of extra effort always goes a long way - review the person's LinkedIn profile, actually read some of what they've posted, find out what they like to talk about - the bar is low, so you can truly set yourself apart by making your outreach more personal and relevant.

🚨 NEW ANALOGY ALERT 🚨

You've been all like, "Where's that new analogy you promised us? I heard Magnum is going to blow us all away!?!"

Well, the wait's finally over.

I've been cooking this bad boy up in the lab over the last few years. JK, I said it off the cuff on a call with Andy Sharpe last week, and he said it was a good analogy, which is a surefire way to get me to post about literally anything.

I give you: Dan's Rollercoaster Consulting Analogy:

Most consultants (and vendors) are paid initially to help leaders and organizations with the climb to the top of the big hill. This is generally the strategy, the planning, the prep, the assessments and the recommendations.

Good consultants and fractional folks build the drop down the big hill itself into their agreements, making sure that they can at least kick off the implementation process. It's one way to get past the biggest objection to traditional consulting: "They just dropped in a 200 slide deck, said good luck, and left."

In my experience, one of the most dangerous parts of projects is the flatter part of the track at the bottom of the big hill. It's where implementation tends to fall apart, even if the consultant put a lot of effort into helping prepare staff for the work itself.

This is why it's smart for organizations to build in a 3-6 month period of ongoing support from the consultant or fractional expert AFTER the beginning of implementation. That bit of runway can end up making a big difference in carrying the momentum of the project forward, making it well worth the extra cost.

To continue the analogy, support on this bit of track helps the organization get ready to go through the loopty loops (I will always spell it like this) and finish the rest of the ride smoothly.

The most effective arrangements tend to include all three phases - climb, drop, and flat track - and I really enjoy helping organizations through each one.

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