Category: Product Marketing

Over the past few years, I’ve taken to the waters of Colorado to master the art of fly fishing. I practice what I call “active fishing,” where I choose to fish along running water (creeks, streams, rivers) and move upstream behind the fish. I stop along the way at choice spots but am constantly wading or hiking ahead to see what’s around the next bend.

This summer, I’ve realized that successful fishing is a perfect analogy for B2B marketing (demand gen and product marketing). I’ll break down what both successful anglers and marketers do right.

Plan Ahead, Before You Get to the Water

Before you get in the car, decide where you want to go and what challenge you’re ready to face. Should it be a meandering creek (abundant, smaller fish more easily caught) or a wider, flat river (larger, cagier, and photo-worthy fish)? Like defining your ideal customer profile (ICP) in marketing, you need to decide what you can target with the energy and resources you have. It’s always a balancing act, so careful consideration before choosing a location can have a great impact on your overall success. Also, check that all your equipment is working and stowed in the car before you embark!

Understand What Your Targets Find Appealing

Trout will only eat what’s hatching (or something that looks close), so casting an out-of-season fly is like giving your prospects last year’s market research report. The best anglers approach a stream and mark which bugs are in the air or under rocks. They consult online or at the local fly shop for tips on what’s currently tasty. And they pivot to new flies when what they’ve rigged isn’t (or stops being) effective. Just as in marketing, it’s the research, attentiveness, and trial and error that give you the advantage. 

Know How to Get Your Targets’ Attention

As with marketing personas, trout have defining characteristics that you can use to help catch them. For example, trout are lazy and mostly face upstream to snatch whatever food is coming towards them, expending as little energy as possible.  You learn to land your cast well upstream of where they are (if you can see them) and then patiently let it drift down to them so they think it’s a genuine meal. Presenting a fly to the side or behind a trout gets you nothing, nor will jerking around the line in an unnatural way. They will see right through you just as your prospects will, when you present them with high-level, low-calorie marketing assets, or if your timing is tremendously off the buying cycle.

Don’t Be Afraid to Pivot 

In running water, you see all conditions: deep and shallow, fast and slow, warm and cold. I’ve learned that if you’re casting along a certain riffle and nothing is happening, do a 180-degree turn and try a different part of the stream. It may seem counterintuitive, but a stark pivot often works. This is when trying a new approach, rather than doubling down on what isn’t working, is what brings success.

Hit Your Target, Despite Ever-Changing Conditions

Trout are always hungry but also discerning. That’s why you must avoid a static approach and adjust your tactics on a regular basis. As with marketing, anglers must account for a dynamic environment. As the seasons and stream conditions change, plentiful streams can seem nearly empty. With greater water flow (think: more advertising and market noise), trout can retreat to deeper pools or under the river bank, where they’re harder to entice. And on sunny days, fish will see you coming and can scatter before you even get a chance to lure them in.

In fishing, you can solve this by adjusting your rig: add more tippet (the fine line leading to the flies) or weight so you can place the lure deeper. You can also change out the fly to something that would be more natural in deeper water. In marketing, experimenting with multiple channels and varying topics, even ones you consider long-tail, keeps you from complacency and can catch the best prospects on any given day. How often do you update your LinkedIn ads and keywords to meet new needs and trends?

Learn the Landscape to Build on Your Success

I often return to the same fishing locations, and so I immediately know where to start, upping the probability of my success. It doesn’t always hold (see previous section on conditions), but trout keep to roughly the same patch of water, so unless they’ve been caught and taken away, they could easily be in the neighborhood. When you really understand the ebbs and flows in your market, reaching out to your ICP just gets easier.

Fish an entirely new stream, and you’ll have less predictability, potentially setting yourself up for a bonanza day or putting yourself at risk of getting “skunked.” If you cast 10-15 times in a pool and nothing happens, then move on, even if it is the prettiest part of the river. Read the landscape.

Performance Metrics Matter – and Make You Better

In fishing, your success metrics are the number of trout caught, types of trout, and the size of the fish (especially if you catch and keep them). The last is regulated by state and local authorities. In marketing, it’s similar: number of qualified leads, opportunity type, and size of opportunity, which is usually defined by revenue leadership. You have to stay on top of those to prove your impact. Benchmarking your success in both is what helps you to show your expertise and mark your progress so you can continue to improve.

Where the Comparison Falls Apart

Of course, nothing’s a perfect match. Here’s where my analogy falls short:

• Marketers do not catch and release. Treating qualified leads the same way as I treat fish would not sit well with sales!
• Sales cares more about fish size. My joy is hooking and landing a fish (“the tug is the drug”), but sales reps are far happier with a focus on the bigger catch (think: whales).
• Fish are not like long-term customers. You can’t learn much from a fish. They won’t grant interviews, commit to multi-year deals, or stay with you once you release them. I imagine this is closer to the B2C marketing experience.

The Best of Both Activities: Being in the Zone

Friends ask me why I love fly fishing in Colorado. Work colleagues want to know why I enjoy my chosen career in product marketing. The answers are surprisingly similar: I get to employ cool tools (rod and reel vs. AI), I have the freedom to experiment (flies vs. AB testing), and, most of all, I am able to apply my smarts and creativity to realize tangible results (fish in the net vs. opportunities in the pipeline). And don’t forget the bragging rights when you land the big catch/customer!

Even more important: in this age of endless distraction, both activities allow me to achieve my most productive “flow state.” The joys of fishing and marketing intersect in those precious hours when I can simply let go of the small annoyances, lose track of time, and completely lock my attention on the current task. Whether that’s knee-deep in a mountain stream catching trout or hunched over my keyboard in a dedicated time block for new messaging, there’s a shared sense of unencumbered productivity and accomplishment. Pure bliss.

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet famously asks, “What’s in a name?” She argues that it is the person who matters, not an arbitrary label (like Romeo). That’s love.

And yet, over 400 years later, I’ve discovered the opposite: that for online networking, your preferred name is not arbitrary – it’s critical to your brand.

I know this because I failed LinkedIn Profile 101. Networking sites thrive on specificity, and on a whim, I naively switched from Larry, my nickname, to Lawrence, my birth name.

And so began the rolling disaster. As a marketer with branding experience, I should have seen it coming. Bad on me.

Immediately, all references to “Larry” disappeared. Not so bad, I thought, even though that’s how I refer to myself.

Then, I noticed that acquaintances – both new and old – began to address me as Lawrence. More than one person asked if I’d changed my name. It was awkward.

To compound the issue, the messaging autofill suggestions, now rife with Lawrence references (“Thanks, Lawrence!”, “A pleasure to meet you, Lawrence”), reinforced the new standard. It all felt overly formal.

And worst of all, without intention, I had erected a barrier for friends and recruiters who were searching to find Larry Goldman. “It’s still me!” I shouted into the ether.

Flailing but stubborn, I tried the preferred name feature that put Larry in parenthesis in the middle of my profile name. No one noticed and nothing changed.

Last week, I admitted defeat and switched the profile back to Larry. I’ve never felt more myself. As someone who is regularly confused with his identical twin, that’s saying something.

What I should have remembered is the power of brand consistency. In marketing, your product name is shorthand for the entire customer experience – your brand. Done right, it’s all you need to evoke an emotional connection. Modifying a product name is always risky and complicated.

The same apparently goes for networking. Unwittingly, I had undermined my established human brand and “caused confusion and delay,” to quote the venerable Sir Topham Hatt.

I appreciate the lesson. When people work with you, link with you, or meet you at events, they know only your social name. If they like you, then that positive sentiment accrues under that name, not a variant of it.

But I still wonder: what to do when you like both your formal and preferred names? If you have found a viable solution, let me know.

For now, I remain your friend, Larry.