Air Traffic Control leverages AI to help B2B brands personalize marketing easily.
How did you get into marketing?
I didn’t have a very typical educational background: I graduated high school early and attended Brooks Institute of Photography to study motion picture. I fast-tracked through college and graduated before I was 20, and kicked off my career working in Hollywood.
I had some great roles. I was the personal assistant for Clive Barker (author, artist, and filmmaker), worked in the publicity department of Fox Searchlight, and the production office for an A&E major television series, to name a few. I was obsessed with the power of creative storytelling and how it affected audiences.
A few years later I moved up to the Bay Area, and my first job was at an immersive experience startup. I found that it was very possible to translate that love of storytelling into helping create experiences for prospects and customers. Years later, I still try to make sure that love of storytelling is at the core of the marketing campaigns I’m creating.
What's your current role at your company, and responsibilities?
My current role is the Head of Marketing at Air Traffic Control. I’ve been at startups for years, but ATC is the earliest stage startup ever, so the role goes way beyond just marketing. In my first few months, I’ve been focusing on boosting our brand by appearing on the HubSpot app marketplace, but I’ve also been onboarding Appcues, an in-app product-led growth application, to make sure our customers are having the best experience possible, as well as kicking off our paid affiliate program.
Tell us something about you that people might not expect?
I was an award-winning birth doula for a few years in between startups, which gave me the opportunity to start up my own business and practice and was super valuable. I loved it, and it allowed me to authentically show up to support women.
In your opinion, what is an opportunity marketers should be looking into?
There are a lot of B2B marketers and salespeople writing about how outbound sales is dead. I think what they should be saying is BAD outbound sales is dead. The kind where SDRs forgot to populate the [first name] field, and the message has no relevance to the sender, that’s dead. Smart teams are hyper personalizing email outbound and standing out from the rest. And with sales reps increasingly trying to text, call, or inmail, space has re-opened in the inbox for reps that do their homework.
What do you think differentiates great marketing teams from average ones?
I am biased having spent so much time at early-stage startups, but I would take a team of scrappy hands-on generalists who want to grow their skills over “experts” in every field. I’m sure this isn’t the approach that would work best for larger and more established companies, but the urge to grow, be curious, and discover answers to what you don’t yet understand is invaluable for the early-stage startup.
What advice would you give to someone who recently started their marketing career?
Don’t pigeonhole yourself or let other people do it for you. Marketing has a ton of crossover skills and it can take some time to find what really interests you. For example: when I was first told I’d be responsible for email marketing at one of my first startups, I was not excited. The further I got into understanding it, the more I started to love the science behind it. Understanding open rates, CTR, A/B testing, analytics, it’s grown to be one of my favorite things and if I hadn’t been open-minded enough to take it on, I’d never know that.
Looking back, what's something you wish you had known when you were starting out in your career?
I wish I’d understood there was always more to learn. 20 years into my career and I have the insight to understand I know less than I thought I did when I was starting out. It might be age, or humility, or having been through plenty of failures and successes. Now I understand that, at least for me, being successful means cultivating a growth mindset, being curious, and being excited about figuring out the next step.
Just for fun: If you weren't a marketer what would you be?
I want to believe I’d be a surgeon because I think they are completely badass.
Memorable mentor, or role model?
So very many to mention. I’ve learned so much about brand and design from my former colleague and Waggl CMO, Alex Kinnebrew. At Waggl, I also had the opportunity to learn from seasoned marketing consultant, Dave Hawley who basically gave me a demand generation masterclass in a quarter.
You can checkout Air Traffic Control here, and follow along with Julia via her LinkedIn.
