In this episode of the Dear BAMf podcast, we speak with Lee Davis, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Spectrum Labs. Spectrum Labs. Spectrum Labs provides contextual AI, automation, and services to help consumer brands recognize and respond to toxic behavior. Before founding Spectrum Labs, she was Director of Marketing at Gigster and Senior Director of Marketing at Bluewolf. Lee's expertise spans sales funnel development, new-market expansion, lead generation, branding, and product marketing. In this episode, Lee answers some tough marketing and PR questions from our listeners, including this one about handling limited resources to lead executive thought leadership campaigns:
Dear BAMf,
I'm the head of comms at a unicorn startup and I have about five seasoned executives I could put forward to media and thought leadership. Earlier this year we started a LinkedIn campaign for one of these executives, which has gone tremendously. The executive is super coachable, gives me input, and has been a dream to work with. Now, two other executives would like to emulate his campaign, but I'm not going to get the budget or resources to do this. Currently, we have an agency that runs the one thought leadership campaign. Do I stick with my ace and continue to build his profile? Or should I risk switching to a new executive and hope the one I established takes the torch? Or do I try to split the difference between the two other executives?
Listen now to hear how Lee advises this writer to move forward.
Lee explains how Spectrum Labs secures moral user experiences insisting, "Spectrum helps consumer brands recognize and respond to toxicity. If you're a consumer brand and you have an online community, chances are you've got people who are nasty to each other on that." Spectrum Labs alleviates the content moderator's exposure to obscenity using AI technology, taking a huge strain off companies and people. Spectrum could not have came at a better time as companies run into moral compass issues. In 2020, a settlement ordered Facebook to pay $52 million dollars to content moderators for PTSD.
(03:13) What are you most proud of accomplishing in the last 12 months?
Lee, beamed when asked this question chiming, "We're on track —knock on wood — to do 3X growth. So for the stage we're at, that's the gold standard." Spectrum Labs is expanding economically and in the marketing world as Lee elaborates, "In the marketing world, finally, we're past our Series A funding."
While most have found stories in other places, Lee continues to tell stories by hosting events. Lee breaks down the early pandemic pivot explaining, "We transitioned really quickly to virtual events and we've had it be amazing for us. We host two, soon to be three, types of events."
In this situation, Lee says to act as the expert and set the parameters for the next group of executives. Lee suggest saying, "Here's what it's going to look and feel like, here's the amount of input you can have. I'm ultimately going to call the shots, set up your parameters beforehand, and then establish your KPIs." Use your first experience as a case study to pull from to develop your own method. Plucking all the feathers from this experience could be more valuable for the future as Lee suggest, "Now you're the author of this amazing program and you're in a great position. So either way, I'm trying to get you to a place where through structure and clear communication you win. Even if the whole effort doesn't win."
We are all BAMfs (badass motherf*ckers) according to us, but sometimes even BAMfs need help. Dear BAMf is an advice column-style podcast that lets you anonymously hit us with your hardest marketing and PR questions hosted by Founder & CEO of BAM Communications, Beck Bamberger.
Have a difficult PR or marketing situation you can't figure out? Drop us a line at Dear BAMf. Your submission will be entirely anonymous.
Catch our next episode on Monday, March 22 and subscribe to Dear BAMf on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts.