GrowthRise Mastermind Recap Jan 6, 2026

Here is a recap of what we talked about on today’s GrowthRise Mastermind call (for B2B Marketing Leaders).

You can join the weekly call on Tuesdays at 10am PT on Zoom.

1) Topics Covered

Topic: Meta Ads for Job Board/Two-Sided Marketplace

• Challenges: Meta's employment category restrictions severely limit targeting parameters, particularly the ability to target business owners. Difficulty reaching construction company owners to post jobs while worker signups were easy.
• Advice: Try running ads without declaring the special employment category since the focus is recruiting services for businesses, not job postings. Ensure ad copy and landing pages avoid trigger words like "jobs" or "employment." Focus messaging on "finding construction workers" rather than employment-related language.

Topic: Top-of-Funnel Marketing for Pre-Seed Cybersecurity Startup

• Challenges: Limited budget, broad target market, uncertainty about best channels and tactics for brand awareness.
• Advice: Narrow target audience to 10,000-20,000 highly targeted prospects rather than the entire market. Use cost-effective channels like LinkedIn thought leadership ads and Meta matched audience ads. Focus on brand awareness content (videos, posts) before pushing for conversions. Build organic LinkedIn presence through authentic CEO content. Consider LinkedIn direct outreach with 35% conversion rates reported.

Topic: Hiring Digital Marketers

• Challenges: Finding the right skill set, balancing generalist vs. specialist needs, ensuring strategic thinking ability.
• Advice: Look for analytical thinkers who understand scaling campaigns from zero to $30K-$50K/month. Ask candidates to explain their methodology for account growth. Separate content creation from ads management—these require different skill sets. Hire specialists (paid search vs. paid social) rather than expecting one person to excel at everything.

Topic: Product-Led Growth vs. Sales-Led Growth

• Challenges: Deciding whether to implement PLG for a $30K-$100K ACV product, scaling beyond personal connections and LinkedIn outreach limits.
• Advice: For high ACV products ($30K-$100K), maintain sales-led approach. Build targeted contact lists using data tools. Use LinkedIn message ads (approximately $0.50 per message) to scale outreach. Create omnipresence through thought leadership ads and Meta matched audiences. Start with modest ad budgets ($1K-$2K/month) to prove concept before scaling.

2) Tools Recommended

• Duck Soup: LinkedIn scraping tool
• LemList: Cold email platform
• Apollo: Data broker tool for building contact lists
• Clay: List generation and data enrichment
• Canva: Ad creative design
• LinkedIn Message Ads: Direct messaging through advertising platform
• Meta Matched Audiences: Targeted advertising on Facebook/Instagram
• LinkedIn Thought Leadership Ads: Promoting personal posts through company ad accounts

3) Best Advice Given

The most impactful advice was about scaling outreach for high-ACV products: Build a defined target audience list (e.g., 10,000 agencies), then use LinkedIn message ads at approximately $0.50 per message to systematically reach them. This approach allows you to prove the concept with modest investment, then scale proportionally as sales fund the advertising. The same list can be leveraged across multiple channels (LinkedIn thought leadership ads, Meta matched audiences) to create omnipresence. This is particularly powerful for companies selling advertising effectiveness tools—prospects need to see your ads working to believe in your product.