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James Meincke
Global Director of Demand Generation @ 360Learning
James Meincke is an omnichannel marketer, remote-work advocate, and promoter of curiosity with a background in areas such as startup marketing, demand generation, and brand marketing. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism - Strategic Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. James has held several marketing positions in various organizations including 360Learning, Demodesk, CloserIQ, and WISE. With experience in marketing analytics, SEO, and event marketing among others, James Meincke is skilled in marketing automation, copywriting, PPC advertising, and social media.
Highlights
One thing that sets our marketing team apart is our dedication to experimentation.
The best marketers constantly adapt and look for ways to improve.
Here is a rough framework for how our team continues to level up our efforts.
- Monthly schedule
At the beginning of each month, everyone on our demand gen team launches new experiments, and closes old ones. Some experiments can be closed out in a few days, while others can take a full quarter.
The monthly cadence is a forcing factor to ensure we're always trying new things.
- Incremental vs step level improvements
Most of our experiments are incremental (e.g. improving landing page CVR by X%). And while incremental improvements add up, there can be diminishing returns. Sometimes, to make a real improvement we need to go for something big.
We hold ourselves accountable to launch a few big step-level experiments each quarter. It could be a new channel, a brand new offer, anything that has potential to drastically impact marketing metrics (above a few %).
For example, we launched a new product tour video for folks that aren’t quite ready for a demo, and our homepage conversion rate increased by 200%.
- Set a specific hypothesis and validation criteria
Every experiment needs to have a hypothesis tied to a concrete number. It should be fairly objective whether or not an experiment is successful or not (e.g. Cost per Opportunity below by $X, or website conversion rate rises above Y%, etc).
When experiments are launched, the hypothesis and validation criteria are clearly laid out so there is no ambiguity when we close it.
- Document everything
Every experiment is launched with a specific Trello card, with the following details included:
- Context
- Goal
- Hypothesis
- Validation criteria
- Action plan
- Budget
- Timing
And when experiments are closed (successful or not), they’re added to our master “experiment library” for other folks on the marketing team to review in the future.
- Post Mortem / Scaling our successes
A crucial step is to make sure that we learn and continue to adapt.
If an experiment is successful, we document what the next corresponding experiment should be to continue to see improvements. If not successful, we try to pinpoint why, and decide if more experimentation is needed, or if we should drop it and move on.
Everything is communicated to the wider team either in a team sync, or asynchronously (we use Trello). This is another forcing function to ensure we’re not getting complacent.
Clearly none of this is rocket science, but this basic framework has led to some of the biggest gains we’ve seen in our demand generation efforts.
This week marks my one-year anniversary at 360Learning. It went by super fast and I’ve had a blast.
Here are a few takeaways after a year with an amazing marketing team:
- Always be experimenting
Our team has cultivated a robust culture of experimentation -- in fact 10-20% of our Demand Gen budget is earmarked for testing.
Every month, we kick off new experiments and share learnings with the team -- successful or not.
Within a few months, we scaled multiple new opportunity-generating initiatives costing much less than current programs.
Simply because we weren’t afraid to try new things.
- Throw things out the window if needed
“This is the way things have always been done” should never have a place in your marketing mix (or any decision you make).
When I joined the team, I noticed a few channels were wasting money. Previous team members felt strongly about them, so nothing changed.
Cutting legacy programs can be tough when you’re new, but it’s worth it.
We used the extra budget to launch new (and exciting) experiments. It took time, but the result was a drastic decrease in cost per opportunity.
- Over-communication is better than no communication
Transparency is better for everyone.
Share your wins -- it’s good for your career.
But you also need to escalate quickly when things don’t go as planned.
Get ahead of bad news so others can trust you to be on top of things.
- Slow and thoughtful onboarding leads to a faster ramp up
360Learning has a well-polished onboarding program, and it shows.
New hires don’t jump into things too fast. They get time to understand the product, business, and culture.
We hired two Paid Media Managers this year, and they both started crushing it in months 2 and 3 because they had a solid foundation to start from.
- Teamwork makes the dream work.
I’ve been on teams where every department is siloed -- luckily that’s not the case here.
My biggest wins of the year only happened because I had the privilege of collaborating with some amazing folks across BDRs, copywriters, website + graphic designers, and more.
Break down silos. Celebrate wins together. It’s better for everyone.
#marketing #demandgeneration #startups
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.