3,000+ Sign Ups from Sales Master Classes
Tasked with creating the "Khan Academy of Sales", I partnered with some of the biggest names in the industry to teach the world to sell. The result? Over 10x ROI, hundreds of thousands of content plays, over 1m organic social impressions, and thousands of product signups — plus the unmeasurable benefit of putting a halo around Apollo's brand. Here's how we did it.
COMPANY
Apollo.io
COMPANY
Apollo.io
COMPANY
Apollo.io
POSITION
VP of Content Marketing & Product Education
POSITION
VP of Content Marketing & Product Education
POSITION
VP of Content Marketing & Product Education
ROLE
Executive Producer
ROLE
Executive Producer
ROLE
Executive Producer
Background
Background
Background
Flashback to 2022. Apollo.io is one of the fastest-growing companies in the world in the fiercely competitive sales technology space.
With a low ACV and high client turnover, marketing at Apollo required bold, creative thinking — campaigns that delivered asymmetric business results, while simultaneously elevating Apollo's brand.
After years of being thought of as the 'budget' option, Apollo wanted to change that perception, and become synonymous with premium quality.
So what'd I do? Made 4 Apollo Academy Master Classes, with sales worth tens of thousands of dollars available to anyone, anywhere, for free.
The result?
Over 3,000 product signups
10x ROI
Over 200,000 plays on YouTube
Over 200,000 plays on Apollo Academy
Over 1m organic LinkedIn impressions
Here they are, for your viewing pleasure.
How to Write Cold Emails Anyone will Respond To
How to Master Discovery to Win More Deals
Social Selling for a Seven-Figure Income
Building a World-Class Outbound Program
Flashback to 2022. Apollo.io is one of the fastest-growing companies in the world in the fiercely competitive sales technology space.
With a low ACV and high client turnover, marketing at Apollo required bold, creative thinking — campaigns that delivered asymmetric business results, while simultaneously elevating Apollo's brand.
After years of being thought of as the 'budget' option, Apollo wanted to change that perception, and become synonymous with premium quality.
So what'd I do? Made 4 Apollo Academy Master Classes, with sales worth tens of thousands of dollars available to anyone, anywhere, for free.
The result?
Over 3,000 product signups
10x ROI
Over 200,000 plays on YouTube
Over 200,000 plays on Apollo Academy
Over 1m organic LinkedIn impressions
Here they are, for your viewing pleasure.
How to Write Cold Emails Anyone will Respond To
How to Master Discovery to Win More Deals
Social Selling for a Seven-Figure Income
Building a World-Class Outbound Program
Flashback to 2022. Apollo.io is one of the fastest-growing companies in the world in the fiercely competitive sales technology space.
With a low ACV and high client turnover, marketing at Apollo required bold, creative thinking — campaigns that delivered asymmetric business results, while simultaneously elevating Apollo's brand.
After years of being thought of as the 'budget' option, Apollo wanted to change that perception, and become synonymous with premium quality.
So what'd I do? Made 4 Apollo Academy Master Classes, with sales worth tens of thousands of dollars available to anyone, anywhere, for free.
The result?
Over 3,000 product signups
10x ROI
Over 200,000 plays on YouTube
Over 200,000 plays on Apollo Academy
Over 1m organic LinkedIn impressions
Here they are, for your viewing pleasure.
How to Write Cold Emails Anyone will Respond To
How to Master Discovery to Win More Deals
Social Selling for a Seven-Figure Income
Building a World-Class Outbound Program
How we did it
How we did it
How we did it
First, we identified the biggest names in sales — people with established followings and legit credentials. Then, we cut that list down to people who gave actionable, practical tips. No gurus or snake-oil salesmen here. Salespeople have an inherent nose for nonsense, and I knew that wouldn't work.
We narrowed it down to 4 people.
Chris Orlob
Samantha McKenna
Alex Boyd
Myself
Then, it was my job to convince these folks (other than myself) to work with us, for free (with one exception). The deal? We'd expose them to Apollo's 600k+ person marketing audience in return for a day of their time filming on location.
With our cast set, we began pre-production.
Pre-Production
We held 4 informal conversations with each presenter, in which they could talk freely about the topic they were experts in. From there, we cut the content down into a script made entirely of the presenter's own words. The goal was 30-45m of content cut across 5 or 6 videos. Long enough to go deep, but short enough to snack on.
Simultaneously, we scouted filming locations in San Francisco and Los Angeles. We assembled a crew — 3 cameras, audio, lighting, hair and makeup, a runner, and our in-house director — and set shooting dates.
Production
Each Master Class was filmed in one day. My experience in filmmaking prior to this has taught me that the more fun people have on set, the better the content is. So, that became my job: making sure everyone was comfortable and having a good time. As the executive producer behind this whole thing, I trusted the team I'd pulled together to do their job.
Post-Production
After filming, each video entered the editing phase. While we applied motion graphics where it made sense to, we followed one over-arching rule in editing: get out of the way to let the content shine.
Distribution and Marketing
This is what separated this campaign from the rest. We didn't just make amazing content — we built full-funnel marketing campaigns around it. Each master class campaign included:
Gating the 2nd videos and beyond on Apollo Academy
Email to Apollo's free user database
10-20 YouTube shorts
Coordinated LinkedIn posting with the host
Coordinated Apollo Community posting campaign
Coordinated internal social media activation campaign
Posting the master classes to YouTube
As a result, this campaign was wildly successful, and put literally millions of eyeballs on Apollo's brand for a relatively tiny investment.
First, we identified the biggest names in sales — people with established followings and legit credentials. Then, we cut that list down to people who gave actionable, practical tips. No gurus or snake-oil salesmen here. Salespeople have an inherent nose for nonsense, and I knew that wouldn't work.
We narrowed it down to 4 people.
Chris Orlob
Samantha McKenna
Alex Boyd
Myself
Then, it was my job to convince these folks (other than myself) to work with us, for free (with one exception). The deal? We'd expose them to Apollo's 600k+ person marketing audience in return for a day of their time filming on location.
With our cast set, we began pre-production.
Pre-Production
We held 4 informal conversations with each presenter, in which they could talk freely about the topic they were experts in. From there, we cut the content down into a script made entirely of the presenter's own words. The goal was 30-45m of content cut across 5 or 6 videos. Long enough to go deep, but short enough to snack on.
Simultaneously, we scouted filming locations in San Francisco and Los Angeles. We assembled a crew — 3 cameras, audio, lighting, hair and makeup, a runner, and our in-house director — and set shooting dates.
Production
Each Master Class was filmed in one day. My experience in filmmaking prior to this has taught me that the more fun people have on set, the better the content is. So, that became my job: making sure everyone was comfortable and having a good time. As the executive producer behind this whole thing, I trusted the team I'd pulled together to do their job.
Post-Production
After filming, each video entered the editing phase. While we applied motion graphics where it made sense to, we followed one over-arching rule in editing: get out of the way to let the content shine.
Distribution and Marketing
This is what separated this campaign from the rest. We didn't just make amazing content — we built full-funnel marketing campaigns around it. Each master class campaign included:
Gating the 2nd videos and beyond on Apollo Academy
Email to Apollo's free user database
10-20 YouTube shorts
Coordinated LinkedIn posting with the host
Coordinated Apollo Community posting campaign
Coordinated internal social media activation campaign
Posting the master classes to YouTube
As a result, this campaign was wildly successful, and put literally millions of eyeballs on Apollo's brand for a relatively tiny investment.
First, we identified the biggest names in sales — people with established followings and legit credentials. Then, we cut that list down to people who gave actionable, practical tips. No gurus or snake-oil salesmen here. Salespeople have an inherent nose for nonsense, and I knew that wouldn't work.
We narrowed it down to 4 people.
Chris Orlob
Samantha McKenna
Alex Boyd
Myself
Then, it was my job to convince these folks (other than myself) to work with us, for free (with one exception). The deal? We'd expose them to Apollo's 600k+ person marketing audience in return for a day of their time filming on location.
With our cast set, we began pre-production.
Pre-Production
We held 4 informal conversations with each presenter, in which they could talk freely about the topic they were experts in. From there, we cut the content down into a script made entirely of the presenter's own words. The goal was 30-45m of content cut across 5 or 6 videos. Long enough to go deep, but short enough to snack on.
Simultaneously, we scouted filming locations in San Francisco and Los Angeles. We assembled a crew — 3 cameras, audio, lighting, hair and makeup, a runner, and our in-house director — and set shooting dates.
Production
Each Master Class was filmed in one day. My experience in filmmaking prior to this has taught me that the more fun people have on set, the better the content is. So, that became my job: making sure everyone was comfortable and having a good time. As the executive producer behind this whole thing, I trusted the team I'd pulled together to do their job.
Post-Production
After filming, each video entered the editing phase. While we applied motion graphics where it made sense to, we followed one over-arching rule in editing: get out of the way to let the content shine.
Distribution and Marketing
This is what separated this campaign from the rest. We didn't just make amazing content — we built full-funnel marketing campaigns around it. Each master class campaign included:
Gating the 2nd videos and beyond on Apollo Academy
Email to Apollo's free user database
10-20 YouTube shorts
Coordinated LinkedIn posting with the host
Coordinated Apollo Community posting campaign
Coordinated internal social media activation campaign
Posting the master classes to YouTube
As a result, this campaign was wildly successful, and put literally millions of eyeballs on Apollo's brand for a relatively tiny investment.
