When Brian Balfour first reached out to discuss the idea of being a co-creator of a marketing strategy program with Reforge, I was skeptical.   After all, most marketing courses I'd seen on popular e-learning platforms focus on channel-specific functional knowledge that was outdated within months, and failed to actually address the key challenges many marketers experience as they work to grow in their careers:

-Tying marketing to business strategy
-Developing frameworks for defensible marketing investments
-Building credibility in organizations
-And perhaps most importantly, focusing on effective management via systems and self-reinforcing rituals

What struck me immediately in Brittany Bingham's and my discussion was Reforge's willingness to challenge often accepted norms in marketing.  Further, in our  exploratory conversation with Brian, he was relentlessly focused on the underlying challenges marketers face as they scale from single to multiple channel ownership, team leadership and affecting change in a broader organization.

The question, "What's the symptom they're getting it wrong?" was hammered into us very early on.  The Reforge team's passion for not just understanding what 'good' looks like but how to make strategies actionable, repeatable and scalable sold me.

Finally, Reforge's novel approach to course development helped me build conviction that we could really build something that could truly help Marketers scale their efforts, build credibility, and be effective leaders over a marketing function.  

Reforge didn't rely on  Brittany and my ability to extend our functional marketing expertise to the space of education and development.  Instead, we were paired with experts in content development (Susan Blake, Brendan McCook) whose sole job was to dig deeper, push us to think through underlying challenges, leveraging our experience and best practices to develop repeatable frameworks that can truly help marketers grow.  

The focus on practical examples, inclusion of specialized marketing experts, and use of experienced, thoughtful EIRs such as Adam Grenier, Ravi Mehta, and Elena Verna only help ensure each program is a valuable experience for attendees.

Today, the Marketing Strategy program opens for applications.  It's not your grandma's marketing course.  Brittany and I look forward to challenging commonly held marketing assumptions, solving for systems-based thinking, and helping participants scale not just their cross-channel and cross-functional impacts, but their careers.

Some topics one can expect:

-Interfacing with leadership and tying strategy to efforts
-Shifting from single channel management to the orchestration of many
-Scaling impact and shifting from marketing ‘doer’ to functional leader
-Developing defensible approaches to attribution (and why most of companies get it wrong!)
-How to make the ‘right’ media investments, and do so in a scalable manner
-Understanding, appreciating, and maximizing the value of ‘brand’

My hope is this course helps create a new breed of marketers that are as comfortable interfacing with finance as launching a new channel, can lead teams with ease and drive bulletproof, defensible investments that build credibility within one's organization.  

Won't you join us?