Marketing is defined as promoting or selling products or services to a client. Four women with careers in marketing have added a special ingredient to make marketing a little less serious and a little more humorous.

I had the opportunity to interview these amazing women about just how they use marketing and comedy to be successful.

Meet marketing consultant Sara DeForest. DeForest started her career in marketing at a PR agency, where she worked with both Fortune 500 companies and small tech startups. As she moved to a different city to continue her work in tech, she turned to standup comedy to meet new people.

Marcie Rogo is the head of marketing and growth for True Link Financial. After receiving her MBA, she founded her first startup, Stitch.net, the largest online community connecting adults over 50 for companionship.

“To me, all growth comes from marketing, just in different channels: sales, social media, email, guerrilla, etc. So I market because I love to grow,” Rogo said.

Her comedy career started a few years ago after searching for a new hobby to take up.

“I had always loved standup and people would tell me I was funny and should try, so I took a class and the rest is history,” Rogo said.

Luisa Isbell, Content Marketing Manager for WideOrbit, has a different background. She had never heard of content marketing until she started working.

“Soon after graduating, I joined an early startup and—in typical early startup fashion—folks were expected to wear multiple hats,” Isbell said. “I started in the sales org. It quickly became clear to me that, one, sales was not my jam, and, two, my passion for writing could actually be a valuable asset to the company. I’ve always had an affinity for storytelling and especially enjoy narratives that raise the visibility of individuals.”

A college athlete who had a secret passion for improv, Isbell took the dive into comedy and, three years later, is part of both the standup and improv communities in San Francisco.

Communications and content specialist Alexandria Love enjoys using different communication techniques to bring her message to the audience. She finds media to be strong marketing and communications tools. About four years ago, Love finally experienced the push she needed to try standup and even included her experience in her Master’s thesis.

With these different experiences, these four women found similarities in both areas of expertise, thus sparking the idea to combine marketing and comedy.

“Both fields rely heavily on the ability to communicate a message clearly and succinctly; both require lots of testing of different techniques and trying new things to stand out from the crowd; and in both comedy and marketing, failure is just part of the process – not every joke is going to work and neither will every campaign.”

Statement from How Standup Comedy Can Make You a Better Marketer speakers

In this panel, there will be a focus on the importance of authenticity, both as a comic and a brand.

“We’re going to walk through the creative process of being a standup comedian—from developing your perspective to writing material to figuring out what works (and doesn’t) at open mics—and how marketers can apply those techniques and learnings to their campaigns,” the panelists said in a statement.

After learning more about the panelists and how they combined their passions with their careers, I asked them what their go-to technique is to engage in their clientele.

DeForest: “On stage, don’t be afraid to make eye contact with individual audience members—it helps create a connection and makes a big crowd feel more intimate. In marketing, I mostly work with [business-to-business] companies and love to write punchy headlines about potentially dry topics like collaboration software or IT infrastructure. One of my favorite examples is the HP blog post How to Separate a Fortune 50 Company in 391 Days, which is a play on the Kate Hudson rom-com.”

Rogo: “Being obsessed and unafraid of talking to my audience. On stage, many of my jokes require audience participation. Often, they are excited to be part of a show, and it makes people laugh. In my job as head of marketing, I constantly think about delight. What would delight our customer? What would delight prospective customers? And, when in doubt, I just pick up the phone and call them.”

Isbell: “I joke about a lot of different topics on stage, but the through line in all of my material is punching up—I steer away from jokes at the expense of disempowered groups and prefer to keep things positive. A lot of my jokes involve storytelling, as well. I incorporate these two elements into my day-to-day as a marketer—crafting stories about our business, products, and people and making sure they’re positive and accessible to everyone.”

Love: “Comedy is so unlike any other medium, because the response from your audience is so immediate. My go-to way to engage an audience is to find the correct framing of my insane thought patterns in a way that most relates to the highest number of people. I like to be really strategic with what jokes I tell and who I tell them to. But, also, I have learned to trust my material, be flexible and have fun.”

Marketing and comedy is no joke. The responsibilities as a marketer and a comedian require trial and error. These four women are going to teach key learnings from their own experiences as professionals in marketing and comedy.

Join Sara, Alexandria, Marcie and Luisa on Tuesday, March 12 at 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Fairmont Congressional B to learn how you can include your passion into your career.

How Standup Comedy Can Make You a Better Marketer

Tuesday, March 12
4:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Fairmont – Congressional B