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Welcome to Volume 250 👋
Happy Thursday!
In this week’s newsletter, we cover:
- 🎉 Celebrating 250 Weeks of B2B Marketing Insights
- 🏫 How the Discovery and Enrollment Process is Changing in Higher Ed
- 👀 The Latest in B2B SaaS This Week
- 🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
- ➕ The Best Content Across the Web
Let’s get to it.
🎉 Celebrating 250 Weeks of B2B Marketing Insights 🎉
The Foundation Newsletter is 250 weeks young and I’ve had the pleasure of contributing for the last 150 or so alongside the great Chris Meabe, Pat Blakely, Nicole Menendez, and the other amazing writers we’ve had along the way. And, of course, our fearless leader Ross Simmonds.
On behalf of the whole team here, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for coming along for the ride.
To celebrate this major milestone, I dug through the archives to bring you the cream of the crop from the Foundation Lab over the past 250 weeks. These were your favourites, according to our Google Analytics:
- TAM, SAM, SOM: How to Calculate Them for Your Industry
- What’s Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) & How To Do It
- The Canva Backlink Empire: How SEO, Outreach & Content Led To A $6B Valuation
- Prompt Engineering: A Guide for Marketers and Content Creators
- The Ultimate Guide To B2B Marketing On LinkedIn
- How Calm Built a $2B Media, Content Marketing, & YouTube SEO Empire
- 10 Tricks to Increase Your Engagement on Social Media
- How To Use Instagram For B2B Marketing In 2025
- B2B Marketing Strategies: Free Templates, Examples & Definitions
- DALL-E Prompt Writing: How To Create Great Prompts
These last 5 years feel like they’ve been particularly disruptive for marketers—even for an industry where disruption is the name of the game. From the impact of pandemics and recessions on marketing budgets to the utter chaos of AI, there’s just so much to learn, analyze, and talk about.
It doesn’t look like things are slowing down anytime soon, so stay tuned for more.
Thank you all and here’s to 250 more wild weeks!
🏔️ Digital Olympus Amsterdam: Get 30% Off Your Ticket Before Price Go Up 🏔️
Clear out your back-to-school schedule because Ross is taking the stage at the Digital Olympus Event in Amsterdam on September 11 as the opening keynote.
Digital Olympus is a conference built around breaking the old marketing patterns that just don’t work anymore. You’ll hear from experts with decades of experience about how they’re shaping the future of our industry.
Ross kicks things off with a keynote on “The Evolution of Content, Creativity & Digital Marketing in the Age of AI” followed by presentations from leading marketing experts like:
- Sanae Boukhana – Global Head of Digital Marketing at DHL Express
- Kevin de Wit – Senior Client Partner EMEA at Reddit (ex-Spotify)
- Lindsay Brennan – Global Head of Marketing and Demand Generation at ABB
- Dimitri Leontidis – Social Media Expert (ex-TikTok)
For those who really want to get the most out of this experience, attendees with Mastermind Tickets get access to sessions where you tackle challenges in real time with small groups of experts.
Use the code JoinRoss30OFF for 30% off (only valid until the end of July).
Book your ticket before prices go up!
🏫 How the College Discovery and Decision-Making Process is Changing 🏫
The traditional college recruitment playbook needs a system reboot.
While institutions invest in tours and glossy brochures, students are researching on Google, and comparing options through Reddit threads and ChatGPT convos—all before they ever step foot on campus.
Student priorities have shifted significantly over the past decade. In 2010, reputation and program options topped the list. Today, 53% of students say affordability is their biggest concern, followed by outcomes and flexible learning.
This week in the Foundation Lab, we take a closer look at 4 key pieces of the fragmented discovery process in Higher Education:
- Organic Search: Where students research “best colleges” and ask cost-focused questions like “is college worth it”
- Social Media: Platforms like Instagram and TikTok where students get authentic campus life insights
- Forums: Reddit and Quora discussions that provide unfiltered student experiences and rank in search results
- AI Platforms: ChatGPT and other tools students increasingly use to compare programs and institutions
Read the full breakdown to understand where student discovery and decision-making happens online and how to align messaging with what matters most to them: cost, outcomes, and flexibility.
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🚨 Podcast Alert: How to Get Your Content Seen by the Right People 🚨
We’re resharing this episode of The Ross Simmonds Show because the lessons are even more applicable today.
With content saturation at an all-time high and the SERPs as volatile as ever, getting your content seen by the right people has never been more challenging.
This week, Ross breaks down the keys to building an influential brand through content creation, distribution, and experimentation. If you’re struggling to cut through the content overload and reach the right audience, this episode delivers the blueprint you need.
Here are some key takeaways:
- Distribution beats creation every time
- Value-first branding wins
- Experimentation fuels growth
- How to kill imposter syndrome before it kills your momentum
Catch this essential episode of the Ross Simmonds Show on Apple or Spotify for the complete playbook on getting your content the attention it deserves.
👀 What’s the Latest in B2B SaaS This Week? 👀
🧵 Threads adds improved content performance metrics for creators | TechCrunch
🫧 The Influencer Marketing Bubble Has Burst | AdWeek
💰 OpenAI Seeks Additional Capital From Investors as Part of Its $40 Billion Round | WIRED
🐨 Cursor snaps up enterprise startup Koala in challenge to GitHub Copilot | TechCrunch
🎤 Ross Takes the Stage at BrightonSEO San Diego
Ross is taking the stage as a keynote speaker at BrightonSEO San Diego 2025, and he’s tackling one of the biggest challenges facing marketers today:
Content Distribution in the Age of AI: How to Make Your Content Spread
Search is no longer confined to Google. Your audience finds content through Reddit threads, TikTok comments, LinkedIn posts, YouTube Shorts, newsletters, niche communities, and now through AI-powered search tools.
In his keynote, Ross will reveal how to build a repeatable and scalable content distribution engine that combines proven tactics with AI tools to get your content in front of the right people, at the right time.
What you’ll walk away with:
- Tactical strategies for teams of any size
- AI-powered tools to amplify your content’s reach
- Frameworks for multi-channel distribution that actually work
- Real-world examples of content that travels further than ever
Whether you’re a solo marketer or leading an entire department, this session will transform how you think about getting your content seen.
Ready to level up your distribution game?
Grab your tickets to BrightonSEO San Diego and secure your spot for what promises to be one of the event’s most actionable keynotes.
✨ Foundation Experts in the Wild: Ari Paulin ✨
Foundation’s own Ari Paulin, Senior Social Media Specialist, recently joined Caden Thompson from CProGrowth on his podcast to break down something every business owner needs to hear:
Why organic social media walks so paid can run.
Ari and Caden dive deep into the real strategy behind building a brand that converts—from her days secretly running Kasim’s LinkedIn (yes, that was her!) to scaling Solutions 8’s social presence across six platforms with up to 25 posts per week.
This isn’t your typical “post more content” advice. Ari shares the tips and tricks she picked up along the way to building a 7-figure agency, including:
- How to turn one long-form video into a content distribution machine
- Why authentic beats are polished every single time
- Her system for filtering through hundreds of daily notifications without burning out
She also shares practical gold on why most companies fail at social media (hint: they’re treating organic and paid as separate strategies) and the power of employee-generated content.
If you’ve been wondering how to make social media actually work for your business (and not just look pretty) this episode delivers the blueprint from someone who’s done it at scale.
Check out the full episode today!
🧠 This Week’s Brain Food 🧠
I had a call earlier today where I learned something…weird, that I can’t stop thinking about.
Corn sweats. A lot. And it’s making heat waves worse.
First off, no, corn doesn’t actually perspire like we do. It’s a scientific process of evapotranspiration, where plants release water vapor through their leaves.
Here’s how it works: Corn plants suck up water from the soil through their roots, transport it up through their stalks, and then release it as invisible water vapor through tiny pores in their leaves. It’s basically the plant equivalent of breathing out moisture.
A single acre can release 3,000-4,000 gallons of water per day during peak growing season.
Now scale that up: Iowa’s corn fields alone pump out 49-56 billion gallons of water vapor into the atmosphere every single day. That’s enough to fill 73,000 Olympic swimming pools daily. All that moisture cranks up humidity levels, making 30°C feel like 45°C!
Essentially, millions of acres of corn are turning the Midwest into a giant outdoor sauna every summer.
Apparently this is a good sign though (for the corn, at least), because it means the crops are healthy and thriving. So we get delicious corn, but the trade-off is living in a corn-induced humidity nightmare for months.
Just your daily reminder that nature is simultaneously amazing and absolutely brutal.
Want to sponsor our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS founders and marketers today.
🏅 Twitter/X Thread of the Week
Generative Engine Optimization isn’t a replacement of SEO By Nathan Gotch
🎖️ LinkedIn Post of the Week
So you want to influence the LLMs and AI Mode By Ross Simmonds
🎖️ Reddit Post of the Week
Which marketing books are still relevant in 2025? In r/marketing
🤳🏽 Nice Finds You Should Binge
- The Astronomer CEO’s Coldplay Concert Fiasco Is Emblematic of Our Social Media Surveillance Dystopia | 404 Media
- How AI Is Helping Students Find the Right College | WIRED
- Introducing the Google Trends API (alpha): a new way to access Search Trends data | Google Search Central
- Is OpenAI Crawling LLMs.txt Files? Google Says It Won’t. | Search Engine Roundtable
💻 Job Postings Worth Checking Out
Looking for a new opportunity? Here’s a round-up of some exciting job openings in the B2B SaaS space.
- Foundation: Reddit Specialist
- Foundation: B2B Content Marketing Strategist
- Foundation: Content Creator
- Foundation: Content Marketing Manager
- Foundation: Applied Research Specialist
- Foundation: Director of Digital Marketing
Want us to include your job postings in our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS professionals today.
🎧 What We’re Wired Into This Week
Morning Coffee Deep House Set | Café Sessions at Ekhaya Vol. 002
This SaaS news smattering is brought to you by Ethan Crump!
If you have any feedback, suggestions, or ideas you want to see in this newsletter, feel free to email Leigha Henderson at leigha@foundationinc.co. We’re always looking for ways to improve and provide the best B2B SaaS marketing resources.
Have a great weekend!
