When marketers are surrounded by an overwhelming amount of data, the real challenge isn’t collecting it. It’s knowing what to do with it. In this Season Three premiere of On the Record, Ryan, Michael, and Stacy dig into how teams can turn “data overload” into smarter segmentation, sharper lead generation, and ultimately, more revenue.
Along the way, they draw surprising parallels between marketing data and one of hip-hop’s most inventive minds, MF DOOM.
Subscribe to On the Record, the hard-hitting podcast that combines valuable marketing insights with classic music with surprising results.
Ryan
In times of plentiful amounts of data, marketers might be looking around the room quietly asking themselves, “What should I be focusing on?” Well, when it comes to your leads, there’s much more to the story. We’re here to tell you all about it. We’re also here to delight and entertain. Today, we come to you with a splashy album by one of hip-hop’s greatest MCs. So turn up the volume wherever you’re listening or watching. We’re about to have some fun.
Ryan
Welcome back, guys. Season 3 of On the Record. Hard to believe it’s already this far along, but we’ve made it this far, right? Something to be proud of.
Michael
Absolutely.
Ryan
Absolutely. For our listeners and watchers, the support has been immense. I think we’ve racked up over a half million listens, views, downloads. So it’s going well.
Michael
Yeah, we’ve captivated some interest.
Ryan
We hope to be back this season with some more entertainment and some delightful moments. Michael, how’s it been?
Michael
I mean, it has been a whirlwind of change as well. Um, a lot of what we talked about in the last season, we’ve actually now started to execute, and we’re coming to fruition. We’re going to talk about a lot of the new product initiatives that have come out of some of these conversations in this season, which I’m really excited to introduce.
Ryan
I love the momentum there, right? The continuation, the maturation of the conversation.
Ryan
Stace, it’s good to see you as always. How’ve you been feeling since the last season?
Stacy
Peachy. I’m here. I couldn’t be happier.
Ryan
All right, that smile means that we’re on to something. So that in itself is exciting. Season 3 is going to look, like you said, Michael, like a continuation of what we’ve done in the past. We’re going to talk about some bigger topics too, right? The idea of democratizing data. Big businesses tend to win on these large data sets — what can the smaller business do?
We’re going to look at personalization — how campaigns are being won today by segmentation — and some of the great things you guys are doing with lead advancement, lead enrichment, and so on and so forth.
And we’re going to cover some pretty interesting music along the way as well. Right — going to go deep underground again, but we’re also going to get up here in the popular realm as well. We’re going to see things like Radiohead, MF DOOM is back for another appearance, Little Simz, Frank Ocean, my man, makes an appearance as well. We’re going to have a lot of fun.
And the guests we have for this season as well are pretty eclectic, so we look forward to all that.
Michael
Absolutely.
Ryan
But we’re going to get into today’s topic right now and kick this thing off a little bit. So this is all about more data, more revenue, and perhaps a smarter way to go about lead generation.
And it’s all going to focus around your favorite, Michael — MF DOOM.
Michael
He’s back. Season 3, surprise, a record.
Ryan
Yeah, right. The boss gets his way every once in a while.
This record is exciting for a variety of reasons. We’ll talk about the parallels, but for me, we’re recording in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This record was distributed out of a Minnesota record label known as Rhymesayers.
So, Michael — DOOM, more data, more revenue, and leads. Tie it together, please.
Michael
Yeah. So I actually think this record is an example of what happens when you don’t have enough data.
And I mean, look — as much as I love DOOM, um, we can still be critical, right, in how we approach it.
So DOOM, his inputs — I felt like on this record, it was produced almost all by him. There were no outside producers except for one.
And he kind of did it at this time where he was frantically working on multiple projects at once. It was released within a year of Madvillainy, right?
Ryan
Yes.
Michael
Which is probably his most popular, kind of flagship album, and that had Madlib as the producer. So it had a much wider set of input and influence on it, whereas Mm..Food — it really is just DOOM.
And DOOM is, you know, he’s a strange cat, right? He wears a mask. So, I mean, let’s start there.
Ryan
[Laughs]
Michael
And you get — tested pop through your bubble vest or double breasted, he keep a lab down south in the little beast, so much heat you would’ve thought it was the Middle East — a little grease always keeps the wheels spinning like sitting on 23s to get the wheel is grinning.
And so this was really all him. A lot of samples, um, that kind of like ’80s vibe of the music that he chose to pull from. It was very deep catalog.
Ryan
Yes.
Michael
And it’s not the most accessible record. You kind of have to be a DOOM fan.
I think the other interesting thing is a lot of the beats come from his mixtapes that he was playing.
“There’s only one beer left. Rappers screaming all in our ears like we’re deaf. Tempt me, do a number on the label, beat up all the MCs and drink ’em under the table…”
He was distributing those to a very small — I mean, they were selling out, but it was a small audience of folks that really didn’t like where mainstream hip-hop was going.
And so that was his input for this — he was getting like positive feedback, but it was from this niche cohort.
Ryan
Yeah.
Michael
And it feels like this record came out of that influence, where he was getting the feedback — these vinyls were selling out — but when we look at Madvillainy, it has such a wider appeal.
And I think that’s because of Madlib’s influence — the kind of collaboration between the two. That tape also leaked early, and they were able to get feedback on the album, and they actually refined it after that leak.
Whereas Mm..Food — I think it’s brilliant, but I understand at first listen it might feel a bit odd.
Ryan
Absolutely.
Stacy
I will definitely attest to that. When you said it’s not as accessible, I will also second that. I got through halfway — I’m like, “What is going on?” Like, I am not, I’m not into underground, right? Like obviously I think we all know that from a few seasons.
Ryan
[Laughs]
Stacy
Um, yeah. So I was just kind of like — you were saying you are the niche, like you loved it, but like — and so that’s like you were the minority though in terms of, like — yeah, I can see that now ’cause I have no idea. Like I didn’t know any of that, and so I just assumed that it was — everyone loved it and I’m just not in it.
Michael
Yeah, there was a crowd. I mean, if you like DOOM, most people are a bit more fanatical about it, right?
But it was a response to what was happening out in the mainstream — where you had very polished, very poppy artists coming out. And this was kind of the response to that world where, if you weren’t into that, you wanted to see hip-hop stay where it was, right? He was your answer.
Ryan
Right.
A show of hands is a term some people use loosely. I’m real choosy on what I choose to let crews see. You tellin’ me I try to act broke? Jealousy — the number one killer among Black folks.
And that was really the space that he was filling. But — not that he wanted to — but if he was a marketer, and he was looking for broad appeal, he probably didn’t have the inputs for this record in order to achieve it.
Stacy
Yeah.
Ryan
No question. I want to ask you a little bit about the conceptuality of it — like, it’s this really random record where it has a lot of food-based themes. But two things can be true at once, right? Like, it had to have a correlation to something else in life, or maybe from the street vernacular that paired with food as well.
And often, smarter lead generation looks like advanced segmentation, more personalization. This record’s hyper-focused on its concept.
How do you think its conceptuality again aligns with maybe our thoughts around more data, more revenue, and smarter lead generation as a whole?
Michael
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting but also limiting, right? You kind of have to be in on the joke. You have to be in on, like, personalizing the practice, right?
So again, I think it kind of boxes him into this world that played well, you know, at the time. But it also is a bit limiting in the sense that, you know, every single song had to have these food references.
I think it was a challenge for himself — like, can I pull this off — more than anything, than him taking a concept and trying to, “Okay, what is mass appeal?”
This was more of an exercise and a challenge — “Can I pull off a record that’s all about food?”
I mean, this is a guy — when he did two albums later, The Mouse and the Mask, the only reason he signed it was because they promised him that he could do Yogi Bear samples, and he was going to get access to the Hanna-Barbera catalog.
So that was kind of his driving force. It wasn’t “How do I get to the Billboard Top 10?” It was simply “How do I continue to challenge myself to be better?”
Which is different than what we’re trying to do often in marketing.
Ryan
Yeah.
Michael
And little-known fact — he licensed a Sesame Street sample on “Cookies.”
Ryan
Yes.
Michael
There was a Sesame Street sample — of which he didn’t license.
Ryan
Well, he didn’t.
Michael
That was the problem. The first pressing goes out with the sample on it. All additional pressings removed the sample. But he sampled Sesame Street! So, Yogi Bear — not surprising that that was his continuation of this work as well.
Ryan
Which is fascinating. I love — we talked about staying power last season, the way of branding, and you have an audience, you stay hyper-connected to them.
This spawns a recipe book, his first national tour, his biggest commercial success in the way of a platinum single as well.
A lot of these things took place over time or well after the release, which I was incredibly — I admire that, because it was the stick-to-it-iveness from this incredibly well-branded packaged album, and what it gave him a year or two down the road.
I mean, a lot of people look at this as a pre-eminent record, like you suggested, but for reasons maybe he didn’t anticipate — or maybe he had the forethought to see ahead.
Michael
Maybe. Maybe. Or he did seem to just kind of take the opportunities in front of him.
So, he seems to run with some of these ideas, ’cause someone comes up and says, “Hey, I’ll make you a recipe.” “All right, go.” You know?
And, like, he often didn’t license his samples, but he also didn’t go after anyone that was making mixtapes of their own inspired by him or using his beats.
So, uh, he very much was a collaborative fellow.
But yeah, no, I think it’s interesting, and why I liked it — because I think it’s an example of what can happen if we niche down too far.
And then, while we’re resonating with a certain audience that’s giving us really great feedback — and I think that happens a lot — we’re missing maybe the bigger opportunity because we’re so hyper-focused on the positive feedback that’s coming in, and then we’re dialing into that loop.
Ryan
You get caught in your own vacuum, in essence.
Michael
Yeah.
Ryan
Lovely. Now, we’ll weave in some more thoughts about DOOM. There’s a lot of intricacies of this record, and I think more parallels as we kind of go on through the conversation.
But let’s start to turn the page in favor of lead generation through advanced data.
So, our top question — I’m just going to read it verbatim, because I think it gets us going:
“The simplest way for marketers to start leveraging more data — what does it look like without getting overwhelmed?”
And maybe, Stacy, I’d start with you on this.
Stacy
Yeah. I think the overwhelming feeling has been hitting all marketing teams in the last few years — there’s so much data pouring in.
And unless you have a data team — or data dudes, as some might say — you’re just stuck there. You’re just always looking at, like, “What’s there to do?”
And you have analysis paralysis, right?
And so, um, I think though there’s value in that — in understanding and just sitting in the data for a while.
Like, it might seem really overwhelming and it might seem like, “What the heck? I have no idea what to do.”
But after you get used to seeing the same numbers, the same trends, the same, you know, that sort of thing, you can then start to, like, understand — get over that paralysis and be like, “Oh, well, that’s a constant. Oh, that’s super-now — what can I start doing?”
So you can start to action off of it.
And I think until you sit in the data and get really overwhelmed for a while, I don’t think there is action you can take.
So I think there’s always this like, “Oh, as soon as I get data, I should be able to do something with it.”
I think that’s just our hustle culture, and people get caught up in it.
It’s like, no — it’s actually okay to just sit in it for a while and be really uncomfortable. It will get better as long as you keep trying. You’re not just like, “Oh great, now what?” You’re kind of going.
So that’s kind of, I would say, where it starts for everyone. And then I think it gets really fun once you can start to take that action.
But the action is only as good as your analysis and allowing yourself to kind of sit in that for a bit.
Ryan
Yeah. And we’ll talk about the specificity around these data points that we think truly move the needle.
Ryan
So the next step of this discussion, I want to talk about something that’s been revolutionary for you guys, and that’s lead enrichment.
Michael
Mm-hmm.
Ryan
Right?
So, when you started to look at the data, what was that process like? How did lead enrichment start to shape what you were doing as a team, and how did it change the way you marketed to your customers?
Michael
Yeah, so, uh, this actually started probably—what, Stace—last spring?
Stacy
Yeah.
Michael
Um, where we started to realize, okay, we have a lot of lead data, but we don’t know enough about them to make smart decisions.
So we started enriching our lead data with firmographic and demographic enrichment.
And what we found was: we actually had five or six different customer types hidden under what looked like one big blob of leads.
So, at first we were like, “Okay, we have one ICP.” Then we enriched the data, and we were like, “Oh no, we have multiple.”
That realization completely changed the way we approached campaigns, segmentation, and messaging.
Stacy
Yeah. And I think, um, the biggest thing for us was that we didn’t take any action right away.
We just enriched the data and let it sit there for a while.
Because the moment you start enriching, you’re like, “Oh, this is cool, let’s go do something with it.”
But again, like I said earlier, you kind of have to sit in that for a bit and start to, like, notice those patterns.
Because if you jump right into it, you might not be seeing the full picture.
So we gave it, what, two months?
Michael
Yeah, about that.
Stacy
And then once we saw some of those patterns, it was like, “Okay, now I know how to use this.”
And then it just started to spiral — in a good way.
Like, “Okay, well now that we know this, we can apply it here. Oh, and we can use that there.”
And it just kind of, like, rolled from there.
Ryan
Yeah. So, in essence, lead enrichment became the inflection point — right?
Michael
Yeah, I would say that’s right.
Because once we had the data foundation, we could start being smarter with how we looked at all of our leads.
We could start evaluating campaigns differently, we could build better lead scoring, and even predict lead quality before a lead ever reached the sales team.
That’s massive.
Stacy
Yeah, and now we can use that data to bucket leads immediately.
So as soon as a lead comes in, we can say, “Okay, this one’s a high-value potential, this one’s a mid-tier, this one’s just browsing.”
And then we align the follow-up, the content, and even the timing differently for each.
It’s really changed everything for us at the top of the funnel.
Ryan
Yeah. That’s powerful. That’s what democratizing data looks like.
When you think about how big brands have used that type of insight for years, now it’s accessible to everyone.
Michael
Exactly. And that’s part of what we’ve been working on inside Leadpages — bringing that enterprise-level power into tools that smaller teams or solopreneurs can actually use.
You shouldn’t need a 20-person ops team to make smart data decisions.
Ryan
Absolutely.
Stacy
Yeah, totally.
Ryan
It’s kind of funny — I think of MF DOOM in that same way. He democratized what production could look like. He made it from his basement, but it was high art.
It’s like what you’re saying: giving everyone the ability to do what used to be impossible for only the big players.
Michael
Yeah, exactly. He was literally doing that with two turntables and a cheap sampler.
So if we think about data and lead generation the same way, the technology now allows even the smallest brand to act like an enterprise-level marketer.
That’s the future.
Ryan
Beautifully said.
Let’s wrap up with a few actionable takeaways for our listeners.
Michael
Yeah, so, number one — start simple.
Don’t feel like you need to enrich with fifty data points.
Start with four to six — things like company size, revenue, industry, and job role.
That’s enough to start seeing patterns and opportunities you didn’t know existed.
Stacy
Yeah, and then once you’ve got that, test before you scale.
Like, it’s so tempting to find a new audience and say, “Okay, cool, let’s throw all our money there.”
But some of those will stick and others won’t, and you need to validate before you go all in.
Ryan
Right. That’s the smartest thing you can do — start small, act fast, and repeat often.
That’s how you turn data into revenue.
Michael
Yeah.
Stacy
Totally.
Ryan
And, of course, we somehow managed to talk about MF DOOM, data, and lead enrichment — all before 10 a.m.
Stacy
[Laughs]
Michael
[Laughs]
Ryan
That’s how we roll.
All right, Michael, Stace — thank you both.
And to everyone listening, stay tuned for more stories, insights, and music-fueled marketing lessons all season long.
Subscribe to On the Record, the hard-hitting podcast that combines valuable marketing insights with classic music with surprising results.
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