One thing is for sure, and that’s the guests who I have dropping by for Live On 65 genuinely are digital marketing pioneers, innovators, movers, shakers, and frequently close friends of mine. As I point out at the very beginning of this chat, there’s a theme that started with me introducing guests as people I’ve known for many years. And that’s because, again as I mention in the intro, this year I’m celebrating 20 years in digital marketing. And over a period of 20 years, you get to meet and know a lot of people in an industry.

Fifteen years ago I joined a red hot start up in Boston. Originally a confusingly named, five-man outfit in a back office trading as Response Direct. By the time I came on board, it was rapidly growing and, fortunately, renamed and rebranded as iProspect – The Original Search Marketing Firm.

The CEO and founder of the company, a true search marketing visionary named Fredrick Marckini, was keen to expand into the UK/Europe and we agreed to back my UK consultancy business into iProspect and set up shop together in London. Steering that little venture through was company president Rob Murray. It was the start of an adventurous expansion and long-term friendship.

Rob went on to steer iProspect though its own, somewhat larger acquisition in 2004, by Isobar for $50 million (quite the sum back then for a search marketing agency). From there, he and his team were instrumental in growing iProspect into the largest performance marketing agency in the world. At the time he left, Rob was Global CEO, iProspect was Google’s largest global customer and what started as a five-man outfit in a back room in Boston was now employing 1,800 people in 55 countries.

Safe to say, Rob can smell business success a mile away. So it’s no surprise, not to me anyway, that when he heard about another startup with the same kind of growth potential iProspect had back in the day, he couldn’t resist the offer to hop aboard. That company is Skyword. Known as experts in scalable, sustainable content marketing, the company has already made great headway. As more and more brands realize they need to learn to act like publishers, Skyword leads the way as vendor to major national and international companies.

Funny, Rob and I talked about “content being King” 15 years ago. And no, it hasn’t become “Kingier.” It’s just that more people seem to realize what that phrase actually means, more than ever before.

Enjoy as Rob and I chat about search, content…and a few bars we found ourselves in along the way!

Don’t have time to watch the video? Read the transcript here.