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Nate Smoyer.
Head of Marketing · Lula
Nate Smoyer is a seasoned marketing professional currently serving as the Head of Marketing at Lula since April 2025. Prior to this role, Nate held various leadership positions, including Director of Real Estate Programs Growth at HW Media and Creator and Host of Tech Nest: The Proptech Podcast. Nate has significant experience in driving brand activation and recognition, exemplified during a tenure as Head of Marketing at Roofer.com and Obie, where Nate contributed to substantial funding achievements. Earlier career accomplishments include success as Director of Marketing at Avail, leading to its acquisition by realtor.com®, and distinctions as a Real Estate Agent with the Ben Kinney Team at Keller Williams. Nate's diverse background also includes a role at BuySellAds focused on developing media relationships and as New Products Marketing Manager at Faithlife, where strategic initiatives generated significant revenue and increased user engagement across multiple web properties.
Guest
Nate Smoyer
Head of Marketing
Company:
Lula
Location:
Piedmont, South Dakota, United States
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In this episode of The Marketing Front Lines, we speak with Nate Smoyer, Head of Marketing at Lula. Lula provides maintenance coordination technology for scattered-site property managers across the U.S., combining software that plugs into existing property management platforms with a vetted vendor network. After running a 240+ episode proptech podcast called Tech Nest, Nate joined Lula to build their marketing function from scratch. Operating as a Midwestern startup that prioritizes profitability over blitzscaling, Lula recently achieved cash flow positive status while growing through strategic conference presence and organic content. Nate shares how he's scaling marketing with limited resources, why he treats content as product rather than marketing, and his unconventional approach to SEO that drove a competitive keyword from position 40+ to #6 in just weeks.

Topics Discussed:

Seven takeaways from this conversation.

Actionable for Real Estate Tech Builders marketers

  1. Prioritize Existing Demand Over Creating It
    Rather than spreading resources thin across multiple channels, Nate identifies where prospects are actively looking. Property managers attend conferences specifically to talk with vendors—so Lula upgraded their booth design to a minimalist backlit setup asking one question: "Make maintenance easy?" This simple approach lets prospects self-identify their problems, leading to 26 conferences scheduled for next year versus 10-12 this year. The principle applies across channels: find where your ICP is already searching, then show up strategically.
  2. Structure Podcasting Strategy Around Your Business Goal
    Tech Nest succeeded because Nate designed it as a disguised needs analysis call, not a media play. By targeting early-stage founders (his ideal agency clients), he gained undivided attention during interviews, delivered value through content distribution, and leveraged reciprocity—guests naturally asked about his work, creating organic sales conversations. His key insight: decide between thought leadership podcasts (audience growth) versus lead generation podcasts (hero-focused guest content). Both work, but require different approaches and success metrics.
  3. Simplify Project Management to Maximize Execution Time
    As a solo marketer, Nate rejected complex project management systems in favor of a single Apple Note with one-line bullet points. His reasoning: until you have a team requiring coordination and detailed scoping, administrative overhead steals execution time. This constraint-driven approach extends across his strategy—he focuses on one channel at a time until it works before expanding, rejecting the pressure to "be everywhere, do everything, always."
  4. Build Owned Audiences From Non-Customers
    Lula collects emails from property managers outside their current service areas and delivers valuable content even though these prospects can't buy yet. This "content as product" philosophy means creating material worth reading regardless of purchase intent. The payoff: advocates who refer business despite never being customers themselves. For B2B marketers, this expands addressable influence far beyond your ICP—you'll always have more non-customers than customers who can drive business value.
  5. Execute AI-Powered SEO for Precision Over Volume
    Nate's team moved a keyword difficulty 70 term from position 40+ to #6 within weeks by combining technical SEO (schema markup, index cleanup) with AI-assisted content analysis focused on true query intent. Rather than chasing traffic volume or defining industry terms, they target ultra-specific keywords where only their ICP would search. The strategy: if you're not their customer type, you should never find their articles. This requires using LLMs for keyword cluster analysis and Google Search Console data, prioritizing content quality that drives leads over ranking breadth.
  6. Articulate Value Props Through Organic Social Before Paid
    Lula grew their LinkedIn following by 1,600+ (40% total growth) in six months with zero advertising spend, generating 70,000+ impressions in the last three months alone. Nate uses organic reach to test messaging and identify what resonates before investing in paid channels. For startups operating with profitability constraints, this approach validates positioning and value proposition articulation while building owned audience—essentially conducting free market research that pays dividends when budget allows paid acceleration.
  7. Treat Technical SEO Fundamentals as Quality Signals
    Despite Google claiming certain technical elements don't matter, Nate argues signals like proper H1/H2 hierarchy, alt tags, schema markup, and strategic backlinking still demonstrate content quality. His evidence: consistent ranking improvements when implementing these fundamentals. The contrarian take: don't bet against Google's ability to eventually surface quality content—shortcuts may work temporarily, but technical excellence compounds over time as algorithms evolve toward rewarding genuine value.

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