Targeting Tomorrow’s Customers Today: Carole Lawson and Rick Brown of MarketStorm on Predictive Marketing

In this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Logbook, Zachary speaks with Carole Lawson and Rick Brown, co-founders of MarketStorm, an AI-driven advertising and demand-generation firm that helps brands reach customers long before they’re ready to buy. Rick and Carole share how they built MarketStorm from the ground up, never taking outside investment, and turned it into a nationwide operation by fusing Rick’s deep experience in sports and entertainment partnerships with Carole’s background in data science and behavioral research. Along the way, they explain why being physically together in those early years, asking hard questions of your own assumptions and partners, and moving faster on decisions are lessons they’d apply if they could start over today. The conversation digs into the “messy middle” of the buyer journey and how MarketStorm uses proprietary AI algorithms to target only those people beginning to think about a specific purchase, whether that’s a luxury home in Florida, an upscale wine collector in Oklahoma at 4 AM, or someone dreaming of private aviation. Rick and Carole contrast that precision “heat-seeking” approach with traditional last-click-only attribution models, which they argue have been obsolete for over a decade yet still dominate most agencies’ playbooks. They also debunk the hype around AI “for AI’s sake,” urging founders to begin with clear outcomes and metrics, then choose the right tools and data to support them. Listeners come away with practical advice on integrating AI meaningfully, avoiding waste in ad spend, and building trust across a long sales cycle by showing up in the right place at the right time, every time. Timestamps Lessons from founding MarketStorm – choosing speed, truthful planning, and co-locating early for better collaboration – 02:42 AI-driven demand strategy – how MarketStorm captures buyer intent and targets prospects before they’re actively shopping – 10:16 Pitfalls of last-click attribution – why focusing only on the final click overlooks 70%+ of the customer journey – 17:51 Genuine AI adoption vs. AI hype – the difference between purpose-built AI tools and simply slapping “AI” on existing processes – 21:23 Building trust in long sales cycles – leveraging intent and influence layers to nurture prospects over time – 26:38 Connect with Carole and Rick https://marketstorm.ai/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroleslawson/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/marketstormrick Sponsored by We Feature You PR - Helping entrepreneurs build thought leadership through strategic podcast placements and launching their own shows. Ready to amplify your voice? Get in touch today. Subscribe & Review: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! Chapters (00:00:00) - Intro and Guest Backgrounds (00:02:11) - Lessons Learned: What They'd Do Differently (00:05:01) - Building Together and Surviving COVID Timing (00:06:53) - How Marketstorm Finds Buyers Before They Search (00:10:28) - Beating Programmatic: The Secret Sauce (00:12:56) - Competitors and Protecting the IP (00:14:16) - The Problem with Last-Click Attribution (00:16:29) - Google's Own Research on Last-Click Myths (00:17:53) - Real AI Use vs Hype and Buzzwords (00:21:40) - Approaching AI Like Any Tech Implementation (00:22:47) - Earning Trust in Long Sales Cycles (00:24:16) - The $20,000 Wine Bottle Story (00:26:38) - Following Behavior, Not Guessing Placement (00:28:30) - Cutting Ad Waste and Winning the AI Search Race (00:30:10) - Final Advice: Question the Messy Middle (00:33:44) - Closing Thoughts and Where to Find Them