Mastering Digital Marketing: The Responsibility of Effective Communication

Quick Summary: Trey Shenemen, founder of Herald, transitioned from Christian education to digital marketing. He now teaches ethical, values-driven marketing to young adults through Unbound’s Ascend program. On an episode of the Be Unbound podcast, I had the chance to explore his career, philosophy, and the spiritual responsibility of marketing.

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When I sat down to have this conversation, it was a time when the weight of public discourse felt especially heavy. In the wake of events surrounding Charlie Kirk, it’s been impossible not to see digital communication—and digital marketing in particular—through a more urgent lens.

When you say “digital marketing,” most people think “career.” Lately, I’ve been thinking “calling.” I’ve been thinking about the ability to articulate necessary ideas, to help people build useful, meaningful lives, and to serve families, churches, and communities by helping them hear what’s true and good.

That’s why I was so glad to have a chance to talk with Trey Shenemen on the Be Unbound podcast. Trey isn’t just another marketer with a slick pitch. He’s someone we’ve trusted at Unbound for years, someone who has shaped a lot of the marketing you’ve seen from us—and if you found this podcast, there’s a decent chance he helped you get here.

Trey is the owner and founder (and “Chief Ringable Neck,” as he jokes) of Herald Marketing. He’s built and sold agencies, led marketing for major Christian organizations, and now teaches the digital marketing track for our Ascend students. More importantly, he thinks deeply about what it means to do marketing that actually helps people and honors the Lord.

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How Trey Shenemen Became a Digital Marketer

Trey didn’t start in advertising. He started in private Christian education. He went to Liberty University, then seminary, and thought he’d spend his whole life as a high school Bible teacher and coach.

For about five years, that’s exactly what he did. He met his wife through that ministry; she worked in the middle school. As they began to plan for a family, they realized they’d need to replace her income so she could stay home with their kids in the early years.

The problem? His schedule was packed: twelve-hour days, five days a week between school and coaching. The only thing he could find that fit around that schedule was this strange, emerging thing called internet marketing.

His first step was affiliate marketing—building funnels to promote other people’s products and earning commissions. It was early in the internet marketing era, and Trey found what he calls “pretty instant success” in that space.

Then the unexpected hit. In the back end of the 2009–2010 recession, their school went through a massive dis-enrollment phase. Through a series of events, both Trey and his wife lost their jobs.

Suddenly, internet marketing wasn’t the backup plan. It was the only horse he had to ride.

“I don’t believe I would’ve ever chosen this path,” Trey says. “The path chose me.”

From there, his career accelerated:

• 2010–2014 – He started and grew an agency to multiple employees and multiple millions in revenue, with private equity backing and a small exit.
• 2014–2017 – He joined a “blue chip” agency in downtown Atlanta, working with brands like SunTrust Bank, Coca-Cola, and the Atlanta Dream WNBA franchise.
• Next 6 years – He served as head of marketing inside organizations, especially in the Christian public figure space—working with John Maxwell, Dave Ramsey (primarily on Financial Peace University), and Brendon Burchard.
• Most recently – He launched Herald Marketing, bringing together the best of agile agency work, the inside experience of large brands, and now the fast-changing AI world.

Herald has already helped over a hundred companies install a way of thinking about marketing that blends these worlds together.

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Why Christians Should Step Into Digital Marketing with Purpose

One of the most striking parts of our conversation was how Trey talks about the spiritual stakes of digital communication.

He reminds us that Scripture calls the enemy “the prince of the power of the air.” In our age, that “air” is not theoretical—it’s very concrete: social platforms, content feeds, recommendation algorithms, and digital spaces that shape the imaginations and habits of millions of people every day.

Trey sees his work as redemptive: using channels that are often hijacked for evil and reclaiming them as tools to expand the kingdom of God. Not running away from the platforms, but pressing in—carefully, wisely, and faithfully.

“I am feeling a call to arms,” he says, “to help raise up a vanguard in the next generation that sees these platforms as tools to be used to expand the kingdom of God, not something to run and hide from.”

That’s why he’s so passionate about teaching young adults how to think about digital marketing not just as a job, but as stewardship.

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What Digital Marketing Means—and Why It’s More Than Just Social Media

A lot of students tell us, “I want to go into digital marketing,” but they aren’t quite sure what that means. Sometimes they think it’s about making money. Sometimes they’re drawn to the creative aspect. Sometimes they just think it means they can “play on Instagram all day.”

Trey breaks it down simply. If you strip away the buzzwords, marketing is:

“The right message to the right person at the right time.”

When you add “digital,” you’re simply choosing internet-based channels—social media platforms, email, text, programmatic TV (like ads on your Roku), YouTube ads, and so on. Those are just the delivery systems.

At its core, good marketing:

• Helps people emotionally recognize, “You see me, you know me, you understand my pain, and you’re trying to help me solve it.”
• Gives their logic something solid to work with as they decide whether your product or service is the right solution.

In the digital age, Trey has watched marketing swing:

• From being mostly art (think Don Draper and the Mad Men era of ad agencies),
• To being heavily science and math (targeting, technical tools, complex funnels),
• And now, since around 2021, back toward art built on top of solid strategy.

Distribution—getting your message in front of the right people—is still important, but it’s easier than it used to be. What really wins now is the core message and core offer.

That’s why his company is called Herald—it’s about being a messenger. Every channel is just a way to carry that message.

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What’s the Difference Between Persuasion and Manipulation in Marketing?

Of course, when you talk about marketing, people bring baggage. Many have experienced the plaid-jacket, used-car-salesman version of sales and the manipulative side of advertising.

Trey doesn’t ignore that. In fact, it’s the first thing he addresses when he teaches our digital marketing students. He tells them there are two sides to messaging:

• Manipulation – You’ve already decided what you want from the person, and you’re just trying to separate them from their money.
• Persuasion – You’re helping them make a decision for themselves, because you genuinely believe their life will improve if they say yes.

The “coin” between manipulation and persuasion is very thin. For some people—especially those naturally gifted at “winning others over”—it’s thinner than for others. That means marketers have to be very honest with themselves about why they’re saying what they’re saying.

Trey likes to say:

“Marketers are in the value exchange business.”

On one side, you have the inherent value of a product or service for the right person. On the other, the realized value that shows up in that person’s life when they actually use it. The marketer’s job is to package that whole experience in a compelling way and then distribute it to the people it’s genuinely good for.

That’s why we spent time talking about questions like:

• Does this really help people?
• Does it lead to human flourishing?
• Who does it help—and who does it not help?

Selling something like an Oura ring to someone trying to steward their health well can be a good thing. Selling gambling packages, on the other hand, ultimately destroys people. One leads to flourishing; the other leads to brokenness.

If you’re serious about staying on the right side of the line, you need to be willing to:

1. Ask whether what you’re selling actually helps people.
2. Ask which people it helps—and which people it doesn’t.
3. Be willing to say “this isn’t for you” when it doesn’t fit, and even point people elsewhere.

That’s not just good business; it’s how you treat fellow image-bearers.

Trey’s own standard for Herald is that clients feel like they got “Hollywood grade, but holy word made”—work done with excellence and integrity at the same time.

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How to Avoid Dehumanizing People in Digital Marketing

I’ll circle back to something that kept surfacing in the conversation: the danger of seeing people as numbers on a spreadsheet.

It’s easy to talk about “leads,” “conversions,” and “sales” until you forget there are human beings on the other side of those metrics—people with real problems, real families, and real souls.

The difference between manipulative marketing and redemptive marketing often comes down to one mindset shift:

“This is not just someone I want to buy something; this is someone whose life I want to make better.”

That mindset shows up in the micro-decisions: how you write your copy, what you promise, what you refuse to promise, and whether you’re willing to walk away when a product or program isn’t a good fit for someone.

In a communications class I teach for our Ascend students, we study books on apologetics, negotiation, conflict, marketing, and pitching. Every one of those books contains tactics that can be used either to serve people or to manipulate them.

We talk openly about that tension, and we come back to two realities:

1. Humans are emotional first, logical second. There’s almost always an emotional connection or trigger before the rational decision. Marketing that pretends otherwise misunderstands people.
2. All of life is, in a sense, storytelling. You can create emotional connections to bad ideas or to good ideas. The world is desperate for good emotional storytellers who are telling the right stories.

If you’re a Christian and you’re serious about your faith, this is not something you can safely ignore. We live in a world that urgently needs people who can communicate good ideas, true ideas, and redemptive stories with emotional clarity and excellence.

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What Traits Help You Thrive in Digital Marketing Today?

So what kind of person actually thrives in this space? Before Trey talks about skills, he talks about who you are at your core.

He looks for three big traits:

1. Natural curiosity
   
   • Curiosity when things don’t work: “Why did that fail?”
   • Curiosity when things do work: “Why did that succeed, and how can we repeat it?”
   • This kind of curiosity allowed Trey to find one campaign structure in 2014 that he has since run for 30 different companies—with consistent results.
     
2. Good with words
   
   • Even the more technical marketers need a feel for strong versus weak copy.
   • Many great marketers are natural storytellers who pay attention to how words make people feel and respond.
     
3. An elastic, resilient mind
   
   • Marketing is, at the end of the day, a series of experiments.
   • Algorithms change. Platforms shift. What worked yesterday might not work tomorrow.
   • You need a “bounce-back muscle”—a willingness to keep testing and learning rather than quitting when something stops working.

The good news? The channel-specific skills—social media, paid media buying, email marketing, and more—can be learned. Trey is largely self-taught: sixteen years of trial and error, a few strategic courses and conferences, and a lot of persistence.

Put curiosity, words, and resilience together, add a heart that wants to see people flourish, and you have the raw material of a great marketer.

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Where to Learn Marketing from Trey Shenemen (Podcast, Book & Courses)

If you want to go deeper with Trey’s teaching, he’s already created several on-ramps:

• The 10 Minute Masterclass Podcast
  Trey drops ten-minute episodes every Tuesday, sharing his very best ideas on marketing. In season one, he released 34 episodes and intentionally held nothing back—if it’s his best idea on a topic, he shares it there. Season two will feature 40–50 of the brightest minds he knows in marketing, each in a focused ten-minute conversation.
• LinkedIn
  Trey writes frequently about marketing on LinkedIn, and as far as he knows, he’s the only “Trey Sheneman” on the platform—easy to find and follow.
• Upcoming Book (January 2026)
  He’s been working for a year and a half on a book that walks through how a modern CMO must think today: doing solid research, understanding AI’s implications, and truly knowing your customer and product so you don’t just make noise. The plan is for it to be available on Amazon in January 2026.
  

And if you really want to apprentice with Trey, the best way might be through Unbound itself.

Trey is the primary instructor for the digital marketing track in our Ascend program. If you spend a year—or three—learning from him in that track, I’m confident you’ll graduate with more practical marketing ability than most four-year marketing majors.

If you’re serious about your faith, serious about serving people, and curious about whether marketing might be your path, I’d encourage you to:

1. Listen to the full conversation with Trey on the Be Unbound podcast.
   
2. Visit beunbound.us to learn more about Ascend and the digital marketing track.
   
3. Consider whether this might be your own “call to arms” in the digital space.
   

We need a generation of marketers who can tell good stories about good ideas—and do it with skill, courage, and integrity.