12M Users and Beyond: Designing a Marketing Team for Slack's Parabolic Growth with Julie Liegl, CMO of Slack

enSeptember 03, 2020

Pipeline Visionaries

About this Episode

Julie Liegl is used to being a part of big things. As EVP of Global Marketing at Salesforce, she helped create and oversee the world-class corporate event that is known as Dreamforce, and she’s currently overseeing a complete transformation in the way that businesses communicate as CMO of Slack.

On this episode, Julie unveils some of the plays that have made her so successful across her career. She talks about corporate events and how they can maintain relevance as digital events in the time of COVID, how to create a demand gen team from scratch, and much more.

Key Takeaways

Demand Gen needs to be integrated. Every aspect of it needs to be thought of as a part of one single function, rather than separate one-off activities.
In order for an event to be successful, you need to help prepare your attendees to make the most of it before they ever arrive.
Brand marketing can work hand-in-hand with demand gen. The top of the funnel is still a part of the funnel.

Quotes

"You have to think of demand gen as a program rather than a set of tactics and how they're going to go along the way. We used to call it lead gen and that very much reflected what it was, which was marketing, throwing leads over the wall, and demand gen is really about being smarter about the entire thing."
"I see events as an amplifying effect to demand gen and as a point in the demand gen journey."
"Brand is funny because there definitely are ways to measure it. We do a lot of brand studies. We do research on consideration awareness sentiment, and we try to measure it quarterly."
"I still think that flashy things can work, but they need to work in a way that makes sense with your product beyond just a clever marketing tagline."

Sponsor

Demand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Recent Episodes from Pipeline Visionaries

Part 10: Top Marketing Leaders Share Their Most Uncuttable Budget Items

Every week on Pipeline Visionaries, we sit down with amazing marketing leaders to uncover the pipeline strategies that have been fundamental to their success. In each episode, we ask these guests which three areas of investment are most important to their marketing strategies. Tune into this special series to hear the budget items our CMO guests can’t live without!

Find parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine

Episode Timestamps:
*(01:37): Grant Johnson, CMO at Billtrust

*(04:22): Jessica Gilmartin, CMO at Calendly

*(06:11): Megan McDonagh, CMO at Amperity

*(07:17): Shafqat Islam, CMO at Optimizely

*(08:42:) Efrat Ravid, CMO at Quantum Metric

*(10:59): Orlando Baeza, CMO & CRO at Flock Freight

*(13:32): Jenny Victor, CMO at Epicor

*(16:18): Jessica Shapiro, CMO at LiveRamp

*(19:09): Jacqueline Woods, CMO at Teradata

*(21:24): Brad Rinklin, CMO at Infoblox

*(24:33): Celia Fleischaker, CMO at isolved

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
Learn more about Caspian Studios

enMarch 12, 2024

uncuttable budget items

Brand as a Competitive Advantage

This episode features an interview with Mark Viden, SVP of Brand at CommonSpirit Health, a non-profit that operates 140 hospitals and more than 2,200 care centers serving sites across 24 states.

In this episode, Mark discusses building an emotional connection with the consumer, using your brand promise as an operating principle and his focus on sharing the amazing stories in the healthcare industry.

Key Takeaways:

When brand promises are guiding principles for company operations, it creates a competitive advantage.
When building a brand, focus on the people in your ecosystem and on creating an emotional connection with the consumer.

Quote:
“What I see and have seen all the time is the competitors will start to nibble at what we do. They'll start to come in and borrow some of our themes. But they never stay with it because, again, I think kind of the flavor of the day and then the shiny object over there captures their attention and they're on to something else. Where we have this anchoring principle, “Hello humankindness” that, again, is seeded through so many areas of the organization.It is our brand promise.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(04:19) The Trust Tree: Building an emotional connection with the consumer

*(16:12) The Playbook: Creating value alignment

*(30:44) Quick Hits: Mark’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Links:

enMarch 05, 2024

Strengthening Your Sales Relationship

This episode features an interview with Leslie Henthorn, CMO at Ironclad, a contract lifecycle management software that provides a secure way to create and collaborate on contracts.

In Leslie’s return to the podcast, she discusses navigating the shifts in AI, Ironclad’s influencer strategy, and getting into the psyche of your target persona. She also talks about strengthening your relationship with sales and prioritizing alignment even when you have a strong inbound funnel.

Key Takeaways:

It’s important to get into the psyche of your target persona and to think about their frame of mind day-to-day.
You need to nurture your sales relationship, even when you have a strong inbound pipeline.
When working with influencers, it is important to find people that truly believe in the work that the company is doing and are genuine fans of the product.

Quote:

“We have tried to grow closer to sales and really support outbound in a way that marketing hasn't before. I think when you have a strong inbound funnel, sometimes your sales relationship isn't as strong as it should be. Yeah, you might be watching conversion and you might be watching how things are moving forward to pipeline, but it's easy to go like this after that. And when you start to understand that new business shouldn't drive your entire company strategy, that customer adoption, cross sell, understanding the logos you want to go after. This is something we've really been working on.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(11:02) The Playbook: Changing tactics over the last year

Sponsor:

Links:

Pipeline Visionaries

enFebruary 27, 2024

sales

cmo

Using Incentives to Drive Impact

This episode features an interview with Dana Barrett, VP of Marketing at Tremendous, a company that offers a simple way to send rewards and payouts around the world.

In this episode, Dana discusses the ways that incentivizing your ideal customer provides impact across use cases, whether you are looking to build pipeline, drive sales, get participants in studies, etc. She also talks about carefully identifying your target persona and focusing on a small number of priorities.

Key Takeaways:

Incentives are a great way to drive impact, regardless of your use case (generate pipeline, sales, gaining study participants, etc.)
It’s important to find the sweet spot when incentivizing. Don’t offer a discount so high that people take the offer without any interest in the product; make it just low enough that it attracts people who genuinely have an interest.
Define your ideal customer persona and stay focused on a few key items to go after them.

Quote:

“ Incentives, regardless of your use case, are a great way to drive impact. Whether you're trying to grow pipeline. Whether you're trying to drive sales. Whether you want to make sure people participate in your studies, and you can recruit people in global markets that you're trying to figure out how to get people to just respond or participate. And so based on what we do, we're starting to see some best practices or things that can actually position you better to reach your ultimate goal, which is sales, pipeline, et cetera.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(02:52) The Trust Tree: Building awareness of brand and category

*(14:11) The Playbook: Investing in content

*(28:17) The Dust Up: Diffusing tension between product and sales

*(30:07) Dana’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Links:

enFebruary 20, 2024

ideal customer persona

Accountability in Experimentation

This episode features an interview with Riikka Söderlund, CMO at Katana Cloud Inventory, a company that provides SMBs with easy-to-use inventory management software, to get them the real-time data that they need.

In this episode, Riika discusses staying accountable for intentional experimentation, how she invests in talent and why she dislikes the term “marketing strategy”.

Key Takeaways:

Experiments should improve results and should fit within goals. Including experiments in your overall budget, instead of pulling them into a separate, “experimental budget” keeps you accountable.
Talent development is an uncuttable item and marketing leaders should align individual growth aspirations with company goals.
Being right isn’t always enough. Marketing leaders need to be strong internal communicators and influence opinions to get the right results.

Quote:

“ I have a gazillion other marketing KPIs, of course, but at the end of the day, if we're not driving revenue, then it doesn't matter. I am not a fan of measuring leads or MQLs. Honestly, revenue is the only metric that tells you, did you generate pipeline? Did you reach the right audience? Is your value proposition correct? And is your brand resonating with that target audience? It's the only one that combines all the aspects of marketing.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(02:42) The Trust Tree: Why Riikka doesn’t believe in the term “marketing strategy”

*(12:53) The Playbook: The importance of content and intentional experimentation

*(31:54) The Dust Up: Becoming a strong internal influencer

*(33:45) Riikka’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Links:

Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
Connect with Riika on LinkedIn
Learn more about Katana
Learn more about Caspian Studios

Pipeline Visionaries

enFebruary 13, 2024

cmo

internal communication

marketing leaders

marketing experiments

Be the Easiest Company to Buy From

This episode features an interview with William Tyree, CMO at IntelligenceBank, a platform that helps marketing teams get brand and legal approved content out the door faster.

In this episode, William discusses his focus on being the easiest company to buy from, the importance of empathizing with buyers, and how customer buying behavior has changed over time.

Key Takeaways:

Buyers have a hard job and marketers need to prioritize making their company easy to buy from.
Product marketing needs to be about empathizing with buyers, not just pitching the good things about your product.

Quote:

“My goal is to make IntelligenceBank the easiest company in our space to actually buy from. Buyers have a hard job. It's really hard to lasso all those different people on your buying committee and get them to agree on you as a vendor. So, to be the easiest, we have to assume that buyers are going to conduct at least three quarters of their research before they even talk to a seller.”

Episode Timestamps:
*(05:17) - The Trust Tree: The complex roles for people in charge of brand

*(16:15) - The Playbook: Becoming easy to buy from

Sponsor:

Links:

enFebruary 06, 2024

Investing in Community and Relationships

This episode features an interview with Celia Fleischaker, CMO at isolved, a trusted HCM leader that provides software and services to meet the needs of HR professionals. Through their partner network, they reach more than 5 million employees and 145,000 employers across all 50 states.

In this episode, Celia shares with us how they are investing in and amplifying their engaged community as well as how their focus on relationships and primary research supports their marketing efforts.

Key Takeaways:

Coming into a company with an engaged customer base is a welcome challenge for a CMO, and amplifying that engagement is imperative.
It’s worth investing in primary research, to better connect with customers in ways that are actually of interest to them.
There is a continued convergence between customer experience and marketing. Leveraging data and information from customer service and blending that with marketing helps clarify what customers need.

Quote:

I think there's such a cool convergence between customer experience and marketing. And I think they are just continuing to get closer and closer. At Verint, where I was before, I worked in the CX space and we saw it there a lot, a lot of our customers realizing the power of taking customer experience, customer service information, blending that from a marketing perspective. And the amount of data that you get that really points to what you need to be doing for your customers, where they are at a relationship point with you.

And that's what I think with the CXO role, the customer experience role here, taking that, looking at that from customer service perspective, from a marketing perspective and pulling things together to look holistically at what is it that we can do both internally and externally to drive a better experience and how is that going to benefit, yes, our customers and the satisfaction that they have, but from a marketing perspective, there's so much opportunity to better understand what your customers are going through and it just puts you in this better position.

Episode Timestamps:

*(04:36) - The Trust Tree: Creating demand within community

*(08:15) - The Playbook: Investing in primary research

*(33:49) - Quick Hits: Celia’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Links:

Pipeline Visionaries

enJanuary 30, 2024

community

cmo

primary marketing research

Being the “Voice of” and “Voice to” the Market

This episode features an interview with Kimberly Storin, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Zayo Group, a leading telecommunications company with a network that stretches over 16.8 million fiber miles and spans 141,000 route miles across North America and Europe.

In this episode, Kimberly shares with us how she built an end-to-end marketing organization within Zayo and demonstrated the value of the marketing function, diving into expanding their buying committee and creating a “Shark Tank'' mindset where people share their best ideas.

Key Takeaways

Marketing can be undervalued as a function and collaborating with C-suite peers is essential to a CMO’s ability to demonstrate their impact on revenue for the organization.
At the end of the day, marketing needs to be the “voice of” and the “voice to” the market, and needs to avoid short-term, quarter-by-quarter thinking.
There is value in shifting to a “Shark Tank mindset” and having people bring their ideas, then funding great ideas.

Quote:

“At the end of the day, we really just need to be the voice of and the voice to the market. If we're thinking about in-quarter revenue, we're not doing our job. Our job is to be thinking about the next quarter, next year, next five years, and how do we position the brand for the maximum growth efficiency. And yet so often I talk to CMOs who are stuck in this, well, what did you do for me this quarter? And if that's where marketing is focused, then marketing will never be successful.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(03:43 ) - The Trust Tree: Expanding your buying committee

*(15:19) - The Playbook: Investing in the top of the funnel

*(35:37) - The Dust-Up: Learning to have constructive conflict

*(39:01) - Quick Hits: Kim’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Links

Pipeline Visionaries

enJanuary 23, 2024

cmo

voice to market

Using Neuroscience to Understand Your Customer

This episode features an interview with Esther-Mireya Tejeda, CMO at Anywhere Real Estate Inc., a leader of integrated residential real estate services, whose portfolio includes some of the most recognized brands in real estate. 

In this episode, Esther-Mireya discusses how marketers should consider themselves “business psychologists” and shares how she is incorporating neuroscience research when creating customer personas.

Key Takeaways:

Buying decisions for customers often have more to do with subconscious, emotional drivers that cannot be articulated in surveys or focus groups.
Marketers should think about themselves as “business psychologists”, and can use neuroscience to better understand subconscious drivers for their customers.
Marketers need to maintain connectivity to business objectives and avoid the trap of short-term thinking.

Quote:

“We have been really trying to get to the unconscious emotional makeup of consumers that set up their predisposition to like or dislike and to behave or not behave in particular ways. I call that the layer below the things that we are already measuring. And it's based on this premise that over 95 percent of our human behavior. is actually rooted and driven by unconscious emotions that we're not even aware of. So it's not stuff that I, as a consumer, would be able to articulate in a focus group.

It's not things that I would be able to, as a consumer, articulate in a survey. And so it is our job as marketers, if we think about ourselves as business psychologists, to get further down and deeper into that mindset, to get to the heart set to understand those things. And that's really what this is about.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(08:24) - The Trust Tree: Buying decisions are largely unconscious

*(26:13) - The Playbook: Research and insights are essential to success

*(37:23) - The Dust Up: Leaving what isn’t right for you

Sponsor:

Links:

Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
Connect with on Esther-Mireya LinkedIn
Learn more about Anywhere Real Estate Inc.
Learn more about Caspian Studios

enJanuary 16, 2024

Creating Demand Starts with a Story

This episode features an interview with Ben Slater, SVP of Marketing at Beamery, a Talent Lifecycle Management platform that empowers companies to understand the skills and capabilities they have, build more agile workforce plans, and attract, retain, upskill, and redeploy their workforce.

In this episode, Ben encourages companies to think about the future of their workforce, shares why internal marketing efforts are often overlooked but shouldn’t be, and why leadership should have their hands in choosing talent. Ben also talks about how creating demand starts with a story and how they go about just that at Beamery.

Key Takeaways:

HR is an increasingly strategic part of the organization. How companies think about the future of their workforce impacts how they can achieve their business objectives.
The internal role of marketing is one of its most overlooked functions. Marketing has an amazing opportunity to be the internal communications engine that brings people back to the “why” of the organization.
Creating demand starts with a story. Specifically, demand starts with a story that is not just about your product, but about a fundamental shift in the market that is accelerating your category.

Quote:

“ For us, if we think about the demand process, what we are really focused on is not just demand capture, but also demand creation. I'm a huge believer that creating demand, it all starts with the story. So it's a story that's not just about your product, but about a fundamental shift in the market. Something that is either creating your category or accelerating it. Something that's fundamentally impacting your buyer and the way they go about their role on a day-to-day basis. What's the big story that we think is most relevant to our audience and that's in line with our point of view on the market? How do we ensure that there's internal alignment around that story? Because I think if you get the storytelling right and if you're able to tie the different channels and programs together in a way that is consistent, clear, not just for the external audience, but also for internal teams, it can really be a force multiplier for demand.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(03:28) - The Trust Tree: Addressing talent gaps accelerates transformation

*(17:24) - The Playbook: Investing in community

*(33:52) - Quick Hits: Ben’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Links:

enJanuary 09, 2024