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:

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:

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:

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:

enFebruary 27, 2024

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:

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:

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:

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
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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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

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:

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
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:

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:

enJanuary 09, 2024

What Makes a Great Marketer? Right Thing, Right Place, Right Time

This episode features an interview with Brad Rinklin, CMO at Infoblox, a Computer and Network Security company that unites networking and security to deliver unmatched performance and protection for a world that never stops.

In this episode, Brad shares with us how Infoblox is expanding its buyer persona reach, what a modern marketing team looks like, and the importance of adapting to whatever your data tells you. Brad also talks about what makes a great marketer better than the average marketer - creating the right thing, in the right place, at the right time.

Key Takeaways:

Bringing in new buyers through education. When you’re looking at personas outside of your normal reach, be sure you’re providing educational resources so they can better understand who you are and what you offer.
Partner marketing acts as a force multiplier for your brand. Good partner relationships provide credibility in spaces you’re not currently in and can potentially cut marketing efforts and costs in half.
A lesson in marketing from fly fishing. Whether it’s the buyer journey, the “bait” or content you create, remember your efforts should be focused on one buyer at a time. So, how can you be a better marketer? Provide the right thing, at the right place, at the right time.

Quote:

“What makes a great marketer better than an average marketer? Two fishermen go on the lake, they both have the exact same rod, the same reel. You might even have the same bait. What makes the one just ripping fish out left and right? And the other one doesn't catch anything at all? It's the same concept. You've gotta understand the behaviors of the buyers that you're selling to and the market that's out there and what else is out there trying to steal their attention.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(05:09) - The Trust Tree: Passive decisions have big implications

*(25:11) - The Playbook: Partners as as force multiplier for your brand

*(32:46) - Quick Hits: Brad’s Quick Hits

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:

enJanuary 02, 2024

Mixing Up Traditional Marketing Models for Next-Gen Buyers

This episode features an interview with Stephanie McCarty, CMO at Taylor Morrison, the 5th largest homebuilder in the U.S. made up of the nation's leading homebuilders and developers.

In this episode, Stephanie shares with us why your website should be a selling tool not a seduction tool, how the role of sales is changing, and the unique ways Taylor Morrison has created partnerships to boost brand awareness and demand. Stephanie also talks about how companies should be approaching the next generation of buyers by mixing up traditional marketing models.

Key Takeaways:

Fitting your products/services to the various life stages of consumers. When you’re able to meet the customers where they are at any place in their lives and lifestyles, you’ll create repeat buyers naturally.
Mix up your marketing game. There are marketing models a lot of us use that simply don’t fit the next generation of buyers. These outdated systems can act as unintentional traps for consumers who will probably decide the process isn’t worth their time or money. Make sure your company is removing as many buyer traps as possible by mixing up marketing models.
Thinking of the customer journey after they buy. Once a customer buys from you, do you have strategies in place that benefit them and keep you top of mind? Innovative, engaging content is a great way to create a win-win for you and your buyers.

Quote:

“Remember a time when, before Zappos, before Amazon, when you had to actually go into a department store to buy shoes, or before Uber, and Airlines, or you didn't have your boarding pass on your phone, you had a physical one. So it's just taking our executive team through kind of reminding them that things that they're used to today haven't always been, and that's the space that homebuilding needs to enter. We need to enter that chat room and talk about here's what has always worked, here's that model, but there's a lot of that model that doesn't fit the next generation of homebuyers.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(04:28) - The Trust Tree: Managing a family of brands

*(24:39) - The Playbook: Creating innovative content your consumers (and beyond!) can benefit from

*(41:30) - Quick Hits: Stephanie’s Quick Hits

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:

enDecember 19, 2023

Mobilizing Your Customer Base to Drive Sales

This episode features an interview with Jordan Schenck, Chief Brand Officer at Flashfood, a technology company working to eliminate retail food waste by connecting consumers with discounted food nearing its best-by date.

In this episode, Jordan shares with us how to push through the zeitgeist around what you do to change consumer perception, and she talks about some unique strategies for mobilizing your fan base to boost sales and brand awareness even without Coca-Cola dollars.

Key Takeaways:

Your biggest fans are your biggest drivers of sales. Empower and motivate your customer base to go to bat for you and market your products. How do you do it? Make and sell good products that people use and have them share their experiences.
Changing the zeitgeist around you and your product. Just because consumers have used similar products to yours doesn’t mean anything. When you make superior products that people love, and when you market those products in unique ways, you get people's attention, which builds greater brand awareness.
Organic brand awareness can be worth more than big dollars. Most companies don’t have the kind of cash big dogs like Coca-Cola do. But if you create fandom around your products, you do a lot with a little.

Quote:

“So there's something really interesting in that tension for me to like, how do we actually change behavior or you can like create a really cool movement around doing something totally novel. And I'm like, how can we make this idea of food that's near its best by the same as like how cool it is to shop for vintage clothes? Like what Depop did for Gen Z is really cool, right? And we've got that same sort of thing going where, like, how do we sort of create that sort of spirit and moment around the perfect window of this food? Truly, it's the perfect window. It's food ready to eat and the cheapest. Like, boom. Go. It shouldn't be that much more complicated than that.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(05:57) - The Trust Tree: Selling to a double-sided market

*(22:07) - The Playbook: Healthy level of commitment to owned and earned

*(36:20) - Quick Hits: Jordan’s Quick Hits

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:

enDecember 12, 2023

How to Run a ‘Pipe Council’: Approach Pipeline as a Team Sport

This episode features an interview with Ed McDonnell, CRO at Asana, a software company that helps teams orchestrate their work, from small projects to strategic initiatives.

In this episode, Ed shares with us Asana’s vision for tackling work automation, insight into their Work Innovation Lab, and why attribution for attribution's sake is meaningless. Ed also talks about the importance of treating pipeline like a team sport and how to effectively run a “Pipe Council”.

Key Takeaways:

Get focused on your ICP. Partner with your product teams to develop your ICP so you can define use cases and show the productivity you can gain from those use cases.
Tell your story through the lens of your customers. Your customers are the inside players of how your product works and what it’s doing in a real way on a daily basis out in the world.
Pipeline is a team sport. All of your business channels should be involved when it comes to pipeline generation. Pipeline is not one person or function, and in order to succeed, it has to be the highest-performing team in your organization at cross-functional scale.

Quote:

“Pipeline to me is a team sport. It is not one person. It is not one function. It is such a, it is, it, it has to be. The highest performing team in your organization at cross functional scale, because nobody works for each other. Everybody's in their own worlds, but they have to come together as a team and solve the, you know, a problem that every B2B enterprise software company faces. Which is, do we have enough pipeline to go into the market to be successful? Because every organization is a little bit different as to how much they want each of those. stakeholders to develop into their pipeline. If you're not producing at the right scale or the right coverage model, Why? Like, interrogating the why is equally as important as getting all hopped up as to why not. And too many companies and too many people I have found spend time on, well, why isn't something happening? Like, versus going in and saying, okay, it's not happening. What can we do differently to actually produce a different result? Because you get caught up on poking on sales leaders and saying, hey, you're not hitting your pipeline metrics, like, why, what's wrong, and that friction, while good and has to happen, you also have to be really open to interrogating so to me the interrogation of it in a healthy way with everybody having a seat at the table and being a team sport is Is the way that I, I have found to be very successful running a Pipe Council.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(03:44) - The Trust Tree: Go to market strategy when you solve lots of problems for lots of people

*(15:32) - The Playbook: Running a Pipe Council

*(37:53) - Quick Hits: Ed’s Quick Hits

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
Connect with Ed on LinkedIn
Learn more about Asana
Learn more about Caspian Studios
From zero to ten podcasts: How Caspian Studios produces B2B podcasts with Asana

enDecember 05, 2023

Unlocking Greater Marketing Potential: Operationalizing Your ICP

This episode features an interview with Justin Anovick, Former CPO/CMO at Syndigo.

In this episode, Justin gives us a masterclass in operationalizing ICPs (Ideal Customer Profiles) by providing us with tangible strategies for defining ICPs, tips for how to approach fringe use cases, and the reason why it’s so important to have alignment with the executive level.

Key Takeaways:

How to define your ICP: 1. Accounts 2. Size 3. Region 4. Market
Alignment with the executive team is essential. When the board asks “Who is our customer?” “Where are we seeing success?” you better have answers. Beyond marketing, teams need to work together cross-functionally so everyone is in the know and leadership understands where the company is at any given moment.
The entire organization needs to own the ICP. When product, marketing, finance, and leadership teams understand the ICP and do their jobs well, company success is inevitable.

Quote:

“So I think that a lot of organizations I see they just haven't put the time, effort, money, manpower behind it in order to actually define and understand the ICP. And so certainly each of those three times, one of the hardest things to operationalize it was to explain to the organization, starting with marketing, what actually ICP meant, what target adjustable market meant, but what service obtainable market meant and what you needed to do, and it was eye opening to realize how, to your point, most even marketers didn't really… they understood the concept, but they hadn't actually operationalized it or used it before.”

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:

enNovember 28, 2023

Goodbye Traditional Outbound, Hello Hyper-Personalized Content

This episode features an interview with Sarah Cascone, VP of Marketing at Bluecore, a retail marketing platform that enables marketers to turn data into revenue-generating campaigns, in minutes.

In this episode, Sarah educates us on what her team calls the Relationship Demand Gen Chain, how to foster a meaningful customer community, and how ruthless prioritization is a super power. Sarah also shares with us why she believes traditional outbound is fading away and that now, marketing is all about curating hyper-personalized content.

Key Takeaways:

Building out the Relationship Demand Gen Chain: Turning overall demand generation into pipeline. Sarah’s four points of focus are: points of view - educating the market on your points of view; points of entry - how you’re engaging with your target audience; points of leverage, where you can organically access your personas; and points of conversion - where your prospects have meetings with your sales team.
People buy from people, not companies. When you build a community around what you stand for, it’s a lot harder for prospects to walk away from that community anchored with your service or product offering.
Always have something to drive your target market to. When your prospects are ready to buy, they’ll enter into that conversation with your sales team. So before that point, it’s imperative to be connecting with your prospects and community at large organically and often.

Quote:

“ I think traditional outbound is fading away. That is why we've kind of pivoted our entire SDR team into this ABX account based experiences role. This goes back to in enterprise, where tech solutions are oversaturated, most prospects are not buying from just like a cold call or a cold email. So, the way we kind of integrate the SDRs and the ABX team, really is what they are, into that relationship demand gen chain totally elevates their value because we're becoming known and respected in all of the activities we're doing between thought leadership, events, and community, which gives them the ability and the time to curate their outreach based on the very specific research they're doing on the specific company so that they can speak to exactly what the person that they're going to email is feeling the pain that they're feeling, who, if we're doing our job right, has heard our point of view all along, has been part of our community, now they want to take a call with us…So goodbye, like cold calling and blast emails from the SDR. Hello, hyper-personalized curated that's built right into the marketing engine.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(03:25) - The Trust Tree: The Relationship Demand Gen Chain

*(09:06) - The Playbook: Building a community around what you stand for

*(36:14) - The Dust Up: You can take the girl out of NY but you can’t take NY out of the girl

*(40:33) - Quick Hits: Sarah’s Quick Hits

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:

enNovember 21, 2023

Creating the Ultimate Unified Digital Experience for Customers

This episode features an interview with Jacqueline Woods, CMO at Teradata, the connected multi-cloud data platform for enterprise analytics, solving data challenges from start to scale.

In this episode, Jacqueline talks about the new age of personalization, why AI should not be held accountable, and reminds us that data in technology is only as good as the data put into it. Jacqueline also shares how data is like water and paints a picture of her vision for a unified, frictionless customer experience.

Key Takeaways:

Personalization is key. One size does not fit all, so dimensional personalization has become so much more important in recent years. There are greater expectations amongst customers when it comes to their digital experiences and how they engage with companies, and it’s important to be aware of these changes and leverage them in marketing strategies.
AI isn’t responsible. When we talk about “responsible AI” we have to remember that it cannot be responsible - it’s a technology. So, AI can be trusted, but people need to be responsible. And when people are responsible, they can begin to create an environment of trust for users.
Prepare for the AI driven enterprise. Teradata’s estimate is that AI will drive most of our experiences by 2030 and a lot of companies feel disorganized in this area. Data is currently extremely siloed, so the first step is to cultivate a connected enterprise.

Quote:

“How do you know you're moving the needle? I mean, when we started this conversation with Forbes, it literally was around the same time last year, and my pitch to them was the following: There are a lot of people that say data is the new oil, data is gold, data is this, and I said, you know, my own belief is that data is like water is because this planet is over 72% water. That is what the earth is comprised of. The usable water that you can use on this planet is 2.5%. Most of that is in glaciers, which means that the real usable fresh water is 3 tenths of 1%. And so when you think about data, and all the data that's out there in the world, about 90% of the data is like data that's duplicated or replicated and how much of the core data is new data and information that you can use? And when you distill it down, it probably is very similar to water where the usable data that you can use, once you filtered it, cleaned it, harmonized it, associated it with the right things is probably less than 2 or 3% and that takes a lot of work. And at the end of the day, our thematic or our core belief is that we believe that people thrive when empowered with the right information. People don't always necessarily use the right information when they get it. But if they had it, and they were able to use it, they would actually be better off.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(05:06) - The Trust Tree: The cloud has changed marketing forever

*(30:05) - The Playbook: AI needs to be trusted and people need to be responsible

*(46:57) - The Dust Up:

*(49:54) - Quick Hits: Jacqueline’s Quick Hits

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
Connect with Jacqueline on LinkedIn
Read: Enterprise 2030: Building the AI-powered company of the future
Learn more about Teradata
Learn more about Caspian Studios

enNovember 14, 2023

The End of Marketing Stagnation: Simple Content and a Strong Brand Strategy

This episode features an interview with Jessica Shapiro, CMO at LiveRamp, the data collaboration platform for the world’s most innovative companies.

In this episode, Jessica shares with us how brand and demand go hand in hand, why everything you do should be measured, and the importance of avoiding building up silos within your marketing team. Jessica also talks about how she and her team are combating stagnation through producing simple content and fostering a strong brand strategy.

Key Takeaways:

Everything has to be measured. Even the “unmeasurable” aspects of your business needs proxies that can be measured by effectiveness, but everything you do needs to be monitored and appraised in some way to better understand effectiveness.
A strong brand strategy is not stagnant. If you’re looking to run a differentiated brand, which you should be, you need a strong brand strategy. Your brand cannot live in PowerPoint; it needs to have room to breathe and grow, and teams need to be constantly evaluating alignment cross-functionally within the company.
Interdependencies are key. Making sure you don’t build up silos within your marketing team leads to the best marketing. We all have the same goals. The way relationships become strong isn’t simply through human nature, it’s data driven, so when any and all information is shared across teams, success abounds.

Quote:

“I started with a differentiated brand and understanding that buyer's journey. It's not a channel or a tactic, but it is everything. If you do not get the whole company singing off the same page, it's very hard to make a difference. So, for me coming in, it was taking that time to do the rigorous research, talk to customers, get alignment with our leadership, get a strong brand story, train our marketing, build the marketing materials, and then train our sellers to use those same stories as they are talking to their customers. So having the whole organization moving together, we revealed our brand platform at our major customer event, Ramp Up…and it was this incredible organizing principle around data collaboration and so my “not cut” is strong brand strategy and I believe a strong brand strategy is not stagnant. It has to live and breathe and grow and everyone has to continue to be aligned.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(06:07) - The Trust Tree: Bringing companies together to exchange first-party data in a privacy-safe way

*(22:29) - The Playbook: Your whole company should be singing off of the same page

*(35:30) - The Dust Up: The most effective marketing is through layering your messaging in every channel

*(37:40) - Quick Hits: Jessica’s Quick Hits

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:

enNovember 07, 2023

Scaling Success: Breaking Down Organizational Silos

This episode features an interview with Andy Nester, CMO at Firstup, the world’s first intelligent communication platform.

In this episode, Andy gives us the scoop on why Firstup is the best in the business at delivering information to individual workers, how he and his team help large organizations personalize experiences for their workers, and his approach to in-depth problem solving for customers. Andy also shares about his work breaking down organizational silos and how that helps scale success for businesses.

Key Takeaways

Build communities based on who you’re specifically trying to serve. The more you attempt to attract and engage a community of multiple roles and various functions, you inadvertently water down the value you offer. Identify your persona’s shared purpose and get laser focused on how they are collectively marching toward the same objective.
Large companies need a platform where they can communicate with every single worker. Utilizing a platform that automates communication at scale with individual employees is key in successfully understanding your workforce and making data driven decisions.
If you want to scale, you need to identify and break down organizational silos. Whether it’s sales, marketing, or otherwise, when teams work individually, they risk losing knowledge and insights that could help the company grow as a whole.

Quote:

“Most companies when they think about communicating to the workforce, it's a lot of knowledge workers, desk workers, people who sit behind a laptop like this. But in reality, 70% of the world's workforce doesn't have an email address. They don't sit behind a desk. So being able to communicate with them and understand how those employees are either engaged or disengaged is really, really difficult if you don't have a platform that can automate this type of communication at scale and in a personalized way to capture all those insights that can exist. When you keep that connection with the workforce and use those insights to really identify where there is potential challenges with retention, where there are productivity issues, where there are opportunities for advancement for people, where you should deliver more L&D, for example, there's lots and lots of great things that come out of really understanding the workforce down to an individual level.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(04:27) - The Trust Tree: Being the best in the market at delivering information at the right time, in the right place to every individual worker.

*(22:57) - The Playbook: Nothing is uncuttable.

*(41:14) - The Dust Up: Stay calm and approach tension thoughtfully

*(42:26) - Quick Hits: Andy’s Quick Hits

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:

enOctober 31, 2023

The Modern CMO: A Cornerstone of Services and Success

This episode features an interview with Jenny Victor, CMO at Epicor, a company focused on solutions that help their customers with big-picture inventory management, forecasting, and timely delivery.

In this episode, Jenny shares with us how compelling content should be at the center of all that you do, how consumability is key when reaching prospective customers, and the unique strategies Epicor is employing to stand out in a crowded marketing landscape. Jenny also shares a new vision for what it means to be a CMO in our modern world and what that looks like when it comes to services and customer success.

Key Takeaways:

The role of CMO is evolving. Being a CMO isn’t just about the demand side of things anymore; it’s about impact and driving the business. CMOs are now blending more with the services and success side of the house, which gives marketers a more strategic role in a business.
Content is king. Content is at the center of everything you do, so it’s something that needs to be constantly invested in. It also needs to be eye catching, compelling, and consumable above anything else.
Create space for peer to peer experiences. Marketing and sales go hand in hand, so marketers working directly with sales helps to accelerate the sales part of the funnel. Acceleration events, where prospects are brought together with SMEs so everyone can learn more about each other, what everyone does, as well as use cases for products, provides a space for everyone to get on the same page and visualize the same goals.

Quote:

“ I think one of my final thoughts for all the marketers that are listening to this, see if you can find the cool stuff and make it work for you. I think we all want the big hype and we all want the cool stuff. We are fortunate enough to sponsor an F1 car, Alpha Tauri. That is so fun with Drive to Survive. We've done a lot of cool, fun things with it, but we've made it meaningful in the story because Alpha Tauri uses our product to make sure that car's ready for every race. Those 14,000 parts are where they need them to be. And I think it's being able to find that cool stuff and make it work for you.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(05:39) - The Trust Tree: The most essential ERP partner to the most essential businesses

*(10:53) - The Playbook: Content is king

*(37:02) - Quick Hits: Jenny’s Quick Hits

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:

enOctober 24, 2023