Navigating massive technology revolutions as a marketing leader, learn how CMOs thoughtfully approach AI experimentation and investing in AI products for their tech stack.
0:00
Okay, so hi everyone and welcome to our CMO roundtable. My name is Mora and the
0:06
CMO here at Qualified.
0:07
And I am joined by two incredible marketing leaders. We have Shannon, who's the
0:12
CMO at Asana. Hello, Shannon.
0:14
All right.
0:14
And we have Kasur, who's the co-founder of GoldCast. So welcome you guys.
0:19
Hi, Mora. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, Shannon.
0:22
Yeah, great to be here.
0:23
So I am so excited about this session because Asana and GoldCast are two of my
0:29
favorite pieces
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of technology. And they're two of the pieces of tech that are absolutely
0:33
integral to Pipeline Summit AI.
0:36
Coming to life, Asana behind the scenes leading up to it and then GoldCast, of
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course, as our streaming platform.
0:42
So super excited to talk with you guys about all things AI and what's on your
0:46
mind from a marketing perspective.
0:48
So before we go in to kind of how you're folding AI into your strategies for
0:53
next year, one thing
0:54
that's super exciting is you guys have all brought new AI products into market
0:59
over the last couple
1:00
months. So we'd love to tell the audience a little bit about kind of what your
1:03
AI products and
1:04
capabilities are before we go in. Kasur, you guys just launched GoldCast
1:08
Content Lab just a few weeks
1:10
ago. Can you tell the audience a little bit about that and kind of how it works
1:14
from an AI perspective?
1:15
Yeah, for sure. I think the whole context behind the launch was that it's so
1:20
tough to have these kinds
1:22
of conversations, right? And I at least believe that events produce such
1:27
authentic content for
1:28
marketers. And a lot of times it goes to the website as an on-demand content
1:32
for 60 minutes.
1:33
And nobody really tries to consume that because it's so long and it's so tough
1:36
to consume.
1:37
The whole sort of concept behind the AI content lab is how do we take these
1:42
video recordings from
1:43
events, be it field marketing events, webinars, product launches and use AI to
1:48
generate snackable
1:49
content post event, be it video clips, be it blog post, etc. So that we can
1:54
actually generate a lot
1:55
more views and engagement because people are like us are used to a lot more
1:59
short form clips,
1:59
etc. That's a quick sort of overview of the launch. We're excited to see how
2:03
the customer's using
2:04
the product, but yeah, that's a quick overview. That's awesome. You guys are
2:07
evolving from an
2:08
event platform to a full content platform. Yes. Shannon, tell us about Asana AI
2:14
. Nothing
2:15
this event would be possible without Asana. And you guys have kind of woven in
2:19
a lot of cool
2:19
little tips and tricks and shortcuts into the platform. Can you tell us a
2:23
little bit about how
2:24
you guys have woven AI into the Asana platform? Yeah, absolutely. So Asana is
2:28
the world's leading
2:30
enterprise work management platform. So we essentially make work easier, make
2:33
more transparent,
2:34
work more productive for everyone. And so AI has seamlessly kind of layered
2:39
into our platform.
2:40
So if you think about how AI makes it easier for people to do things, AI and As
2:45
ana tell us,
2:46
it makes it easier for people to do the work. We like to say it helps people
2:49
work smarter by
2:50
automating things like status updates, by automating things like the health
2:56
check to see how well
2:57
your project is doing. All of this is really designed to automate the more
3:01
tedious stuff. So
3:03
humans can really do the creative stuff that we all love in our jobs day to day
3:06
Well, I think the kind of unifying factor between both of your AI products is
3:11
it's just making
3:12
everything faster and more efficient. What I'd love to hear about is how you
3:16
brought those products
3:18
to life into the market. I remember a year ago was kind of, we did our first
3:23
pipeline summit and
3:24
then a few weeks later was chat GPT emerged. And there was this frenzy of how
3:29
are we going to
3:29
weave this into our product roadmap? How are we going to bring this to market?
3:32
How are we going
3:32
to be seen as innovators with our customers? But there's this fine line that
3:37
you also don't want to
3:38
build or launch products too quickly that it's seen as just an AI flash in the
3:44
pan or trend or
3:45
something that wasn't well thought out. And there's been so much rapid
3:49
development from an AI perspective.
3:50
We've all run broadened AI products to life this past year. I would love to
3:55
hear from you,
3:55
Shannon, how did you think about bringing your AI products to life and ensuring
4:00
that there was
4:00
trust with your customer base when you kind of revealed your new AI
4:03
functionality?
4:04
Yeah, I love this question because I think again, I know exactly what you're
4:08
talking about,
4:08
where I like all the enough was everyone knew about AI and we'd all been
4:11
talking about AI
4:12
from a product roadmap perspective. But all of a sudden it was like, boom, go,
4:16
what's your story,
4:17
what's your launch? So I think for us, the good news about Asana is we had been
4:21
thinking about
4:21
that for a long time and the way our platform or infrastructure was built, the
4:25
work graph,
4:26
it was really easy for AI to be a really ineffective tool. I think a couple
4:30
things though, I think
4:31
people were a little skeptical, like what is this? Like, the meme you would
4:35
hear is like,
4:36
our robots going to take over a type of thing. And so at Asana, when we
4:39
launched the AI capabilities
4:41
in our product, we also launched some principles guiding principles for how we
4:45
think of AI.
4:46
And you can read them on our website, but fundamentally, we believe, we use the
4:49
term AI has joined the team
4:51
that AI is not going to replace us and what makes us unique and special and the
4:56
ability we have as
4:57
marketers or other sort of professionals or knowledge workers in the space.
5:02
What we are going to do
5:03
is help it make it easier for us to unlock that amazing creativity, the things
5:08
that we do on top
5:09
of it. And so that's when we were bringing our products up to market and we
5:12
were launching it.
5:13
That was really important for the messaging is that this is going to make you
5:16
more productive.
5:17
You're these two things working together to really drive maximum business
5:21
productivity
5:22
versus an either or and throw at everything you've been doing. AI is the future
5:26
. Is it future?
5:27
Yes, but it is bringing us along from where we've come in the past.
5:30
That's fantastic. How about you, Kishore? Did you guys, did you see any hesit
5:35
ancy from your
5:36
customers as you released the new products? I know it's one from our team as
5:39
kind of part of the
5:40
user testing experience along the way. But how is it received from your
5:45
customer base?
5:46
Yeah, so I think we have, I would say, 50% customers from the wind market
5:51
segment
5:51
who are a lot more interested to adopt it anything very quickly because these
5:56
teams are so lean
5:58
and the CMOs and CEOs have such large mandate for next year. So it's time to
6:02
figure out how do I
6:03
do more with less. So they're very quick to adopt these tools and they didn't
6:06
have a lot of
6:07
inclination towards security or data privacy, etc. But as you go to enterprise
6:13
companies,
6:14
the first question that we get asked is how do we make sure that this data
6:17
doesn't get used
6:18
for other models being used out there? So how do we have a very private cloud
6:23
model
6:23
ensured that make sure that these models are used only for the air client and
6:28
not for other
6:29
clients becomes a very important mandate that you have to get out of the market
6:33
So there's a difference in response we saw from mid-market enterprise clients.
6:37
But overall,
6:38
I think to watch hand-and-set, I think the messaging we used was it'll help you
6:43
save so much time
6:44
compared to ensuring that your teams get replaced. And that is very powerful
6:48
enough for marketing
6:49
teams to adopt the tools that they're using. Yeah, I mean, especially right now
6:53
, we all could
6:53
use more time, more resources. Shannon, I'd love to kind of double-click on
6:58
something you said.
6:59
And we were talking about this during our prep call. Like a year ago, there was
7:03
this AI revolution
7:05
and we all were like, is it going to replace people on our team? Is it going to
7:09
replace our
7:10
time and make things better? And we just thought the whole world was going to
7:15
change. And then we
7:17
look at today and we've learned a lot over the last year. A lot of the tech
7:20
that we use has
7:21
unveiled their AI technology. We've started to use it more in our everyday
7:25
lives. But I don't know
7:27
if the world has changed maybe as drastically as we thought it would a year ago
7:32
today. What's your
7:33
take on kind of how AI is helping marketers and how impactful has it been this
7:39
past year?
7:40
Yeah, I love this question too, because I think we aren't changing, right? But
7:44
we're changing.
7:45
And I think maybe the AI, the potential for AI is definitely something that all
7:51
of us,
7:51
especially those of us that have worked in tech for a long time, are like, okay
7:54
this is definitely a paradigm shift. But again, it's like, how are we
7:59
integrating AI into the tools
8:01
that we stay? And so from a marketing perspective, it has not replaced by
8:05
marketing team. Like,
8:06
it is not replacing on that creativeness, that connection with our customer,
8:09
that deep understanding
8:11
of our product and the ability to make messaging, pithy and resonating and
8:14
unique. But what it
8:15
has done is automate things that like, I don't really enjoy doing in the first
8:20
place, right? Like,
8:22
writing job descriptions. Now, it may not write it 100%, but if I get it 85%,
8:27
and then I can put
8:27
that 10, 15% on top that makes it unique to Asana or unique to what I'm looking
8:32
for,
8:32
it will give me thought starter ideas for a brainstorm meeting, right? Again,
8:36
things that
8:37
are going to like help help with time. You know, in the Asana product in
8:41
particular,
8:42
we are going to be launching something where if you have a project, AI can help
8:46
write your status,
8:47
right? Like, that's amazing. Like, you know, you have all the information in
8:50
there, if AI can help
8:51
make the status update, and I can kind of, you know, make it, you know, make
8:54
sure it's correct,
8:55
maybe add some stuff like those are really great time saving things that enable
8:59
me to think,
9:00
all right, how do I connect with my customers better? How do I have that
9:03
messaging that's going
9:04
to be, you know, in that bullseye that really connects with them? That's why I
9:07
got into marketing
9:08
to do. So I've seen it kind of help with like the more stuff that I didn't want
9:11
to do anyway,
9:12
so I can be more creative. So my team can be more creative. That's a good point
9:16
. Being able to
9:17
focus on those big ticket items and viewing it as more like an assistant or a
9:21
co-pilot.
9:22
How about you, Kishore, if you look back a year ago, has AI been more impactful
9:27
less impactful to a marketer's life than you thought it would originally be?
9:30
Yeah. For us, the particular use case, we're of helping marketers repurpose the
9:36
video content
9:37
post event, right? Typically companies have these internal agencies or internal
9:42
video teams
9:44
who get blocked by so many video requests coming their way, right? They're just
9:48
like constantly
9:48
figuring out what video should I work on, etc, etc. So the whole tools of help
9:53
marketers become
9:53
video editors themselves so that all these internal teams can work on really
9:58
high priority work,
9:59
right? For example, if Craig is taking on an event tomorrow, right? Their team
10:03
should focus on
10:04
that particular request rather than figuring out how should we repurpose the
10:07
webinar post
10:08
that happened a couple of weeks back. So to Shannon's point, I think it has
10:11
really helped
10:13
cut down the repetitive tasks that we are all used to doing and focus our
10:17
efforts into these
10:18
high priority tasks so that we get our creative minds are actually used for
10:22
that rather than working
10:22
on those things. That's how I think about it and that's how we're seeing our
10:25
customers do it as
10:26
well. So it's exciting to see what's happening next year. The one role though,
10:30
I would say that
10:31
we are excited about to see if it works is to scale the SDR team, right?
10:38
Sometimes SDR teams
10:39
report into marketing, right? And there's a lot of manual work involved there
10:44
as well, right?
10:45
In terms of figuring out contacts, how do you look at LinkedIn profiles first?
10:48
I think reach out.
10:49
So thinking through that also is very exciting, but that one role, I think, I
10:53
think could also
10:54
have a lot of look through AI as a whole technology. One thing that I'd love to
10:59
pick your brains
11:00
on or as this new AI technology emerges, both for marketing and for sales team,
11:05
how willing are you guys to let go of some things? This is one thing I've
11:09
thought about a lot because
11:11
as marketers, we want to scale, we want to be more efficient, but I'll speak
11:15
for myself. I'm kind
11:16
of a control freak. I want to make sure that I don't know if I want to let
11:21
email loose on my
11:22
buyers to write the whole message and do it all for me. I want to make sure our
11:27
buyers are seeing
11:29
the right message and they're seeing at the right time and it's personalized
11:32
and it's high quality.
11:34
That's something that's so important to all of our brands. How do you guys
11:37
think about letting go
11:39
a little bit to AI? Is that just where we're headed? How do you balance AI that
11:44
gives you that
11:45
feedback loop versus AI that you just can train but then send off and cross
11:50
your fingers that it
11:51
works? I think that's the thing that's the hardest for me is learning to let go
11:55
a little bit when
11:56
it's customer-facing content. Shen, you go fast.
11:59
Yeah, I think that's really... I totally. Maybe there's something that we have
12:04
in common all going
12:05
into marketing with a little bit of control freakiness. I agree. I kind of look
12:09
at it two ways. One,
12:10
for me, it's been how do I empower my team to experiment, which is not exactly
12:15
what you're asking,
12:16
but it's similar because they're creating this content that's customer-facing.
12:20
It's like,
12:20
how do we create a culture of experimentation and wanting to understand this
12:26
and take it from the
12:27
unknown to the known from our marketing? That's a culture of stuff that we're
12:30
driving.
12:31
I think from your perspective, though, that goes back to, I play with it a lot
12:38
and it can
12:38
write really good things and it also can write things that maybe aren't perfect
12:41
yet. For me,
12:42
it's like, how do we use it as a way to get a few steps faster down the line,
12:48
not from zero
12:49
to completely done? That's where the humans come in. That's where the people
12:53
have come in that
12:54
can vet it and can really understand how it is going. That's why I don't see us
12:58
giving it over
12:59
right away or anytime soon, but it gives us ideas to try some new things and it
13:05
will help us do
13:06
the basics faster. That's what I really want to encourage the team to use and
13:10
experiment.
13:10
Who knows? Maybe someday we'll write it completely, but we're not there quite
13:14
yet.
13:14
It really is the humans plus AI together. Just this one point that I do watch
13:19
on my channel and said, I was actually recently thinking that the amount of
13:23
steps it takes to
13:24
create a campaign, be it a landing page, be it a copy, be it a creative asset,
13:30
the amount of steps
13:32
it takes to get there, sometimes it's so hard for a CEO or a CXO to understand
13:37
the steps involved
13:38
in those kinds of things. There are a bunch of tasks that just get done every
13:43
month, every week,
13:45
all the whole algorithm reporting, except for so I'm excited about automating
13:49
those things in
13:50
general so that the teams can free up to do high value tasks rather than doing
13:53
it for the sake
13:54
of doing it. This is just one point I'm very deeply involved in looking at our
13:59
own campaigns
14:00
for next year's planning to ensure that those things can be taken out of
14:03
someone's plate.
14:04
I think it's been an interesting time for us as marketers because we've all had
14:09
to rethink
14:10
our strategies, our tech stack, how we do things where there's probably room
14:14
for more efficiencies.
14:15
I feel like it's pushed us to not just do the same old the way we used to
14:20
because sure we'd love to
14:21
talk more about quality, kind of what we were going back to you earlier because
14:24
with the evolution of
14:26
content lab, you guys, we were saying you've gone from an events platform to a
14:31
full content platform
14:32
and I think we're at this interesting place in both our consumer lives and our
14:36
business lives
14:37
where there is content everywhere. We go into Netflix, we go into all the
14:41
streaming platforms,
14:41
there's so much content there and you go into LinkedIn and all of a sudden
14:45
every company can
14:46
create videos with a snap, they can create blog posts in a snap. So how do you
14:50
think about making
14:51
sure that you're still focused on quality from a content perspective and how do
14:56
you think that in
14:57
the coming year, certain companies can make sure that they're still creating
15:01
compelling content,
15:02
kind of cutting through the noise because it's pretty noisy out there right now
15:05
Well, so very honestly, we're gonna figure that out to be honest with you, we
15:08
're also going through
15:09
the same exercise of what is working and what's not working and it's so tough
15:12
to generate pipeline
15:13
right now. It's just so hard, this economy to figure out what's working and
15:17
what's not working.
15:18
From our sense, I think what we are excited about is I think two things are
15:22
happening. One is
15:24
in general without or with AI, the cost of content production has just
15:28
decreased so much
15:30
right with iPhone, anybody can record a content and post on LinkedIn and AI
15:35
just supercharged
15:35
the whole content editing part in general. I think the bet we are making is how
15:42
do we make
15:43
sure that we bring authentic conversations like what we're having right now
15:48
right with potential
15:49
prospects with potential customers and bring that voice to the market right and
15:53
in general,
15:54
the one particular area where I'm excited about is video as an asset. I think
15:59
multiple research
16:00
have proven that video is a lot more effective in helping people retain the
16:04
information than
16:05
just text. So how do we bring such conversations like this and do a lot more
16:10
derivative content
16:11
out of these videos is one thing we're thinking about and I think that probably
16:15
is what the future
16:16
will look like in terms of how do you become a lot more human first in your
16:20
content approach
16:21
because everything will look the same after a point of time in some form. So
16:26
that's like the
16:26
big bet we are making in the next year or so. How about you Shannon, this is a
16:31
bit of a pivot
16:32
just it doesn't need to be AI specific but what are you guys focused on from a
16:35
content perspective
16:36
to kind of cut through the noise? Yeah so there's so much content right like
16:40
there's content like
16:42
we produce there's content that I have to consume and I think you know going
16:46
back to like you know
16:47
AI humans what does it mean for marketers like I have to tell you like it's I
16:51
don't want to say
16:52
it's easy to create content because it's not but it is emotion that most
16:55
marketers are comfortable
16:56
with. What is not as easy is creating content that actually relevant is reson
17:01
ates with your customers
17:02
and that they find differentiated and meaningful and so what I've kind of been
17:06
pushing my team
17:07
for it's like it's not enough enough to create a deck or a podcast or a you
17:12
know session for
17:13
event whatever whatever whatever flavor of content fine there is no substitute
17:19
for sitting across
17:20
the table at someone who has a you know virtual checkbook that they can buy
17:24
your you know product
17:25
service whatever and see how they respond to it right and so that's where it's
17:28
like it's less
17:29
about like creating the content it's more about like is this the right message
17:34
and meaningful and
17:35
that's something that AI can't do yet right like that's not something that like
17:39
I can create a deck
17:40
and it can like help me iterate but what we can't do is actually sit with one
17:42
of our customers and
17:43
tell me if it resonates or not and so that's where it's like how do we do less
17:47
better different
17:49
like that that's what we're really focused on so it's not just about flooding
17:52
the channels it's
17:52
like if we have three really good things that nobody but a son that can offer
17:56
and a value
17:57
prop that that people can only get from us that's when we've achieved success
18:00
and that's what we're
18:01
focused on for next year and whereas AI come in well AI is going to help us
18:04
maybe with some ideas
18:05
and help us with the basics but it's not going to crack that magic quote white
18:08
yes and now
18:09
so the humans come in well that that's so well said well i'm sure you really
18:12
were i added this
18:13
mistake very early on where you have a checklist of things that that team has
18:16
to produce every month
18:18
every month three blog articles one podcast one event and i've just just doesn
18:23
't work after a
18:24
point of time so less things different high quality to watch and said i think
18:28
that totally
18:29
resonates with what at least we hope to do next year yeah probably because it
18:33
confuses your customer
18:34
and it confuses your field too right like most of us if you're like having you
18:38
know like a b2b
18:38
motion you're your salespeople consume your content just as much your customers
18:42
do you have a lot of
18:43
stuff that's not differentiated they don't know what to use they don't know
18:45
what to set
18:46
them with their customers right so it just is like composed of even worse well
18:49
i think it's a time
18:51
where people could easily turn to quantity because it's easier to produce now
18:55
but that
18:56
a point you guys is how do we focus on quality how do we focus on the messaging
18:59
that resonates and
19:00
those and i think also distribution like this is something we can be guilty of
19:04
as well you create
19:05
this great piece you consider it you mark it done in a sauna because nothing
19:08
feels better than
19:09
marking a project not in a sauna but but but the project is not done then the
19:15
project needs to be
19:16
done when you when you have hit certain kpi's in terms of eyeballs or
19:21
engagement or metrics i think
19:22
that's something we're trying to really push ourselves on is that distribution
19:26
model of how
19:26
can we make sure we're thinking about that as well just to what this one point
19:29
you know one of our
19:31
i think uh small angel investors since article recently where he said this
19:35
company used ai to
19:37
generate like thousand pieces of content every month and the SEO went up by
19:41
like 100 percent or
19:42
whatever right and and those things really sort of create FOMO amongst the team
19:45
figuring out should
19:46
we also do that right but doesn't work in the long term so i i just think
19:49
quality doesn't work
19:51
in a lot of these areas we'll just instead of that's great well i think you
19:56
guys have started
19:57
talking about looking forward to 2024 we're all in budget planning we're in
20:02
strategic planning for
20:03
next year one question somebody asked me recently that i'd love to ask you guys
20:07
is
20:08
are you gonna have a line item in your budget for ai experimentation is that
20:12
something that resonates
20:13
with you uh she and i would love to start with you so i think it does it does
20:18
right and i they
20:18
talked about building that culture of experimentation and feeling like wanting
20:22
to get more comfortable
20:23
with and really pushing the boundaries of this and what it means for marketers
20:26
right because i feel
20:26
like no one has figured it out so it's like why don't we ask like let's let's
20:29
make sure right here's
20:30
what i will say them we're not like i'm really looking at my vendors and being
20:33
like what is
20:34
your ai strategy right it's less about like buying a new vendor that's going to
20:38
fix ai it's like
20:39
no no like if you are going to be a strategic vendor to me a strategic partner
20:43
in driving like
20:44
marketing business telling me how ai is going to supercharge the tools i
20:48
already use today once
20:50
i'm comfortable with that are integrated in my system so that's the
20:52
conversation that that i'm
20:53
having less about is there something new new ai thing that i need to buy hmm
20:59
how about you kashore
21:01
yeah similar but i we don't have a line item in the budget but the three areas
21:06
that we are
21:06
actively looking at tools to help us in general is one that's campaign
21:10
operations in general right
21:11
can be effectively supercharged or campaign ops from landing pages etc that is
21:16
one second is you
21:18
know other tools like qualified abm platforms that can help in identifying
21:22
account signals
21:23
based on like a lot of data available in the market to see which account should
21:25
be go after
21:26
a third is just content distribution in general right how do we make sure that
21:30
we increase our
21:30
distribution from offer content so overall three areas you're looking at but no
21:35
line item in general
21:36
in our budget item that's great we're thinking about it the same way you need
21:40
the vendors that
21:41
you trust to have a point of view you need them to weave it into their
21:45
technology it's not just
21:46
buying some flashy new thing that can help you do the thousand blog posts it's
21:50
making sure
21:51
the tech you guys are already using has that woven in kashore would love to
21:55
kind of expand on
21:56
you're talking about some of your pipe gen strategies and how you guys are
22:00
thinking about
22:01
account identification um how are you thinking about using ai to help you with
22:06
pipeline generation
22:08
as a go as we go into 2024 anything that you're super excited about it's a good
22:12
question we're also in terms of pipe gen i think one thing we are actively
22:19
looking into is
22:20
we have so much data in terms of who's doing what across a different kinds of
22:26
activities right
22:27
a let's say for example octa right somebody from octa came to an event they
22:30
went to the website
22:31
so we are just figuring out how do we identify buying groups uh in general and
22:36
what they engage
22:37
with with different kinds of content and what does it work to get them to a
22:41
pipeline stage right
22:42
is it an event plus an str motion or is it a different playbook so just trying
22:47
to figure out
22:47
if there are any patterns to see hey this account at this particular segment at
22:52
this particular size
22:53
needs four to five touch points and these involve a bcd to get there that's the
22:58
kind of math we
22:58
are doing it to ensure that we are optimizing our strategy uh but there are a
23:03
few more things
23:04
on the content distribution side as well right in terms of using our video
23:07
assets to help us
23:09
create more personalized video content for their prospects and syndica across
23:13
to them but um
23:15
those are the two main things we're experimenting with right now nothing that
23:19
increased yes up now
23:19
how about you shinin what's top of mind for you as you think about pipe gen
23:24
which is
23:25
p1 always for cmo's but it's been hard this last year if you have your heart
23:29
that are
23:30
tried and true for you well so just what i was saying it's probably like
23:34
unpopular burning like i
23:34
think next year i think last last year was was hard for all marketers i think i
23:40
don't see it
23:41
i don't see the sky's opening with joy and for marketers anytime soon so in
23:46
some ways that's bad
23:46
in some ways i do think it is it is taught us i mean we're gonna get back to
23:51
basics and it goes back to
23:52
what is our message what is our value and how do we tell that as clearly and
23:58
hit the lead and
23:59
emotionally as possible to our customers and so for us it's like you know
24:03
rebuilding the playbook on
24:05
how you connect with these people where where are the events that you meet them
24:09
what is the
24:10
message that you tell them how do you show them similar customer stories right
24:14
and really building
24:15
campaigns around that like there's elements that we need to make sure we have
24:18
in each campaign for
24:19
it to be successful it's the message the customer story it's the it's the um
24:23
that the medium or the
24:24
venue that we're doing and just being laser focused on what is resonating with
24:28
our customers so
24:29
it and then again it's like maybe not a new motion but ais hope you'll see that
24:33
i know uh somebody was talking about the when it's spring and there's snow
24:39
everywhere and you're
24:40
looking for those shoots of grass you're like i think i see when like i think i
24:44
see spring is coming
24:45
but we don't know if it is yet so i think we're all kind of bracing for a
24:49
longer winter but i do
24:51
think we've learned a lot this last year of like the back to basics what works
24:56
what doesn't how do we
24:59
because you know rewind two years ago or three years ago we and more euphoric
25:03
times we were more
25:05
indulgent we were probably spending more we probably had bigger teen but this
25:09
year it was kind of a
25:10
reset and i think we're entering 2024 probably with more confidence than we
25:14
entered 2023 2023 the
25:17
world changed ai emerged it was kind of scary and now it's like okay we kind of
25:22
know what we're
25:23
probably getting that over the next six months i told and i will say one thing
25:27
though like the
25:28
difference for me which has been like events are back and in person events
25:33
right like and that to me
25:34
it's like okay like we kind of missed that for several years with covid and of
25:38
course for marketers
25:39
we did amazing virtual events and people still go to virtual events there's
25:42
value in that but like
25:43
having those forums to really engage with your customers and bring them
25:48
together like we have
25:50
seen tremendous success and that's a huge cornerstone of our strategy next year
25:54
it's like getting in
25:55
front of people and getting that feedback which is still that sort of like that
25:58
special secret
25:59
sauce of marketing that we love so much yes we missed it and Shannon i'd love
26:02
to hear any type
26:04
of event that you're particularly excited about because we're doing our
26:06
planning for next year
26:07
and we're looking at trade shows we're looking at owned events that are larger
26:11
customer conferences
26:12
you know executive dinners like bringing those back for deal acceleration is
26:16
there a certain
26:17
bucket we're doing all of them because we've seen if you talk about those green
26:22
shoots tomorrow
26:23
we're seeing the green shoots with all of them if that makes sense and so i
26:25
look at them and
26:26
sort of like kind of like three buckets like you said there is you know at
26:30
scale which are the big
26:31
trade shows they're sort of more targeted which is the industry strategy and
26:34
how do you have make
26:35
sure you then if you go to industry events it's not just enough to go to
26:38
industry event how which
26:39
what's your demo in that industry what are your use cases in the industry those
26:43
dinners for you know
26:44
pipe mat and relationship building and also asana piloted our first buyer event
26:49
this past month
26:50
like our own call it the work innovation summit and that's tremendous like it
26:53
is our moment to
26:54
own the stage our moment to really you know put a stake in the ground and talk
26:58
about our point of
26:59
view and that was you know very very well received so how do we scale and grow
27:03
that program over the
27:04
next year that's great and kashore events are obviously in your wheelhouse you
27:08
guys kind of
27:08
grew up during covid you took under stage with virtual events but i know you
27:13
guys are expanding
27:14
into in-person events i think we're using your field marketing um let reg page
27:18
for something
27:19
coming up um so how are you thinking about the balance of virtual versus in-
27:22
person events
27:23
especially as we go into 2024 harverson marathi i think so one the key buckets
27:29
of investment for
27:30
us from an event standpoint is we'll do digital but we are going big or a few
27:35
conferences earlier
27:37
used to spray and pray that let's go to every trade show do a small party with
27:41
some partners
27:41
and it doesn't didn't work so doing few you know important events like for us
27:46
to guard they're
27:46
going big on them and then a lot of them is smaller dinners and events i just
27:51
particularly
27:52
believe that the smaller road shows and dinners are a lot more effective than
27:56
spending a million
27:56
dollars or a couple of million on a on a big conference right i just think that
28:01
those connections
28:02
are just so tough to replicate and it's easier to form a point of view with
28:04
those people uh so
28:06
our strategies around go big on a few conferences plan these smaller intimate
28:11
field marketing events
28:11
and approaches across a few cities and then use digital to cover the awareness
28:15
standpoint and get
28:16
more people know about it just that's i would just add one thing on that like
28:19
because like
28:21
well we're finding it's not enough to do a dinner right like i can go to any
28:24
restaurant i can
28:25
do my i can have dinner by myself like it's like what are we talking about like
28:29
what is the topic
28:30
what is the subject who are the people i'm going to meet and that's like that's
28:33
what i'm seeing
28:34
separates sort of a dinner from a strategic pipe maturation event is what are
28:38
we talking about
28:39
who am i meeting what am i taking away at the end of that dinner no that's a
28:43
great point sure
28:44
and on that point just to add to the point we did a multiple different formats
28:48
one is a small
28:49
happy art which nobody came and one is a format where we had a panel discussion
28:53
with the customer
28:54
talking about how their lives are going to be changed by a particular topic and
28:58
people were a
28:59
lot more receptive to that because they hit learning something for dinner and
29:01
they're not just
29:02
taken like you know good food it's some learning involved in those dinners as
29:05
well so very very
29:06
effective format if you're thinking about these field dinners and road shows i
29:09
have a parallel
29:10
discussion and then and a small breakout after that that's the magic when you
29:14
can get a customer
29:15
in like a late stage prospect talking to each other there's nothing
29:18
so we're going to close out but would love to hear crystal ball as you look to
29:25
2024
29:27
where do you what do you think is next for AI in marketing and if you don't
29:31
have a game changing
29:32
answer that's okay too but where do you think AI is going to take us as
29:35
marketers next year
29:36
shall many thoughts from you i think it's going to continue to evolve i think
29:43
it will i think it
29:44
will start evolving a little bit faster i think the marketing departments that
29:49
are going to like i
29:50
don't want to say win but are truly going to like difference with it themselves
29:53
or the ones are
29:54
going to build a culture of experimentation and comfortableness with the
29:58
unknown and really
30:00
revolutionized revolutionized how they how they change the way they do
30:04
marketing how they can crack
30:05
that code and maybe getting that content just a little like more precise more
30:10
emotionally
30:10
connection and so it's kind of be a kind of race a little bit but i kind of
30:13
think of that is fun to
30:15
figure that out and then it's really going to be for all those tools that we
30:18
use every day it's
30:19
like how quickly can the vendors that we use we all have similar text how can
30:23
they put that
30:25
technology into make our lives easier it's awesome you know i wish a world more
30:30
aware we have
30:31
you know a co-pilot for everyone offers where i can just ask questions and it
30:34
sort of magically
30:35
throws me answers for example if a campaign gets over right i did just ask
30:39
question how many of my
30:41
target accounts gave to the event and it just answers me a question and stuff
30:44
going to a marketing
30:45
ops post and getting a report or something like that right so really exciting
30:49
investing
30:49
advancements happening in the whole space but i also want to make sure that you
30:53
know folks
30:54
don't get pressurized to update technologies you know it's not it's not a lifes
30:59
aver or a
31:00
game saver it obviously helps in a lot of ways but i think we started to our
31:03
own individual jobs
31:05
as well and apart from the whole the transformation is happening like
31:09
kashore my answer would be very similar to yours is like generative analytics
31:13
like how did this
31:14
work and just spit it out without having to like dig through the data tap your
31:18
bark vinox
31:18
person shoulder um well this is fantastic kashore chan and thank you guys so
31:23
much for joining us today
31:25
at pipeline summit ai at our cmo round table again huge fans of both cold cast
31:29
and asana so it's
31:30
really fun to all be together in person um and we'll see you next time yeah
31:42
thank you ronah
31:43
so
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