Salesforce Trailblazer Spotlight: Tigh Loughhead
We sat down with Salesforce MVP Tigh Loughhead to talk about all things Pardot and Conversational Marketing.
Maura Rivera
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We sat down with Salesforce MVP Tigh Loughhead to talk about all things Pardot and Conversational Marketing.
For our latest Salesforce Pardot Trailblazer spotlight, we sat down with Tigh Loughhead. Tigh has deep roots in the Salesforce Community: he’s a 4X Salesforce certified admin, a 2X Salesforce MVP, a regular Dreamforce speaker, and co-leader of the New York Trailblazer Community Group for Pardot B2B Marketing. When he’s not heads down in Salesforce Pardot, he’s probably riding motorcycles or running Gotham Ducati, the official Desmo Owners’ Club for New York City.
We chatted with Tigh about his career path, the power of the Trailblazer Community, Pardot Marketing Automation, and Conversational Marketing.
MR (Maura Rivera, Qualified Team): Let’s get started! Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and what you’re up to these days?
TL (Tigh Loughead): Thank you for having me! I run a marketing consultancy called RentBoost and we're located in downtown Manhattan. I've been using Salesforce for about 10 years and Pardot for a little over 5 years. I'm a 2X Salesforce MVP and I’m certified in Google Analytics, Salesforce, Pardot, and Marketing Cloud. I'm a huge fan of Pardot. I help run the Trailblazer Community Group for Pardot B2B Marketing here in New York City and I've been really lucky to help Salesforce test some cool features like Engagement Studio and Pardot Lightning. I was even the first person in the world to test out Pardot Einsteins’ behavior score.
MR: Very cool! Tell me more about Pardot Einstein Behavior Score.
TL: We’ve always had the Pardot Score, which accumulates an individual prospect’s engagement history. But there’s never been a way to examine behavior patterns and indicate their likeliness to buy. Now, with Einstein Behavior Scoring, you can look at how a prospect is engaging with your digital assets and predict if they’re ready to convert.
The Einstein algorithm can say based on everything going on across your digital marketing, this is what’s contributing to leads converting. This email template, this whitepaper, this call to action… this is what’s working. It’s incredibly powerful to marketers. Head on over to Pardot’s Blog to read Tigh's full write-up on Pardot Einstein Behavior Scoring.
MR: How did you get involved in the Salesforce ecosystem?
TL: I came from an analytics and digital marketing background, not a CRM background. I found my way into the Salesforce world from “an Ohana moment”. I showed up at a user group meeting at the Salesforce Tower about four years ago, having just implemented Pardot. I was eager to learn how other people were using Pardot and leveraging Engagement Studio. I came ready to share my story and it turned out I was the only person there who had prepared a presentation.
I was absolutely mortified to speak in public, but the Community was really supportive and happened to be interested in the tactics and strategies that I was sharing. It turns out there were some folks from the Salesforce product team there watching me, and afterwards they invited me to go to Dreamforce and talk about Engagement Studio. They’ve brought me back every year since to talk about Pardot.
MR: You recently worked for a real estate tech company. Have you always worked in the real estate industry?
TL: Nope! My career has been about figuring out solutions to automate processes and pushing companies into a digital transformation. It's really exciting to see how different types of verticals can leverage different marketing strategies to achieve business success.
MR: How do you think Pardot empowers this digital transformation that you’re talking about?
TL: There are three things that I love about Pardot:
MR: You’re leading the Trailblazer Community for Pardot B2B Marketing in New York. A few years ago you showed up blindly and were nervous to present and now you’re leading one of Pardot’s biggest Community groups. What’s that experience been like?
TL: I got started by showing up at every event and contributing. What I get out of it is so rewarding. Trailhead itself (formerly the Success Community) is a great resource and fantastic for troubleshooting.
But most of what I've learned about marketing automation has come from comparing notes with real people using the platform. We talk about best practices and challenges; that sort of sharing, that spirit of community, has helped us grow the group from about 60 people a few years ago to almost 450 Trailblazers today.
One of our more popular programs is what we call “Pardot therapy”. It's an interactive experience where you can bring your issues and share them with people and understand how your peers are solving for those real technical and business problems.
I have to give a shout out to the other New York City Trailblazer Communities. I was at the Developer Trailblazer Community last night with Bill, Carlos, and Matthew … then there’s Carrie from the the Women in Tech Trailblazer Community and the Annie from the Admin Community and more. All of these people are so energetic and supportive. The Community is a resource for people to grow their careers and compare tactics and strategies. There is a huge world out there of people on the platform solving real world problems and it's a pretty awesome community.
MR: You’re a 2X MVP as well as a Trailblazer Community Group Leader. What’s that experience been like?
TL: It’s an honor and a privilege. We get to see incredible presentations from other members of the Trailblazer Community. For instance, we got to see a presentation from a nonprofit organization called Musicians On Call. They arrange incredible musicians to present at the bedside of sick kids. They shared how they’re using Salesforce and Pardot to run their business. It was really inspiring.
MR: Earlier you talked about all of the mind-sharing that the Community fosters. What trends are you seeing in the B2B marketing world right now?
TL: What’s really hot right now is personalization, contextualization, delivering really hyper-targeted, relevant information to consumers. Modern day consumers expect to have their specific needs addressed. Intent based marketing is really huge right now. Capturing people when they demonstrate intent in some specific direction and using that as a segmentation mechanism. Voice is also everywhere right now.
TL: For me, artificial intelligence is the coolest trend and the biggest growth sphere. There's a ton of fluff around A.I. but machine learning, replacing data science, automating business intelligence, and surfacing trends to salespeople and marketers that never would have access to the computing power to make those realizations. Every business is trying to understand or codify what the next best action is in terms of a marketing or sales cadence. I see the beginnings of A.I. being able to do that. That gets me excited about the marketing landscape and where it's going.
MR: That ties in nicely to Conversational Marketing. At Qualified, we want to power more intelligent sales conversations so that people can sell faster, sell smarter, and really improve that marketing to sales handoff. Conversational Marketing helps you identify your most qualified buyers, connect with them in real time, and move them to that sales cycle faster, right on your website. And given all of your experience in the marketing realm, what are your thoughts on Conversational Marketing?
TL: I’ve been involved in a developer meetup here in New York City really focused on Conversational Marketing and Chatbots. Whether its Slack, Facebook, SMS or meeting on your website itself, it’s a cutting edge way to engage with your buyers. I use Chatbots to check my bank account, deliver marketing analytics (through GA and AW), check the weather, and order my Uber.
TL: Conversational Marketing is a big shift from traditional marketing, mass marketing, which is an old way of doing things. It really provides the opportunity for individual customers to get what they need: information, education, schedule appointments or even go through a purchase process. All immediately online without having to go through all those traditional phases that we marketers like to use.
MR: Why do you think the traditional way of marketing (sending all buyers to a website to fill out a form) isn’t the be-all, end-all of marketing?
TL: I've been an advocate of a multi-channel marketing for my entire career. Consumers have wildly different habits and different traits. I think that one conversion path is never going to satisfy different consumers. The traditional funnel of branding, to education, to actually getting someone to make a decision. That doesn’t work for everyone.
Offering different avenues to receive information and to get in touch with a sales team as quickly as possible, that is the opposite of the traditional way of marketing. And that’s exciting.
MR: As a Pardot super user, why is it so important that you integrate your Conversational Marketing platform with your Pardot Marketing Automation platform?
TL: This gets me really excited. Honestly. There's so much business intelligence about prospective customers in Pardot: who they are, their search criteria, their buying criteria, what pieces of your brand they're actually engaging with.
MR: Do you think sales and marketing teams are still divided?
TL: I think the divide between sales and marketing is as slim as it’s ever been. I think that division is almost artificial. I started at the very front end of marketing and focused on lead generation. Then I transitioned into lead nurture and business development, then to sales operations and analysis. All of those subdivisions that we make up are getting blurry and becoming iirrelevant and almost detrimental to the customer experience.
A customer does not expect a gap in service from a product being presented to them to the time when they’re negotiating costs. Today's customer expects more and more of a unified experience. Sales and marketing is an operational divide to help vendors sell products, and it hinders companies from meeting the customers’ needs. Luckily, I think that the sales and marketing divide is diminishing and it's going to continue to dissolve over time.
MR: Especially if you’re using Salesforce Pardot, marketing and sales teams have all the information they need at their fingertips, there’s no reason to have a divide. So Tigh, let’s end on a fun note… what’s your favorite Salesforce mascot?
TL: Blaze! Because I'm all about doing your own thing and carving out your own path. That’s probably the the the archetype I most identify with.
MR: What are you most excited about for Dreamforce 2019?
TL: The biggest thing I'm excited about for Dreamforce in 2019 is meeting back up with my Salesforce family. There are so many people from around the country that I get to see once a year. Sharing new ideas, seeing what different people are using in terms of products, how they're changing they’re career paths, and how they're using technology in their own businesses... that's really the best thing about Dreamforce.
MR: Thank you Tigh. We’re excited to see you at Dreamforce!
The conversation doesn’t need to stop here. Check out Tigh’s B2B Marketing Expert website or his Trailhead page, or follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Stay up to date with weekly drops of fresh B2B marketing and sales content.
We sat down with Salesforce MVP Tigh Loughhead to talk about all things Pardot and Conversational Marketing.
For our latest Salesforce Pardot Trailblazer spotlight, we sat down with Tigh Loughhead. Tigh has deep roots in the Salesforce Community: he’s a 4X Salesforce certified admin, a 2X Salesforce MVP, a regular Dreamforce speaker, and co-leader of the New York Trailblazer Community Group for Pardot B2B Marketing. When he’s not heads down in Salesforce Pardot, he’s probably riding motorcycles or running Gotham Ducati, the official Desmo Owners’ Club for New York City.
We chatted with Tigh about his career path, the power of the Trailblazer Community, Pardot Marketing Automation, and Conversational Marketing.
MR (Maura Rivera, Qualified Team): Let’s get started! Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and what you’re up to these days?
TL (Tigh Loughead): Thank you for having me! I run a marketing consultancy called RentBoost and we're located in downtown Manhattan. I've been using Salesforce for about 10 years and Pardot for a little over 5 years. I'm a 2X Salesforce MVP and I’m certified in Google Analytics, Salesforce, Pardot, and Marketing Cloud. I'm a huge fan of Pardot. I help run the Trailblazer Community Group for Pardot B2B Marketing here in New York City and I've been really lucky to help Salesforce test some cool features like Engagement Studio and Pardot Lightning. I was even the first person in the world to test out Pardot Einsteins’ behavior score.
MR: Very cool! Tell me more about Pardot Einstein Behavior Score.
TL: We’ve always had the Pardot Score, which accumulates an individual prospect’s engagement history. But there’s never been a way to examine behavior patterns and indicate their likeliness to buy. Now, with Einstein Behavior Scoring, you can look at how a prospect is engaging with your digital assets and predict if they’re ready to convert.
The Einstein algorithm can say based on everything going on across your digital marketing, this is what’s contributing to leads converting. This email template, this whitepaper, this call to action… this is what’s working. It’s incredibly powerful to marketers. Head on over to Pardot’s Blog to read Tigh's full write-up on Pardot Einstein Behavior Scoring.
MR: How did you get involved in the Salesforce ecosystem?
TL: I came from an analytics and digital marketing background, not a CRM background. I found my way into the Salesforce world from “an Ohana moment”. I showed up at a user group meeting at the Salesforce Tower about four years ago, having just implemented Pardot. I was eager to learn how other people were using Pardot and leveraging Engagement Studio. I came ready to share my story and it turned out I was the only person there who had prepared a presentation.
I was absolutely mortified to speak in public, but the Community was really supportive and happened to be interested in the tactics and strategies that I was sharing. It turns out there were some folks from the Salesforce product team there watching me, and afterwards they invited me to go to Dreamforce and talk about Engagement Studio. They’ve brought me back every year since to talk about Pardot.
MR: You recently worked for a real estate tech company. Have you always worked in the real estate industry?
TL: Nope! My career has been about figuring out solutions to automate processes and pushing companies into a digital transformation. It's really exciting to see how different types of verticals can leverage different marketing strategies to achieve business success.
MR: How do you think Pardot empowers this digital transformation that you’re talking about?
TL: There are three things that I love about Pardot:
MR: You’re leading the Trailblazer Community for Pardot B2B Marketing in New York. A few years ago you showed up blindly and were nervous to present and now you’re leading one of Pardot’s biggest Community groups. What’s that experience been like?
TL: I got started by showing up at every event and contributing. What I get out of it is so rewarding. Trailhead itself (formerly the Success Community) is a great resource and fantastic for troubleshooting.
But most of what I've learned about marketing automation has come from comparing notes with real people using the platform. We talk about best practices and challenges; that sort of sharing, that spirit of community, has helped us grow the group from about 60 people a few years ago to almost 450 Trailblazers today.
One of our more popular programs is what we call “Pardot therapy”. It's an interactive experience where you can bring your issues and share them with people and understand how your peers are solving for those real technical and business problems.
I have to give a shout out to the other New York City Trailblazer Communities. I was at the Developer Trailblazer Community last night with Bill, Carlos, and Matthew … then there’s Carrie from the the Women in Tech Trailblazer Community and the Annie from the Admin Community and more. All of these people are so energetic and supportive. The Community is a resource for people to grow their careers and compare tactics and strategies. There is a huge world out there of people on the platform solving real world problems and it's a pretty awesome community.
MR: You’re a 2X MVP as well as a Trailblazer Community Group Leader. What’s that experience been like?
TL: It’s an honor and a privilege. We get to see incredible presentations from other members of the Trailblazer Community. For instance, we got to see a presentation from a nonprofit organization called Musicians On Call. They arrange incredible musicians to present at the bedside of sick kids. They shared how they’re using Salesforce and Pardot to run their business. It was really inspiring.
MR: Earlier you talked about all of the mind-sharing that the Community fosters. What trends are you seeing in the B2B marketing world right now?
TL: What’s really hot right now is personalization, contextualization, delivering really hyper-targeted, relevant information to consumers. Modern day consumers expect to have their specific needs addressed. Intent based marketing is really huge right now. Capturing people when they demonstrate intent in some specific direction and using that as a segmentation mechanism. Voice is also everywhere right now.
TL: For me, artificial intelligence is the coolest trend and the biggest growth sphere. There's a ton of fluff around A.I. but machine learning, replacing data science, automating business intelligence, and surfacing trends to salespeople and marketers that never would have access to the computing power to make those realizations. Every business is trying to understand or codify what the next best action is in terms of a marketing or sales cadence. I see the beginnings of A.I. being able to do that. That gets me excited about the marketing landscape and where it's going.
MR: That ties in nicely to Conversational Marketing. At Qualified, we want to power more intelligent sales conversations so that people can sell faster, sell smarter, and really improve that marketing to sales handoff. Conversational Marketing helps you identify your most qualified buyers, connect with them in real time, and move them to that sales cycle faster, right on your website. And given all of your experience in the marketing realm, what are your thoughts on Conversational Marketing?
TL: I’ve been involved in a developer meetup here in New York City really focused on Conversational Marketing and Chatbots. Whether its Slack, Facebook, SMS or meeting on your website itself, it’s a cutting edge way to engage with your buyers. I use Chatbots to check my bank account, deliver marketing analytics (through GA and AW), check the weather, and order my Uber.
TL: Conversational Marketing is a big shift from traditional marketing, mass marketing, which is an old way of doing things. It really provides the opportunity for individual customers to get what they need: information, education, schedule appointments or even go through a purchase process. All immediately online without having to go through all those traditional phases that we marketers like to use.
MR: Why do you think the traditional way of marketing (sending all buyers to a website to fill out a form) isn’t the be-all, end-all of marketing?
TL: I've been an advocate of a multi-channel marketing for my entire career. Consumers have wildly different habits and different traits. I think that one conversion path is never going to satisfy different consumers. The traditional funnel of branding, to education, to actually getting someone to make a decision. That doesn’t work for everyone.
Offering different avenues to receive information and to get in touch with a sales team as quickly as possible, that is the opposite of the traditional way of marketing. And that’s exciting.
MR: As a Pardot super user, why is it so important that you integrate your Conversational Marketing platform with your Pardot Marketing Automation platform?
TL: This gets me really excited. Honestly. There's so much business intelligence about prospective customers in Pardot: who they are, their search criteria, their buying criteria, what pieces of your brand they're actually engaging with.
MR: Do you think sales and marketing teams are still divided?
TL: I think the divide between sales and marketing is as slim as it’s ever been. I think that division is almost artificial. I started at the very front end of marketing and focused on lead generation. Then I transitioned into lead nurture and business development, then to sales operations and analysis. All of those subdivisions that we make up are getting blurry and becoming iirrelevant and almost detrimental to the customer experience.
A customer does not expect a gap in service from a product being presented to them to the time when they’re negotiating costs. Today's customer expects more and more of a unified experience. Sales and marketing is an operational divide to help vendors sell products, and it hinders companies from meeting the customers’ needs. Luckily, I think that the sales and marketing divide is diminishing and it's going to continue to dissolve over time.
MR: Especially if you’re using Salesforce Pardot, marketing and sales teams have all the information they need at their fingertips, there’s no reason to have a divide. So Tigh, let’s end on a fun note… what’s your favorite Salesforce mascot?
TL: Blaze! Because I'm all about doing your own thing and carving out your own path. That’s probably the the the archetype I most identify with.
MR: What are you most excited about for Dreamforce 2019?
TL: The biggest thing I'm excited about for Dreamforce in 2019 is meeting back up with my Salesforce family. There are so many people from around the country that I get to see once a year. Sharing new ideas, seeing what different people are using in terms of products, how they're changing they’re career paths, and how they're using technology in their own businesses... that's really the best thing about Dreamforce.
MR: Thank you Tigh. We’re excited to see you at Dreamforce!
The conversation doesn’t need to stop here. Check out Tigh’s B2B Marketing Expert website or his Trailhead page, or follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Stay up to date with weekly drops of fresh B2B marketing and sales content.
We sat down with Salesforce MVP Tigh Loughhead to talk about all things Pardot and Conversational Marketing.
For our latest Salesforce Pardot Trailblazer spotlight, we sat down with Tigh Loughhead. Tigh has deep roots in the Salesforce Community: he’s a 4X Salesforce certified admin, a 2X Salesforce MVP, a regular Dreamforce speaker, and co-leader of the New York Trailblazer Community Group for Pardot B2B Marketing. When he’s not heads down in Salesforce Pardot, he’s probably riding motorcycles or running Gotham Ducati, the official Desmo Owners’ Club for New York City.
We chatted with Tigh about his career path, the power of the Trailblazer Community, Pardot Marketing Automation, and Conversational Marketing.
MR (Maura Rivera, Qualified Team): Let’s get started! Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and what you’re up to these days?
TL (Tigh Loughead): Thank you for having me! I run a marketing consultancy called RentBoost and we're located in downtown Manhattan. I've been using Salesforce for about 10 years and Pardot for a little over 5 years. I'm a 2X Salesforce MVP and I’m certified in Google Analytics, Salesforce, Pardot, and Marketing Cloud. I'm a huge fan of Pardot. I help run the Trailblazer Community Group for Pardot B2B Marketing here in New York City and I've been really lucky to help Salesforce test some cool features like Engagement Studio and Pardot Lightning. I was even the first person in the world to test out Pardot Einsteins’ behavior score.
MR: Very cool! Tell me more about Pardot Einstein Behavior Score.
TL: We’ve always had the Pardot Score, which accumulates an individual prospect’s engagement history. But there’s never been a way to examine behavior patterns and indicate their likeliness to buy. Now, with Einstein Behavior Scoring, you can look at how a prospect is engaging with your digital assets and predict if they’re ready to convert.
The Einstein algorithm can say based on everything going on across your digital marketing, this is what’s contributing to leads converting. This email template, this whitepaper, this call to action… this is what’s working. It’s incredibly powerful to marketers. Head on over to Pardot’s Blog to read Tigh's full write-up on Pardot Einstein Behavior Scoring.
MR: How did you get involved in the Salesforce ecosystem?
TL: I came from an analytics and digital marketing background, not a CRM background. I found my way into the Salesforce world from “an Ohana moment”. I showed up at a user group meeting at the Salesforce Tower about four years ago, having just implemented Pardot. I was eager to learn how other people were using Pardot and leveraging Engagement Studio. I came ready to share my story and it turned out I was the only person there who had prepared a presentation.
I was absolutely mortified to speak in public, but the Community was really supportive and happened to be interested in the tactics and strategies that I was sharing. It turns out there were some folks from the Salesforce product team there watching me, and afterwards they invited me to go to Dreamforce and talk about Engagement Studio. They’ve brought me back every year since to talk about Pardot.
MR: You recently worked for a real estate tech company. Have you always worked in the real estate industry?
TL: Nope! My career has been about figuring out solutions to automate processes and pushing companies into a digital transformation. It's really exciting to see how different types of verticals can leverage different marketing strategies to achieve business success.
MR: How do you think Pardot empowers this digital transformation that you’re talking about?
TL: There are three things that I love about Pardot:
MR: You’re leading the Trailblazer Community for Pardot B2B Marketing in New York. A few years ago you showed up blindly and were nervous to present and now you’re leading one of Pardot’s biggest Community groups. What’s that experience been like?
TL: I got started by showing up at every event and contributing. What I get out of it is so rewarding. Trailhead itself (formerly the Success Community) is a great resource and fantastic for troubleshooting.
But most of what I've learned about marketing automation has come from comparing notes with real people using the platform. We talk about best practices and challenges; that sort of sharing, that spirit of community, has helped us grow the group from about 60 people a few years ago to almost 450 Trailblazers today.
One of our more popular programs is what we call “Pardot therapy”. It's an interactive experience where you can bring your issues and share them with people and understand how your peers are solving for those real technical and business problems.
I have to give a shout out to the other New York City Trailblazer Communities. I was at the Developer Trailblazer Community last night with Bill, Carlos, and Matthew … then there’s Carrie from the the Women in Tech Trailblazer Community and the Annie from the Admin Community and more. All of these people are so energetic and supportive. The Community is a resource for people to grow their careers and compare tactics and strategies. There is a huge world out there of people on the platform solving real world problems and it's a pretty awesome community.
MR: You’re a 2X MVP as well as a Trailblazer Community Group Leader. What’s that experience been like?
TL: It’s an honor and a privilege. We get to see incredible presentations from other members of the Trailblazer Community. For instance, we got to see a presentation from a nonprofit organization called Musicians On Call. They arrange incredible musicians to present at the bedside of sick kids. They shared how they’re using Salesforce and Pardot to run their business. It was really inspiring.
MR: Earlier you talked about all of the mind-sharing that the Community fosters. What trends are you seeing in the B2B marketing world right now?
TL: What’s really hot right now is personalization, contextualization, delivering really hyper-targeted, relevant information to consumers. Modern day consumers expect to have their specific needs addressed. Intent based marketing is really huge right now. Capturing people when they demonstrate intent in some specific direction and using that as a segmentation mechanism. Voice is also everywhere right now.
TL: For me, artificial intelligence is the coolest trend and the biggest growth sphere. There's a ton of fluff around A.I. but machine learning, replacing data science, automating business intelligence, and surfacing trends to salespeople and marketers that never would have access to the computing power to make those realizations. Every business is trying to understand or codify what the next best action is in terms of a marketing or sales cadence. I see the beginnings of A.I. being able to do that. That gets me excited about the marketing landscape and where it's going.
MR: That ties in nicely to Conversational Marketing. At Qualified, we want to power more intelligent sales conversations so that people can sell faster, sell smarter, and really improve that marketing to sales handoff. Conversational Marketing helps you identify your most qualified buyers, connect with them in real time, and move them to that sales cycle faster, right on your website. And given all of your experience in the marketing realm, what are your thoughts on Conversational Marketing?
TL: I’ve been involved in a developer meetup here in New York City really focused on Conversational Marketing and Chatbots. Whether its Slack, Facebook, SMS or meeting on your website itself, it’s a cutting edge way to engage with your buyers. I use Chatbots to check my bank account, deliver marketing analytics (through GA and AW), check the weather, and order my Uber.
TL: Conversational Marketing is a big shift from traditional marketing, mass marketing, which is an old way of doing things. It really provides the opportunity for individual customers to get what they need: information, education, schedule appointments or even go through a purchase process. All immediately online without having to go through all those traditional phases that we marketers like to use.
MR: Why do you think the traditional way of marketing (sending all buyers to a website to fill out a form) isn’t the be-all, end-all of marketing?
TL: I've been an advocate of a multi-channel marketing for my entire career. Consumers have wildly different habits and different traits. I think that one conversion path is never going to satisfy different consumers. The traditional funnel of branding, to education, to actually getting someone to make a decision. That doesn’t work for everyone.
Offering different avenues to receive information and to get in touch with a sales team as quickly as possible, that is the opposite of the traditional way of marketing. And that’s exciting.
MR: As a Pardot super user, why is it so important that you integrate your Conversational Marketing platform with your Pardot Marketing Automation platform?
TL: This gets me really excited. Honestly. There's so much business intelligence about prospective customers in Pardot: who they are, their search criteria, their buying criteria, what pieces of your brand they're actually engaging with.
MR: Do you think sales and marketing teams are still divided?
TL: I think the divide between sales and marketing is as slim as it’s ever been. I think that division is almost artificial. I started at the very front end of marketing and focused on lead generation. Then I transitioned into lead nurture and business development, then to sales operations and analysis. All of those subdivisions that we make up are getting blurry and becoming iirrelevant and almost detrimental to the customer experience.
A customer does not expect a gap in service from a product being presented to them to the time when they’re negotiating costs. Today's customer expects more and more of a unified experience. Sales and marketing is an operational divide to help vendors sell products, and it hinders companies from meeting the customers’ needs. Luckily, I think that the sales and marketing divide is diminishing and it's going to continue to dissolve over time.
MR: Especially if you’re using Salesforce Pardot, marketing and sales teams have all the information they need at their fingertips, there’s no reason to have a divide. So Tigh, let’s end on a fun note… what’s your favorite Salesforce mascot?
TL: Blaze! Because I'm all about doing your own thing and carving out your own path. That’s probably the the the archetype I most identify with.
MR: What are you most excited about for Dreamforce 2019?
TL: The biggest thing I'm excited about for Dreamforce in 2019 is meeting back up with my Salesforce family. There are so many people from around the country that I get to see once a year. Sharing new ideas, seeing what different people are using in terms of products, how they're changing they’re career paths, and how they're using technology in their own businesses... that's really the best thing about Dreamforce.
MR: Thank you Tigh. We’re excited to see you at Dreamforce!
The conversation doesn’t need to stop here. Check out Tigh’s B2B Marketing Expert website or his Trailhead page, or follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Stay up to date with weekly drops of fresh B2B marketing and sales content.
For our latest Salesforce Pardot Trailblazer spotlight, we sat down with Tigh Loughhead. Tigh has deep roots in the Salesforce Community: he’s a 4X Salesforce certified admin, a 2X Salesforce MVP, a regular Dreamforce speaker, and co-leader of the New York Trailblazer Community Group for Pardot B2B Marketing. When he’s not heads down in Salesforce Pardot, he’s probably riding motorcycles or running Gotham Ducati, the official Desmo Owners’ Club for New York City.
We chatted with Tigh about his career path, the power of the Trailblazer Community, Pardot Marketing Automation, and Conversational Marketing.
MR (Maura Rivera, Qualified Team): Let’s get started! Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and what you’re up to these days?
TL (Tigh Loughead): Thank you for having me! I run a marketing consultancy called RentBoost and we're located in downtown Manhattan. I've been using Salesforce for about 10 years and Pardot for a little over 5 years. I'm a 2X Salesforce MVP and I’m certified in Google Analytics, Salesforce, Pardot, and Marketing Cloud. I'm a huge fan of Pardot. I help run the Trailblazer Community Group for Pardot B2B Marketing here in New York City and I've been really lucky to help Salesforce test some cool features like Engagement Studio and Pardot Lightning. I was even the first person in the world to test out Pardot Einsteins’ behavior score.
MR: Very cool! Tell me more about Pardot Einstein Behavior Score.
TL: We’ve always had the Pardot Score, which accumulates an individual prospect’s engagement history. But there’s never been a way to examine behavior patterns and indicate their likeliness to buy. Now, with Einstein Behavior Scoring, you can look at how a prospect is engaging with your digital assets and predict if they’re ready to convert.
The Einstein algorithm can say based on everything going on across your digital marketing, this is what’s contributing to leads converting. This email template, this whitepaper, this call to action… this is what’s working. It’s incredibly powerful to marketers. Head on over to Pardot’s Blog to read Tigh's full write-up on Pardot Einstein Behavior Scoring.
MR: How did you get involved in the Salesforce ecosystem?
TL: I came from an analytics and digital marketing background, not a CRM background. I found my way into the Salesforce world from “an Ohana moment”. I showed up at a user group meeting at the Salesforce Tower about four years ago, having just implemented Pardot. I was eager to learn how other people were using Pardot and leveraging Engagement Studio. I came ready to share my story and it turned out I was the only person there who had prepared a presentation.
I was absolutely mortified to speak in public, but the Community was really supportive and happened to be interested in the tactics and strategies that I was sharing. It turns out there were some folks from the Salesforce product team there watching me, and afterwards they invited me to go to Dreamforce and talk about Engagement Studio. They’ve brought me back every year since to talk about Pardot.
MR: You recently worked for a real estate tech company. Have you always worked in the real estate industry?
TL: Nope! My career has been about figuring out solutions to automate processes and pushing companies into a digital transformation. It's really exciting to see how different types of verticals can leverage different marketing strategies to achieve business success.
MR: How do you think Pardot empowers this digital transformation that you’re talking about?
TL: There are three things that I love about Pardot:
MR: You’re leading the Trailblazer Community for Pardot B2B Marketing in New York. A few years ago you showed up blindly and were nervous to present and now you’re leading one of Pardot’s biggest Community groups. What’s that experience been like?
TL: I got started by showing up at every event and contributing. What I get out of it is so rewarding. Trailhead itself (formerly the Success Community) is a great resource and fantastic for troubleshooting.
But most of what I've learned about marketing automation has come from comparing notes with real people using the platform. We talk about best practices and challenges; that sort of sharing, that spirit of community, has helped us grow the group from about 60 people a few years ago to almost 450 Trailblazers today.
One of our more popular programs is what we call “Pardot therapy”. It's an interactive experience where you can bring your issues and share them with people and understand how your peers are solving for those real technical and business problems.
I have to give a shout out to the other New York City Trailblazer Communities. I was at the Developer Trailblazer Community last night with Bill, Carlos, and Matthew … then there’s Carrie from the the Women in Tech Trailblazer Community and the Annie from the Admin Community and more. All of these people are so energetic and supportive. The Community is a resource for people to grow their careers and compare tactics and strategies. There is a huge world out there of people on the platform solving real world problems and it's a pretty awesome community.
MR: You’re a 2X MVP as well as a Trailblazer Community Group Leader. What’s that experience been like?
TL: It’s an honor and a privilege. We get to see incredible presentations from other members of the Trailblazer Community. For instance, we got to see a presentation from a nonprofit organization called Musicians On Call. They arrange incredible musicians to present at the bedside of sick kids. They shared how they’re using Salesforce and Pardot to run their business. It was really inspiring.
MR: Earlier you talked about all of the mind-sharing that the Community fosters. What trends are you seeing in the B2B marketing world right now?
TL: What’s really hot right now is personalization, contextualization, delivering really hyper-targeted, relevant information to consumers. Modern day consumers expect to have their specific needs addressed. Intent based marketing is really huge right now. Capturing people when they demonstrate intent in some specific direction and using that as a segmentation mechanism. Voice is also everywhere right now.
TL: For me, artificial intelligence is the coolest trend and the biggest growth sphere. There's a ton of fluff around A.I. but machine learning, replacing data science, automating business intelligence, and surfacing trends to salespeople and marketers that never would have access to the computing power to make those realizations. Every business is trying to understand or codify what the next best action is in terms of a marketing or sales cadence. I see the beginnings of A.I. being able to do that. That gets me excited about the marketing landscape and where it's going.
MR: That ties in nicely to Conversational Marketing. At Qualified, we want to power more intelligent sales conversations so that people can sell faster, sell smarter, and really improve that marketing to sales handoff. Conversational Marketing helps you identify your most qualified buyers, connect with them in real time, and move them to that sales cycle faster, right on your website. And given all of your experience in the marketing realm, what are your thoughts on Conversational Marketing?
TL: I’ve been involved in a developer meetup here in New York City really focused on Conversational Marketing and Chatbots. Whether its Slack, Facebook, SMS or meeting on your website itself, it’s a cutting edge way to engage with your buyers. I use Chatbots to check my bank account, deliver marketing analytics (through GA and AW), check the weather, and order my Uber.
TL: Conversational Marketing is a big shift from traditional marketing, mass marketing, which is an old way of doing things. It really provides the opportunity for individual customers to get what they need: information, education, schedule appointments or even go through a purchase process. All immediately online without having to go through all those traditional phases that we marketers like to use.
MR: Why do you think the traditional way of marketing (sending all buyers to a website to fill out a form) isn’t the be-all, end-all of marketing?
TL: I've been an advocate of a multi-channel marketing for my entire career. Consumers have wildly different habits and different traits. I think that one conversion path is never going to satisfy different consumers. The traditional funnel of branding, to education, to actually getting someone to make a decision. That doesn’t work for everyone.
Offering different avenues to receive information and to get in touch with a sales team as quickly as possible, that is the opposite of the traditional way of marketing. And that’s exciting.
MR: As a Pardot super user, why is it so important that you integrate your Conversational Marketing platform with your Pardot Marketing Automation platform?
TL: This gets me really excited. Honestly. There's so much business intelligence about prospective customers in Pardot: who they are, their search criteria, their buying criteria, what pieces of your brand they're actually engaging with.
MR: Do you think sales and marketing teams are still divided?
TL: I think the divide between sales and marketing is as slim as it’s ever been. I think that division is almost artificial. I started at the very front end of marketing and focused on lead generation. Then I transitioned into lead nurture and business development, then to sales operations and analysis. All of those subdivisions that we make up are getting blurry and becoming iirrelevant and almost detrimental to the customer experience.
A customer does not expect a gap in service from a product being presented to them to the time when they’re negotiating costs. Today's customer expects more and more of a unified experience. Sales and marketing is an operational divide to help vendors sell products, and it hinders companies from meeting the customers’ needs. Luckily, I think that the sales and marketing divide is diminishing and it's going to continue to dissolve over time.
MR: Especially if you’re using Salesforce Pardot, marketing and sales teams have all the information they need at their fingertips, there’s no reason to have a divide. So Tigh, let’s end on a fun note… what’s your favorite Salesforce mascot?
TL: Blaze! Because I'm all about doing your own thing and carving out your own path. That’s probably the the the archetype I most identify with.
MR: What are you most excited about for Dreamforce 2019?
TL: The biggest thing I'm excited about for Dreamforce in 2019 is meeting back up with my Salesforce family. There are so many people from around the country that I get to see once a year. Sharing new ideas, seeing what different people are using in terms of products, how they're changing they’re career paths, and how they're using technology in their own businesses... that's really the best thing about Dreamforce.
MR: Thank you Tigh. We’re excited to see you at Dreamforce!
The conversation doesn’t need to stop here. Check out Tigh’s B2B Marketing Expert website or his Trailhead page, or follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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