Sarah Cascone, VP of Marketing at Bluecore, shares why she believes traditional outbound is fading away and how marketing is all about curating hyper-personalized content.
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[MUSIC]
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Welcome to Pipeline Visionary.
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So I'm the amazing CEO of Caspian Studios.
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And today I'm joined by a special guest, Sarah, how are you?
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>> I'm good, Ian.
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How are you?
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>> I'm doing wonderful, excited to chat.
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Marketing, excited to chat.
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Demand, pipeline, all that stuff, your background.
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And we're going to get into all that and what you're doing in Bluecorps.
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So tell us, what was your first job of marketing?
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>> Yeah, so first job I actually did events for a market research company
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called
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Worldwide Business Research.
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They actually put on conferences in a whole bunch of different industries and
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retail.
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And in retail, they had a flagship couple of shows.
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That's actually how I ended up finding the job at Bluecorps because Bluecorps
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was one
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of the sponsors of their retail conferences.
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So came full circle.
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>> Yeah, no kidding.
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And flash forward to today, tell us what it means to be VP of Marketing in Blue
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corps.
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>> Yeah, loaded question.
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But basically what we're trying to do and what I'm trying to do is make sure
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our target
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market knows who Bluecorps is and why we're different.
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And especially in our market serving retail from the marketing lens,
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it's extremely saturated.
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So Bluecorps is an identification and customer movement solution for retailers.
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And what that means is we help them turn their anonymous shoppers into known
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customers
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and move them through the purchase funnel with relevant comms to drive
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incremental revenue
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more effectively than any other customer data solution in the retail stack.
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So really making sure we drive that message home and understand what's
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different about the way
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we do it is basically my job.
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>> Let's head to the trust tree where we go and feel honest and trusted and you
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can share
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those deepest, darkest, pipeline secrets.
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You talked a little bit about Bluecorps, what y'all do, where some of your
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customers,
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what types of companies and size of companies within retail are you selling to?
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>> Yeah, so we exclusively work with enterprise and high growth director
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consumer retailers.
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So normally those who are doing a large chunk of their revenue coming from e-
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commerce
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and they have a pretty extensive product catalog and a pretty extensive
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customer base.
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Those two components together make it really complex to be able to communicate
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relevant products
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to customers.
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And that's essentially the core of what we're helping them do to drive revenue.
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>> Right.
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And so these are a lot of names that people know. Steve Madden and people.
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>> Yeah, Matt and Nike and Under Armour and Lulu and Georgia and Noble.
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So Aloe Yoga is another one. A lot of those household names for sure.
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>> What does the buying committee look like for when you're selling in?
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>> Buying committee is typically the CMO or the CDO or so the chief marketing
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officer or the chief
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digital officer depending on who owns what channels usually the buyers are
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responsible for email
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or site or even the paid media channels. And there's usually strong influence
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from the CIO
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or the CTO and the tech side of the organization who are trying to manage and
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wrangle the massive
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tech stacks that these enterprise organizations have.
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>> How do you structure your marketing organization? What's your marketing
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strategy look like?
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>> Yeah, great question. So we actually just kind of
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rejig this about six months ago to really match our org structure to the
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strategy that we set
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out to do for a marketing team. >> Perfect time to talk about it.
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>> Perfect time. It's fresh in my mind. So we basically have organic growth,
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which is content,
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thought leadership and PR. Then we have marketing ops, which is where all of
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that gets distributed
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channels paid, reporting, understanding what's working, what's not.
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Field marketing, very important to us. That's where we do in market events,
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conferences,
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our community events. And then we also have an account based experiences arm,
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which is basically
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our version of an outbound SDR team that is very plugged into the other levers
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I just mentioned
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and doing one to one personal outreach and also leveraging a lot of the gen AI
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tech that's out there.
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>> Very cool. Any other thoughts on strategy or how you go to market there?
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>> Yes. So our strategy essentially is to become known, respected and trusted
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within our target
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market. And the underpinning of that is actually what our CMO has coined, the
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relationship demand
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gen chain for turning overall demand generation into account conversion and
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pipeline essentially.
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And there's four main points in that demand gen chain. The first is the points
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of view.
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This is where my organic growth content, the leadership folks come in. This is
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where we're
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educating the market on our unique point of view on the problems that they're
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looking to solve
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through the lens of our key opinion leaders. So the retail experts that have
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lived in
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reads what our prospects and customers are going through. They work for Blue
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core. That point of
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view is coming through. Then there's points of entry, which is a lot of where
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the demand gen and
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the marketing ops team comes in, how we are engaging with that target audience
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through the
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various channels. We have a much heavier focus now here on LinkedIn and PR.
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Then there's points of
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leverage, which is anchored by the field and events team. We have a series of
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events activations
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that brings our target into our retail specific community, allows us to organ
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ically access the
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various personas, specifically the VP and above decision makers that we need to
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get to in the sales
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conversations within the buyer group. And then there's the points of conversion
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, which is where
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the AVX, the account based experiences team comes in. They're essentially the l
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inchpin for moving
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our targets along from points of entry and points of leverage, then into
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meetings for the sales team.
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So that's like essentially our funnel. Going from points of view, points of
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entry, points of
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leverage to points of conversion, that turns into pipeline. And we're measuring
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everything along
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that relationship to man, gen chain as we're calling it. I love that
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relationship to man, gen
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chain. That's a, that's a new one. And I really like it. You talked about pre
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them raising their
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hand and saying like, Hey, I think I need a solution for this. How do you think
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of engaging
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those folks that are ready yet to buy? Yeah, such a great question. And that's
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where the
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points of leverage in the events and community really come in handy. Because we
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do recognize
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that there are other outside factors impacting the urgency with which they want
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to top them us
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or don't want to talk to us. They might not be ready to buy. They might not be
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in market.
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So that is where this events and community programs come in handy because we
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can keep them warm. We
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can keep them part of the community that we built so that when they are ready,
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it makes it really
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easy for them to then have a conversation with us. That is how we develop that
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overall respect
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and trust to be earned to bring them into the pipeline. Okay, let's get to our
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next site with
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the playbook where you open up to a playbook and talk about the tactics that
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help you win.
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What are your three channels of tactics that are your uncuttable budget?
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Yes, such a good question, especially now where marketing budgets are getting
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tighter and tighter
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and you really have to prove out value. So I would say the three channels or
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tactics that are most
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uncuttable for us right now is that field events and community budget. Then we
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also have our
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referrals tactics and strategy and then our LinkedIn stretch. Yeah, let's start
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with community.
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Okay, so community is actually something we started investing in right before
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COVID and it's become
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such an important major part of our strategy with the technology so saturated
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in our space
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and the fact that we're retail specific building a community around what we
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stand for.
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And I believe this for any vertical, any company, this is going to become more
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and more important
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when people are buying technology. People buy from people, not companies. It's
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easy to walk
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away from a tech vendor, but it's a lot harder to walk away from a community
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that is anchored
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with that tech partner. And in our community, we are not only providing a point
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of view on the
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most pressing challenges our market faces, we developed a referral network out
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of it. And we're
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also using it as a way to help individuals in the community find their next
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role or if they,
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you know, we're part of layoffs, which has happened a lot, especially in the
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retail industry,
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help them connect with other leaders to find a better fit. For us specifically,
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we have two
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pillars of the community, our executive community, which is BP and above. It's
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called D to C collective,
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the direct to consumer collective. And then we have coffee and commerce, which
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is a little bit
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more casual. Both of those we do discussions monthly. We try to bring in the
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experts,
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we try to bring in thought leaders. So we're always having some diversity of
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thought there
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and making sure we're talking about what's top of mind for the individuals in
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the community.
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Yeah, and what are like the different levers that you're sort of using within
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the community?
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What are these events look like? Yeah, so they are primarily virtual digital
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discussions that
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happen monthly. And the format does change where some of them are more open
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discussion,
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round table like some of them are, we're going to deliver some unique insights
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or content that
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you can kind of take back to your team. And then we do have once in a while, we
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bring them in person.
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So for example, we actually have one of our, I think it's our second in person
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D to C collective
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of the year next week for bringing a bunch of VP and C suite leaders across the
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commerce and
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retail organization to talk about composable commerce. This is becoming a
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really hot topic
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with them. So that's normally how we leverage them. And what's really great
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about these community
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events is that they sit in between all of the other conferences and in market
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events that we are
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doing, whether it's an email or a commerce next or an NRF. These are some of
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the events in our
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space that we go to. We have community events sprinkled in between those. So we
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always have
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something to drive our target market to that's not take a sales call with core,
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because when
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they're ready, they'll take a sales call, but we want to keep the conversation
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going in a way that's
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organic and beneficial to them. And that's why community is so important. Yeah,
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I love it. And
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I love that these are both series. So like, I, you know, we just wrote this
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book. So I'll call
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the sheer last content framework. One of the things we're talking about there
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is like building an
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event series that has a brand. And like, I love that the D to C collective for
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this VP level
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community that has a little brand, it has established 2020 on there. It has
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this thing that y'all are
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doing next next week dinner prepared by chef Lane Carnes, you know, all this
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stuff. It's really cool.
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It feels premium. It feels very executive. And it's branded and it has like a
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feel to it that
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feels unique. And it's ongoing. And it's, you know, and it's something that the
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people can sink their
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teeth into. And I think that so often people don't do that. And they sort of
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make an event series
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that's sort of just like a bunch of one off things that you're not really like
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joining and
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subscribing. So like there's some sort of tether there. And then there doesn't
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have like a what's
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next. It's like, Hey, well, what's next is in a quarter, we're gonna do another
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one of these.
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And I just love that y'all are doing that. And then you have, you also have the
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coffee and commerce
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one for the non sort of executive level, where it doesn't need to be quite the
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exact same type of
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a thing. And it's just varied and nuanced. And I love that sort of stuff. For
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sure. Yeah. And I
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appreciate it. And you know, it wasn't overnight. It took us a couple of years
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and like test and
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learn to understand how do we build this thing in a way that's really organic.
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And I think
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one thing that's helped us do that is we kind of seeded like members, if you
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will, from the beginning
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for their input on what they would want to see in a community. And we bring
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them into like,
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what is the content and who are the people you need to be talking to to make
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better decisions in
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your role. And now that's become just like on organic part of how we roll out
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events, how we decide
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topics. And we know it's working because we always have new people attending,
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but we always have
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repeat members coming back, which is so great. Because that tells us the
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content is valuable.
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We're constantly trying to get feedback from them as far as what else do they
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need. And
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it's been really fun to watch it grow. Shameless plug, we are hiring a
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community manager. So
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there you go. We need to help scale it and make sure we support the community.
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Yeah, it's interesting to hear you say this. Essentially, if you were to say
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sort of like,
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what's your event strategy that basically there's this like owned events piece
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and then the,
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you know, industry events piece and that they go hand in hand. But there's, but
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if you were to
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look at it like holistically, it's like, there is basically an in-person event.
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I mean, I don't
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know if it's every month, but more or less, like every month that someone in
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your community could,
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you know, could go to. And I think that that's just such a good way of thinking
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about it.
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Like we always think about things in terms like content calendars and stuff
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like that, or like,
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hey, we're going to hit this one event this year, like super hard. And that's
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going to be our
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temple thing. But you need those other things throughout the year to keep the
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conversation going.
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Like you said, 100%. Yeah, we try and hit all of the most saturated areas in
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the country where
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our targets are based. So you'll see like even the women in retail event, we
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just did a Pittsburgh
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and a Columbus event. Both of those are hotbeds for retailers. You've got, you
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've got Dick sporting
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goods, an Aryan American Eagle in a Pittsburgh, and you've got the Asina brands
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, a Victoria's
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Secret, and all of these other brands in Columbus. So we want to make it easy
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for these leaders to
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come and join us. So we do try and make sure we have events scattered in our
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top markets,
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which is usually, you know, New York, California, those cities I mentioned,
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making sure we're not
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kind of skipping over everyone, especially because we recognize that budgets
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are tight.
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Not everyone has travel budgets. We want to make sure we can go to them. That's
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another reason
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to a lot of our community events are virtual. We want to make it really easy to
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pop in and out
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between meetings. And we do have the in person options as well, because there's
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no denying
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the value of an in-person connection. Well, you know, I think that the question
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there is,
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there's no, nobody is denying it. But the CFOs are questioning the R a lot. And
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like, that's the
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that's the tricky part that I think we're all in where it's like, in a
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constrained environment,
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it's like where you can't be everywhere and you can't do that stuff. But you
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know that having in-person
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conversations and getting your customers together is also like another part of
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that. That's like
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at mission critical, right? Like getting your customers talking and getting
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them talking with
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prospects is like mission critical. It's like, how do you do that and how do
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you budget it and all
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that? That's why I think that the blend of having your own events, at least you
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control all the
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variables and having a digital presence and having in person. And there's ways
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to get creative with
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that and partner with people. But it is a lot of time. It's a lot of people's
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time to build that.
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It is. So yeah, having that variety of options is huge. We also budget for
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covering things like
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travel for not just our customers, but prospects also recognizing that even if
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they do have
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the time, they might not have the budget resources. So that's another thing we
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try and help out
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so that they can connect with the community. We can connect with that.
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Does it fit in demand? Does community fit somewhere else?
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So it's a good question because it's kind of demand, but it's also nurturing at
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the same time.
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The way the relationship demand gen flows, it starts with this organic growth,
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the content thought leadership, marketing ops and demand gen is like the
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digital distribution and
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also the halo effect for the events. And then the events kind of sits in
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between where, yes,
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it's also driving some of the top of funnel awareness, but it's also driving
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that consistent
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engagement and nurturing that builds that respect for who we are, the community
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that earns us the
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right to have a sales conversation that earns the right for the ABX team to
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reach out to them,
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and they'll actually listen and respond and be open to a call.
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Yeah, my issue as, you know, as why this, I think field has been, field has
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been flawed.
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It should be a blog post for a long time is like someone goes to your event
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that's not elite,
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right? Like that's part of the problem is like it's not elite. Them going, them
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wanting to hang out
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with their peers and get a cocktail, like does not mean that they're interested
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in your product.
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So it was always kind of silly that field kind of fall under demand for me. I
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totally get why
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I'm not saying it shouldn't live under demand, but I just think of like, you
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know, structurally,
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it's a little weird. It paints a photo here where it's like community, like
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community events being
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one thing, but like webinars would be a demand for you know what I mean? It's
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like, but what's
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the different kind of thing? Yeah. Well, and we've spent a lot of time on the
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marketing team,
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kind of breaking that down from a measurement standpoint and what makes logical
18:34
sense. And,
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you know, we've done a lot of scoring models and what, you know, what different
18:41
types of engagement
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are worse and, you know, attending a webinar has a slightly different weight
18:48
than having a 30
18:50
minute conversation at an event dinner or something like that. So those are
18:54
nuances that we build
18:56
into how we've measured success of this strategy to make sure to your point, we
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are looking at
19:04
the strong strongest buying signals and that's who are driving towards sales
19:09
pipeline.
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Love it. And then your other uncutables, I don't know if you want to add any
19:14
flavor.
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Yeah. Yeah. I'll add referrals is one and that's very related to community. And
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the reality is most, at least in the retail marketing space, and I would say
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this is true
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in any space of anybody buying technology, they're looking to their peers when
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they're evaluating
19:36
solutions and they're looking for recommendations. I think gone are the days of
19:41
like,
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yes, there's a place for like G2 crowd and the forest reports and things like
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that. But those
19:48
are small signals. People trust their peer network. So out of the community for
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us has sprung an
19:55
organic or sorrow program where we have customers or industry influencers who
20:01
know us well, they
20:03
they've used our platform, they understand the value and they're willing to
20:08
introduce us to the
20:09
people who are trying to solve the problems that we solve for. And that
20:14
requires nurturing
20:17
on our end to make sure we make it really easy for those referrers to walk us
20:23
into certain
20:24
conversations. And that's another place where we've become respected enough
20:29
that we're trusted
20:30
to have that conversation. Let me just add real quick onto that. I think that
20:34
we did a really
20:37
good episode about analyst relations. And I think that my piece on sort of the,
20:42
and we've done a
20:43
bunch of great episodes with both GTUN and trust radius. So I think that there
20:47
's a ton of value in
20:48
those two things for sure. I think that they get you on the slide. Like that's
20:52
what's so
20:52
valuable is like you, if you're in the correct quadrant or if your G2 ratings
20:58
are really high,
21:00
or you win a bunch of things that way, it will get you on the slide in front of
21:05
the CFO, you know,
21:07
and say like, Hey, well, why was like, who's at the top right, you know, or
21:11
whatever, that'll get
21:13
you on the slide, which is great if you have that motion. But at the end of the
21:17
day, like you said,
21:18
what's going to fast track you from nobody even, you know, caring at all to
21:26
like, Hey, my pal uses
21:28
this, they said it's awesome. Here's their case study of how they actually did
21:32
it in their company
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and how they're getting value, like from my friend, by the way, with with all
21:37
the wink, wink, nudge,
21:38
nudge stuff, like they can give me the real real about this whole thing. That's
21:42
way more value.
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Totally. Yeah. And there is a place for analyst relations and there is that
21:48
validation. And
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there's other ways in which that we have looked at analyst relations to like,
21:53
they have a lot of
21:54
free reports like the total economic impact report where they literally dig
21:57
into your business,
21:58
and they evaluate literally the total economic impact, not just revenue, but
22:04
time savings and
22:06
operationally what that looks like. And those are the type of things that help
22:11
with the conversations.
22:12
But to your point, when we think about accelerating, getting in the door with
22:16
the decision makers,
22:17
those referrals are like second to nine. Yeah, we had some metrophuros on the
22:24
show a long time ago.
22:24
He was like, we were talking and he was like, I will never, he's like, I will
22:31
never get a referral
22:34
and just ignore it. Like if one of my friends says, Hey, you should check this
22:39
out. We use it.
22:40
And it's awesome. He's like, I will always look. That's never, I'm never going
22:43
to delete the text.
22:44
I'm never going to, you know, delete the email. I'm going to, I'm going to go
22:48
check it out. And
22:48
I'm probably going to take a call because I trust my friends. And like, that is
22:51
the difference,
22:52
right? If an analyst tells you to do that, you're like, Oh, great, that'll be
22:56
good ammo to when I
22:57
to convince my CFO that we need to make this investment. You know what I mean?
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Yes. Exactly.
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Well said for sure. Okay. Third. So this is what I have less to say about
23:08
because we're testing it,
23:09
but I have a, this is to me like untapped potential. It's LinkedIn, like paid
23:16
and organic LinkedIn,
23:17
because this is where the decision makers are. And just like Twitter and
23:25
Instagram have become
23:27
so bingeable for the audiences that are on there, there's an opportunity to do
23:31
the same
23:32
with LinkedIn. All of our decision makers are on there. They're posting. They
23:37
're looking for
23:38
they're recruiting and they're looking for jobs, whatever it is. And the
23:42
content on there is kind
23:44
of hit or miss. So this to me is where we are going to start elevating our
23:50
internal retail experts
23:52
and our key opinion leaders to drive that top of funnel awareness, drive that,
23:59
that known,
24:00
respected, trusted relationship, demand, chain motion. So I'm excited to team
24:06
what to see what my
24:08
team and I kind of do with that over the next six months or so.
24:13
I love it. That is awesome. I wholeheartedly agree. We do the same thing in C
24:17
aspian. We've been,
24:18
we actually, I got that advice on the show and I can't remember who it was. But
24:22
we've been running
24:23
LinkedIn ads in concert with organic from my page for a while. And using like
24:30
our podcasts,
24:32
stuff like that in different clips and all sorts of different stuff there. But
24:35
yeah,
24:35
I know it's, it like absolutely works. Like it provides a really nice halo and
24:39
like you hear,
24:41
like, because we had, you know, we produce like 65 different shows. So we run
24:44
this play for a
24:44
lot of people. And when you give and a subject matter expert, especially
24:49
someone on your internal
24:50
team, something like a series or a podcast or whatever, an event series that
24:54
they're hosting,
24:55
they get hit up all the time when they go to events and stuff like that and go
25:01
like,
25:01
Oh, you're the podcast guy or like, you know, like, oh, yeah, like I saw, you
25:05
know, whoever was on your
25:06
show and nobody, they're like, those didn't show up in the comments. Those didn
25:10
't show up in the,
25:11
you know, in the clicks, it's just those people that LinkedIn just favors
25:16
getting thought leadership
25:17
from human beings out in front of their peers. And that's the way the algorithm
25:20
works. And if
25:21
you're making good stuff, like they accelerate that, if you make bad stuff, you
25:25
see your posts,
25:25
they don't do as well. And it's like an absolute winning strategy. And if you
25:29
combine that with
25:30
paid, and then you can sort of follow them all around LinkedIn, it's like it
25:35
works crazy well.
25:36
And LinkedIn adds are crazy expensive too. So there's a downside to it, but the
25:40
organic stuff is,
25:41
is really nice. Right. And for us, I think like, if we feel really strongly
25:46
about the content
25:47
that leadership are putting out, like we're going to risk the dollars because
25:50
to your point, we
25:51
think the reach would be exponential if we get some of the LinkedIn ad units
25:55
are really good.
25:56
Some are kind of funky, especially the ones that are like the top right unit on
26:02
desktop.
26:03
Those ones are kind of weird. We've seen mixed results with that. But some of
26:08
the other ad units
26:08
are so, so good. I talked to we recently had Clary on the podcast. I was
26:13
talking about
26:14
how their ads have seen them for so long. And they just stand out and they pop
26:18
and it's like
26:19
unmissable, right? And if you tell the right story, like you will get the view,
26:24
you will get the
26:24
impression and it's really good. Whereas there's just other places where you
26:29
can serve ads where
26:30
it might not be the case. Yeah, it's funny. Clary came up when we were looking
26:34
at like,
26:34
who were the B2B companies that are doing this really well? Clary was when that
26:38
came up as we're
26:39
looking at like, what do we want to test here? So yeah, it's funny. The fact
26:41
that you saw it,
26:42
like they're doing it right. Yeah, we are. That's like, everybody knows the Run
26:46
Revenue campaign.
26:47
They're like, great to hear. Awesome. Yeah, but I totally agree. I mean, like,
26:52
so many people on LinkedIn and so many executives, like you said, it's just
26:55
from a recruiting
26:56
standpoint, from a thought leadership standpoint, they know they need to like,
26:59
get information out there in front of people to build their teams to do all
27:03
that stuff,
27:04
how you build your career now, you know, agreed. So yeah, those are my
27:08
incredible events community referrals LinkedIn. Okay, what about something that
27:13
maybe is not
27:14
working or fading away or just something that you don't want to invest in next
27:17
year?
27:18
So this is, I think traditional outbound is fading away. That is why our, we've
27:26
kind of pivoted our
27:27
entire SDR team into this ABX account based experiences role. This goes back to
27:35
in enterprise,
27:38
where tech solutions are oversaturated. Most prospects are not buying from just
27:45
like a cold call
27:46
or a cold email. So the way we kind of integrate the SDRs and the AVX team
27:54
really is what they are
27:55
into that relationship demand gen chain totally elevates their value because we
28:00
're becoming known
28:03
and respected in all of the activities we're doing between thought leadership
28:08
events and community,
28:09
which gives them the ability and the time to curate their outreach based on the
28:18
very specific
28:18
research they're doing on the specific company so that they can speak to
28:23
exactly what the person
28:25
that they're going to email is is feeling the pain that they're feeling who, if
28:30
we're doing our
28:30
job right, has heard our point of view all along has been part of our community
28:36
. Now they want to
28:37
take a call with us. So it becomes so much more about the individual contact
28:44
and individual company
28:46
that they work at and how that AVX team is able to curate it to speak directly
28:52
to them after they've
28:53
had all this contacts from us in the upfront top of funnel activities. That's
28:58
becoming really valuable
29:01
and a lot of the new gen AI tools with me and my team are still learning are a
29:06
big part of that
29:07
where we can see, okay, if we're talking to in a parallel retailer, this is
29:13
what an apparel retailer
29:15
is cares about generally compared to like a health and beauty retailer. And
29:19
then that's something an
29:21
AVX manager can copy edit for the specific person that they're speaking to. And
29:27
that just
29:28
accelerates like true one to one outreach. So goodbye, like cold calling and
29:34
blast emails from the
29:35
SDR hello hyper personalized curated that's built right into the marketing
29:41
engine.
29:41
I couldn't agree more. I think it's it's ludicrous that we just blast
29:47
thousands and thousands of emails at people's email boxes. Like there's just a
29:52
better way. I
29:55
just was talking to CMO that said that basically a bunch of their marketing
29:58
budget got cut and
29:59
their their CEO hired a bunch of outbound reps. And it's like, could you
30:05
imagine a worse way to
30:07
spend your money? Then let's just send more emails because that's free. You
30:12
know, it's like,
30:13
I mean, it's not free because you just put a 10 person head count on it. They
30:17
're just gonna
30:18
yeah, 10% count with very minimal results. And you're also pissing off your
30:22
customer pay.
30:23
Yeah, and you're driving people crazy. Well, and this is why we're so focused
30:28
on measuring
30:28
the strategy versus the channel. Yes, we're looking at the channel and things
30:32
like LinkedIn,
30:33
we want to dial up. But when we're looking at how they're engaging with the
30:38
programming,
30:38
it becomes a lot easier to justify budget to the CFO. Totally. And not to say
30:46
like emailing people
30:47
is bad or reaching out as bad or any of that sort of stuff. I'm referring to
30:50
someone taking
30:53
list of 10,000 accounts breaking it between their 10 salespeople or their, you
30:57
know, VDRs and just
31:00
emailing them 50,000 times in creative ways. There's there's nothing to warm up
31:05
the market
31:05
like before that. So it's gonna be really hard to break sure.
31:11
Any other thoughts on on plays or budget items or or other stuff or stuff you
31:16
're excited about
31:17
or anything there? We should definitely dig into like, since you're kind of
31:21
just talking about it,
31:22
how we measure success. Let's do it. Okay, because this is something we talk
31:28
about literally every
31:29
single day. And at the end of the day, everything has to tie to pipeline,
31:35
meaning meaningful meetings
31:38
generated for the sales team with qualified contacts and accounts. With our
31:43
model, this relationship
31:45
to their gen chain approach, this means looking at what is being prospects from
31:51
those points of entry
31:53
to points of leverage to points of conversion and understanding what the trends
31:58
are. So like I said,
32:00
less about the channel, more about the strategy. So we can see that, for
32:06
example, nine times out of
32:08
10, if a prospect attended a community event, they we book a sales meeting with
32:15
them. Or if they've
32:18
engaged in a LinkedIn ad about this topic, they immediately end up in a
32:25
community program. So it's
32:27
like, what are the what are the levers that we can pull to move them along
32:31
those points in the chain?
32:33
And that's what we're measuring and going back to even what we were talking
32:37
about earlier, as far as
32:39
like a two second meeting at an exhibit booth, doesn't necessarily mean they're
32:44
a lead.
32:45
That's the the badge scan.
32:47
The badge scan.
32:49
That means nothing. And that's also another reason why we've actually pulled
32:54
back investment
32:54
on exhibiting at events, which we can also talk about. But reality being, how
32:59
do we how do we assign
33:00
meaningful weight to the intricacies of what's happening at the points of entry
33:07
points of leverage
33:08
points of conversion, downloading something is going to weigh more than I click
33:13
something on the
33:14
website, for example, going to a community event and having a conversation
33:20
during that roundtable
33:23
weighs more than I signed up for the event, but I didn't show up.
33:27
So we're literally looking at those intricacies to be able to understand what's
33:31
working and what's
33:32
not. How do we accelerate? What are the things the levers we can pull to
33:37
accelerate things on that
33:38
chain and drive up those those sales meetings?
33:42
Yeah, I think it's just about rephrasing thinking of like not thinking of your
33:47
customers in a binary
33:49
way of like, does this get them closer to buy? Yes or no? And thinking of like,
33:55
are they showing
33:56
intent to be part of your community because they want to learn? Is this someone
34:01
who wants to be
34:01
closer to their peers? Is this someone who just seeks to learn information?
34:05
They've checked out
34:06
like three webinars and two white papers and whatever else or like every time
34:10
it's about sustainability,
34:12
they attend. So clearly they have an interest in sustainability. So could we
34:15
engage them in that
34:16
way? That's where I think that so much of like what we've missed traditionally
34:21
is just trying to
34:22
say that like all of these, you know, intent signals equal sales intent, where
34:28
it's like, no,
34:28
they equal a desire and a need to be part of a community that can serve them in
34:34
many different
34:35
ways. And like, we can be that for them. And then, you know, we can also ask
34:39
them sales questions
34:40
like, hey, are you ready to buy our stuff? And it, you know, and then slot
34:43
easier that way. And I
34:44
think just so many people like each of those steps in traditional marketing was
34:48
like,
34:48
Scam badge, that's a lead webinar. That's a lead, you know, download a white
34:53
paper. That's a lead,
34:54
like that's not showing intent to buy unless it is like a, hey, you know, a
35:00
demo like, yeah,
35:01
so you watch our demo video like sounds like you want to buy something, you
35:04
know, like, that's
35:05
obviously very high intent. Right. Well, and I think it's humanizing and adding
35:08
just some logic
35:10
and even just applying it to our own experiences. When I'm like, Googling
35:13
something and reading
35:14
an article, it doesn't necessarily mean I want to buy your solution. But yeah,
35:19
well said.
35:19
Okay, let's get to the desktop. Where we talk about healthy tension, whether
35:24
that's with your
35:24
board or show, your competitor, or anyone else, it'd be had a memorable dust up
35:28
in your career,
35:29
Sarah. Oh, I've had a see you. So you're from Jersey. I mean, I feel Jersey. We
35:35
were very direct.
35:36
Well, actually, technically, I'm from New York, which is probably even worse.
35:39
So it's true.
35:40
Lucking, letting it's left on said. Yeah. So there's no running from us. But
35:45
yeah. And I think where.
35:46
So, I mean, this dust up as a marketing leader, this dust up comes in every
35:52
role, every year.
35:54
It's the dust up between marketing and sales. There is always a finger pointing
36:00
situation.
36:00
You're going to find yourself in where we're doing all these to drive leads and
36:06
drive
36:06
relationships and get your meetings. And now we through them over the fence to
36:10
you. And where are
36:10
they going? How are they converting? Because those two are so inextricably
36:14
linked. So there was a
36:17
dust up, I think, about a year or so ago, between me, my leaders and the sales
36:23
leaders, where,
36:24
you know, we had some very aggressive growth targets we needed to hit. And we
36:29
were hitting
36:30
some friction points in being able to get there. And what it came down to is I
36:35
pulled my peer and
36:37
in sales aside and just what had a very transparent conversation and level set
36:44
against the fact that
36:45
like, I'm pointing fingers at you, you're pointing fingers at me, we're having
36:50
circular
36:51
conversations, and we're not making enough of a debt in these aggressive roles.
36:55
And we need to
36:56
acknowledge and remember the fact that our team success, the company's success,
37:01
it's inextricably
37:03
linked. And if we don't start getting on the same page and working together
37:07
instead of like
37:08
an integrated way instead of running in parallel, we're not going to be able to
37:12
achieve our goals.
37:13
And this was like a series of conversations. It wasn't just one conversation.
37:16
It was between me
37:17
and my peer, and then we brought our directions to the conversation. And I
37:21
think it started,
37:22
it was a little bit of like a therapy session at first, where there's an airing
37:26
of grievances.
37:26
And then we all come to the table and realize, we want our teams to be
37:30
successful. We want the
37:30
company to be successful. What do we need to change to get there? And that kind
37:36
of like clearing the
37:38
air and just starting fresh was so important and game-changing for what the
37:44
impact we were able to
37:46
make on pipeline. And we basically were like, we need to do planning together.
37:52
We need to make
37:53
sure we are running towards the same goals. Marketing can't have goals and
37:56
sales can't have
37:57
goals. We have to have goals that exist together. And we need to have an
38:01
agreement on the strategy
38:03
on both sides of the coins for how we're moving things through the funnel,
38:06
through the marketing
38:07
pipeline, into the sales pipeline. And what's the operating rhythm with which
38:13
we're going to check
38:14
in with each other on what's working, what's not, so that we can pivot where
38:18
necessary. And
38:20
this was huge for us. It just changed the way we were thinking about marketing
38:27
and sales. And
38:28
it was an important learning for me. And it's something I've gone back to time
38:35
and time again,
38:36
as leadership changes or strategy changes, where we have to go back to that
38:42
level set and remember,
38:44
we're all here trying to do something good. Let's work together. First of all,
38:49
I've also been
38:50
at Bluecor for like 10 years. So like since Bluecor has existed, basically. So
38:55
I already have a
38:56
reputation that precedes me, but it's not to the point now where you I've
39:01
become a verb.
39:02
Like it's like we're not getting to the point or if we're we're veering off
39:08
track and get caskoned.
39:10
And get caskoned so that we can focus on the right things. And but yeah, it's
39:18
fun. I think
39:19
people appreciate it. I don't know how I haven't gotten caskoned yet, yet today
39:24
, but now I'm even
39:26
more on my first. Okay, let's get to our last segment. Quick hits. These are
39:31
quick questions
39:31
and quick answers, just like conversational marketing when qualified, you can
39:36
go to qualified.com
39:37
to learn more. Because qualified prospects are on your website right now, you
39:41
can talk to them
39:41
quickly with qualified quick and easy, just like these questions go to
39:46
qualified.com to learn more.
39:47
Sarah, are you ready? I'm ready. Number one, you have a hidden talent or skill
39:54
that's not on your
39:55
resume. Yes. So for me, it's ruthless prioritization. So no matter how much is
40:05
on my or my team,
40:07
I can see the big picture of what's most important and why and clear the way
40:11
against any distractions
40:13
or shiny objects. And it's funny that you asked this now because this actually
40:18
just came out of
40:19
a discussion I had with my CMO recently. It's one of those things, like
40:24
everyone's got a hidden
40:26
talent that is obvious to everyone else, but it's so innate to you and who you
40:31
are. It's not even
40:33
something you recognize unless it's brought to your attention. And I think that
40:39
's also a good
40:40
learning in that way. It's great to survey your peers and your boss as far as
40:45
what they believe
40:46
your superpowers to be so you can lean in on that. But that's my ruthless
40:50
prioritization.
40:51
Do you have a favorite book podcast TV show that you've been checking out
40:55
recently?
40:57
Yes. So the shows I watch are mostly trashy reality TV where I can turn my
41:03
brain off. But
41:04
my favorite book right now, which I'm in the middle of, is grit by Anne Thiuk
41:09
worth. So I've
41:12
always believed in the power of grit, which as she defines as this combination
41:17
of passion and
41:18
perseverance over raw talent. This book unpacks that. But people who have grit
41:26
are basically in
41:28
the face of anything able to figure things out, persevere, keep moving, fall
41:33
down, get up.
41:34
And those are the type of people I love to work with. And I love to hire
41:39
because regardless of skill
41:43
or talent, you can do almost anything with that quality, in my opinion. So
41:48
highly recommend.
41:49
I have to finish it. It's like halfway through when I love it. I'm recommending
41:52
it.
41:52
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's great. If you weren't in marketing at all or business,
41:58
what do you think
41:58
you'd be doing? Probably be a stay at home dog mom. Love it. I've got two pit
42:06
bulls who are
42:07
handful and I love them. But yeah, I don't know. It's a business. It's hard to
42:12
picture myself
42:13
doing anything else because I absolutely love what I do. Marketing to me is
42:19
just like
42:20
got this human psychological element to it that I'm just very drawn to. So yeah
42:27
, I guess
42:28
stay at home dog mom is my second alternatives. What would be your best advice
42:34
for first time VP
42:35
of marketing? Who's trying to figure out their pipeline strategy?
42:38
Tap your community. Community is like, I think the most important thing in
42:44
business period,
42:45
no matter what role you're in. I think I've been able to grow because I've been
42:50
open to
42:51
talking to others, getting their feedback, never assuming that I know
42:57
everything.
42:58
And honestly, that humility, it's kind of funny. You think it's the opposite
43:03
that the higher
43:04
you go up in the chain, the more sure of yourself you are. I think it's almost
43:10
the opposite. Like,
43:11
it's the more unsure you get and the more you realize you don't know a lot or
43:16
you don't know
43:17
everything and you need to surround yourself with people that help you build
43:21
and that that
43:21
humility is huge. So I would say always staying humble and grounded and tapping
43:29
your community.
43:30
That's how you can can rock a shit up, ship up.
43:33
And you can rock it, ship up and also shake your head and your lappy little dog
43:46
ears.
43:46
Probably always a welcome sound in the proverbial pipeline visionaries studio.
44:00
Sarah, that's it. It's been fantastic chatting with you today. For listeners,
44:05
you can go to bluecore.com and if you're in marketing for a D2C company, boy,
44:11
do we have
44:11
some sweet communities for you to join. And so check that out. Any final
44:15
thoughts? Anything to plug
44:16
here? I don't think so. I think we covered a lot. Thank you so much for having
44:21
me in. Yeah, likewise.
44:23
Thanks so much for joining and we'll talk soon.