Ian Faison & Sarah Cascone 44 min

Goodbye Traditional Outbound, Hello Hyper-Personalized Content


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

9:20

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

9:32

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

10:20

of the year next week for bringing a bunch of VP and C suite leaders across the

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commerce and

10:26

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

13:06

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,

13:44

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,

14:04

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

14:12

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

14:16

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

14:48

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

15:07

kind of skipping over everyone, especially because we recognize that budgets

15:11

are tight.

15:11

Not everyone has travel budgets. We want to make sure we can go to them. That's

15:15

another reason

15:16

to a lot of our community events are virtual. We want to make it really easy to

15:20

pop in and out

15:20

between meetings. And we do have the in person options as well, because there's

15:26

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,

15:32

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,

15:45

it's like where you can't be everywhere and you can't do that stuff. But you

15:48

know that having in-person

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conversations and getting your customers together is also like another part of

15:56

that. That's like

15:57

at mission critical, right? Like getting your customers talking and getting

16:03

them talking with

16:03

prospects is like mission critical. It's like, how do you do that and how do

16:06

you budget it and all

16:07

that? That's why I think that the blend of having your own events, at least you

16:11

control all the

16:12

variables and having a digital presence and having in person. And there's ways

16:16

to get creative with

16:17

that and partner with people. But it is a lot of time. It's a lot of people's

16:21

time to build that.

16:23

It is. So yeah, having that variety of options is huge. We also budget for

16:28

covering things like

16:31

travel for not just our customers, but prospects also recognizing that even if

16:36

they do have

16:37

the time, they might not have the budget resources. So that's another thing we

16:42

try and help out

16:43

so that they can connect with the community. We can connect with that.

16:47

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

16:57

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

17:09

digital distribution and

17:10

also the halo effect for the events. And then the events kind of sits in

17:14

between where, yes,

17:17

it's also driving some of the top of funnel awareness, but it's also driving

17:23

that consistent

17:24

engagement and nurturing that builds that respect for who we are, the community

17:31

that earns us the

17:32

right to have a sales conversation that earns the right for the ABX team to

17:37

reach out to them,

17:38

and they'll actually listen and respond and be open to a call.

17:41

Yeah, my issue as, you know, as why this, I think field has been, field has

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been flawed.

17:48

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,

17:53

right? Like that's part of the problem is like it's not elite. Them going, them

17:57

wanting to hang out

17:58

with their peers and get a cocktail, like does not mean that they're interested

18:01

in your product.

18:02

So it was always kind of silly that field kind of fall under demand for me. I

18:06

totally get why

18:07

I'm not saying it shouldn't live under demand, but I just think of like, you

18:10

know, structurally,

18:11

it's a little weird. It paints a photo here where it's like community, like

18:16

community events being

18:17

one thing, but like webinars would be a demand for you know what I mean? It's

18:21

like, but what's

18:21

the different kind of thing? Yeah. Well, and we've spent a lot of time on the

18:26

marketing team,

18:27

kind of breaking that down from a measurement standpoint and what makes logical

18:34

sense. And,

18:34

you know, we've done a lot of scoring models and what, you know, what different

18:41

types of engagement

18:43

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

19:03

are looking at

19:04

the strong strongest buying signals and that's who are driving towards sales

19:09

pipeline.

19:10

Love it. And then your other uncutables, I don't know if you want to add any

19:14

flavor.

19:15

Yeah. Yeah. I'll add referrals is one and that's very related to community. And

19:23

the reality is most, at least in the retail marketing space, and I would say

19:29

this is true

19:30

in any space of anybody buying technology, they're looking to their peers when

19:35

they're evaluating

19:36

solutions and they're looking for recommendations. I think gone are the days of

19:41

like,

19:42

yes, there's a place for like G2 crowd and the forest reports and things like

19:47

that. But those

19:48

are small signals. People trust their peer network. So out of the community for

19:54

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

21:33

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.

21:43

Totally. Yeah. And there is a place for analyst relations and there is that

21:48

validation. And

21:49

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?

23:00

Yes. Exactly.

23:01

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.