Ian Faison & Jessica Shapiro 42 min

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


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[MUSIC]

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Welcome to Pipeline Visionaries.

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I'm Ian Faiz on CEO of Casping Studios.

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Today, I am joined by special guest, Jessica.

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How are you?

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>> I am good and I am very honored to be here.

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I love your podcast and I love the incredible talent you've had on this podcast

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So I'm honored to be amongst the guests.

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>> We appreciate it very much.

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And so today we're going to be talking about obviously marketing, pipeline

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development.

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We're going to talk about live ramp, all the cool stuff that you're doing there

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We're going to get into your background.

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We're going to talk about how demand,

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and growth work effectively with the broader marketing team.

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And much more in today's episode, as always, is brought to you by our friends

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at Qualified.

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Qualified is the number one conversational sales and

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marketing platform for companies, revenue teams that use Salesforce.

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Head on over to Qualified.com to learn how you can start having a smarter,

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faster conversation with your buyers right there on your websites.

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So let's get started, Jessica.

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What's your first job marketing?

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>> My first job in marketing, actually, I'll just take you back.

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I am from Seattle.

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I went to the East Coast for college.

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I moved to Washington, DC for a job.

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I graduated with a liberal arts degree.

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I had no idea what I wanted to do.

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But I knew through my life that I was always curious about people.

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I was always invested in relationships and communication and storytelling.

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Was something that was important to me and

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I was always developing that skill.

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I moved to the East Coast.

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I never thought I'd come back to Seattle.

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It felt like a small town when I left.

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But then there was a tech boom in Seattle and everyone was moving to Seattle.

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So there I went.

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I came back and I got a temp job in a small startup that I think six months

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later went under.

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But the CEO took a liking to me and he said, let me introduce you to our PR

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firm.

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I think you'd be a perfect fit for that.

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I went over to that PR firm and that firm represented a lot of small high tech

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companies who are in the process of going public.

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And so that lit my fire for technology, for companies in growth,

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for telling their stories and then also connecting that to the financial

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markets.

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So that was how I started marketing.

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And flash forward to today, tell us what it means to be CMO, a librarian.

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To be, I've been here for about a year and a half, it is a phenomenal job.

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It's been about a lot of transformation.

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When I came into Live RAM, though the company has been very successful,

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marketing was not seen as a strategic function that was driving revenue.

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We were doing a lot of things, but we weren't correlating that to the bottom

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line.

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We weren't correlating that to impact in the industry.

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And my job was to come in and it was really about restructuring the team,

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figuring out what we needed to do so that marketing had a seat at the table.

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And that we were driving revenue.

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So the first thing I did was take stock of the talent,

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figure out who we needed to make sure was in more important seats.

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It coincided with some layoffs, so there was some change in the talent.

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But we really worked on building that demand-gen engine and getting our pipes

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working,

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getting that waterfall there so that we could really understand what was coming

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in

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at the top of the funnel and how was it moving all the way through to the hand

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off

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to sales and then to close one.

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Once we got that infrastructure laid, the next big challenge was,

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what do we stand for?

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What is our brand?

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How are we differentiated?

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And a lot of work on figuring out how we were going to tell our story.

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And I believe that when you figure out what your story is

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and how it's differentiated and how to tell it at the different phases of the

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customer journey,

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and you can apply that to all the channels of demand-gen,

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that's when you start humming.

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Let's get to our first segment, The Trust Tree, where you go and feel honest

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and trusted.

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You can share those deepest, darkest pipeline generation secrets.

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Tell us a little bit about LiveRamp, what is the company and who are your

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customers?

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Yeah.

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So LiveRamp is a B2B enterprise SaaS company that focuses on data collaboration

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And just to put that into context, companies have first-party data.

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They value that data that customers give them.

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But the amount of data companies have is limited.

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And more data is more insight, is a better customer experience,

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and companies are always looking to increase their first-party data in a

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privacy-safe way.

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And so we bring companies together to exchange first-party data

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so they can drive stronger business and brand value,

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creating that brand loyalty by more personalized experiences

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and obviously driving more efficient campaigns,

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so they're driving more to the bottom line.

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And if I could just give you one small example,

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most people, a lot of people have a pet.

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One of our customers is Hill's pet nutrition.

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And Hill's sells a lot of dog food, a lot of pet food.

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They don't have a lot of information about their customers

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because they sell their dog food through a third-party,

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a pet store, a grocery store, etc.

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So Hill's needs more data to understand how to more efficiently market.

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They come together within Albert's sins.

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They, in a safe way, bring together just the necessary data

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so that Hill's can understand what customers,

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their customers are doing at Albert's sins.

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And Albert's sins can understand what Hill's customers are doing in other

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places.

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They find out that Hill's customers are buying at pet food companies

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and they're also buying at the grocery store.

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What does that lead to?

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Hill's can do more marketing to customers about buying at Albert's sins

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so that when they're getting their groceries, they can also get their pet food.

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That makes it more convenient for them to get what they need.

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It makes it so that they're having more trips to where they can buy that pet

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food

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and it allows them to target those customers who have the overlap

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between Albert's sins and Hill's more efficiently.

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And what does that buying persona look like?

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What does that buying committee look like?

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Yeah, our primary audience is the marketer,

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which I have to say as a CMO is, you know,

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such a joy to be able to talk to marketers

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and to think about what marketers are thinking about.

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But obviously with every enterprise purchase, there is a buying committee.

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And in our buying committee is usually,

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if there's a chief digital officer, wherever the analysts sit, the CIO,

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and then definitely the CFO, convincing the CFO that the return

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on the investment in live RAM is going to be there.

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So that's our buying committee.

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How do you think about your marketing strategy and where demand fits within it?

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Demand is at the core.

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Again, I come back to everything we have to do

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is about driving revenue and you can't do that without driving demand.

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It doesn't mean that having a strong brand,

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getting thought leadership out there isn't important,

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but there's an end game.

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And the end game is to take that thought leadership

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and that brand awareness to get the right people interested in live RAM.

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When I think about how we're organized

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and what we think about is what is that buyer journey?

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We know that more and more people are doing their research on their own

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before ever talking to a human.

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So we invest a lot in simple content

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so that they can understand what we do

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and how what we do can solve their problems and be a benefit.

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We are very outcomes focused in our messaging

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and we think about serving the right data at the right time in the buyer

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journey

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and then making sure the SDRs are empowered with what we're running

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in terms of campaigns and messaging.

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And then there's a strong handoff to our sales team.

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And then we very meticulously look at that demand waterfall

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and we say what's converting the best or at what stage of the funnel

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are we getting stuck and we need to figure out what's going on there.

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Sometimes there's that moment where you realize

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there's a really easy solve to a really big problem

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where you can unlock a lot.

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And those are always amazing moments.

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Yeah, do you have an example of that?

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Off the top of your head?

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Recently, we found out that when our opportunities were coming through,

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there were starting to be a log jam.

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And rather than just, we have amazing SDRs,

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but just letting the SDR know,

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making sure that our client executive is new,

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making sure that the RVP is new,

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kind of setting an alert to the entire pursuit team

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so that the focus could be on that opportunity

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and it didn't get stuck in someone's queue

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because it takes a lot of people to understand how important

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that opportunity is.

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Obviously, we use all the criteria, the scoring, the band criteria,

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but still a client executive,

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we call them CLs, a client leader or an RVP,

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may have context, then SDR doesn't know

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or a marketing person doesn't know.

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So we've found that we've been able to accelerate

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the movement of opportunity through the pipeline

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beyond opportunity by that alert going out to enough people

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to make sure eyes are on the rise.

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You've sort of talked about in the past this idea of,

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you know, brand awareness and demand gen,

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how do they work hand in hand?

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I love the term brand gen,

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like what types of brand gen campaigns do you have?

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I think that you see a lot more brand gen type initiatives

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or things that people want to do that are more of a brand gen play

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because every brand campaign needs to have a little bit of demand gen in it now

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and every demand gen campaign, you want to have a little bit more brand

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involved in it

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to not be so transactional,

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but why is it so important that these work hand in hand?

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Yeah, such a good question.

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Well, first, I am a huge believer that a CMO needs to have really strong brand

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shops

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and really strong demand gen shops.

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And I actually came up through more of a communication brand career

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and made a purposeful shift over to demand

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so that I could be kind of equally strong on both sides.

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And when I think about an effective campaign,

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every demand impression is also a brand impression.

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I think of them together.

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That demand impression has to convey the right information

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at the right time of the buyer's journey,

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so I don't think of them as separated.

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Most of our companies don't have the luxury of just running a brand campaign

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and then running demand gen campaign.

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So I think about they have to be united.

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I think where we are doing more pure brand is in thought leadership,

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in PR, speaking, but the same time that really believes into our demand

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because if you're compelling in that thought leadership,

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you're driving someone to your website,

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you're getting someone to look at the next piece of content.

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We're smart enough to know who looked at our brand content,

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who attended our event, who attended our webinar,

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and then continue to bring them through the journey.

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So we have two major campaigns running now.

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One, all about data collaboration, one about media networks,

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and we think about the intersection of both brand and demand.

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I'm a huge proponent of integrated marketing.

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And to do integrated marketing well,

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you have to have all your channels lit up around the same idea.

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So strong blending of both brand and demand.

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Yeah, I think it's really silly that certain brand activities get just like

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labeled as brand.

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Like, you coming on this podcast, obviously,

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you sell to marketers, you have marketers that are listening.

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If there's a CPG marketer that's trying to think about data collaboration

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and how to access data from anywhere so it can be used everywhere,

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they should go to liverimp.com and check it out, right?

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At the end of the day, how is that anything but something that increases demand

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It's not like you just have a positive brand interaction.

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You send someone lollipop and they're like, "Oh, this is tasty.

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This brand is slightly more favorable to me."

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That's not really how it works in B2B,

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although I'm accepting lollipop donations,

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if anyone's listening.

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But you know what I mean?

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It's just silly that this new role of VP of brand content in COMS,

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which is, I think, coming a lot more popular,

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because they are directly tied to pipeline, whether or not they carry the

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number or not,

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but they are.

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All of their activities are doing that.

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I don't know.

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I kind of feel like it's a bit archaic, to be honest.

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I 100% agree.

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Two points on that.

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One is, I think, also the reverse community,

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where demand marketers can't just put out a bunch of stuff

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without having a really clear brand point of view.

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What is the value to the customer?

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Where is the white space?

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Where is the opportunity?

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I think it's really easy for us to, in the demand world, to be more reactive.

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And to be efficient, you need to be thinking about,

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how are you going to tell a story to bring someone down the funnel?

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So having that brand's story to guide, that's really important.

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And the second thing is, I believe everything has to be measured.

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Not everything can be measured directly.

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Obviously, a lot on the demand side can be measured directly.

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But some things can't, like PR.

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And in those cases, I believe you have to have proxies,

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so that you can measure the effectiveness.

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We use a share of voice measurement.

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How much share of voice do we have versus our competitive set versus who people

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are

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choosing instead of us and having that clear number that everyone's working

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against?

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I believe is the way to point a company and a team in the right direction.

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And for that team to also be empowered to see how what they are doing

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ladders up to where the whole company is going.

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And when a marketer knows their impact on the entire company,

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I find my teams are more inspired.

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Yeah, I heard from the great Scott Holden very early on in this podcast.

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And he's like, brand is about getting your message to as many people as you can

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And that inherently drives demand, right?

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When they hear your message, which your message is, you know, why they can

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improve

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themselves, save money, save time, save energy, make more money, whatever that

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message is,

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it's a brand gen thing, right?

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It's like that's what's going to drive someone to go, you know, fill out a lead

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form.

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Any other thoughts on brand, on demand, on structure, on market strategy?

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A couple of things.

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One is coming back to this idea of integrated marketing.

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I really believe that breaking down silos is critical.

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So within my team, I have a corporate marketing team that's thinking about PR,

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thought leadership, analyst relations, internal comms, content development.

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I have a growth team that's thinking about integrated campaigns.

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They're paid media-owned, earned event demand gen.

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I have marketing ops that really bridges things, but those teams have to work

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together.

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So, you know, one specific example, when we run an event, and an event, our

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customer event

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is our largest pipeline driver.

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It has huge satisfaction.

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It's been wonderful to see post-COVID that people come back and how much value

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you can drive in an

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event.

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But it really requires our growth team to be thinking about, you know, the

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numbers, like,

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how many people can we accommodate and what's it going to look like and how are

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we going to

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deliver the most value with the space that we have.

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But then they have to partner so closely with our content team to say,

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"Who are the speakers we need to get on stage?

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What is the content that we get on stage?"

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And so, I believe one of my philosophies is that making sure you don't build up

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silos within

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your own marketing team leads to the best marketing.

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The interdependencies are key.

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I think second, when I had my first marketing leadership role, I was running

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the whole

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marketing team.

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My president said to me, "When you walk into the boardroom, you are head of

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marketing,

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and you are an executive of this company.

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You wear two different hats."

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And that was a big aha for me, and realizing that my job is leading and

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empowering my

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marketing team.

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A big part of my job is being super close to our head of sales, our head of

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product,

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our, you know, the other leaders in the company so that we are in lockstep,

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particularly with a sales organization.

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And so, as I'm asking my team to break down silos, I'm working to break down

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those silos

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at that leadership level.

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And I think we've been able to move more quickly because there's a strong com

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radery,

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and there's a strong understanding that we have the same goals.

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And when you come back to demand gen and about data and the power of data,

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the way those relationships have become strong is not just the human nature of

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building a

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relationship, but also being able to prove it with the data.

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Let me show you what we're delivering for that is helping your team.

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That's what builds strong relationships.

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So those are some of the lessons that I've learned in managing teams that are

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coming to play here at

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LiveRamp.

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All right, let's get to our next segment.

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The playbook, this is where you open up that playbook and talk about the

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tactics that help you win.

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What are your three channels or tactics that are your most uncuttable budget

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items?

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I've thought about this a lot because I've listened to your podcast.

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And I started with a differentiated brand and understanding that buyer's

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journey.

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It's not a channel or a tactic, but it is everything.

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If you do not get the whole company singing off the same page, it's very hard

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to make a difference.

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So for me coming in, it was taking that time to do the rigorous research,

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talk to customers, get alignment with our leadership, get a strong brand story,

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train our marketing, build the marketing materials, and then train our sellers

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to use those same

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stories as they are talking to their customers.

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So having the whole organization moving together, we revealed our brand

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platform

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at our major customer event, ramp up last February.

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And it was this incredible organizing principle around data collaboration.

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And so my not cut is strong brand strategy.

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And I believe a strong brand strategy is not stagnant.

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It has to live and breathe and grow and everyone has to continue to be aligned

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and new people

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come into the organization and they need to be trained and feel part of that.

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So that's number one.

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It's so great.

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And it's so true.

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It's like you spend all this time to come up with all these different things.

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You do research, you talk to people, you talk to customers, you talk to

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prospects,

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you craft and you craft. And it's like, if the sales folks don't know the

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message,

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if the rest of the employees don't know the message, then you know, what was it

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all worth?

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I love that.

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Absolutely.

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It's so often, and I've experienced it and it's lessons learned the hard way,

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but

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yeah, you cannot have it sit in a PowerPoint.

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So the second is ABM.

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And I know ABM is such a hot thing right now.

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But we think about ABM as one to one, one to few and one to many.

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So when you think about that integrated campaign, I even heard you say on

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another podcast,

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like it's a little bit antiquated.

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And I think the new version of the integrated campaign is the ABM model.

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And it's not that you don't have all the pieces you need an integrated campaign

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but it's how you're serving it up, how you're stratifying your customers and

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clustering them.

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So, you know, obviously starting with your highest priority customers and using

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the assets

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for those campaigns to be very one to one, then kind of stepping back and

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saying,

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okay, well, can we cluster a few and get some traction because they're all in

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the same industry,

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they're all in automotive or they're all in healthcare.

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And can we talk to them in a really personalized way?

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And then one to many where we might be casting a broader net all with the goal

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of like getting

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them into a one to few type of ABM campaign.

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I love that. I had an experience earlier today where I was on a call with two

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of our leaders.

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And we were sort of having this problem that we've been trying to solve.

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And one of them was like, hey, have we ever thought about using this tool?

25:41

And I was like, oh, that's pretty cool.

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No, I hadn't, but we should probably look into that.

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We got off the call and then on Slack, 20 minutes later, a different person in

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the company

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tagged me and those leaders and a few other people and was like,

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have we ever thought about this tool? And I was like, dang, I don't know.

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I don't know.

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I love that.

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Right. I'm like, I don't know if they're running ABM campaigns like our company

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I don't know like what they're doing, but the fact that within within like 18

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minutes,

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both people had this like epiphany one in a meeting and one on Slack.

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You're like, this is what ABM is, right?

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It's like, yeah, like this is why multi threading is important.

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This is why like all the stuff is why going to the end user and to leaders

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makes sense

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because like one came from a leader, one came from end user.

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Like it's just that stuff is like that is ABM in a nutshell to me.

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And, you know, we're small, we're like, you know, an SMB.

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So I doubt that it probably was necessarily doing that, but who knows, right?

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Like who knows?

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And also just have that kind of idea in your head around like, that's the goal

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of ABM.

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Like if we can kind of think about like what it should feel like in the end,

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it's just inspiring to work on it to get there.

26:55

Yeah.

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And I love when we can kind of surround our customer and then I can actually go

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in and

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talk to that CMO.

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You know, that's it.

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I'm part of the campaign because we target CMOs and marketers.

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And when I can step into an ABM and be another dimension, another channel, that

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's powerful.

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I'm curious, like, how do you think about those other personas that you were

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talking about?

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Getting them on board, you know, getting the, you know, the chief buyer, the C

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MO

27:30

on board to, you know, improve their data.

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Collaboration is one thing, but then getting the CIO and the CFO,

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and it's an entirely different question.

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Yeah. It's a great question.

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Actually, we've been talking about this recently because, you know, obviously,

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resources are limited.

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So, you know, to do all of your campaigns in Triplekit and to buy in Triplekit,

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to target all those Bushsonas is not realistic for most companies.

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It's not realistic for us.

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So, the way we have approached it is to squarely go after the CMO,

28:12

but to create content to help that CMO talk to the CTO or the CIO or the CFO.

28:21

So, empower them to be that champion.

28:29

And then once we move it into, we're really talking, we're really getting into

28:37

deep into the selling

28:39

cycle. That's when we can bring some SMEs from our company in to engage with

28:44

those personas.

28:46

But for the top to mid funnel, it's been about choices and it's been about,

28:52

let's go after that CMO, but let's think more broadly, what does that CMO need

28:57

to accomplish?

28:58

They don't just need to accomplish driving more revenue with the media budget

29:05

they have

29:05

or increasing their first party data so they can deliver more personalized

29:12

experiences.

29:13

They also need to be able to talk to their peers about why this is so important

29:20

for the business.

29:20

I love that because, you know, so often sort of like sales enablement gets like

29:26

chucked in in one

29:28

sort of bucket, like who owns that? Is it marketing, what part of marketing,

29:34

etc, etc.

29:34

And I think that's such a great point that like especially in today's buying

29:40

climate,

29:41

where convincing that CIO and that CFO are way harder than they were two years

29:46

ago, especially in

29:47

tech, that having those resources for them to say like, hey, I know this is

29:52

going to be pushing a

29:53

massive rock uphill for y'all. That's probably going to take six months, but

29:57

here's the resources

29:59

that you have when you go and go with the CIO and the CFO and everything. I

30:01

love that. That's great.

30:02

Yeah, anything genders and attachment with that CMO like we're in this with you

30:10

, we realize what

30:11

you're what you're about to go do. We're going to go do this with you. We're

30:14

here to support you.

30:16

Okay, what's your third uncuttable? Customer testimonials. So often it's just

30:24

marketing speak.

30:25

And we have found that having our customers tell our story, having our

30:30

customers talk about how

30:32

their business is transformed because they work with live ramp is the best

30:38

marketing we could ever do.

30:40

And one thing we have this customer conference and we spend a lot more time.

30:47

You know, our customers are in stage talking, but how do we capture that in

30:52

video and get that

30:54

on social and get that in webinars and get our customers to feel like we're

31:00

actually building

31:01

their career and their profile because we want them to be in our webinars, but

31:06

they're telling

31:06

our story. So I think it's about really undercing the power that our customers

31:12

have.

31:13

And another company is really want to hear the real scoop from companies that

31:18

look like them.

31:19

I wish I could show you our our Q3 marketing plan because I would show you that

31:26

two of the

31:27

points you just listed are literally on there, which is the first one is like,

31:31

you know, how we're

31:33

doing ABM and how we're thinking about like sales enablement as part of that

31:37

and then

31:37

customer stories. But like that that's the sort of stuff that I think like

31:42

there's so many ways

31:43

that you can do it now. And you need to be thinking of all the different ways

31:47

that you're doing it,

31:48

not just the premium video on your website, but all those other ways.

31:54

I absolutely agree. It can actually be a light lift for the customer because

31:59

you get the right

32:00

material and then you just slice it a ton of different ways and

32:05

making that that just such a valuable asset go far is important. And that's

32:17

worthwhile for us.

32:17

Okay. Any other thoughts on on uncuttable budget items or maybe something that

32:25

's your

32:25

most cuttable budget item, something that they are not going to be investing in

32:29

Yeah, I actually just had this conversation with my team. I really

32:35

fundamentally believe in the

32:36

power of analyst relations. And I think if you can get into a Gartner magic

32:42

quadrant or a

32:42

forester wave, like there's so much power in that. We have not historically

32:49

invested a lot

32:51

in analyst relations. We have subscriptions, but we have not been working on

32:56

establishing the

32:57

category. And I came in and I said, we are going to do this. But the reality is

33:02

I don't have the budget right now to hire the senior person to make that happen

33:07

. So I have made

33:08

a conscious decision that for the next six months, we're not going to do

33:12

analyst relations. I want

33:14

to do it. I see the value. But I think as marketers, as leaders, we have to do

33:20

that thinking to say,

33:23

where am I just dabbling? And where can I really make an impact? And even some

33:29

of those things,

33:30

like, are important things. Analyst relations is really important. But I just

33:36

can't do what I need

33:37

to do to get a magic quadrant. So I'm going to let that go so we can generate

33:43

more revenue.

33:44

And I can have a bigger, better business case when we come into the next fiscal

33:50

year to make the case

33:51

to hire that person to go after analyst relations.

33:54

How do you view your website?

33:56

How do we view our website? We are overhauling our website right now. And that

34:04

is because our website

34:06

needs to be our front door converting high conversion. These hand raisers, they

34:16

got to move fast.

34:18

When they go to our website, they got to find what they need to find quickly.

34:21

They need to get

34:22

to go person quickly. So we are big believers in drift. Drift has been a great

34:27

tool for us.

34:28

And we did our brand overhaul to make things more simplistic. The talk and more

34:40

plain language

34:41

help people find what they need to find faster in terms of words. But we haven

34:47

't

34:47

yet gotten that onto our website. So we are getting close to launching that.

34:54

And we will like crazy the A/B testing, analyzing it. I think that our website

35:03

is so critical since,

35:05

you know, the latest data, 86% of people do their research before ever talking

35:10

to a human.

35:11

So our website needs to like function as our sales force without a person

35:17

living on it.

35:19

And so our website is key. And that's a big investment area.

35:26

All right, let's get to our next segment, the dust up where we talk about

35:29

healthy tension.

35:30

Of that's with your board, your sales team, your competitors or anyone else.

35:33

Jessica, have you had a memorable dust up in your career?

35:39

Yeah, I think that a dust up I've had a couple of times as a dust up. Most CMOs

35:46

have had at some

35:47

point, which is show me the money or show me the results. Why do you need to

35:54

spend so much and

35:55

what is it getting me? I think we have better tools now to make those arguments

36:01

. But even

36:02

five years ago, it was harder. So I remember when I was at SAP Concur and we

36:10

were transitioning

36:12

from we had been bought, concur, and bought the SAP, we were transitioning in.

36:17

I had to make the

36:18

case for our budget. And it was very hard to, through our attribution models,

36:26

to prove the case

36:28

for the need for marketing. And there we were developing campaigns and I

36:36

decided that we were

36:37

going to go completely dark on our marketing. I think it was a four month

36:43

period. And then

36:46

we lit up all of our channels. And I do believe that the most effective

36:53

marketing is when you have

36:55

layered your message in every possible channel, what people are speaking about,

37:00

what's on your

37:01

website, what your demand gen is, what your PR is. So we went from zero to

37:07

lighting it all up.

37:08

And then measuring that, both in terms of pipeline and brand awareness. And the

37:16

results

37:18

were so powerful that I was able to secure my budget. I love it. That's awesome

37:24

. Okay,

37:26

let's get to our final segment. Quick hits, these are quick questions and quick

37:29

answers,

37:30

just like how Qualify.com helps companies generate pipeline quickly, tap on

37:34

your greatest asset,

37:35

your website to identify your most valuable visitors and instantly start sales

37:40

conversations.

37:41

Quick and easy, just like these questions go to Qualify.com to learn more.

37:44

Jessica, quick hits,

37:46

are you ready? Yes. Number one, what's a hidden talent or skill that's not on

37:51

your resume?

37:52

I can stand on my head for a really long time. I wish I could say I could stand

38:01

on my arms,

38:02

that is just not happening, but I can stand on my head for a really long time.

38:06

Do you have a favorite

38:07

non-marketing hobby that indirectly makes you a better marketer?

38:14

I really love to read fiction. I love historical fiction. I just finished

38:21

reading Hello Beautiful

38:23

by Anne and Napolitano. And I think that letting your brain wander and be a bit

38:33

free from

38:35

business books and what you have to do in your day is a generator of ideas. And

38:42

for me,

38:42

as I started by saying, how did I get into marketing, I have this curiosity.

38:49

And that's

38:49

what led me down that path. And it's so easy once you're in an organization and

38:53

you have a big job

38:54

and you have a family to have your curiosity go to the fault of the wayside.

39:01

And I think

39:02

reading helps me and I tap back into that curiosity, which leads to good

39:07

marketing.

39:08

If you weren't in marketing, what do you think you'd be doing?

39:11

If I weren't in marketing, I would own a local luxury women's consignment shop.

39:24

Ooh, fun. I really believe that beautiful things have multiple lives. And I

39:33

love when I see

39:34

someone love something and pass it on so it can have another life. I think

39:39

there's a huge

39:40

environmental story there. I think that there's a just extending the life of a

39:46

beautiful thing is

39:47

wonderful. But more than that, we have a shop in Seattle that I love. And when

39:54

I go in,

39:54

I feel a community. There's I always run into someone. I know the people who

40:01

run it just know

40:02

everyone. They're introducing me to someone else. I meet another marketer. I

40:06

meet another

40:08

something I've found resources for lots of things by just being there. And so I

40:16

think

40:17

my love of relationships, my love of fashion, my curiosity, I think I would

40:22

love to own a shop like

40:24

that. That's so fun. Final question here. What piece of advice would you give

40:28

to a first-time

40:29

CMO who's trying to figure out their marketing strategy? First-time CMO. Build

40:36

a good network

40:37

around you. That doesn't just include people in your company, but people

40:42

outside where you can

40:43

ask the dumb questions. You can feel like you're not alone because you're not

40:48

alone.

40:48

Understand the data. The data is power. Invest the time in understanding your

40:57

waterfall. Be the box

41:00

at the table when it comes to knowing how your marketing organization works and

41:08

empower your team. If you're a first-time CMO, you're find those stars and

41:15

leverage them

41:16

and make them bigger stars. I think cultivating talent is a huge role of a CMO.

41:23

And if I were a

41:24

new CMO and I started this a year and a half ago, it's finding those tremendous

41:30

people who make

41:31

everyone better. Jessica, it's been absolutely awesome having you on the show

41:35

for listeners.

41:36

Go to live ramp.com. Check them out. Obviously, if you're in marketing,

41:39

you should definitely go check them out. Live ramp.com. I just got any final

41:45

thoughts, anything to plug?

41:47

Ian, I just say it's been such a pleasure speaking with you. I love the podcast

41:55

. I feel like I'm

41:56

always learning. I look forward to connecting in the future. Awesome. Thank you

42:02

so much. I

42:03

really appreciate it. We appreciate you. Spend time with us.