This episode features an interview with Michael Freeman, VP of Marketing, Airbase, a procure-to-pay solution that simplifies purchasing.

In this episode, Michael discusses smart SEO strategy and the importance of investing in the distribution of your content. He also talks about how, while marketers are incentivized to demonstrate that they are generating pipeline, they still have to pursue the high ROI tactics that are difficult to measure and predict.

Key Takeaways:

• If you create content, customers will not just come; they may never even find it. SEO is a core ingredient from the start, not an afterthought, and you need to find people with the language they use, understanding their intent.
• Marketers are charged with generating pipeline and proving it, but they need to avoid neglecting high ROI tactics that may be difficult to quantify or predict.
• Don’t just feed the content beast; make sure you are creating quality content purpose that has a genuine impact on your audiences.

Quote:

• “I've been at a lot of companies where there was just a mentality of feed the beast on the blog. And we don't do that here. Every post has a specific objective and purpose that we're trying to meet. Sometimes there's just some corporate brand stuff we need sales to be able to point to or use for other purposes, but 95, 96 percent of what we publish has a specific objective and purpose from a traffic or leads perspective. And we've done the research upfront to say, yes, we have a reasonable chance to achieve that objective before we commit the resources on that piece of content.”

Episode Timestamps:

• *(04:14) The Trust Tree: Be smart about paid search
• *(18:59) The Playbook: SEO and good content strategy
• *(48:43) The Dust Up: Inheriting a bad website
• *(51:11) Quick Hits: Michael’s Quick Hits
  

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Michael on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Airbase
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Lisa Bennett, CMO at Kaltura, a company that provides live and on-demand video SaaS solutions to thousands of organizations around the world, engaging hundreds of millions of viewers.

In this episode, Lisa talks about the new world of repurposing your content and how marketers can improve their content strategy and outcome measurement. She also talks about how she thinks about “brandformance” and ensuring that you are walking the walk, as a marketer.

Key Takeaways:

• It’s easier than ever to repurpose your content across channels, maximizing its impact. Marketers should be thinking about this, instead of just constantly generating new content without thinking critically about its delivery and impact.
• You can focus on “brandformance”, brand and performance marketing, even without a huge budget. To do so, you need to collaborate with the c-suite to determine the best go-to-market strategy.
• Marketing is constantly changing and the new norms are not set. It’s a new world, in a lot of ways, and we will have to find these new ways of marketing.

Quote:

• “It feels as if, to a degree, we're generating content and not necessarily measuring it well enough. And then moving on to the next piece of content, and the next piece of content, and the next webinar, and the next event, and the next thing. And there's so much that actually can be repurposed, which is definitely becoming a trend now with AI because it's so easy to do. So, maybe before people didn't repurpose content as much, and video especially, because it was complex. It wasn't so easy to do. But now, you take a tool like Kaltura, not only have your event or your webinar, and then repurpose it, put it into social, put it into blog posts, put it into whatever you need and get all the data on it. So, that's an example of kind of this new world that we're looking at.”

Episode Timestamps:

• *(04:22) The Trust Tree: Brandformance and strategizing with the executive team
• *(18:05) The Playbook: Maximizing the impact of events by repurposing content
• *(29:35) The Dust Up: Communicating and having a partner in crime
• *(32:09) Quick Hits: Lisa’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Lisa Bennett on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Kaltura
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Heidi Bullock, CMO at Tealium, a customer data platform that connects customer data across web, mobile, offline, and IoT so businesses can better connect with their customers.

In this episode, Heidi highlights the essential role of brand in B2B marketing and the effectiveness of the pod structure in marketing organizations. She also dives into the need for marketers to be proactive and come to the table with a point of view.

Key Takeaways:

• In a competitive market, it is all about creating preference, and you do that through your brand. B2B marketers need to invest in the brand.
• Marketing needs to come into conversations with sales with a point of view and they need to do their homework. They can’t just wait to be told what to do.
• Everything runs more smoothly if you consolidate signals and create summaries of intent.

Quote:

• Marketing can't be the order taker. It really has to be the salesperson that's the quarterback, but marketing has to come in with a point of view. Like, hey, you're talking to a lot of people in the pharma space, let's make sure that we're doing X, Y, and Z. We've got this amazing workshop. We have this great piece of content. Come in with a viewpoint versus like, hey, just wait and have somebody tell me what to do. Everything goes better if you can consolidate signals, and then the marketer has a strong point of view and does their homework.

Episode Timestamps:

• *(02:50) The Trust Tree: The benefits of a pod structure
• *(18:00) The Playbook: Reducing the friction
• *(38:30) The Dust Up: Working with product teams, focusing on the user
• *(41:22) Quick Hits: Heidi’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Heidi on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Tealium
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Cristy Garcia, CMO, impact.com, a partnership management platform that automates business partnerships, at scale.

In this episode, Cristy shares the do’s and don'ts of marketing, and the primary reason for failed partnerships. She also discusses the evolution and importance of using influencers in marketing, and what it's like marketing to marketers.

Key Takeaways:

• Influencers have been around for awhile, but they became even more important during the pandemic. If you aren’t working with influencers as a marketer, you’re being left behind.
• When partnerships fail, it is most often due to lack of communication. Make sure to be very clear about payments, expectations, and what you are promoting.
• You can generate significant revenue through partnerships, for some companies, as high as 28 percent of their total revenue.

Quote:

• “If you're not working with influencers right now as a marketer, you're left behind. This is happening now. The rise of influencers, they've been around for a long time, I spoke at mommy blogger conferences back in 2012, so it's not new. But what is new is sort of the heightened awareness and demand for influencer content. And I think it all happened around the pandemic when people were at home with their phones, creating social interaction, buying things online, and the influencers really took off.”

Episode Timestamps:

• *(3:06) The Trust Tree: The rise of commerce content
• *(14:20) The Playbook: THe dos and don’ts of partnerships
• *(35:55) The Dust Up: Knowing your worth
• *(37:28) Quick Hits: Cristy’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Cristy on LinkedIn
• Learn more about impact.com
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Stephen Gold, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at SparkCognition (Previous), a company providing AI solutions that allow organizations to predict future outcomes, prescribe next actions, empower people, and protect assets.

In this episode, Stephen discusses experimenting to find the best combination of elements to engage prospects through a long sales cycle. He also dives into the healthy tension between marketing and sales, and how he is thinking about using AI tools in his marketing.

Key Takeaways:

• Experiment to find the right mix of tactics to engage with prospects and customers. Continue to test and tweak to find the right combination for your prospects and sales cycle.
• Use AI and other tools with a specific objective in mind; don’t get distracted by shiny new toys with little pragmatic use.
• Marketers will always be challenged to demonstrate their value to their organization. Even in smaller organizations, this takes a concerted effort and CMOs would be remiss to forget the importance of internal marketing.

Quote:

• “There's always a question, the proverbial question that hangs over marketers heads, that says, am I really getting a return on my investment? Maybe we can cut the budget and we're not going to feel the effect. And marketing, unlike other areas of the business, it's probably harder to quantify the impact because it touches so many parts of the business. Marketers are constantly, or should constantly be thinking about, how do I demonstrate to my organization, qualitatively and quantitatively, the value we bring? We work really hard to produce content internally for consumption by other executive members, by the rank and file. Who doesn't want to work at a business where the brand matters? Who doesn't want to work at a business where they're doing social good? We're a small company, approaching 400, but it's still important that you get the word out. And it's not easy. You have to put a concerted effort to do that.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(6:20) The Trust Tree: The importance of education

*(16:35) The Playbook: Finding the combination of tactics that work

*(37:08) The Dust Up: Inviting friction between sales and marketing

*(39:14) Quick Hits: Stephen’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Stephen on LinkedIn
• Learn more about SparkCognition
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Tom Wentworth, CMO at Recorded Future, the world’s largest threat intelligence company, working with over 1,600 businesses and government organizations across more than 74 countries.

In this episode, Tom talks about building Recorded Future News, a separate P&L that has become one of the largest cyber intelligence news sites, and a trusted media entity that breaks important news in the cybersecurity/intelligence world.

Key Takeaways:

• Brand building is not just about creating awareness, it is about building trust and building relationships.
• Sometimes, the only information you need to determine ROI is whether your clients and prospects feel your initiative provides them with value.
• A quick way to fail as a CMO is to run someone else’s playbook. Make sure that you understand the current company and context; create a bespoke plan.

Quote: “If you think about brand building, what most people do in cyber security, when they get to be Recorded Future size, we're about over 300 million in ARR, which makes us a pretty good sized company. What most companies our size do, is they go buy an F1 sponsorship, or they go put their logo on some sports team's jersey. And that's cool. That's a cool way to get in front of people, but I don't think it builds trust. Like, why would I trust this vendor just because their logo is on a jersey or their logo is on a car? That just tells me they’ve got a lot of money to spend. So we said, instead of going to do that, the way that we're going to build awareness for Recorded Future and build a relationship with our audience is through news and then through a podcast, which I'll talk about a little bit too. So that's our brand awareness investment. We feel very confident that people who fall in love with our news are also going to like our product. I don't have to prove it, in the sense that I don't have to have this super complicated attribution scheme. We just ask our clients and our prospects, ‘Hey, do you like Recorded Future News?’ And they love it. That's just about enough for us.”

Episode Timestamps:
*(04:22) The Trust Tree: Becoming a fan of account-based marketing

*(25:34) The Playbook: Building Recorded Future News

*(43:45) Quick Hits: Tom’s quick Hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Tom on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Recorded Future
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

In this episode, Eric shares with us how to effectively tailor marketing messaging, why it’s important to push the boundaries of content design, and leveraging tools like ChatGPT for brainstorming ideas. Eric also talks about why fighting pieces of collateral to get to the point is often done in vain and his approach to creating better content.

Key Takeaways:

• Balance products and personas: You need to adeptly balance different products, verticals, and personas to create a cohesive marketing strategy. Segmenting your audience based on their product install base allows you to tailor your messaging and approach more effectively, fostering stronger connections and driving better results.
• Be innovative with design: Emphasize innovative and boundary-pushing design in your content. Think of new ways to deliver your message and make your content stand out from the competition. Creativity in design can significantly enhance your brand's appeal and memorability.
• AI is a tool - use it: Use tools like Chat GPT for brainstorming ideas. AI can help you generate creative concepts and refine your strategies, making your campaigns more dynamic and innovative.

Quote:

• “I think the design is so important, and as someone who, I run the marketing team here, I'm personally probably on a lot of sales lists and distributions. I get hit up constantly by SDRs who are sending me things. If it doesn't look good, I'm not going to open it. I don't really care what it is. Like I'm so busy drifting between emails and Slacks and meetings. And then, my personal life as well, that if it's not designed in a compelling, intuitive way, I'm not going to fight with a piece of collateral to get to the point. And so I think we have really tripled down on brand, visual identity, how the different pieces of our story come together…But when you're getting into thought leadership, I think the era of attaching a PDF or a static white paper, one pager, like those are so long gone. And I think in an industry that is a bit old school as well, I think standing out as a more dynamic marketing function where we're putting out pieces of collateral that not only does the user want to read the insight because the data we have is so unique to us, no one else is putting out content that looks like ours does.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(03:57) - Trust Tree: It’s all about balance

*(16:20) - The Playbook: The data is the hook

*(41:56) - The Dust Up: Approaching product launches thoughtfully

*(44:02) - Eric’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Eric on LinkedIn
• Learn more about VTS
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

In this episode, Chris dives into his go-to-market strategy at Wrike, and discusses how they are leveraging AI internally to become more efficient. He also discusses how their marketing strategy allows them to go after different types of companies within a very large market.

Key Takeaways:

• Efficiency in Performance Marketing: There is no time wasted on optimizing marketing budgets to ensure each dollar spent yields a satisfactory ROI.
• ABM: Your ABM tactics are increasingly important for targeting enterprise clients. Start by focusing on refining your org’s ICP and leveraging existing customer advocates to engage potential buyers effectively.
• Metrics and Measurement: It often comes down to data. Continuously monitoring key funnel metrics like lead quality, conversion rates, and cost per lead, to quickly identify and address issues and improve overall performance for your customers.

Quote:

• “From a product perspective, we're looking at how do we leverage AI to take, in some cases, a massive amount of data that sits in our system around work and tasks and projects and things that are happening and how to use AI to help people summarize a big thread of communication and collaboration that's happened over a period of time. And using AI to use natural language to create project plans rather than creating a project plan from scratch saying, hey, I have a project to do to launch this new product in this type of market. And here's what the product consists of. Build me a project plan and it can leverage data that exists both publicly for similar types of projects, as well as within that customer's, set of historical projects. Like, how do you generate content that way, and then how do you use AI to predict risks on a project or how do you use AI to identify resources to staff on a project. So it's interesting: both our internal workers are using AI that's available to us to help us internally. And then we're also looking at our AI strategy from a product and innovation perspective and figuring out how do we make our system more powerful, more intelligent to automate some things, to help people, focus on more creative, human-centric work.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(03:28) - The Trust Tree: Land and expand

*(12:47) - The Playbook: Chris’ uncuttables

*(35:51) - The Dust Up: Defining your ICP company-wide

*(39:06) - Chris' Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Chris Mills on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Wrike
• Learn more about Caspian Studios