Demand Gen Visionaries

This episode features an interview with Chris Bontempo, CMO, Johnson Controls, a 140 year old company that is a global leader in smart, healthy and sustainable buildings.Chris spent nearly 19 years at IBM, eventually serving as CMO of IBM Americas before moving to Johnson Controls. He shares his perspective on website content being scraped by LLMs, how they're using AI to reduce ad spend, and which types of content are resonating most with prospects.Key Takeaways:Websites need to be designed to be scraped by LLMs. All CMOs are trying to figure this out right now.CMOs need to consider AI part of their teams “to supplement the labor that [they] have and give people superpowers to do their jobs better”.CMOs need to be hands-on-keys, using, learning and leveraging new tools themselves, in order to be able to lead well.Quote: "As a CMO, you need to consider AI as part of your team, right? So the tools that we're using that all have AI baked into them, the how AI is going to streamline your process. AI is part of your team to supplement the labor that you have and give people superpowers to do their jobs better and at huge scale without taking on a huge amount of expense."Episode Timestamps: *(06:02) The Trust Tree: No daylight between sales and marketing *(15:04) The Playbook: Designing the website to be scraped by AI*(42:12) The Dust Up : There's always a kernel of truth to both sides*(46:08) Quick Hits: Chris's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Chris on LinkedInLearn more about Johnson ControlsLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Ashley Faus, Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Portfolio, Atlassian and author of the book Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI. Ashley dives into the pitfalls of both active spamming and the bait-and-switch tactics that are commonplace today. She also explains why marketers should ditch the funnel framework and embrace playgrounds as the model for the customer journey, and shares her insights into what it means to make marketing truly human-centric. Key Takeaways:Misleading CTAs and bait-and-switch tactics erode trust. Marketers should not be trying to trick prospects into buying. It is expensive to acquire a customer that is a bad fit, and they should be prioritizing the relationship.The funnel is outdated; marketers should adopt “the playground” where they allow customers to move through a self-directed customer journey however they want to.The language that we use to talk about our audience, “is so adversarial. It's like I'm gonna hunt for a prospect and I'm gonna capture a lead, and I'm gonna lock down a deal.” Remember there is a person behind the screen.Quote: “ My job as a marketer, I always say, I never want to sell anything to anybody. My job is to match problems with solutions. And if I harass you or convince you to buy something that doesn't actually solve your problem, that's going to  be very expensive for me to fix, either from a reputation standpoint, from a support or implementation cost standpoint. Like, it's not free for me to acquire a customer that's a bad fit. It's not just not serving them. It does not serve the business either. And I think that's the other piece that like sometimes people think when I talk about this, that I'm trying to be altruistic or that like it's a nice thing to do for the audience. I mean, yes, we should be decent humans, but it's bad for business to behave this way and to do the bait and switch or to force somebody into a bad fit. It's gonna be very expensive for you to force fit that, or to try to, you know, win and re-win that customer or to serve that customer If they go nuclear and they start posting on social media, or they file a lawsuit, right? It's very expensive to get out of a bad deal or to turn a bad deal into a good deal.”Segment Timestamps:*(02:55) Human-centered marketing frameworks*(08:56) The pitfalls of bait-and-switch tactics*(27:13) The playground over the funnel*(35:33) The Playbook: Uncuttable budget itemsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Ashley on LinkedInLearn more about AtlassianHuman-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AILearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Avi Bhagtani, CMO at Digitate, a company that leverages machine learning and AI to intelligently manage IT and business operations.Avi discusses their success with regional, curated events and how they are investing in AI experiments. He also shares insights into how they are leveraging AI to optimize the website. Key Takeaways:Many successful events are curated, smaller and regional. Marketers who can meet their customer expectations and create networking opportunities with peers will pull ahead. The world of the traditional funnel is gone. The buyer journey is much more user dependent. Buyers have more agency and the journey has become very fast. The speed that generative AI can move when it comes to updating the website and launching ABM campaigns is already astonishing, and will only get better. Marketers should be leveraging these tools to move faster. Quote: “In the last one year, we have experimented with at least 12 to 15 new tools, either for finding our prospects or distilling our signals or increasing productivity with AI, right? Some of them have worked. Some of them have failed miserably, just the nature of the business today. But fortunately, we are doing this going in all eyes wide open, right? We know that some of these things are just gonna work. Some of these things have, you know, they have a little bit of a longer runway that they need to give you the results you want. Some of these just don't work, right? So that's where the majority of the investments are focused on today.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:07) The Trust Tree: Finding every avenue to intercept prospects*(09:06) The Playbook: Consistency of messaging over time*(31:31) The Dust Up: Answer what marketing will do for other functions*(33:48) Quick Hits: Avi quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Avi Bhagtani on LinkedInLearn more about DigitateLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Bruce Cleveland, author of the best-seller “Traversing the Traction Gap" and CEO of Traction Gap Partners, a Market Engineering advisory firm.In this episode, Bruce outlines why most startups fail and explains market engineering, a term he coined  to represent the ideas around category design. He shares insights into creating a category and what goes into startup success. Key Takeaways:Market engineering involves the ideas around category design or redefinition thought leadership to create a category.There are distinct advantages to being a category leader; the category leader generates about 76% of  all the profits from a category. While there is a first-mover advantage, there are also some associated challenges.Thought leadership is an essential component of creating a category. People want to be around peers they admire, so gathering the right people together leads to an eventual tipping point that makes it easier for a company to sell.Quote:  One of the reasons that you need to actively be involved in the thought leadership part of category creation is people wanna hang out with other people who they think are smart, who have some cool ideas. And that I think happens with companies as well. So eventually some companies kind of climb out of the morass, the cacophony of, fighting the marketing battle and begin to emerge as the thought leaders in those. And then they collectively gather more people and more people. And finally there's a tipping point where that company is perceived as the category leader. And so it becomes really easy for those companies to then sell more.Episode Timestamps: *(02:26) The Trust Tree: Traversing the Traction Gap *(07:31) The importance of category design*(26:05) Thought Leadership in category creation*(35:39) How to evaluate startupsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Bruce on LinkedInLearn more about Traction Gap Partners or Traversing the Traction GapLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Armen Najarian, CMO at Sift, an AI-powered fraud platform delivering identity trust for leading global businesses.Armen has 10 years of experience as a CMO across a variety of fraud prevention, digital identity, and cybersecurity organizations. He discusses how word of mouth and a strong brand has allowed them to become a leader in their space and also gives insight into Sift's top source for demand generation.Key Takeaways:It is riskier not to take risks. Marketers need to be willing to try something unconventional. If it fails, the world goes on. Giving your customers access to your data, if it answers important questions for them, can be a key driver of demand. Understand what your customers are curious about and what questions they are asking. If you can find a way to provide answers, the ROI will be significant. Quote:  ”Those that aren't taking risks are the ones taking risks, is the way I would look at this. Like we have to take risks -you know, it's gotten so noisy and some of the tried and true tactics like organic search, right, which is completely flipped on its head right now. Every CMO has a responsibility, anyone in marketing really, has a responsibility to really rethink the logic for what they're doing and take some risks.”Episode Timestamps: *(02:29) The Trust Tree: 10 years of CMO experience*(09:19) The Playbook: Answering your customers biggest questions*(38:24) The Dust Up: To create a category or not *(42:32) Quick Hits: Armen's quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Armen on LinkedInLearn more about SiftLearn more about FibrLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Alison Lange Engel, CEO of Ceros, a company that provides tools and services that empower companies to create interactive content with unparalleled ease and efficiency, driving customer engagement.In this episode, Alison discusses the power of interactive content and how to differentiate your brand amidst increasing noise. She and Ian dive into the importance of being unique and how creativity is a competitive advantage. Key Takeaways:Creativity is a competitive advantage, even more so as copying assets gets easier with AI. CMOs need to get their teams off the treadmill and make space for creativity, inspiration and ideation. The sea of sameness is real, especially in B2B, and the world continues to get noisier. You have to disrupt and have conviction behind your big bets; check box marketing won't cut it anymore. Originality is as important as ever, but teams have to find ways to do more with less and won't succeed if they are only trying to differentiate themselves through words, tone, or processes.Quote:  You're going to miss the opportunity to differentiate and tell a unique story, right, if you have your team on a treadmill constantly. And that's how most people feel. But, as a leader, you've got to create space for it and find inspiration. Encourage your team to bring ideas. We would bring magazine clips in. People would bring in their pets. People brought in old, you know, pictures, family mementos, what matters to them. You've gotta get to the heart and soul of what you're trying to do to kind of unlock your team and have your company, you know, feel fresh, feel modern, and have people take risks, right? Great companies take risks and you have to kind of create that environment to do that. The brands that don't, are in trouble and the brands that do are the ones that win.Episode Timestamps: *(05:50) The Trust Tree: Experiences over static content*(25:36) The ROI of creativity*(36:29) Advice for CMOs on creativity and boldnessSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Alison on LinkedInLearn more about CerosLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Jen Rapp, CMO at Superside, an AI-powered creative service, trusted by 500+ top brands. Jen has over 20 years of experience developing and executing marketing strategies for high-growth companies, with a particular focus on working alongside entrepreneurial leaders to scale.She discusses selling the vision and how doing good impacts marketing, sharing her lessons from her time at Patagonia and DoorDash. She also discusses winning on meta through quality creative and driving qualified leads through virtual summits. Key Takeaways:Don't sleep on meta ads. If your ICP is on Instagram, those ads can be some of the cleanest and most effective ads to drive pipeline, especially if you have quality creative. Virtual Summits, or essentially a stack of webinars, are a great way to get emails and drive pipeline if you are truly offering great content. Sell the vision, not the product. A focus on features, instead of stories, is rarely the way to go. Quote:“  I would not have said this a year ago, when I first joined the company - number one is our meta, paid meta spend. I came to this company and I saw how much we were spending on Meta, and I was like, whoa, what the hell are these people doing? They're making mistakes left and right. Nope. We drive a majority, or a lot, I shouldn't say a majority, a lot of our qualified pipeline through our Meta spend. Our Meta spend also acts as our top of funnel awareness driver.  When we turn off meta, we basically turn off the ability of our SDRs and our BDRs to convert people to SQLs. It is invaluable. So number one, my marketing team is like rallied around creating incredible creative for Meta.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:51) The Trust Tree: Making sure customers have confidence in you*(12:12) The Playbook: The power of Meta ads*(33:10) The Dust Up: Standing up to brilliant founders*(41:01) Quick Hits: Jen's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jen on LinkedInLearn more about SupersideLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Steve Rotter, CMO at DeepL, a global communications platform powered by Language AI.In this episode, Steve shares with us the power of a small uplift to your website when you see large scale website traffic, and the importance of pushing your point of view over your product features. He also dives into the value of brand in avoiding churn. Key Takeaways:Small changes to the website can have a small uplift, and when you are dealing with large-scale website traffic, that can have a big impact on the business. For large enterprises, don't underestimate the value of small optimizations on the website. People churn products, they don't churn from valued brands and communities. Make sure to invest in your brand accordingly. Explaining your POV over pushing your features, allows you to demonstrate the outsized impact of your product more effectively. Quote:  Brand is critical. My general sense is, people churn from products, they don't churn from communities, they don't churn from brands with personalities that they enjoy. So, we spend a lot of time looking at that in terms of, you know, what is the voice, what is the language, what is the identity of the brand?Episode Timestamps: *(04:11) The Trust Tree: People churn from products, not brands and communities *(24:13) The Playbook: Explain your point of view, over pushing all your features*(39:22) Quick Hits: Scott's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Scott on LinkedInLearn more about DeepLLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Bill Macaitis, Founder & CEO, SaaS CMO Pro, where he shares growth strategies for SaaS and AI companies. His past roles include CMO positions at Slack and Zendesk, and SVP of Marketing at Salesforce. Bill joins the podcast to discuss findings from a recent survey of over 300 B2B marketers that gives insights into marketing strategies and budgets. He shares what they learned about marketing versus sales budgets, the most common attribution model, and more. Key Takeaways:Companies that are growing the fastest, invest the most in marketing. While cause and effect of that correlation is unclear, it's an interesting finding. Pipeline generation was one of the most tracked metrics for CMOs, which is a nice move away from only looking at MQLs or leads. Unfortunately, awareness was rarely tracked, making it hard for marketing teams to invest in long-term initiatives. A lot of companies, 65 percent, continue to use first or last touch attribution models.  Quote:  So, what we learned is a lot of companies, I think especially in their earlier stages -  percent still use first- or last- touch.  It's kind of crazy. I'm still shocked by it.  I remember my time at Salesforce,  I was running the marketing ops team at that point, along with a couple other teams, and  I just did a deep dive into attribution. Like I really wanted to understand like, hey, how many touches are people having with us before they became a lead? And then how many touches before they became a customer? What we would see is people would have 10, 20, 30 interactions or touches with us before they became a lead, and then they'd have like another 20 or 30 before they became a customer. And just imagine giving all the credit to the very first or last thing. And by the way, it's one of the reasons Google got so big was because a very common last touch thing is they will search on your company name. Branded search, right? And it's like, oh, like the SEM guys are like, this is amazing, right? We need to spend more on Google because they're producing these massive deals. And it's like, well wait, what about all the stuff in the middle?Episode Timestamps: *(03:48) Marketing Strategies and Budgeting*(22:31) Attribution Models in Marketing*(26:44) Top Metrics for B2B SaaS and AI Companies*(31:06) Marketing's Role in Revenue and ExpansionSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Bill on LinkedInLearn more about SaaS CMO ProLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Jenny Force, VP of Global Demand Generation at Meltwater, a company with a suite of solutions that spans media, social, consumer, and sales intelligence. Jenny discusses her experience launching the company's first big summit, as well as the work they have done to automate their inbound process to maximize each MQL.Key Takeaways:Launching a new big initiative and then proving ROI to the executive team requires careful positioning and careful measurement against KPIs.Automating the process for inbound leads through tech removes manual human intervention and puts the sellers into positions where they can do their job at a more impactful level.Imbuing campaigns with humor, while a little scary, can cause a big lift in engagement.Quote: We've been really investing and not just spending more money to get more MQLs. It's making, not to sound cliche, but every MQL count. It's about automating the process. Here at Meltwater, we're a 20-year-old company, we're very sales-centric and there's a lot of energy that used to be put behind outbound. So, it was changing the narrative around inbound. Until we totally make this change as a business where everyone in the business is shouting to get an inbound lead and are super excited about it, it's how can I get every single lead responded to in under an hour without any delays? And it's been a bit of a journey to put the right tech in place to automate those processes that we can, take out that manual human intervention and then put the sellers into the business so they can actually sell. So, I've got some tech around instant meeting scheduling, self-serve demos, a conversational email that we've put in. And honestly, I feel like that has already had such an impact on our conversion rates. I wouldn't get rid of it.Episode Timestamps: *(06:03) The Trust Tree: Improving inbound efficiency and increasing deal velocity*(14:32) The Playbook: Launching a summit and investing in automation *(45:53) The Dust Up: Changing inbound KPIs to get a seat at the table *(49:30) Quick Hits: Jenny's quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jenny on LinkedInLearn more about MeltwaterLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Luke Arno, CRO at Transcend, a privacy platform that empowers brands to enhance regulatory stances and improve customer relationships through data transparency, consent, and control.Luke dives into the different marketing strategies needed when you are prioritizing data privacy and aiming to only engage with prospects who opt in. He also discusses making the sales function an advisor and consultant to potential customers. Key Takeaways:One size fits all messaging is not successful and does more damage than good. It needs to go. Marketing while prioritizing data privacy is a different ball game and requires a series of calculated investments based on the target market. Empowering your sales leaders as thought leaders, and asking them to act as advisors, makes them very valuable at events. Quote: “ How do we most effectively deliver thought leadership or ask the right questions from our customers about the problems they're solving? And we invest deeply in enabling our sales force  to be subject matter experts, and then therefore we rely on them to help scale, to meet our customers and open up the conversation in a trusted environment. Hence the name of the segment, the trust tree. But that whole process requires sales rep to put their sales position down and, effectively, ship the paradigm for how they think about engaging customers as more of a consultant or an advisor.  So, we try and delight our customers with a sales free experience, but we do rely deeply on the employees we hire at every function to effectively manage the conversation as a trusted advisor.”Episode Timestamps: *(07:47) The Trust Tree: Thoughts on marketing strategy from a CRO  *(21:52) The Playbook: The psychology of prospecting*(37:03) The Dust Up: Show up prepared to articulate your position*(40:45) Quick Hits: Luke's quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Luke on LinkedInLearn more about TranscendLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Kamal Thakarsey, CMO at Smartling, an AI Translation Platform that helps companies grow globally, faster. Kamal shares his strategy to stand out in a crowded market. He also dives into understanding trends, educating your customer, and testing even your smallest hypothesis.Key Takeaways:Fight complacency in your messaging. Companies may be comfortable with what they are doing, and comfortable sticking with the status quo, so you need to demonstrate the value of changing their approach. Test everything, from button colors to CTAs and beyond. Testing often surprises you and proves your hypotheses wrong. If you're in a crowded market, focus on truly understanding your market and customers. Investing in that research can support your efforts to differentiate. Quote:   Being an established market, there's lot of kind of noise that's happening and every company kind of raising your hand and saying, we do this, we do this.I think for us also a big part of our strategy is like standing out really like trying to show the market that like we are kind of being industry leaders and helping the space move forward. , I think it's also really about for us, also about how we really highlight kind of the value we bring to an organization and a team. Not just like, tactically, here's some solutions, we help you kind of of do better, but like, what do we actually bring the table and how are we going to help you be successful? I think to me, that's really just like foundational to them, like how we kind of run our programs and campaigns and how more effective they can be, rather than just kind of de facto doing things because we should be doing them. So, you know, one thing I really stress is just really continue to do like market research and understanding, you know, what are their priorities? What are the business initiatives? What are their executives and leaders asking them on an ongoing basis?How can we then understand those trends and that feedback and really put together, you know, smart, timely, relevant campaigns that are going to reach them? Because, like I said, we're in a crowded market with a lot of different vendors, both in the software and the services side, and we have to stand out.Episode Timestamps: *(03:35) The Trust Tree: Capturing the marketing and targeting accounts *(12:24) The Playbook: Driving intent through search*(36:59) The Dust Up: Advocating for self-service *(41:50) Quick Hits: Kamal's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Kamal on LinkedInLearn more about SmartlingLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Gaurav Agarwal, COO and Revenue Leader at ClickUp, an all-in-one productivity platform that replaces all individual workplace productivity tools with a single, unified platform. Gaurav shares his thoughts on keeping your content strategy relevant and the iteration and testing needed to go viral. He also discusses maintaining a blend of B2B and B2C tactics to achieve scalable success.Key Takeaways:Content strategy and going viral is much more about consistency and iteration than it is about the spark of one amazing ideas. Rigorous and experimentation leads to long-term ROI. To stay relevant in marketing, you have to keep up to date on generational trends and new formats of reaching people. You can't get comfortable being a great marketer in an outdate channel. You have to keep bets in your portfolio that have an asymmetric upside, which you can only do if you are willing to take on a certain amount of risk. Don't get too excited about immediate ROI. Quote: A huge part of perfecting craft is you want to stay relevant.  I know amazing marketers  who are gods of Facebook and building viral content on Facebook.  And they fought the short form vertical video format with TikTok so much. They looked down upon it because they thought that this is cringy, this is shot on an iPhone. And I'm like, why are you doing this to yourself? Like, do you not want to be culturally relevant in the next decade? So, a huge part of a great team is staying hungry and not thinking that you've arrived because content, media, consumer preferences, even software is a generational business.  You have to stay on with the formats of what the future is and keep moving towards that direction versus be so happy that I'm this amazing marketer on Facebook. Dude, like your time is up. Facebook pages don't get any distribution anymore. Episode Timestamps: *(03:29) The Trust Tree: Size of audience and LTV should drive your marketing strategy *(11:18) The Playbook: Strategic iteration to go viral on social *(38:03) The Dust Up: Adapt content to different channels and stay true to your brand ethos *(43:52) Quick Hits: Gaurav's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Gaurav on LinkedInLearn more about ClickUpLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Ural Cebeci, SVP Marketing at Braze, a customer engagement platform that allows any marketer to collect and take action on data from any source, so they can creatively engage with customers in real time, across channels.Ural shares his perspective on the challenges and hesitations surrounding personalization, and his thoughts on how to move forward. He also dives into understanding digital body language and customer signals.Key Takeaways:A good demand strategy requires two things: GTM alignment and having the infrastructure to understand the business through data. To have a strong brand, you need healthy, long-term customer relationships, which requires understanding digital body language and customer signals. Marketers have valid hesitations around personalization, due to compliance and data privacy issues, and fear of eroding customer trust. As a result, using channels to continually get consent from customers adn actually delivering value is key. Quote:   ”In the end, in order to have a strong brand, you need to have healthy and long -term customer relationships. And we all acquire customers, users, through campaigns, but then retaining them really means connecting with the human behind that anonymous user or anonymous visitor. And that brings back the whole digital body language. Like we understand what that user is signaling, like what is at the surface versus what they are saying with their engagement, like what they say and collect that data and then like use that to drive better and more meaningful customer relationships.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:55) The Trust Tree: Understanding the business through data*(11:46) The Playbook: Any channel is cuttable, you need to understand your marketing mix*(25:59) The Dust Up: Alignment and committing to the same idea*(27:43) Quick Hits: Ural's quick hitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Ural on LinkedInLearn more about BrazeLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Emma Robinson, B2B Marketing Lead at Canva, a global online visual communications platform on a mission to empower the world to design.In this episode, Emma dives into Canva's shift from individual to enterprise functionality, sharing her thoughts on the inherent value of investing in brand at any stage. She also dives into the increasing importance of word-of-mouth and avoiding the sea of sameness in B2B marketing. Key Takeaways:Brand and creative help you to get potential buyers thinking and feeling, and help you differentiate among a sea of sameness in B2B marketing, and pushes buyers towards action. While analyst relations are still important, word-of-mouth and peer-driven buying are increasingly important, potentially reducing some of the importance of analyst reports. Traditional SEO is changing, and having high-quality, insight rich content with an authentic point of view will be important. Quote:  Traditional SEO is probably changing somewhat. I mean, most of us who have searched something in recent times will not necessarily be searching just in Google. So, finding ways to make sure that our content will be trained by an LLM in the right ways, you know, people still need answers, but they're getting them in a very different way now.  Image search and, you know, tech search  and all these different things that will inevitably change what we know  as traditional SEO. So, I think for that, it's again, back to the point about being grounded in really good quality content, like colored content that has a point of view that does feel less AI oriented and more  really rich in insights insights, for example, like primary research, those types of things, but that's still going to stay. And then I think influencer marketing and things like podcasts and so forth, like all of those sort of authentic moments are going to matter in kind of the new world. So, we're definitely rethinking our search strategy there, and so more to come on that.Episode Timestamps: *(03:33) The Trust Tree: Changing perceptions and moving into enterprise*(23:16) The Playbook: Thinking and feeling to action *(39:53) The Dust Up:  Do you invest in brand equity for the long term? *(43:53) Quick Hits: Emma's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Emma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-robinson-mtkg/Learn more about Canva: https://www.linkedin.com/company/canva/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://www.linkedin.com/company/canva/

This episode features an interview with Jean-Christophe Pitié, CMO and Chief Partner Officer at Contentsquare, an experience intelligence platform that helps you gain a deep understanding of your customers' whole online journey.In this episode, Jean-Christophe shares his approach to merging brands while minimizing friction and negative impact. He also discusses the future of SEO and how they are experimenting with influencing LLMs.Key Takeaways:The future of SEO may shift to thinking about how to influence LLMs, and what they say about your brand. While it's currently unclear how to do this, it will likely become increasingly important in the coming years.When merging multiple brands, move slowly and very carefully monitor your work to look for friction and negative impacts.Investing in the martech stack is uncuttable since data is essential to the modern marketer.Quote: We did two major acquisitions in the last two years, and we had three websites under three brands. So we are going through this major rebranding, combining and merging the three brands and phasing out two of the three brands. And so I would say that's a massive project and experiment too. It's like, how do you merge these brands and which have followers, minimizing the business impact, minimizing customer friction? Break things along the journey, so you have to take things. So this, you can identify what you bring to customer journeys or customer flow you're breaking. And as you shift the traffic, for example, SEO, as you start to rebuild SEO, it takes time. Paid search, you cannot do it all. So we said the main learnings are, we knew that would be things breaking and it's happening. So take it slowly, monitor, monitor, monitor very quickly. And we have a weekly committee where we monitor how it's going and the transition is happening. So yes, be slow and patient. Don't break things, or as little as possible.Episode Timestamps: *(03:04) The Trust Tree: Useful organizational design structures *(08:57) The Playbook: Influencing LLMs*(31:51) The Dust Up The challenge of monetization*(33:54) Quick Hits: JCP's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jean-Christophe on LinkedInLearn more about ContentsquareLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Drew Chapin, CMO at Certinia, a platform that connects all aspects of services operations, from services estimation and delivery to customer success management and financial planning and accounting. In this episode, Drew discusses monitoring buying signals and generating the right traffic to your website. He also dives into inheriting a rebrand and some of the nuances of marketing in a private equity owned company. Key Takeaways: Cold calls, cold emails and the days of expecting someone to fill out a form to get content are over. B2B marketers need to stop making friction or blockers.Nothing fails like success. If you just continue to execute what has worked in the past, you're going to miss innovation opportunities. Aspire for a champagne flute funnel over a martini glass funnel. Maybe not as many leads are coming in at the top, but they are higher quality and converting and much higher rates through the funnel. Quote: “85 percent of the time the buyer will go with the first vendor that they contact. So, building that trust with the buyer over time is critically important. And so, you know, in the old days, you put a form in front of every piece of content and we would optimize around the contact information.  And then you'd pass that along to some BDR and they would just be banging their head against the wall, calling people who weren't on the buying committee. They weren't ready to talk to a salesperson, you know, and it just was waste so much waste. And so what we're trying to do now is we're trying to monitor the activity at the target account level and look for buying signals”Episode Timestamps: *(02:51) The Trust Tree: Stretching the dollar in a PE-owned company*(06:28) The Playbook: Generating quality traffic to the website *(24:28) The Dust Up: Proving ROI to the board *(26:59) Quick Hits: Drew's quit hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Drew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapindrew/Learn more about Certinia: https://www.linkedin.com/company/certinia/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/

This episode features an interview with Niloy Sanyal, CMO at LeanTaaS, a growth-stage company that creates software solutions combining lean principles, predictive and prescriptive analytics, and machine learning to transform hospital and infusion center operations.In this conversation, Niloy and Ian debate the merits of last touch versus multitouch attribution models. They also dive into the potential of AI SDRs and the benefits of ungating the content on your website. Key Takeaways:While reporting last touch attribution may help CMOs establish credibility, there are benefits to thinking in terms of multitouch and how to best determine the next best touch. B2B still has a way to go to fully leverage the capacity of our current LLMs, not to mention the new versions coming out. There is immense opportunity in AI SDRs and BDRs. If you may the CEO fill out a form on your website, you've lost them. Ungating content allows high level prospects to consume the information they need. Quote: I am absolutely bullish on the impact of generative AI in the tactic of, to start with BDR and AE sales motions as part of our broader ABM execution. But very soon our comms execution, and every part of the marketing execution. But right now, early days, so I don't want to oversell it. But, the promise of what this can do without any improvement on the LLM. Like we were having this debate last night with another thought leader and I don't need chat GPT 5 to come out. I think 4. 0 or 4 is good enough and it's actually great. We just haven't caught up in a B2B environment to take advantage of it. And what I'm seeing from our early experiments, we've been at it now for three, four months, is absolutely astounding in what it can do. It's not going to replace BDRs. Let's be clear, you're in the Bay Area. If you  drive from, you know, Peninsula to the city, I almost feel half the billboards these days are on like AI-automated SDR, BDR type of a thing. Not in my space. It's not going to automate that any, replace rather, but it can supercharge. Those individuals and it can supercharge. So I'm very excited about where we are. Episode Timestamps: *(04:00) The Trust Tree: Last Touch Versus Multi-Touch*(30:07) The Playbook: The Potential of Gen AI SDRs and BDRs*(44:05) Quick Hits: Niloy's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Niloy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niloysanyal/Learn more about LeanTaaS: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leantaas/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/

This episode features an interview with Melton Littlepage, the CMO at 1Password, a password manager trusted by businesses and consumers alike. In this episode, Melton shares his thoughts on building big bets into your budget and how the lightning strike strategy can increase awareness, even on a limited budget. He also talks about how he's structured his team to create harmony with sales and the importance of focusing on expansion marketing. Key Takeaways:The lightning strike strategy, spending a large portion of your marketing budget on a message over a number of weeks, can increase awareness better than spreading your budget evenly across the  year. CMOs can be very focused on acquisition, but they should not forget to focus on expansion marketing and the value they can generate there. One-on-one sales and marketing partnerships can help ensure both teams are on the same page and operating in harmony.Quote:  I'm a huge believer in lightning strikes. Lightning strikes are so important to us. If you're not familiar with the lightning strike concept in marketing, it's when you align the entire business, everything about the business where you could possibly project the message into the market, the website, all digital marketing, organic, social, paid social, the sales behavior, your presence at an event, everything in this tiny period of time says one thing. And you say it in deafeningly loud. You deploy 25 or 30 or 40 percent of your marketing budget into a window of time that could be just one or two weeks. And you absolutely blast your way into awareness inside your target buyer audience. This goes against the nature of the CMO, right? The CMO, like we all have these spreadsheets of targets where I need to deliver exactly this many MQLs consistently month in and month out with a little bit of seasonality built in and I can't afford variability. Like I definitely can't miss a month. And I don't know if a lightning strike is going to move the needle and so I peanut butter spread my budget evenly. But the problem is unless you have a massive budget, and most of us don't have a massive budget, then you're constantly below the visible line. You're just relegating yourself to being below the visible line.”Episode Timestamps: *(06:52) The Trust Tree: Leveraging solution marketing as you move to enterprise selling *(23:05) The Playbook: Lightning strikes and increasing awareness *47:00) The Dust Up: Navigating CEO-decisions *(49:00) Quick Hits: Melton's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Melton on LinkedInLearn more about 1passwordLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Alex Saric, CMO at Ivalua, a company that empowers businesses to effectively manage all categories of spend and all suppliers, increasing profitability, improving ESG performance, lowering risk, and improving employee productivity. In this conversation, Alex shares his insights into pitching to and engaging with analysts, and how Ivalua has lead in reports since he joined the organization. He also dives into the ways he supports his team in building a dynamic website and when events with significant impact aren't measurable in terms of ROI. Key Takeaways:There is a strategy to sharing your value with analysts in order to lead in their reports. Sharing strategically chosen customer stories and assessing what influences each analyst can go a long way. In addition to the basics of creating a great website and tracking traffic, you need to create a dynamic website. Empowering your team to make minor changes and request major changes can allow you to adjust quickly and improve your website strategy. There is a tendency to focus on fixing problems, but don't forget to also assess how to improve and scale what is working well. Quote:  Yes, I'll say when I joined,  we at the time were not a leader in almost any of these reports that were out there. I think we had broken into one. In the  7 years, and knock on wood, I don't want to jinx myself, we've been the leader in every single report from Gartner and Forrester since then. And I'd say, you know, what I really did, it was probably one of my first priorities, given how important it is in our industry, I reached out to the analysts, started meeting one-on-one with the key analysts there. And of course, you know, I'm going to tell them my pitch,  but they're smart enough to know take it with a grain of salt. I think the important thing is to start introducing them to customers because that's where you get a lot of credibility, if the customers back up what you're saying. And you can be very strategic. So, you know, I was very careful in, the competitor that was kind of the top competitor at the time, making sure I introduced the analyst to customers that had switched from that competitor, which would privately both talk about us, but also kind of badmouth,  their past vendor and that really helped kind of flip the switch and start building credibility what I was saying was actually true. And also improving the rankings. And besides the rankings, they're also influencing a lot of deals behind the scenes and I think they start recommending us a lot more after that. Episode Timestamps: *(03:27) The Trust Tree: Structuring the team to tap into regional expertise *(09:27) The Playbook: Engaging with analysts and leading in reports *(33:34) The Dust Up: Healthy tension with other functions*(34:42) Quick Hits: Alex's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexsaric/Learn more about Ivalua: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ivalua/about/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/

This episode features an interview with Liz Carter, CMO at Reputatio, a company helping brands understand and improve their reputations. In this conversation, Liz discusses the differences between brand and reputation and the current challenges of building trust with today's consumers. She also shares her thoughts on experimentation within tight budgets.Key Takeaways:Brand is not synonymous with reputation, Your brand is who you aspire to be, while your reputation reflects how consumers perceive you based on their experiences. Bridging the gap is essential for success.When budgets are tight, think about how you can do small experiments and how you can best leverage them, but keep experimenting. With AI and misinformation, it is a challenging time to to build consumer trust in the marketplace, and brands should be paying special attention to how they are perceived by target audiences. Quote: In an environment where budgets are getting cut and things are being tightened or whatever, you know, you have to think about like, is now a time for experimenting with big dollars or is it time for little experiments and what can you get out of that? And so, I mean, again, it's a balancing act of knowing sort of what's happening in the market or in your business specifically at a given time and how and when to sort of look for those opportunities.Episode Timestamps: *(08:17) The Trust Tree: The difference between brand and reputation *(14:07) The Playbook: Bringing crazy ideas to your CFO *(34:41) The Dust Up: Alignment and clear expectations *(35:57) Quick Hits: Liz's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Liz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-carter-a9842a2/Learn more about Reputation: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reputation-com/about/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/

This episode features an interview with Calen Holbrooks, VP of Demand Gen at Airtable, the no-code app platform that empowers people closest to the work to accelerate their most critical business processes. In this episode, Calen shares with us how she thinks about “big C and little c community” and why it is important to invest in, even when it is harder to measure. She also dives into her approach to accessible content and how they increased their conversion rates through a homepage refresh.Key Takeaways:We know that people are consuming content in a binge-like format; we should let them binge! While sales' desire to gate content is understandable, ungating is a no-brainer, especially given all of the data we have now. Investing in community pays dividends and drives intent. While some community investments are more measurable than others, it doesn't mean you should not invest in those less-measurable communities. The homepage is crucial, and refreshing it to tweak the way Airtable told their story resulted in a 25 percent conversion increase. Quote: “ I'm surprised at how  slow organizations have been to adopt some of this, ungate 80 percent of what you're doing strategy. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, like, I get it. The processes with marketing to BDR to sales handoffs require a lot of this sort of traditional lead flow of things. Not to point fingers, but I do blame a little bit on the sales side and sort of  what they need to be why we can't do that. But it seems like a no-brainer when we have the amount of data that we have today… When we know everybody is scrolling and consuming content in a binge-like format, like, let them binge!”Episode Timestamps: *(03:53) The Trust Tree: The evolution to enterprise selling *(21:26) The Playbook: Investing in community and tracking account propensity *(34:23) The Dust Up: Demand gen versus brand araguments *(41:42) Quick Hits: Calen's Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Calen on LinkedInLearn more about AirtableLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Lyndsey Rojas, CMO at IFS Ultimo, a SaaS enterprise asset management solution, focused on maintenance & safety and well known for a rapid deployment, ease of use and an unparalleled time to value. In this episode, Lyndsey dives into leveraging partner marketing to move from a regional to a global player and making sure communication is transparent to maintain 98 percent customer retention. Key Takeaways:Investing in your team, particularly with all the rapid changes in tech and AI, is uncuttable. It's essential to equip your team to use new technologies and to be strong storytellers.Transparency through the full buyer's journey helps reduce friction in the customer experience by setting accurate expectations, ultimately resulting in high customer retention.Partnerships are especially valuable during times of budget constraints because it allows you to do more with less and helps companies move from regional players to global brands.Quote: Search, paid search and social, they keep changing the game on us. The algorithm changes, cookie lists, all these things keep changing. It keeps us on our toes, and it is like a game you play. You know, you think, oh, I'll pull this lever, and maybe the cost-per-click will go down. And,  it's not something that you can figure out one time and be okay with it.  But, for us, like most B2B tech companies I think, it is the number one traffic generator for our website. It is the top two lead generator for us. So, it is something that we absolutely have to stay on topEpisode Timestamps: *(02:35) The Trust Tree: Authentic communications and creating efficiency for customers *(12:55) The Playbook: Doing more with less through partnerships *(32:40) The Dust  Up: Setting objectives with sales *(33:45) Quick Hits: Lyndsey's Quick Hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Lyndsey on LinkedInLearn more about IFS Ultimo Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Louise Clements, CMO at WorkJam, the world leader in the digital frontline workplace, revolutionizing how HQs and their frontline workforces work together.In this episode, Louise discusses why she is no longer looking at attribution and is instead focusing on intent. She also dives into how she is using AI to automate and improve their marketing efforts and managing joint ownership of the funnel with sales. Key Takeaways:AI makes marketing better by giving the team more time to reflect and think. CMOs should be investing in automation. Marketing is increasingly owning go-to-market and jointly owning the funnel with sales. This is a bit of an evolution, and it allows you to focus on influence over attribution. Obsessing over first and last touch attribution is not useful. CMOs should focus on driving intent. Quote: “One thing that we've done is we've sort of stopped worrying about first touch and last touch attribution. I don't care. Is it ultimately working? You can drive yourself insane, worrying about specifics. Instead, it's looking at how all of those channels connect. And I think one of the greatest things in the last couple of years is, we've got these fabulous new tools. As B2B marketers, whether you use Sixth Sense or Demandbase or whatever, you can go in and understand intent in a way that we never could. So ,what I'm looking at is, are we driving intent? And then, let's time box that campaign and everybody who came in or who we touched. I want to understand what's the time lag? Are they going to come back? And I'm looking at things like that way more.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:41) The Trust Tree: The power of investing in PR *(15:28) The Playbook: Focus on driving intent *(41:05) The Dust Up: Agencies and fighting over scope*(42:30) Quick Hits: Louise's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Louise on LinkedInLearn more about WorkJamLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Millie Hogue, VP of Marketing at Hakkōda, a modern data consultancy that helps companies harness cloud platforms and AI capabilities.In this episode, Millie discusses the power of co-marketing with major partners like Snowflake, personalized one-to-one advertising strategies and optimizing tech stacks to maximize ROI.Key Takeaways:Marketers are wasting an extraordinary amount of budget on unused tech spend. Part of a CMO's strategy should include making sure they are optimizing on their investments in tech. If you want to partner with big organizations like Amazon and Snowflake, building a reputation for quality and reliability can help you compete for their attention and become a go-to partner for execution.Shift from the mindset of optimizing for productivity, and optimize for impact. Quote: “I was reading an article the other day about marketing budgets and where everyone's allocating and how all of that is shifting. And marketing technology was the big thing that kind of kept coming up. And the takeaway from that was that right now, if you ask CMOs, they had a whole survey for 2024 Q1, about 50 percent of our tech stack is actually being utilized right now. So, of our technology investments, half, and that was so striking to me as someone who works in a data and technology space and knowing where this kind of industry is headed. There is no way that marketing is going to continue to exist if we have that much inefficiency in our technology spend. So, I think when I'm looking at strategy, not just for my next two quarters, but for my next three years, that's a huge piece of it. How do you invest in the right tooling and make sure that it's actually being adopted by your team? Because it looks a lot like we're kind of failing as an industry at that right now.”Episode Timestamps: *(02:53) The Trust Tree: The power of comarketing*(21:39) The Playbook: Deanonimizing website traffic, intent data and personalized marketing *(41:38) The Dust Up: Marketing and sales should not be fighting over attribution*(43:40) Quick Hits: Millie's quick hits  Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Millie on LinkedInLearn more about HakkōdaLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Susanne Rodriguez, CMO at Auvik, a cloud-based IT management platform that reduces friction and increases agility.In this episode, Susanne talks about how they think about growing market share by getting customers to switch to Auvik and their big investments in community. She also discusses the future of paid search and why they are focused on authentic forums like Reddit. Key Takeaways:Despite the “paid search is dying” narrative, paid search remains a high ROI channel. Continue leveraging search but prepare for shifts by building a presence in other forums like Reddit and focusing on authentic community building.Campaigns focused on switching customers over from competitors can be part of a strategy to gain market share. Categorizing potential customers into "easy switchers," "difficult switchers," and "non-switchers” can help target campaigns.Auvik saw success with their rapid response campaigns, partially because they so specifically catered the reward to their target customer, which attracted qualified prospects and encouraged meaningful product engagement.Quote: “  I mentioned Reddit as part of a, one of our three paid channels that are uncuttable, but we also have a really large effort to build awareness and conversation and community in Reddit more organically. And that's just because, as we talk about the future of search and search disappearing, if we think about where Google could potentially drive people, it's to these forums like Reddit. And so we're working hard to build our presence there organically, too. Reddit's tricky, though. You have to be authentic on Reddit in a way that you don't have to be on any other platform. They will call you up.”Episode Timestamps: *(02:26) The Trust Tree: Getting customers to switch from competitors *(10:14) The Playbook: Paid search and authentic forums *(27:34) The Dust Up: Get aligned and come armed with data *(29:38) Quick Hits: Susanne's quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Susanne on LinkedInLearn more about AuvikLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Emily Campbell, CMO at Blackline, a leading provider of cloud software that automates and controls critical accounting processes.In this episode, Emily discusses their shift to lifecycle marketing and her focus on doing fewer things better to drive efficiency. She also dives into her approach to experimentation, and how she's allocating 50% of her budget to experiments as a way to future proof their organization. Key Takeaways:It's important to understand how the customer behaves at each stage of the buying journey and to build lifecycle campaigns accordingly. A connected content strategy that builds on itself is an important component of lifecycle campaigns and streamlines retargeting efforts. Experiments are a way to future-proof the marketing organization, and pushes the team to try new ideas and to take calculated risks. Quote:  “It's probably more like 50 percent of our budget is for experiments this year. I really think about that as an investment in future-proofing our marketing organization. And I want to make sure that the team doesn't get super comfortable in what they're doing. So, I think that innovation really helps push them outside of their comfort zones. But I think we need to be testing new ideas. We need to be taking the, I'll say, calculated risks. We don't want to be throwing money away, but we need to learn what works and what doesn't. And, you know, one of the things that I'm trying to bring to the team is a sense of, we're going to celebrate successes and failures because those failures provide as much learning as the successes, if not more. And so we are very focused on fail fast, learn fast, try more. And, again, still fewer things better, but try new things that we haven't had a lot of experience with in the past.” Episode Timestamps:*(02:27) The Trust Tree: Lifecycle campaigns and understanding customer behavior*(12:11) The Playbook: Relevant content at the top of the funnel*(33:43 ) The Dust Up: Competitors that advertise on your key terms *(35:35) Quick Hits: Emily's Quick HitsSponsor: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 LinkedInConnect with Emily on LinkedInLearn more about BlacklineLearn more about Caspian StudiosBlackline Customer Look Book

This episode features an interview with John Schneider, CMO at Betterworks, a performance management solution HR professionals rely on for increasing employee engagement, manager efficiency, and business impact.In this episode, John shares insights into how he transformed Betterworks' content strategy to cut lead costs by 65% and why establishing a trusted sub-brand has been crucial to their success. He also talks about the importance of strategic experimentation and understanding the multidimensional levers in marketing. Key Takeaways:By focusing on a content-first approach rather than paid-only channels, you can significantly reduce lead acquisition costs. BetterWorks achieved a 65% reduction in cost per lead over John's time as CMO for the company.There are benefits to building a sub-brand to house content that resonates with your audience. It can help differentiate the company and attract significantly higher engagement. Strong content can engage the full buying committee across personas. Making quality, accessible thought leadership content engages a company at multiple touchpoints, resulting in an easier sales process. Quote: “You have to realize in marketing, you are absolutely not playing checkers. You're playing chess and you're probably playing some multidimensional version of chess. And you can't expect immediate results from everything you do. If it was easy to do what you're going to go do, they would not have hired you because the former person would still be there. And all those things have probably been tried in different capacities. And what is really important is to balance the tension between taking action but also doing it in a quality way and with some strategic foresight. And that's where the experimentation really comes in, understanding the scenarios and the outcomes. It's good to experiment and it's okay not to know what the outcome will be, but you need to know which lever you're pulling or you're not going to have a result that you can then fix against.”Episode Timestamps: *(04:12) The Trust Tree: Auditing when you step into a new role *(23:23) The Playbook: Content as the lifeblood, shared through a sub-brand*(35:37) The Dust-Up: Having a say in pricing and packaging *(38:37) Quick Hits: John's Quick Hits   Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with John on LinkedInLearn more about BetterworksLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Shannon Duffy, CMO at Asana, the enterprise work management platform that connects company-wide goals, strategic initiatives, and the execution of work in one place.In this episode, Shannon discusses their evolution from product-led growth to targeting enterprise clients, and the challenges and successes of expanding up market. She also shares her thoughts on thinking beyond the data.Key Takeaways:While data-driven decisions are critical, marketers should trust their intuition when the data isn't conclusive or when exploring new market directions. This flexibility allows for creativity and risk-taking, especially when data lags behind rapid market changes or emerging client needs.Moving from product-led growth to targeting enterprise clients isn't just about scaling product features; it demands a shift in how marketing teams understand customer pain points. It's essential to align messaging to resonate with decision-makers who prioritize company-wide impact and long-term strategic value.Personalized outreach can make a significant difference, but it can be a challenge to create campaigns that feel personalized yet can scale across multiple accounts. Achieving this balance helps each client feel uniquely addressed without overloading marketing resources.Quote: “I do think a lot of PLG companies have a lot of data and so that's good in a lot of ways because the data can help guide you. Everyone's like, yeah, no kidding, Shannon. The flip side of that though is, sometimes the data can't tell you everything. And that's when, if you've been doing enterprise marketing for a long time, or you have a background there, there is some pattern matching that needs to be layered over the data, if that makes sense. Like there are certain things that work, and so how do you take the data to guide you, but you don't wait for the data to tell you everything when you know there are tried and true things that work? For example, Asana now has a live in person event. Asana had never done that before, and there was no data I could point to that says, yes, this event will be successful. There just wasn't. So a little bit of it was like a trust fall of pattern matching of enterprise software selling, enterprise software marketing, being like, this will work. It will start small and we will build. And we did. And so last year we did our first event ever, had 150 people. This year we're doing it in New York. We're going to have a thousand, right? Like those are the things that like the data can't help you, so you need to be mindful of what the data will, but also trust sort of the enterprise marketing playbook for things that will make a big difference.”Episode Timestamps:*(02:43) The Trust Tree: Cultivating relationships with different personas *(29:44) The Playbook: Brand is the only thing that helps with both PLG and enterprise markets*(41:23) The Dust Up: Challenge your long-held assumptions*(43:45) Quick Hits: Shannon's Quick HitsSponsor: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 LinkedInConnect with Shannon on LinkedInLearn more about AsanaLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Mary Wells, CMO at Cloudera, a software company that empowers organizations to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights. In this episode, Mary discusses her maniacal focus on strong foundations and operational efficiency, and how it allows her to experiment and take calculated risks. She also dives into her focus on simplified, consistent messaging and why CMOs need to tap into their inner CIO. Key Takeaways:Ruthlessly prioritizing foundations and operational excellence, especially with budgets, allows you to optimize, experiment, and take calculated risks. CMOs need to tap into the inner CIO. CMOs have a tech stack and their organization is an expensive line item for a company. Scaling back and leaning into data and reporting gives the CMO a seat at the table and insights into what their customers need. Mix matters to your audience. Do fewer things, but do them bigger and better, aligning behind one marketing strategy to find your customers where they are in the buyers' journey.Quote:  ”The other strategy is what we're not doing and cutting down on the quantity. What we want to do are fewer things, but bigger and better. By breaking down these silos, we're able to do that, so that when I wake up on a Wednesday, like today, I don't have 50 marketing things happening today. Everybody in marketing now has one playbook and together we're making it happen. And with the strategy though, again, it's not just events, it's not just hands-on labs. Mix matters, and knowing where a prospect or a customer is in the buyer's journey lots of times helps me and the team gauge where we need to dial up and down. Sometimes it's video, sometimes it's a deep dive technical presentation, sometimes it's an event, digital, et cetera. And the idea is that mix matters based on the audience.” Episode Timestamps: *(05:37) The Trust Tree: Prioritizing operational excellence *(18:21) The Playbook: The value of comms*(35:10) The Dust Up: Practice the pause – different day, different person*(38:27): Quick Hits: Mary'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 LinkedInConnect with Mary on LinkedInLearn more about ClouderaLearn more about Caspian Studios

Learn from Mika Yamamoto, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer at Freshworks, about blending the physical and digital world to create impactful campaigns. Episode Summary: This episode features an interview with Mika Yamamoto, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer at Freshworks, a company that provides powerful, easy to use Customer service, IT, and CRM software.In this episode, Mika discusses surgically blending the physical and digital world, to create a campaign experience that sticks with prospects. She also talks about encouraging innovation from her team, tying marketing victory to sales' success and focusing on customer over function. Key Takeaways:Blending the physical and digital world when creating campaigns can create more lasting impact and better returns.Allowing your team to divide and conquer different markets and functions allows people to specialize and be the best at what they do, an impossibility if they are doing too many things.Incorporating humanity and a recognition of the human on the other side, not only differentiates your marketing in a B2B space, it makes the whole job more enjoyableQuote: ”In terms of signals, what helps is that we have one operations function that works across all functions. There's traditionally been, marketing comes up and celebrates and says, “Woohoo, we did all this work, we're green!” And then sales is saying, “Well, what the heck you can't claim victory because we haven't met our numbers. So how can you declare victory if we haven't met our numbers?” And so again, the construct that we have is we have one operations group in our organization, Freshworks. So, we have one dashboard that essentially ties together and we're still working on making those ties, but that ties together, marketing doesn't declare victory if sales can't. So, it's driving shared metrics in one dashboard versus this view of the world that is a marketing view, then a sales view then a product view. We want to drive one view, which is more customer focused versus functionally focused.”Episode Timestamps: *(08:24) The Trust Tree: Divide and conquer different markets *(24:12) The Playbook: Focus on demand capture *(39:20) The Dust Up: Assumptions about sellers and marketers*(42:49) Quick Hits: Mika'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 LinkedInConnect with Mika on LinkedInLearn more about FreshworksLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Niki Hall, CMO at Five9, a company that provides cloud contact center solutions, facilitating billions of customer engagements annually for 2,500+ customers.In this episode, Niki discusses the role of a CMO as a business professional first, and how important it is for them to bring customer insights into the overall company strategy. She also dives into her approach to experimentation and enhancing authentic marketing with the customer voice. Key Takeaways:CMOs should see themselves as business professionals first, and marketing professionals second. As a business professional, they need to be honest about what is not going well, so while you need to highlight wins, you can't focus too heavily on what is going well.CMO's need to bring out insights to inform strategy, anticipating future issues that could arise. It's essential to use customer insights to inform overall business strategy.Experiments are important, and you can pilot and prove new ideas at a small scale for proof of concept. Leaders should invest in and encourage experimentation.Quote: “ Pilot, prove, scale. So, I always ask my team to try new things, pilot it, prove it at a smaller scale. Once we've proven it out, then let's scale it globally. So, I've always set aside money for experiments and encourage my leaders to do that.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:09) The Trust Tree: Having the right ingredients as a company *(14:02) The Playbook: Having a clear, differentiated message *(37:12) The Dust Up: Grounding in common understanding *(39:25) Quick Hits: Niki'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 LinkedInConnect with Niki on LinkedInLearn more about Five9Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Karl Van den Bergh, CMO, Gigamon, a company that helps enable IT organizations to eliminate security blind spots, optimize network traffic and reduce tool costs, enabling them to better secure and manage their hybrid cloud infrastructure. In this episode, Karl talks about shifting from a lead model to a demand unit model, the impact of investing in brand when budgets are tight, and balancing awareness with demand. He also talks about his approach to content, creating something that stands out and that people either love or hate. Key Takeaways:Transitioning from a lead-based model to a demand unit model can better align with complex B2B buying processes because it allows for more accurate targeting of entire buying committees.Maintaining brand investments during economic downturns is a way to seize opportunity to win market share. Companies that continue to invest in brand awareness during tight budgets will emerge stronger when the market recovers.Leveraging humor in campaigns, and embracing that some people will love it and some will hate it, is more memorable and can have better results than content that blends in. Quote: “We said, look, I'd rather put something out there that people either love or hate, as long as it's done, again, it can't be offensive, but people love or hate. I'd rather have something that stands out than something that's bland that no one would object to. And sure enough, as I said, it way outperformed benchmark.”Episode Timestamps: *(04:30) The Trust Tree: Shifting from a lead-based model to a demand unit model *(20:26): The Playbook: Put out content people will love or hate *(38:06) The Dust-Up: Authentic Dialogue*(39:47) Quick Hits: Karl's Quick HitsSponsor: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 LinkedInConnect with Karl on LinkedInLearn more about GigamonLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Allison Breeding, CMO, Apptio, an IBM Company that provides data insights that empower leaders to make smarter financial and operational decisions. In this episode, Allison talks about shifts that have stuck around post-covid, getting really clear on personas, and pushing the envelope through experimentation. Key Takeaways:It's worth pushing the envelope and trying out-of-the-box approaches. If you're not pushing the boundaries a little bit, you're not trying hard enough. When the market is turbulent and shifting, you have to be able to adjust your value prop and positioning to endure. Apptio made a big shift into digital marketing during COVID. Then, when the market plunged after hitting a high, they were able to shift to allow for continued success. Focus groups, and feedback from partners, prospects and employees, can inform the direction that you need to go in and support your efforts to understand your value proposition. Quote: “We've been doing a lot of really fun kind of guerrilla, out of home concepts, outside of events. Getting our hands slapped every now and then, but that's okay. If we're not getting in trouble, we're not pushing the envelope enough. But yeah, we're kind of trying to own the spaces that people are kind of in the mindset of thinking about our product in. And so whether that's airports or outside of event venues, on taxi cabs, on trains, that sort of thing around the events that we're participating in.”Episode Timestamps:*(03:45) The Trust Tree: A bottom-up and top-down approach*(17:35) The Playbook: Spending money fast and utilizing events *(32:31): The Dust Up: Navigating the founders' mentality*(34:58) Quick Hits: Allison'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 LinkedInConnect with Allison on LinkedInLearn more about ApptioLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Dorian Kendal, who is a former CMO and a multi-time marketing leader. Most recently, Dorian served as CMO at Netflify, a platform for developers to build highly-performant and dynamic web sites, e-commerce stores and applications. In this episode, Dorian discusses his non-traditional path to the CMO role, his experience restructuring teams for an enterprise focus, and the value of partner programs. He shares his thoughts on why you should avoid checklist marketing. Key Takeaways:Moving from product-led growth to an enterprise focus requires more targeted, “surgical” campaigns.Evangelist and influencer programs can drive long-term pipeline growth more effectively than short-term, paid media strategies.Over-reliance on SEM (Search Engine Marketing) can stifle creativity and drain budgets without delivering proportional returns. Redirecting resources to SEO, community engagement, and innovative campaigns like events can offer better long-term ROI.Quote: “I'm very anti-checklist marketing, I call it, where you just have, every campaign you're like, here's the eight things we need to do, and you just check them off. Because it just sucks creativity out of the process. And I think that we oftentimes, instead of finding really unique ways to attract audiences and engage them, we sometimes just fall back on stuff. And search engine marketing, I've always felt it's been like the easiest thing for people to be like, you know, we're gonna do a campaign. Well, of course, what's our SEM budget? So I think sometimes just sucks creativity out of the process.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:59) The Trust Tree: Restructuring to target enterprise customers*(13:23) The Playbook: Investing in search optimization over search engine marketing *(35:45) Quick Hits: Dorian'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 LinkedInConnect with Dorian on LinkedInLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Jason Ing, CMO at Gusto, a company that automates and simplifies payroll, benefits, and HR, while providing expert support. Jason was early on the ground at Xbox and Prime Video, playing pivotal roles in revolutionizing online gaming and digital media. Jason offers a behind-the-scenes look at marketing major shifts in entertainment consumption, like launching Netflix on Xbox and his role in getting Amazon fire sticks into our homes. He also dives into his current marketing strategy at Gusto.Key Takeaways:Everyone loves good content, and creative, entertaining content attracts and retains customers.Commitment and excitement about a long term vision can lead to groundbreaking success, even if others are skeptical initially.There is value in trying out unexpected or unconventional strategies, such as direct mail for Amazon Prime Video.Quote: “As it relates to Netflix, and streaming overall, this was during the years in which people were still getting Netflix by mail. That was what they were known as. But the technology was being built and the amount of Xboxes we had in living rooms in the U.S. households and across the world was at a point where these streaming providers could create a viable business by getting into all those living room spaces. And this was before TVs were all smart-TV-enabled. So, it was really cool to  see a vision for the future. And there was a bit of belief that you had to have around knowing that there was a better way. When you're fortunate enough to work for a company that is as successful as Microsoft was, and it's even more successful today, the company was willing to think long term. And I think that was really the first time in my career where I was exposed to this idea that you had to manage things on a day-to-day level and for the short term, but you had to have long-term vision and commitment to it. And I think all of us who were there, we were just very much bought into that idea, that there was just a future that was around the corner.”Episode Timestamps: *(29:09) The Trust Tree: Bringing elements from B2C to B2B*(34:58): The Playbook: Controlling the narrative through brand *(45:39): The Dust Up: Tension around partnership deals *(47:42): Quick Hits: Jason's Quick HitsSponsor: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 LinkedInConnect with Jason on LinkedInLearn more about GustoLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Karen Budell, CMO, Totango + Catalyst. Totango and Catalyst recently joined forces to build a leading customer growth platform that helps businesses protect and grow revenue, providing businesses with a united platform that drives recurring revenue success and measurable growth.In this episode, Karen talks about leading a marketing team through a merge. She talks about the importance of customer success and investing in the full marketing “bowtie” to focus on retaining customers.Key Takeaways:Post-merger, marketing teams need to harmonize the brand and messaging, the product, the tech stacks and more. While this is a challenging process, it allows you to take the best from each company and present a unified brand that fosters trust. Start with outcome-based conversations when talking to prospects to make sure you understand their objectives before you complete the sale. Your customers' success is your success. Don't just invest in the marketing funnel. Invest in the full marketing “bowtie”. Retaining and growing current customers is very important. Quote: “We stood up a sales enablement and go-to-market enablement role and function within the marketing org. So reporting up to me, but a dotted line to the CRO's organization. And part of the reason that I thought that that was a great fit and was so successful was because you really want to make sure that your frontline team understands who your target audience is and what your galvanizing story and narrative is all about. So, being close to the marketing team that was working on that messaging and positioning and the programs and events really helped create a nice bridge and reinforce the partnership that we had with our sales team.”Episode Timestamps: *(4:18) The Trust Tree: Outcome-based conversations with customers *(16:02) The Playbook: Updating the website post-merger*(33:24) The Dust-Up: CMOs that come from a brand focus*(39:59) Quick Hits: Karen'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 LinkedInConnect with on Karen Budell on LinkedInLearn more about Totango + CatalystLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with  Laura Beussman, Senior Vice President of Marketing at CallRail, an intelligence platform that helps businesses track and attribute each lead to their marketing journey and use real-time insights to optimize their marketing. In this episode, Laura discusses their marketing strategy as a pure-play PLG where marketing generates all the leads, and how they reach prospects through a sub-verticalized approach. She also shares how they are leveraging AI for better SEO results. Key Takeaways:A sub-verticalized approach can improve efficiency and return on investment, helping to ensure that you are accurately speaking to customer needs. Learn about the sub-verticals in your market.Leveraging AI in your content efforts can really improve your SEO results, by allowing you to create more content that is specifically catered to sub-verticals in the market.When marketing takes full responsibility for generating all leads, it eliminates the tension with sales by offering clarity, improving operational efficiency and allowing sales to focus on closing deals.Quote:“ One of the ways that the team is really capitalizing on AI is on SEO content. Again, as a PLG, SEO is very important for us. And with those verticalized go-to-market strategies, we needed to create a high volume of content to support not just the verticals, but the sub verticals. So, we have developed a strategy on creating that SEO content that leverages AI. Now, it's not that the AI writes the content from top to bottom with no human assistance, but what we do is we educate the AI tools on our content guidelines. We create a robust draft of an outline. AI then converts that into an article. Our content team edits, and makes sure it's reflective of our brand and our voice before we publish. What we've been able to do with that, though, is triple the amount of SEO content we're able to produce. And what that means is that we're able to be really hyper targeted, really hyper verticalized, and we're actually ranking better. And it's not that we're ranking better because the articles are significantly better. It's because they are able to be more specific, because they are able to be more targeted and sub verticalized. That allows them to rank better as well.”Episode Timestamps:*(03:34) The Trust Tree: Operating in a marketing-led lead generation model *(17:25) The Playbook: Using hyper-targeted content to boost visibility and conversion rates*(36:14) The Dust-Up: Making sure sales feels supported by marketing *(39:08) Quick Hits: Laura'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 LinkedInConnect with Laura on LinkedInLearn more about CallRailLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Prachi Gore, SVP of Marketing, Checkr, Inc., a company that makes background checks faster, easier, and more compliant. In this episode, Prachi shares how they balance marketing to both the SMB and enterprise markets, and discusses her approach to reach each group of prospects. She also emphasizes the importance of investing in brand, and talks about how her revenue team is focused on “push marketing”.Key Takeaways:Be strategic about how you target different customers. Prachi has distinct approaches for SMB and enterprise markets, —focusing on brand advertising for SMBs while leveraging thought leadership and compliance content for enterprises.It is worth investing in customer lifecycle and partner marketing to improve customer retention and expand market reach. Customer lifecycle marketing is especially crucial in businesses with a transactional model.A robust inbound marketing strategy, supported by comprehensive brand awareness efforts, is vital for capturing latent demand and nurturing leads, even when brand investment feels like a riskier bet. Quote: “I think brand campaigns are always a bet. You're taking a risk of placing a bet on something that may or may not work. It's not measurable. It's hard, really, really hard to measure. And so it's kind of like, you've got to jump in with two feet and you'll float. But I think that that makes it hard for us as marketers to say like, hey, you're just like two million or five or whatever is your number, I'm going to put this towards a test and let's see what works, what doesn't work. Versus anything else, even we talked a lot about content syndication, but anything else like search, demand, events, campaigns, everything can be tied back to, it produces so much pipeline, exactly how much, you know. So, it just makes taking those bets, experiments, faster, easier, and at lower risk. Brand is hard, and then it also needs a philosophical alignment with your CFO, with your CEO your board, like everyone needs to be on board to help place those bets with you.”Episode Timestamps: *(02:10) The Trust Tree: Marketing to SMB and enterprise markets*(12:19) The Playbook: Hitting both parts of the business through search *(33:13) The Dust Up: Turning the BDR program around *(35:15) Quick Hits: Prach'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 LinkedInConnect with Prachi on LinkedInLearn more about Checkr, Inc.Learn more about Caspian Studios

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 LinkedInConnect with Michael on LinkedInLearn more about AirbaseLearn 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 LinkedInConnect with Lisa Bennett on LinkedInLearn more about KalturaLearn 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 HitsSponsor: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 LinkedInConnect with Heidi on LinkedInLearn more about TealiumLearn 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 hitsSponsor: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 LinkedInConnect with Cristy on LinkedInLearn more about impact.comLearn 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 HitsSponsor: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 LinkedInConnect with Stephen on LinkedInLearn more about SparkCognitionLearn 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 LinkedInConnect with Tom on LinkedInLearn more about Recorded Future Learn more about Caspian Studios