Podcast appearances and mentions of anthony kennada

“If you're a content marketer, it's probably the golden era of your practice coming, because creativity is going to be rewarded,” says Anthony Kennada, Founder and CEO of AudiencePlusIn this episode of The Content Cocktail Hour, Anthony Kennada, founder and CEO of AudiencePlus, breaks down a major announcement—the merger of AudiencePlus and The Juice. They discuss how this game-changing move brings together two companies that were tackling the same challenge from different angles, ultimately empowering B2B marketers to create, distribute, and convert content more effectively than ever before. Jonathan and Anthony explore the state of B2B marketing today, why traditional lead-generation tactics are failing, and how AI, first-party data, and owned media are shaping the future. In this episode, you'll learn:Why traditional inbound marketing is broken—and what's replacing itHow first-party data and AI are reshaping B2B content strategiesThe real reason brand and demand should never be separateResources:Connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-gandolf/Connect with Anthony on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akennadaExplore AudiencePlus: https://audienceplus.comTimestamps:(00:00) Intro(01:27) Why the old marketing playbook no longer works(07:36) The myths and realities of multi-touch attribution(13:30) The role of AI and first-party data in marketing's future(15:41) The real reason marketing budgets get cut(21:10) The dark social dilemma: Can it actually be tracked?(22:15) How AudiencePlus and The Juice are combining forces

You may have heard the phrase, "every company is a media company"—but what does this actually mean for B2B? How do you go about building an audience, what content should you use, and how should you measure it? Here to answer these questions is category-creating CMO and founder, Anthony Kennada. He helped pioneer the category of customer success as founding CMO at Gainsight, and today is helping B2B companies develop owned audiences as CEO of AudiencePlus. Anthony is a great marketer who has thought deeply about how brands should develop relationships with audiences for the long term. This wide-ranging conversation explores many facets of how to put this into practice. Thanks to Our SponsorMany thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak. If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform. You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that's slick, modern and beautiful. When they're done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button. What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it's got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners. Try Knak About Today's Guest Anthony Kennada is the co-founder and CEO of AudiencePlus—building software, content, and community to help every company become a media company.Prior to founding AudiencePlus, he served as the CMO of companies like Hopin, Front, and Gainsight. At this last company, he and his team are credited with creating the Customer Success category. Anthony is also the author of Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love, which debuted as a number one new release on Amazon.https://www.linkedin.com/in/akennada/Key Topics[00:00] - Introduction[01:43] - Evolving through growth stages at Gainsight[06:40] - Category creation[14:09] - Why should every company be a media company? [24:31] - Metrics for audience marketing[34:47] - Partnering with content creators[40:25] - Edutainment[44:29] - Golden HourThanks to Our SponsorBig thanks goes out UserGems for sponsoring today's episode. We all know running outbound is a huge pain—you need to manage a dozen different tools and data sources and it takes ton of manual work to keep it all going. UserGems solves that with one platform to capture signals and automate next steps with workflows and AI.You get a library of the most impactful signals in one place, automated playbooks to make sure your team executes consistently, and Gem AI to create personalized messaging for each prospect. So stop wasting time and start targeting your most promising buyers with less headcount. Click the link below for a special offer just for my listeners. Try UserGems Resource LinksWhy Every Company is Becoming a Media Company | AudiencePlus Learn MoreVisit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter: Newsletter

In this riveting episode of the Belkins Podcast, join host Michael Maximoff as he delves into a candid conversation with Anthony Kennada, Founder & CEO of AudiencePlus. Discover the unfiltered realities of being a first-time founder, the highs and lows of building a company from the ground up, and the crucial lessons learned along the way.Anthony shares invaluable insights into the challenges of year one, the strategic vision for 2024, and the transformative power of owning your audience. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned professional, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.

Gone are the days of treating content as a mere traffic driver. It's time to elevate your strategy. Join us as Anthony Kennada, founder of Audience Plus, breaks down why B2B brands must shift to becoming media brands to truly thrive. In this power-packed episode, you'll discover how leveraging first-party data and consumer-centric content can revolutionize your conversion rates and audience engagement.From overcoming CMS challenges to mastering video production, Anthony shares invaluable insights from his transition from CMO to CEO, revealing the scrappy (but effective) techniques needed for early-stage growth. His unique perspective on combining marketing prowess with CEO responsibilities will leave you inspired and ready to take bold steps on the journey to building a media brand. In this episode, you'll learn about:How to leverage first-party data to personalize content and drive conversion rates through subscriber engagement.How to create an effective video content strategy starting with a manageable publishing cadence—particularly for small companies looking to scaleWhy treating your B2B brand as a media company can lead to more efficient marketing investments and deeper customer connections.Jump into the conversation:06:17 How Anthony transformed a blog into a consumer-friendly, data-driven website.10:58 Why cookie deprecation means first-party data is crucial.15:58 Netflix's data-driven content strategy enhances subscription sales19:01 The importance of taking the time to explore and learn from others to build viewership21:40 Video content is the future

Anthony Kennada is is co-founder & CEO of AudiencePlus, a company building software, content, and community to help businesses become media companies. Prior to founding AudiencePlus, Anthony served as the CMO of Hopin, Front, and Gainsight.In this episode, they discussWhat it means to be a media companyBuilding an audience from scratchWhy building community is important in B2B marketingTimestamps(00:00) - - Introduction and context from Anthony Kennada. (05:00) - - Definition and evolution of becoming a media company. (10:00) - - The importance of building an audience and brand-oriented marketing. (15:00) - - Discussion on content production and budget constraints. (20:00) - - Community building and its significance in B2B marketing. (25:00) - - The relationship between audience and community in marketing strategies. (30:00) - - Efficient growth strategies and the role of organic growth. (35:00) - - Building an audience from scratch and effective distribution strategies. (40:00) - - Overcoming challenges in the current economic climate. (45:00) - - Reflection on past marketing mistakes and learning from them. (50:00) - - Discussion on category creation and its impact.

Amanda Bagley, the founding Account Executive at Audience Plus, shares her journey of scaling revenue teams at early-stage startups over the past 7 years, including her 4-year tenure at Chili Piper. Now working with Anthony Kennada, Amanda discusses the transition from founder-led sales at Audience Plus and offers insights into the importance of personal branding, audience engagement, and the evolving landscape of B2B marketing.Are you interested in leveling up your sales skills and staying relevant in today's AI-driven landscape? Visit www.jbarrows.com and let's Make It Happen together!Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbarrows/Connect with John on IG: https://www.instagram.com/johnmbarrows/Check out John's Membership: https://go.jbarrows.com/pages/individual-membership?ref=3edab1 Join John's Newsletter: https://www.jbarrows.com/newsletter-jbsalesConnect with Amanda on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandalucybagley/Follow Amanda on IG: @amandalucybagley Checkout the website: audienceplus.com

On the latest episode of the Interesting B2B Marketers podcast, Steve sits down with Anthony, Co-Founder & CEO of his recent entrepreneurial venture, Audience Plus, which aims to empower businesses using editorial media and thought leadership to spur growth.They dive into the transformative power of thought leadership and content in shaping market categories. Anthony highlights the essence of a robust content strategy and the role of specialized teams in executing it. He cites impactful outcomes, from billion-dollar acquisitions to creating new, globally recognized job functions.Their conversation also navigates the nuances of hosting successful conferences in the post-pandemic era. Emphasizing event positioning, speaker selection, and innovative tactics for registrations, they discuss the allure of unique experiences and the impact of strategic venue selection.The episode gives a glimpse into Anthony's unexpected entry into marketing at Gainsight, stressing the importance of adaptability and mentorship. They end by discussing the evolving B2B marketing landscape post-pandemic, emphasizing the need for fresh strategies to stay relevant in this dynamic field.Connect with Anthony Kennada and Steve Goldhaber on LinkedIn. 

Anthony Kennada, founder and CEO of Audience Plus, joins the Nearbound Podcast to discuss the power of owned media and the importance of building relationships with customers. Jared, Isaac, and Anthony explore shifting from traditional marketing tactics to creating ongoing conversations through communities and owned media.They also discuss the challenge of balancing short-term results with long-term investment in building an audience. The conversation highlights the need to market WITH customers rather than at them and the importance of creating a high-quality media experience. Highlights:0:01:00 Pressure to have amazing production quality in media0:03:32 Easier to turn attention into capital than vice versa0:04:50 Importance of building relationships and ongoing conversations0:07:29 Starting conversations before launching a product0:08:56 The next generation of marketing focuses on engagement and belonging0:10:01 The traditional marketing playbook doesn't work anymore0:11:04 Owned media provides a place for belonging and revenue generation0:12:15 Trust comes from helping people reach their goals0:14:52 Supporting experts to contribute to online conversations0:16:28 Balancing short-term results with long-term investment0:18:04 Owned media can have a faster feedback loop0:20:37 Compounding effect of owned media over time0:29:56 Isaac challenges the idea of focusing solely on rented media platforms and asks why not just do all content there.0:32:05 Anthony explains the need for rented media distribution but highlights the importance of owned media and exclusive content.0:33:43 Anthony suggests deplatforming listeners and viewers from rented media to an owned context for building relationships and business value.0:35:59 Leveraging partners and community members for third-party validation0:38:46 Using the trust already earned to deepen relationships0:40:41 Bridging the gap between dark social and first-party data0:41:06 The value of pushing traffic to owned properties0:43:30 Overlooking the importance of human engagement in B2B marketing0:48:01 Isaac Morehouse mentions the benefits of treating vendors as partners.0:48:17 The power of private communitiesP.S. We just dropped the news on the largest event in partnerships history is BACK… and bigger. The historic PL[X] Summit for 2023 is now the Nearbound Summit. Register, 100% FOR FREE over at https://nearboundsummit.com and get your FREE event workbook while supplies last.

This episode features an interview with Anthony Kennada, Co-Founder & CEO at AudiencePlus. In this episode, Anthony shares the many benefits of companies distributing content on their own domains, the idea of a more efficient content feedback loop, and how owned media is the way forward.Key Takeaways:The old marketing playbook no longer works. Marketers need to be asking: How can we tell more and better stories about our brand and our customers? How can we entertain and educate our prospects? The marketing industry is hungry for authenticity, so let's create compelling content and utilize more marketing automation strategies. Unearth peer-driven insights. If we can learn from what we're all doing in real time, we can fundamentally change how we think about how we're serving the right information to the right people by utilizing our peers through their expertise and insights.Owned media is the way forward. AudiencePlus is going all in on content production and events to champion brands to own their media channels.Quote: ”When you have someone that is... Opted in to your content, where we see if they're coming back, what they're watching, what topics they're interested in. And so, you know, I think part of the value proposition of what we're trying to offer is, you could get a pretty close, a pretty fast feedback loop on content you're producing today, if you're able to have the data to prove the connection to, to something else.”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 Demand Gen 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 Anthony on LinkedInLearn more about AudiencePlusLearn more about Caspian Studios

In this episode, Tom Hunt interviews Anthony Kennada, founder of AudiencePlus. Explore his marketing journey, role as CMO at Gainsight, the AudiencePlus launch, and key insights on the future of B2B.

It's never been harder for marketers generate an audience where you can have impact than it is today.The media landscape has exploded and the number of choices we have as marketers has never been more varied.In many ways, we're now paying for the sins automating a process of building trust and relationships.In this episode, Anthony Kennada, Co-Founder and CEO of Audience Plus talks with Ken about how the marketing pendulum is swinging back from marketing automation, inbound, and maximizing SEO to its original intent—creating value for an audience in a more authentic way.Key takeaways:How to create the authentic content that B2B buyers care about today. Why first party data will be crucial to personalize content and prove impact in the face of changing data privacy regulations and the decline of third-party cookies.How the shift towards owned media will help marketers regain control over their lead-to-revenue process and reduce reliance on third-party platforms and algorithms.Other resources to check out:Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who publish a yearly report about how B2B buyer behavior is changing.The Lead Gen Mistake I Guarantee You're Making – how to create content that better identifies intent from today's b2b buyer.And, if you want an outside look at your content with actionable advice, take advantage of our Content Audit. Valued at $20K in free consulting.

If you like distribution and repurposing playbooks, you'll love my weekly newsletter (it's free). Join 1,800+ subscribers here: https://news.justinsimon.co/ On this episode, Justin dives deep into the world of owned media with Anthony Kennada, co-founder and CEO of AudiencePlus. Discover why owned media is crucial for businesses, how it aligns with distribution strategies, and why many companies are missing out on its potential. Anthony shares insights on the current landscape of owned media in B2B, and provides guidance on where businesses should be headed as we approach the next decade.LinkedIn: @justincsimonTwitter @justincsimonEmail: hello@justinsimon.coThanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of my podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more.

With SaaStock and its incredible lineup of speakers in town, Chris was lucky to be able to do some in-person interviews for Revenue Vitals! In this episode, Anthony Kennada, CEO of AudiencePlus chats with Chris about building relationships with your audience and how to streamline and refine your content creation strategy. They covered: How to produce and distribute content in the most consumable format How to avoid common content creation pitfalls Transitioning from CMO to CEO Anthony's personal journey through this shift Balancing the idea of “firing yourself” from the CMO role and maintaining a personal brand The biggest challenges and process of self skill discovery And more! Then, Anthony turns the questions back on Chris to talk about breaking through the algorithm and making a LinkedIn strategy work more effectively. Thanks to our friends at Hatch for producing this episode. Get unlimited podcast editing at usehatch.fm.

Just as a diligent gardener cultivates a seed into a flourishing plant that provides nourishment, so does a savvy entrepreneur nurture their audience before introducing a product. Whether you're tending to a garden or building a business in the B2B SaaS world, the principle remains the same: understand your environment, your seed (or idea), and its potential yield. In the business context, this means knowing what your customers need before planting the idea that becomes your product, thus creating a fertile ground for successful launches and enduring customer relationships.Enter Anthony Kennada, CEO and Co-Founder of AudiencePlus, and a true connoisseur of audience cultivation. Embodying the "Audience before Product" approach, Kennada accentuates the necessity of comprehending your target persona and curating content specifically for them. With hands-on experience in discerning his audience's preferences before launching a product, Kennada's expertise in audience building across various channels is invaluable. Today's episode will probe into Kennada's unique insights on audience building and explore the benefits of prioritizing your audience before product development. Join us for this enlightening discussion and learn how to nurture your own audience garden.High Level Overview:Prioritize audience building: Anthony Kennada emphasizes the importance of developing an audience before creating a product, ensuring a strong foundation for product-market fit and better customer engagement.Understand your target persona: Anthony suggests deeply understanding your target persona to tailor content and narratives that resonate with them, fostering a stronger connection with your audience.Test and learn from various channels: Anthony shares his experiences testing different channels, like LinkedIn and TikTok, and learning from the results to optimize audience engagement and growth.Start small and iterate: Anthony encourages starting with a small team and low-budget projects, learning from your experiences and iterating to improve your audience building efforts over time.Build a muscle around content creation: Anthony highlights the importance of practice and consistency in content creation to improve your skills and build a stronger connection with your audience.Audience Building 101Audience building is the process of cultivating a loyal and engaged following for your business, nurturing their needs and desires, and establishing strong customer relationships that pave the way for successful product launches. Throughout our interview, Anthony stresses the importance of what this means and how de-platforming your audience from social media sites is crucial. Here are some strategies to think about.Identify your target persona: Take the time to research and understand the demographics, psychographics, and behavior patterns of your ideal audience members. This includes their preferences, pain points, and motivations. Developing a comprehensive persona helps create a strong foundation for your audience building efforts and ensures that your messaging is relevant and impactful.Develop tailored content: With your target persona in mind, create content that addresses their unique needs, interests, and challenges. This could include blog articles, videos, webinars, or podcasts that provide valuable information and insights. By offering content that resonates with your audience, you'll be able to foster a stronger connection and enhance their trust in your brand.Experiment with various channels: Explore different platforms and media types to reach your target audience effectively. For example, try using social media platforms like LinkedIn, TikTok, or Twitter to share your content, or consider launching a podcast or video series. Regularly analyze the performance of each channel and adjust your strategy accordingly to maximize engagement and reach.Iterate and improve: As you test different content formats and channels, pay close attention to your audience's responses, engagement levels, and feedback. Use this data to refine your approach, optimize your efforts, and continuously improve your audience building strategy. This iterative process will help you stay attuned to your audience's preferences and ensure that your messaging remains relevant and effective.Be consistent: Consistency is key in audience building. Establish a content schedule and stick to it, regularly producing and sharing high-quality content with your audience. Consistent engagement helps maintain a strong connection with your audience, builds trust, and positions your brand as a reliable source of valuable information.By implementing these strategies, you'll be well on your way to building a loyal and engaged audience for your SaaS business. Remember that audience building is an ongoing process, requiring continuous learning and adaptation to stay connected with your audience and meet their evolving needs. With dedication and persistence, your audience building efforts will lay the groundwork for long-term success and growth.Further LearningsFollow Anthony on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Are you leading with value? Where are you sending your audience other than talking to sales and trying the product? Leading with value, which involves building a relationship with your audience and owning the distribution of your content, increases your conversion rate as a B2B company.In this episode of The Capital Stack, we have Anthony Kennada, the co-founder and CEO of AudiencePlus. They're building software, content, and community to help every company become a media company. We discuss what it means to bring the idea of building thought leadership as a brand in SaaS and producing audience-engaging content.Listen in to learn how AudiencePlus can help you receive your audience's data and understand the type of content they're interested in. You will also learn the importance of focusing on creating authentic content as an early-stage startup to build an audience and brand.What You Will Discover:· [00:00] Intro· [02:02] Anthony on his career journey and how he's bringing the idea of building thought leadership as a brand in SaaS.· [05:31] How to build a relationship with an audience while owning the distribution of your content.· [08:55] How AudiencePlus can help you receive your audience's data and understand them. · [13:08] How SaaS companies can use AudiencePlus data to create content and engage with their audience.· [18:06] Examples of B2B companies best in producing content and engaging with their audience.· [22:37] The value of short-form and long-form content and events in any B2B sales funnel.· [25:52] How to start creating authentic content as an early-stage startup to build an audience.· [29:34] The value of partnerships in helping you stand out and accelerate your audience-building efforts.· [31:08] Rapid questions with Anthony!Memorable Quote:· “We have a chance to 10x our web conversions by building a relationship with an audience owning the distribution of our content into that audience.”- Anthony [08:17]Connect with Anthony:· LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akennada/

Daniel is on stage at SXSW compering a panel discussion with some of the best names in the business.Join Daniel, along with Ari Murray, Mark Jung and Anthony Kennada as they discuss what makes a media company, why you need to stay in the front of people's minds to succeed, and how to get maximum return on your celebrity brand endorsement.Plus the panel takes questions from the audience.And thanks to our episode sponsor, Retention. What do brands like Warby Parker, Dr. Squatch, Vital Proteins, and Blendjet all have in common? Retention.com is their highest performing ROAS channel by far. Visit Retention.com to book a demo today.Follow Ari:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arimurray/Follow Mark:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markpjung/Follow Anthony:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akennada/Follow Daniel on Twitter: twitter.com/Dmurr68LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing Sign up to The Marketing Millennials newsletter: workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennialsDaniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. Find out more, visit: www.workweek.com

Four marketing leaders share their lessons, learnings, mistakes, and failures from their time "in the arena" as a marketing leader. Shauntle Barley is Director of Marketing at Demandwell, Loretta Jones is VP Growth at Acceldata, Anthony Kennada is former CMO at Gainsight, Hopin, and now CEO at AudiencePlus, plus Exit Five Founder Dave Gerhardt.Send guest pitches and ideas to hello@exitfive.comExit Five on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/exitfive/Exit Five on Twitter: https://twitter.com/exitfiveco***Thanks to our 2023 presenting sponsors Demandwell, Jasper, and Zapier.This episode is brought to you by Zapier. Zapier empowers anyone to automate their work across 5,000+ apps, so that every person and business can move forward at growth speed. We power over 2.2 million businesses, from startups to Fortune 100, and we've been doing it for over a decade. Learn more + get started for free at zapier.comThanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production. They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast. Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest. Visit hatch.fm to learn more

Welcome to Coffee with Closers, where we sit down with inspiring entrepreneurs and leaders to learn more about their journey and the lessons they've learned along the way. Today, we are excited to have Anthony Kennada, CEO and Co-Founder of AudiencePlus. His entrepreneurial journey is one for the books – from launching successful marketing campaigns for popular companies like Hopin and Front to creating a Customer Success category at Gainsight, he's now living his own business dream. During this episode, Anthony will share his expertise on why every company needs a customer success role, what AudiencePlus is all about, and how to build an audience by creating great content. He'll also explain why CEOs should be spokespeople for their brands, how to attribute content correctly and promote it effectively, and how to find a balance between authenticity and high production quality. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ►Find Anthony Kennada on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/akennada/ ►Visit AudiencePlus at https://www.audienceplus.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show, our host Alex Theuma is joined by Anthony Kennada, Co-Founder & CEO at AudiencePlus, who shares why SaaS companies/ CEOs need to figure out owned media (and fast!). Co-Founder and CEO of AudiencePlus, the leading owned media platform that's building software, content, and community to help every company become a media company, Anthony was previously CMO of industry-leading SaaS companies like Front, Gainsight, and Hopin. In this episode you'll hear: ⚡️ Why Anthony made the leap from CMO to Founder & CEO ⚡️ If media should be a CEOs priority in today's economy ⚡️ Why algorithms are working against us ⚡️ If third party cookies are going away ⚡️ Hardest thing about building a startup in 2023

In this podcast episode, we discuss the impact of the ongoing recession on content teams, which are often the first to face budget cuts. Many companies perceive content teams as dispensable, but our guest, Anthony Kennada of AudiencePlus, argues that content is essential for marketing success. As Kennada puts it, "Without content, there is no marketing. Content is the flywheel that makes marketing happen."Anthony explains why companies should keep their content teams, emphasizing their role in content distribution. He also discusses the shift in consumer behavior and how people consume content. According to current trends, as Anthony notes, content built around consumers, and not an algorithm, will drive business growth in 2023. 

Anthony responds to 7 quick fire questions from Daniel in this fireside chat.Get to know the B2B content marketer better and hear what motivates and inspires him.Follow Anthony:LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/akennadaTwitter: https://twitter.com/akennadaKeep up to date with the latest news from The Marketing Millennials:.Follow Daniel on Twitter: twitter.com/Dmurr68LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing Sign up to The Marketing Millennials newsletter: workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennialsDaniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. Find out more, visit: www.workweek.com

Anthony Kennada is is co-founder & CEO of AudiencePlus, a company building software, content, and community to help businesses become media companies. Prior to founding AudiencePlus, Anthony served as the CMO of Hopin, Front, and Gainsight.Thanks to Demandwell, our presenting sponsor for the Exit Five podcast.https://www.demandwell.com/Demandwell is the best SEO solution for B2B SaaS marketers. They've helped customers like Lessonly drive 40% of their revenue from organic search. And they helped Terminus's make organic search their number one source of demosHere's how it works: Results: Demandwell is built for driving the outcomes that b2b marketers care about - demand, traffic, leads, and revenue.  Ease and control: Junior team members can follow recommended steps in the platform, while experts can customize and maintain full control over their work.  Speed: With everything in one platform, Demandwell helps you crank out content that ranks and drives leads in minutes rather than hours.  SEO expert or not, you should give Demandwell a try, and listeners of the Exit Five podcast can get a free competitive SEO Audit to see how you're ranking relative to your competitorsGo to demandwell.com/fomo to get your free SEO consultation today.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing the podcast for me. They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

How do you create the kind of content your audience actually wants? Anthony Kennada is solving the problem for B2B companies with AudiencePlus, building software, content, and community to help every company evolve their content and media marketing.Daniel and Anthony get into distributing content in a meaningful way, the community-led growth trend, and why people buy from people.Do you want your website to stand out in a crowded marketplace? Turn the online spotlight back to your site and grab your customers' attention with Semrush. For next level online marketing visit semrush.com/free and try it free for 7 days.Follow Anthony:LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/akennadaTwitter: https://twitter.com/akennadaKeep up to date with the latest news from The Marketing Millennials:.Follow Daniel on Twitter: twitter.com/Dmurr68LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing Sign up to The Marketing Millennials newsletter: workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennialsDaniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. Find out more, visit: www.workweek.comHow to Write Content For a B2B AudienceIf you have an B2B business, you know how challenging it is to market to businesses instead of consumers. That's why B2B marketing requires a different approach than content marketing aimed at consumers. Whether you're creating new content or updating old materials with new target audiences in mind, here are some tips on how to write content that resonates with a B2B audience. Write Content With a B2B PerspectiveFirst and foremost, always think about your business from a business perspective. Forget about the customers for a second and think about what your business needs to do. What do your customers want? What do you need to do to make sales? What's the pain-point you're trying to solve? At the end of the day, the customer will benefit from your product or service. But they have no investment in the success of your business beyond their own experience with your product. Use Short Sentences And ParagraphsLong words and sentences are intimidating to read. They make your content hard to read and difficult to process. Plus, if your reader has to keep going back and re-read a sentence, it's easy to lose interest and stop reading altogether. Keep sentences short, and use short paragraphs (maybe two or three sentences max). When you have a lot of content to get out there, try to keep it to a single idea per paragraph. When you have too much to say, it's easy to confuse your readers. Break up your content into smaller, bite-sized pieces and make it easier to digest. Be Ultra-Specific.You don't have the luxury of being vague when you're marketing to businesses. You can't just say “our product will improve your customer experience.” Instead, you have to be ultra-specific. In the example above, you'd have to say something like, “our product will reduce your customer-cancellation rate by X percent.” Businesses don't care about what's possible or what you hope to achieve. They care about what's certain. And you have to give them...

Today we are featuring an episode from a new show: Owned, a series exclusively on AudiencePlus co-hosted by Anthony Kennada and B2B Growth's own, James Carbary. Owned is a show that tears down popular consumer media brands and applies key learnings to B2B companies who are building their owned media strategy. To watch the full episode, get notified of future releases, get access to exclusive content, and more, subscribe for free at audienceplus.com.

*listeners: please fill out this short 3-min. survey to help me level up the show: https://forms.gle/iporNXSgtfuoHSPJA Anthony Kennada is a B2C marketer trapped in a B2B body (I can SO relate). I met Anthony through Pavilion where he was teaching a course in CMO School about how and why companies are increasingly becoming media companies. Anthony is co-founder and CEO at AudiencePlus where the team is building software, content, and community to help every company become a media company. Prior to AudiencePlus, Anthony was CMO of Hopin and Front. He's worked at Box, LiveOffice and Symantec. Anthony was the founding CMO at Gainsight where he and the team created the Customer Success category and fueled the company's growth from $0 to $100M+ ARR, and eventual acquisition by Vista Equity at a $1.1B valuation. Here's what we hit on: Why are companies increasingly becoming "media companies," why it's easier today more than ever and will continue into the future; Why gating content is no longer necessary or preferred; Instead of gating content, what can companies do instead (HINT: emails are important so you do need emails, you just need a better way for people to share their email address); "Community-led marketing" - what's all the fuss, let's define what this means and explain how this works and how can early stage startups leverage this marketing play; You gotta hook them on social media with video clips (demand creation) then bring them back to your website (demand capture) - but how to best run this play and who's doing this well; Why engagement with your company's content is an important leading indicator to EVERY business outcome (e.g. sale, renewal, expansion, adoption, etc.) and not just a TOF strategy; Anthony shares more about building AudiencePlus; At the very end, Anthony asks me his burning question. You can find Anthony on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/akennada/ Find out more about AudiencePlus: https://www.audienceplus.com/ This episode is sponsored by UMSO, the website builder for startups. Visit umso.com/MSM to learn more and use the code MSM20 for a 20% discount on your first three months. For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify or wherever you like to listen, and don't forget to leave a review. And whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you: 1. Startup marketing strategy, execution and advising (25+ happy clients and mentees) >> www.furmanovmarketing.com 2. GTM bootcamp for EdTech Founders (sign up for the next cohort) >> https://gofuelsales.com/edtech-bootcamp/ 3. Sponsor my Top 10% podcast and get startup founders, marketers and VCs hearing about your brand You can also find me hanging out on LinkedIn every single week: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/anna-furmanov/message

Part Six of this special mini-series features 10 CMOs and marketing leaders from some of the world's fastest-growing companies, including:*(3:17) - Anthony Kennada, CMO, Hopin *(7:30) - Nikhil Behl, CMO, FICO*(9:50) - Heidi Bullock, CMO, Tealium*(11:41) - Alon Alroy, CMO, Bizzabo*(14:02) - Tyler Lessard, VP of Marketing, Vidyard*(15:50) - Kevin Tate, CMO, Clearbit*(17:53) - Karen Steele, SVP of Marketing, Near*(20:31) - Ritu Kapoor & Julie Ginn, CMO, Lob*(21:35) - Mark Josephson, Co-Founder and CEO, Castiron *(23:32) - Eugene Levin, Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer, SemrushSponsorDemand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen 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.LinksFollow Ian on TwitterConnect with Ian on LinkedInwww.caspianstudios.com

“Every company needs to start acting like a media company or risk going out of business, pure, plain and simple. And when the cookie-less future that we're all staring down comes to light, the companies that survive are the ones that caught this early and were able to start investing in building their own content moat around the business.” — Anthony Kennada-------------Episode Timestamps:*(2:05) - Anthony's first job in marketing*(2:45) - More about Anthony's role at Hopin as CMO*(4:05) - Segment: The Trust Tree*(6:41) - Who's the buying committee for Hopin *(8:37) - How Anthony's marketing team is organized *(14:23) - How events have changed over the last 18 months*(25:15) - Segment: The Playbook*(29:45) - The investments Anthony makes into brand*(31:54) - How to think about investing in content*(35:30) - Segment: The Dust Up*(38:45) - Segment: Quick Hits SponsorDemand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen 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. LinksConnect with Anthony on LinkedInFollow Anthony on TwitterFollow Ian on TwitterConnect with Ian on LinkedInwww.caspianstudios.com

What does the future of corporate events look like? That's a question Hopin, an event technology platform, was asking even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Anthony Kennada (Hopin's CMO), experienced the company go from 6 to 800 employees and reach the coveted unicorn status – all within the past 18 months. In this episode, he and Tricia discuss how events foster community, why community is the secret to category creation, and why building an internal community between sales, marketing, and customer success is critical to growing revenue for your business.Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Anthony on Twitter at @triciagellman, @akennada, and @DriftPodcasts.​Want even more CMO insights? Subscribe to Tricia's newsletter here: https://www.drift.com/chief-marketing-officer/

This week's How the Fxck interview is with the incredible Anthony Kennada, CMO at Hopin. Anthony was the first marketer and founding CMO at Gainsight, which grew to $100m ARR and sold for over $1bn to Vista in 2020. At the time of recording this episode, Anthony had just joined Hopin, the explosively fast-growth hybrid events management platform. (Hopin is the fastest growing SaaS business ever with a valuation of $5.6bn in under 2 years.) So, safe to say, he knows his stuff and had a ton of tactics to share. The episode focuses on the demand gen and content tactics that Anthony has used along the way. In particular, we focus on events. The Gainsight team is well known for creating the category of customer success, and a big part of that journey was championing the profession through events. You'll hear the story of how Anthony and his team created a conference of 300 like-minded people and grew it to +6,000 yearly attendees. "I started breaking it apart and saying, 'what do I love about my career? What do I love about marketing?' And at the atomic level, I realized it was connection between people, whether digitally or in person, and events are the channel by which that happens. Some of the most inspired work we had at Gainsight was there." We discuss why most startups should not create a category and the difficulties and common mistakes of those who do. Towards the middle-end of the interview, we dive into Anthony's first three weeks at Hopin. We chat about: - Why Hopin is not just a natural fit for Anthony, but a brand mission that aligns with his own. - What growth strategies are underway already. - What will be prioritised at Hopin? And how will marketing contribute to Hopin's continued fast growth? Visit www.thefxck.com for the breakdown, video and timstamps.

If you can't be first in a category, then you should create a new category you can be first in. And that is exactly what James and his company RTA has been working on. What you'll learn in this episode: How to roll out a new category internally and how to “measure” initial success How to get employees involved in creating content about the category How to use a random viral video to sell your leadership on category design How to get your team active on LinkedIn A few examples of “lightning strikes” (a category-defining event/initiative): a book, a podcast, category training and certification How to get information from your customers James' recommendations: What got you here, won't get you there. As the market dynamics change, you have to do something you have never done before The entire team needs to be on board with the category, and it's important to have agreement on what embarking on category design can mean for each team - finance, product, sales, etc. not just marketing. Your category has to be bigger than your product. Read the Category Creation book by Anthony Kennada. Talking to customers is mission critical to seeing patterns and validating the idea and need for a new category. A “lightning strike” doesn't need to be something expensive or resource heavy.  You'll need to listen to the full episode if you want to hear the Lightning Round, but here are a few highlights: James is very excited about RTA's new podcast Don't use the word “unprecedented” around James Proofpoint's POV:Category design isn't new, but that doesn't make it any less impactful. Creating a category is the best way to differentiate your business.  When you create a category, you create an opportunity for your company to take a POV on the issue the category is dealing with. At that point, you are no longer selling your product. You are simply getting people to either agree or disagree with your POV. And once they agree with your POV, you are the only game in town. Doing so makes the work and decision making across all teams easier. Sales no longer needs to sell the better widget. Instead they are just promoting the POV. Marketing doesn't have to wonder what content to create. All content needs to support the POV. The product team doesn't need to wonder which features to prioritize. All features need to support the POV. Hiring becomes easier because your candidates either understand and get excited about your POV, or they don't. The list goes on. What I love about what James brought up is that their new category of Fleet Success is allowing RTA to over time stop competing and start leading. Specifically James mentioned declining unit economics of paid media in the Fleet Management space. This is something that many businesses, not just SaaS, are starting to see right now. Traditional intent-based channels like paid search have been becoming more and more expensive over the years - paying $15 - $30 per click is often not feasible, even when you are selling a $20,000 - $100,000 ACV product.  Creating a new category allows you to avoid this over time, since a new category creates a new category of keywords which initially will be less expensive, and if you are the leader, then you will also own the organic as well. Not to mention the mindshare captured in awareness channels like social. In short, creating a new category allows you to change your marketing mix. A bit more about James:James is an entrepreneur, marketer and a risk taker (follow his LinkedIn handle #takingricks). At one point pre-pandemic, James and his family decided to sell their home, put their stuff in storage and move to Hawaii all while James was starting The Consulting Launchpad. Helpful Links & Resources: James' LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricksjrr/ James' Company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rtafleet/ Connect with Mike & Gaby at Proofpoint: Mike's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikegrinberg/ Gaby's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriellaisrael/ LinkedIn Company Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/proofpoint-marketing-llc Proofpoint YouTube Channel: http://bit.ly/ProofpointonYouTube Proofpoint Website: www.proofpoint.marketing

If you can't be first in a category, then you should create a new category you can be first in. And that is exactly what James and his company RTA has been working on. What you'll learn in this episode: How to roll out a new category internally and how to “measure” initial success How to get employees involved in creating content about the category How to use a random viral video to sell your leadership on category design How to get your team active on LinkedIn A few examples of “lightning strikes” (a category-defining event/initiative): a book, a podcast, category training and certification How to get information from your customers James' recommendations: What got you here, won't get you there. As the market dynamics change, you have to do something you have never done before The entire team needs to be on board with the category, and it's important to have agreement on what embarking on category design can mean for each team - finance, product, sales, etc. not just marketing. Your category has to be bigger than your product. Read the Category Creation book by Anthony Kennada. Talking to customers is mission critical to seeing patterns and validating the idea and need for a new category. A “lightning strike” doesn't need to be something expensive or resource heavy.  You'll need to listen to the full episode if you want to hear the Lightning Round, but here are a few highlights: James is very excited about RTA's new podcast Don't use the word “unprecedented” around James Proofpoint's POV:Category design isn't new, but that doesn't make it any less impactful. Creating a category is the best way to differentiate your business.  When you create a category, you create an opportunity for your company to take a POV on the issue the category is dealing with. At that point, you are no longer selling your product. You are simply getting people to either agree or disagree with your POV. And once they agree with your POV, you are the only game in town. Doing so makes the work and decision making across all teams easier. Sales no longer needs to sell the better widget. Instead they are just promoting the POV. Marketing doesn't have to wonder what content to create. All content needs to support the POV. The product team doesn't need to wonder which features to prioritize. All features need to support the POV. Hiring becomes easier because your candidates either understand and get excited about your POV, or they don't. The list goes on. What I love about what James brought up is that their new category of Fleet Success is allowing RTA to over time stop competing and start leading. Specifically James mentioned declining unit economics of paid media in the Fleet Management space. This is something that many businesses, not just SaaS, are starting to see right now. Traditional intent-based channels like paid search have been becoming more and more expensive over the years - paying $15 - $30 per click is often not feasible, even when you are selling a $20,000 - $100,000 ACV product.  Creating a new category allows you to avoid this over time, since a new category creates a new category of keywords which initially will be less expensive, and if you are the leader, then you will also own the organic as well. Not to mention the mindshare captured in awareness channels like social. In short, creating a new category allows you to change your marketing mix. A bit more about James:James is an entrepreneur, marketer and a risk taker (follow his LinkedIn handle #takingricks). At one point pre-pandemic, James and his family decided to sell their home, put their stuff in storage and move to Hawaii all while James was starting The Consulting Launchpad. Helpful Links & Resources: James' LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricksjrr/ James' Company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rtafleet/ Connect with Mike & Gaby at Proofpoint: Mike's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikegrinberg/ Gaby's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriellaisrael/ LinkedIn Company Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/proofpoint-marketing-llc Proofpoint YouTube Channel: http://bit.ly/ProofpointonYouTube Proofpoint Website: www.proofpoint.marketing

In This Episode: Anthony Kennada shares insights on his rise and impact in the world of tech and marketing, and covers topics including diversity and inclusion, living out his faith in the workplace and leadership advice he would give his younger self. About Our Guest: Anthony Kennada is the CMO at Hopin, the leading virtual event and digital experience company. Previously, Anthony was the CMO at Front, and also the founding CMO of Gainsight where he is credited with creating the Customer Success category — a novel business imperative, profession and software category.  Read more

Episode Outline[01:25] Managing expectations[03:09] Hopin's numbers[07:41] Capturing the opportunity[11:31] The challenges of fast, effective growth[14:07] Where is the market going?[18:10] Anthony's health[22:08] How does Anthony unwind?[25:28] Inspiring people Anthony's InspirationsNick Mehta Connect with AnthonyLinkedInTwitterWebsite

On this episode of The Marketer's Journey, I interview Anthony Kennada, CMO at Hopin. Hopin has exploded into the market, revolutionizing the digital events space. Not even two years after launching in only June of 2019, they raised 400 million dollars and are evaluated at an apparent 5.65 billion dollars. Anthony has always had a passion for events, dating back to prom committee in high school and planning concerts in college. He even left a role at Gainsight to build out an event tech startup but ultimately ended up joining Hopin as their CMO. On today's episode, Randy and Anthony discuss how to frame your digital events as entertaining experiences and what our post-COVID world holds for the events industry.Check out this and other episodes of The Marketer's Journey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play! Key takeaways from this episode:Relationships are the most important currency in building your career. Value and nurture the people that are going to champion you and build you up throughout your careerYou can fight Zoom fatigue by considering what would make your event a unique experience. What will differentiate you and get people talking about it?Perfecting the formula for digital events is about packaging things specifically for digital first, not adding in digital as an afterthought, much like the sports industry does--digital viewers may not be as connected with their in-person community but they have a one of a kind viewing experience.Learn more about Hopin here: https://hopin.com/Learn more about Anthony here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akennada/

Anthony Kennada knows a thing or two about ANA’s 2020 word of the year: “Pivot.” In just 4 years, Anthony “pivoted” from Business Development Associate (BDA) at Box to CMO of Gainsight—an astounding feat for any marketer—and during his 6 years at the startup, he helped establish a category, growing the brand from $0 to over $100 million in revenue. Now, he’s at Front, a start-up customer communication hub with a high-level story to tell. In this episode, Anthony shares how his experiences at Gainsight have informed his community-building, demand-generating efforts at Front—from how to develop a long-term, growth-focused brand strategy to how to bring employees, customers, and prospects together under one purpose-driven cause. Check it out!

Subscribe | Transcript | Comment The Episode in 60 Seconds What does working with CEOs have in common with driving category creation? You must have a compelling vision. Mark Organ, the creator of Eloqua and other companies, joins John Farkas for a discussion about: The challenges of founding companies Why some leaders don't want to define a category The most important factor in marketing: your customer telling others And more Our Guest Mark Organ is the CEO of Categorynauts. He helps companies create and dominate new categories. He also coaches CEOs to achieve their goals in business and life. He founded Influitive and is the author of the book, The Messenger is the Message: How to Mobilize Customers and Unleash the Power of Advocate Marketing. Leaders throughout North America and Asia know Mark as a go-to-market consultant for SaaS companies who, most famously, founded and led Eloqua, the undisputed leading Enterprise marketing automation and CRM powerhouse now operated by Oracle.   Show Notes You can reach Mark Organ at his LinkedIn profile or by emailing him directly. When you have the opportunity to lead the conversation, then you have the opportunity to lead the conversation. That demonstrates you have the competence, command and courage to lead. — John Farkas Mark Organ believes that leaders who can create categories aspire: To be a great leaders To build an amazing new markets To build incredible wealth for other people They are much more excited about their category vision than they are about amassing personal wealth. The most powerful component of category creation is the underserved hero. The underserved hero is a customer who plays an important role. That role will be different for each category, but don't miss identifying your underserved heroes and rewarding them.   Golden Spiral has a number of free resources about differentiation and category design: The Real Market Value of the Soul of Your B2B Brand Positioning Worksheet 4 Important Steps to Crafting a Powerful B2B Point of View Seven Steps to Create a Strategic B2B Competitive Analysis Free Download from Anthony Kennada

It's time to break down real SaaS marketing problems - with a sour twist. This week's guest...Front's CMO, Anthony Kennada!

5 questions about everything OTHER than work. The only catch? They do not receive the questions ahead of time. I'm pleased to welcome Anthony Kennada, CMO at Front, as the first guest of the Revenue Diaries. We talked about everything from the emotional toll of fatherhood to living out his Christian faith in the workplace.

Anthony Kennada (CMO Front) and I sit down to dissect brand, category creation, and the role product marketers play in both. Anthony shared really interesting insights into the challenges PMMs face, why companies need to be focused on people before products, his time at Gainsight, and what he's working on at Front.

Most marketers consider a decrease in MQLs to be a bad thing, but for Lessonly CMO Kyle Lacy, cutting MQLs in half led to a 10X increase in marketing ROI. This week on the Inbound Success podcast, Lessonly CMO Kyle Lacy explains how his team achieved a 10X increase in marketing ROI by redesigning the company's website, redefining what constituted a marketing qualified lead, and refocusing the efforts of the sales team.  It's a case study that holds lessons (no pun intended!) for anyone who is using inbound marketing to drive organic growth. Check out the full episode to learn what Kyle and his team did, and how you too can apply this approach to get better results with your own marketing. Resources from this episode: Connect with Kyle on LinkedIn Follow Kyle on Twitter Visit Kyle's personal website Check out the Lessonly website Check out some of the resources Kyle mentioned: Listen to the Inbound Success Podcast interview with Dave Gerhardt Learn more about Anthony Kennada of Front and Kathryn Loheide of Formstack Learn more about The Revenue Collective Transcript Kathleen (00:00): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth. And my guest this week is Kyle Lacy, who is the chief marketing officer at Lessonly. Welcome to the podcast, Kyle. Kyle (00:27): Thanks for having me. Kathleen (00:28): Yeah, it is a, it is a funny time to be, to be doing these podcasts with everybody stuck at home and, and interesting stories of trying to work with, with dogs and children and spouses and construction noise and all the things that happen when you're stuck working from home. I will say I have two dogs in my office, so they may bark while we're talking. Kyle (00:49): I also have a dog who may bark. Kathleen (00:52): Yup. We're just going to roll with it. I'm sure everybody who's listening is dealing with the same thing. No, I was really looking forward to talking with you. I I've been following, I think your career for a while now, since I became part of a group online that you're in. And I'm really fascinated by the work you're doing with Lessonly. So maybe before we jump into that, you could take a minute and tell my listeners a little bit more about who you are, what Lessonly is and how you came to be doing what you're doing. Kyle (01:21): Yeah, sure. I'll spare the early career comments mainly just because I worked at an agency, I started an agency and then I failed miserably. So I think that's another podcast for another time. Kathleen (01:35): Had I, I had an agency for 11 years. Yes! Kyle (01:39): Mine was five and it, we did okay and then it started going downhill. But because of that agency, I had the opportunity to go work for a software company in Indianapolis called ExactTarget. And at the time ExactTarget was the largest email service provider in the world, email marketing platform. I was, I was one of, I think 600 people hired that year in 2012, but it was my first foray into software. And it's where I fell in love with software. So I spent three years at ExactTarget where we ran, I ran content marketing as well as the thought leadership team there. And we IPO'd, bought by Salesforce. Spent a year at Salesforce. Realized that the large corporate company was not for me even though, to be very clear, Salesforce, Salesforce is large. Corporate culture is not what you would expect. Kyle (02:32): It's actually really cool. I just could not, I could not work in a, in a company of 20,000 people. I realized that I wanted to be a marketing leader. I definitely wanted to be a CMO sometime in my future. So the best bet for me, I believed, was to go work for a venture capital firm. And they recruited, a company called O-, firm called OpenView Boston, which is, they have a little over a billion under management and they invest in series B, series C in B2B software companies. Spent two years there. Basically got my MBA in software. I mean, it's the best learning you can possibly do is to be on the other side of the table, especially with the venture capital firm. And Lessonly was looking for a market leader. And Lessonly is based in Indianapolis. My wife and I wanted to move back from Boston. And it just made sense. Lessonly was a portfolio company of OpenView and everybody that was important to my network was involved at Lessonly. So I've been at Lessonly now for three and a half years and started as the VP of Marketing and now Chief Marketing Officer. Kathleen (03:39): That's great. And tell me a little bit more about what Lessonly does. Kyle (03:43): Lessonly is training software for sales and customer service teams. So everybody from large telecom companies to small software companies. Kathleen (03:51): Great. And, and you had an interesting year. One of the reasons I was fascinated to talk with you is that you were telling me last year, you guys actually cut the number of marketing qualified leads you were bringing in, intentionally. I feel like when you talk to marketers, that's not normally something they set out to do, but you set out to do that. And that resulted in actually a big jump in revenue for the company. So I want to pick this apart and, and I guess start with like, why, why did you set out to reduce your number of MQLs? Kyle (04:25): It was kind of haphazard, to be honest with you. We, we knew that we had to blow up and redesign our website from the ground up in August of 2018, because we started seeing a drop in organic traffic because our site load time was just pathetic. And so Google was starting to ding us on load times on the pages of our site. So when we overhauled it, we were looking at our marketing qualified lead definitions and realized that, I realized something that I hope most marketers realize in the near future, is that it was pretty much BS, right? Like we were sending, we were working thousands of MQLs, and you could be breathing and becoming a marketing qualified lead for Lessonly. Right? And so what we basically said was, we're going to get rid of all of our forms, all of our content downloads, except for a few. Kyle (05:16): And then our demo form is going to be the main form on the site. So if you fill out a form and you use a work email for a demo, you become a marketing qualified lead. So you can imagine that we cut them, I mean, it was over 80%, I think, of our SQLs. And the one thing that that did was that it highly qualified the people we were sending to the inbound team, the inbound SDR team. It also allowed us to spend more time working those deals. And it, it created a closer alignment between sales and marketing because sales actually started trusting the inbound opportunities that were being sent over. So for us, what happened was we cut MQLs over half and we, we, I mean, we significantly for, I think we, I think that over a year we four to five X'd inbound revenue that was direct sourced from our website. Kyle (06:17): And it was pretty much the, the idea that, hey, marketing marketing should own a revenue number and all this crap about, hey, we influenced revenue, which most marketers talk about. I think it was just complete BS. It's like, yeah, you should influence a hundred percent of closed revenue. Like you're marketing. Yeah. I don't care if it's expansion. I don't care if it's net new revenue. Right. So for us it was, it was, it was the opportunity to control our destiny when it came to what we were direct sourcing. And we significantly improved revenue just because we've cut down. Kathleen (06:53): So this topic is particularly interesting to me because it may or may not be hitting home. It's just something I'm dealing with at the moment. I've always been a big believer in ungating stuff, by the way. Like I always, every time I've done it, I've, I've seen actually conversion rates have, if anything, gone up because people like to see the content and they're like, Oh, now it's totally worth getting, you know, giving you my email address. So I, I've never had a problem with ungating content and removing a lot of forms and things like that. What I think is interesting is that, and I'm dealing with something similar to what you described right now with the company I'm at, where historically the sales team, you know, has, has been handed every single person that converts on anything on the website, as a lead, which in my book is not your, it's not a lead. Kathleen (07:43): As you say, if they have a pulse, they're a lead in that scenario. And, and I'm working towards doing something kind of similar to what you described. But what I think is interesting, being in the middle of it is, you know, there's the whole notion of buy-in that needs to happen at that early stage. Because it's one thing as a marketing leader to be like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to like remove all these forms and, or I might have forums, but I'm not going to pass the names of the people who fill them out over to sales. Like for me, it's a contact us or a request a quote form for you. It was a demo form. You know, when that first happens, I don't have to tell you your conversions go down. Your sheer number of people converting goes down and on paper that can look really bad. And I know, you know, I've gotten comments like why have our leads decreased, what's happening, what's wrong with our marketing. And so I'm curious when you guys decided to do this, how did you navigate in that early stage, the communication around, and did you, I don't know, did you like, did you start out by saying this is what's going to happen? And here's why, and here's why it's okay. Like how did that work? Kyle (08:51): Yeah, what we tried to do is we had a lot of conversations with the sales team, especially myself and the directors of sales and our president who basically is our chief revenue officer and, and our CEO. We had a CRO at the time as well, actually, if I remember correctly and we just had long conversations around that, like, here's, what's happening now, everyone, your conversion, I don't care what the lead to MQL conversion rate is. I care about what the MQL to opportunity created conversion rate is, and it is terrible right now. So what we want to do is while we decrease MQL is what we did was we just forecast it out. We said, all right, if we take our best qualified MQL, here's what the conversion rate could potentially be over the course of the fiscal year. And here based off of our average contract value and our conversion rates, here's what we can expect and would still like, it still was rough. Kyle (09:50): The first three months, the first couple quarters, three to six months after we did it. But what happened was once we got through our sales cycle and found that more revenue was converting, more, a more reps were getting to quota. It's, it, it became more aligned. We also move the BDR and SDR teams under marketing. So we were forcing alignment because marketing was controlling 70% of meetings for the sales reps outside of there, outside of the channel and partnerships and like referrals and self source, like those other, those other channels. The one thing I will say, which, which we can put a pin in and talk about later, if it's not, if it's not contributing to this conversation, but we have found that, that at a certain point of scale, it's really important that you're building a database, even if you're not handing the people off to sales. Kyle (10:51): And I think that's a mistake that I don't know if it was a mistake necessarily. But we are now is trying to figure out, all right, now we need, we've got to scale pretty significantly outside of our scope. And because we let all these people just read content and didn't download it, then we don't have a place for them to, we don't have, we don't have a database for us to park it to. Now, the other side of the coin was say, well, you influence them. They're going to come back when they're ready. It's just really hard to play it around that. Kathleen (11:27): Yeah, no, I think it's totally germane to this conversation because it really speaks to the whole, like the whole construct of how we think about the people that are in our sphere of influence, right? Like I think as marketers, we're trained to use the word lead to refer to anybody who converts, but really there's, to me, there's like a lead and then there's just a contact, you know? Kyle (11:54): And I think that, I think the difference is, what I'm finding is that in the first, especially for SaaS companies in the first between one, and let's say 10 to 20 million, 10 to 15 million in revenue to be very surgical in your go to market, you have a very specific group of people. And I think after that, when you're trying to grow it 70 to a hundred percent off of 20 million revenue, you've got to build a community of people. So it's like a, it's, it's, it's, it's moving more thought leadership oriented into the market, instead of it being very, very tactical and surgical. I think those are the two that's the transition that we're making. Kathleen (12:36): Yeah. And I guess the question becomes like, how is there a way for you to lay the groundwork for that scale in the early stage, without compromising what you're doing? Kyle (12:46): Yeah. I think gong, gong, gong.io is a great example of a company that's done that they, they did not send over an MQL or whatever, a contact that filled out a form for an ebook. They never sent it to anybody. It was, it was just a newsletter, right? They were telling them about their webinars. Like it was never sent to sales until it hit, you know, till they hit it. I'm assuming they had a specific score and then it's sent over to sales and then if they need a demo or something. Kathleen (13:18): The other thing I guess, that I, that I wonder about as you decided to make this change is is the whole culture of sales within the company. And it's interesting that you mentioned you moved BDRs under marketing, because when I think about, you know, the experience I'm having right now of a sales team, that culturally is used to getting these leads that are really just, as you say, like they converted on an ebook or they downloaded a case study. You know, how you follow up on that kind of a lead is, is culturally. Like it builds a culture that's very different than the type of culture you need to be successful in an organization where you're only working. People who've declared their intent. And so maybe, maybe that was solved by moving BDRs over. I don't know, but how did you handle that? Kyle (14:06): Well, it's the difference between volume and, you know, working, being tactical with deals that actually matter, right? So, you know, our inbound SDRs, they handle all the inbound, inbound demo requests and chat on the website. That's definitely a volume play. Our BDRs are more surgical, right? They are they're outbound. And they they have specific accounts that they're were reaching out to based off of our ICP. So it's, it's mostly around the outbound sales effort that then hands these opportunities over to the account executives, they know exactly the accounts they need to hit. We give them lists, there's re like we have ads going out like that. It's a very account based marketing approach. They're inbound, it's organic, it's Google ads. So it's more volume. So an account executive that has to deal with everything from an ebook download, which is what shows no intent whatsoever, other than, Hey, I'm interested in whatever you wrote about to somebody that is, is working demos. It's a very different account executive and account executives in my mind, other than their ability to self source, which they should is there. They need to move a demo through the sales funnel to close one, not try to figure out if these 500 ebook downloads are actually worth anything, because that's why we have Marketo. That's why we have HubSpot. That's why marketers are good at personalization and working deals that and, and, and pushing them through the pre sales motion before they're ready for a demo. Kathleen (15:48): Yeah. I think though it can also create a terrible prospect experience. If you just like you're on the website for the first time you convert on an ebook and all of a sudden you have somebody trying to hard sell you. It's not, it's not a great experience. Kyle (16:00): Yeah. Imagine, imagine being well, we're all consumers, right? Imagine going to Wayfair and like down like reading a guide on how to clean the certain couch that you want. And you've got a sales rep, like emailing you, asking you like, Hey, do you want to come see the couch? Do you want to come see the couch store? I could see the couch. Like, it'd be terrible. So the way that we think about it as let's try to, let's try to be as consumer marketing oriented as possible, right. Let's make the buying experience as easy as we possibly can and try not to force the people because people, I don't know why we, we thought that was a good idea to begin with. Kathleen (16:38): So I always like to say that, like, as you say, we're all, we're all people, we're all buyers in our lives, but for some reason we come to work and we put this marketing hat on and we forget everything that it is to be a human being. We do the opposite, right. Kyle (16:52): Experience is all that matters experiences that either have a good experience or a bad experience. And you're going to choose to buy based off of that. Kathleen (16:59): Yeah. So you, you, this was prompted by the need to redo the website and that gave you a window of opportunity to change your approach. And you were removing a lot of your forms and really then kind of relying on the people that filled out a demo request for your MQL. I would assume that there, that you did some things on the website to try and really ease the path for people to get to that demo request a motion. So can you talk a little bit about that? How did you optimize for that? Kyle (17:32): Yeah. The biggest thing we did was a product tour. We built a product tour. If you go to Lessonly.com/tour, or I think, or you can go to the main page where it has the tour button it, you pick which use case you are, are you a customer service? Are you sales, are you talent and then walks you through the product and then you can sign up for a demo. Kathleen (17:53): So is that product tour different based on the use case? So you're speaking to - okay. Kyle (17:58): Like a business outcome oriented basically. Right. So, you know, a sales, sales and customer service use cases are going to be somewhat some of the different, right. So that was the main thing other than just rebuilding the site. So it loaded correctly all the time. Right. Like, and, and redoing the brand and cleaning it up and just things that we had wanted to do. But that was the main thing was that products who were, and we created a demo video. It was a two minute demo video that you watch after you fill out the form. Kathleen (18:29): So this is an interesting question. And I get this sometimes from people like um, the role of having an on demand mini demo video versus like an actual guided demo over the phone or zoom, or what have you from a sales rep, how do you think about, like, what, what place, what role do all of those individual things fill and how do they fit together? Kyle (18:52): I mean, we just, I don't, honestly, I don't really know. I do know that we wanted to give somebody something after they filled out the form to kind of wet their appetite before they had a call with an AA. And I think that there's, there's, we definitely could do click rate optimization tests and say, and tests like whether or not the demo video should be included after the forms filled out. Right. But for us, it is you go through products or you fill out a form, you have the opportunity to watch the video if you want. But then the goal is, is that our inbound SDR is going to try to get at you on a call with an account executive. And sometimes they do a demo walkthrough. Like sometimes they do a software walkthrough on the first call. Sometimes it's a second call. It depends on the discovery that happens on that first call with the account executive. Kathleen (19:42): Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about numbers. You started from where you started to where you got to with these changes, what was the impact and how did it, how did it evolve? Kyle (19:55): I mean, we, we saw, we saw, I mean, it took about three months. So moving our, you know, we redesigned the site, we were done in September. We launched it end of September. And we started seeing revenue impact by January, February. Cause our, well, yeah, January, February, cause our sales cycle is 30, 60, 90 days. And it's over the holiday as well, which, you know, impacts all sales. But so by, by the end of last year, 2019, I mean, we had, we had went with four to five X to inbound revenue, closed won revenue because of, and it was because of that change. And it was because we just decided that, Hey, inbound reps are going to focus on the things that matter. And the rest of it's going to be automated. Kathleen (20:48): And your MQLs were cut by half. Is that right? Kyle (20:50): Yeah. If not more than that. Kathleen (20:52): Okay. I'm trying to do the math now. And I'm definitely not a big math person, four to five X increase in inbound revenue, 50% decrease in MQL. So that's like a 10 X ROI. Kyle (21:04): Yeah. Yup. Kathleen (21:07): In three to four months. Kyle (21:09): Well, no, I'm sorry. We, it, it was over the year, but we saw, we saw like we were doing five X, the revenue in Q four of 2019. They, what we were doing in Q4 of 2018. Kathleen (21:23): Wow. Kyle (21:24): So it's actually, it's actually more than that. You could tell on my, my, my teammates would tell me that I am not the math wizard. Kathleen (21:34): Yeah. This is why we all went into marketing, which sadly now has become a math game. Kyle (21:39): If we were doing 200 grand in Q4, we were doing our Q4 2018. We were doing a million in Q4 of 2019 as an example to dumb down the math, but it was, it was significant and it was a step. It was a stair-step right. It was a stair-step Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, to do that in 2019. But it was because of the website overall. Kathleen (22:04): Now, did you put in place anything new to nurture the folks that were downloading the eBooks, but that you now are no longer passing over to sales? Kyle (22:16): No, because we didn't, we didn't have any ebook downloads. And then we start, what we have been doing though, is starting to build nurture tracks and using, I think we moved over to Marketo beginning of last year. I don't know. It's all new. It's all Kathleen (22:33): Right. 2020 is it feels like 10 years long. So of course, Kyle (22:38): So it's, so yeah, we have nurture tracks running and, and we're, we're kind of evolving our marketing playbook now to say, we need to introduce webinars series. We need to introduce some things that are more database building, where we can just hit people randomly with content, because we have really good content, right. We spend tons of time and energy on this content. So we might as well start sending it out on a regular basis because before that we weren't, which is why my point before on the surgical go to market compared to the community building side. So we're lucky that we had thought leadership going on for the past two years with a book that our CEO wrote. So now it's, now it's up to us to say, all right, let's continue growing this community and, and 10 X that community instead of the revenue, it, but we hope that both of them happen. Right. I mean, that's yeah. Kathleen (23:29): Yeah. I would love to talk about that for a minute. So as you make that mental shift, you know, you've done the website, you've, you've narrowed down your definition of an MQL, and now you're focused on community building and, and getting a larger audience really to get your content in front of how are you thinking about tackling that? Kyle (23:49): Oh man, it's it's testing. I mean, it's testing for our, for my team on the demand side is like bread and butter. I mean, as we do it constantly, so it's testing, it's, it's introducing a webinar series, it's introducing webinars series with paid ads behind them to make, you know, to drive signups it's testing on what a monthly or weekly email newsletter would do. It's testing. Like, should we sponsor sponsor more virtual events where we're not necessarily working those leads, but building more of a database, what do we do with all the contacts that are already in our Salesforce instance? Right. So I think, I think the, for the next six months for us, it is testing. It's trying to, like we did, we sponsored morning brew the newsletter at the beginning of the year, and that went really well. And that was great. We loved it. So it's like doing those types of things to say, all right, let's dip our toe in the water. What should we do with analysts? Right. Which should we do with analysts firms, with the Gartners, with the Forresters of the world. And that's something that we had discussed in the past, but we're really putting pen to paper now and implementing it. Kathleen (25:00): And do you have an actual, like, formal community in the sense that, okay, and where is it? Kyle (25:07): Yeah, we do. It's called Llama Nation and it's actually a customer community. We have not opened it up externally. And as of right now, we have no plans to do that at the moment. And it lives on a, it's a mobile app. Kathleen (25:22): So now you just gave me the perfect segue, because one of the things I wanted to talk about in this podcast interview was the llama. Because I, I love what you've done with it. And there are, I'm sure are people listening who are like, what the heck are they talking about with a llama? So maybe you could explain why llamas are significant when we talk about Lessonly. Kyle (25:46): Well, I mean, it was, it was before my time that Ali llama showed up at Lessonly, but it was basically a chalkboard drawing that just kept showing up and the cofounders were like, we're not going to have llamas as a mascot. They kept putting it off. They kept putting it off and all, he just kept showing up. Ali's the name of our llama. And so eventually it just became part of the culture. And that led to a cus, a employee award called the golden llama that we give out quarterly to an employee the best best lives our values as a company. And then it turned out, and then when I came to Lessonly, we decided just to double down on it in all of our marketing, our 404 pages, our direct mail, it all includes Ali the llama. Kyle (26:38): And it has worked extremely well for a lot of reasons. I think one of them was just llamas became cool in 2019. Target released a llama line. Like you could go find little, little gold figurines at Target of llamas. Like it just became pop culture. Right. It was. And so we, we just doubled down on it. And the one thing that we did that worked extremely well was that we took the golden llama and scaled it and said, we want to send gold llamas out to prospects. Right. And our director marketing, Ben Bataglia had that idea one day. It's like, why don't we just send golden llamas prospects? And so we bought, there's this company up in Northern Michigan that produces these three inch llama figurines that I think we've probably kept them in business for like two years. But we bought, we bought 500 of them. I spray painted 500 llamas, golden llamas, and I'm pr-, I'm probably going to die young just because I inhaled it. Kathleen (27:38): So many gold spray paint fumes. Kyle (27:40): So we, and we started sending them out and all it was, was a box of the golden llama. And it had a card in it that said that, Hey, we get, it told the story of, of what we do with the golden llama at Lessonly. Lessonly gives this to a teammate that exhibits the values of your company. Had nothing to do with the product, have nothing to do about Lessonly. It was just recognize a teammate for great work. And we've sent out three to 4,000 of these llamas since 2018. And it is, it's just a fun way to, to tell the Lessonly story. So we use it in direct mail where we will dress up plush llamas with racing gear, for reaching out to a racing company, or we'll put them in a Ford truck and direct mail. And for trying to, if we're trying to get into Ford motor company, so we involve the llama in everything, everything we do. Kathleen (28:34): I love that. What is the response then? Kyle (28:37): Oh, it's been great. I mean, it's cute. Number one, I have a very talented group of designers, right? I mean, we do, we do some great stuff. It's not corny. It's just cute. It, it's not overwhelming. I think there's a lot of times people use mascots where you show up on the homepage and it's like the mascots right in your face. And you know, it's subtle, but it works because it, it makes sense. I don't know how best to explain it other than we did a very good job implementing it. And we have right now, not sure when, when we're going to publish this, but at this, at this moment, we're recording. We have Better Work Week, which is an entire week at Lessonly, that's devoted to celebrating people that do great work. And we had a zoom call on Monday where all the actual Ali llama showed up to the zoom call. Kathleen (29:31): That's awesome. Kyle (29:32): Ali llama lives in a farm out in New York state, upstate New York. Kathleen (29:38): So what advice would you give to somebody who was thinking they wanted to incorporate a brand mascot? Kyle (29:48): Man, I, I, I was very lucky that I inherited Ali when I got to Lessonly and my, at ExactTarget, we had a color, it was orange. We didn't have a mascot. So I think that the only the thing that I know works out of those two instances is make sure that your internal community, your stakeholders, your teammates, and your customers get involved first, it's gotta be cultural. And it has to be loved by employees and by customers before you could ever bring it to market to say, Hey, this llama was part of our culture. So the goal, like the llama at Lessonly for the first three or four years, it was just an award. And it took that long. And then we said, all right, let's, let's, let's introduce it to everybody else. And it worked because the employees believed in it. And the same thing went with the orange culture at ExactTarget. Kyle (30:51): You went through an orange onboarding, right, as an employee. And it didn't matter if we were 2000 employees, everybody understood what orange meant and because of that, it seeped into the customer base. And because the employees loved it, the customers loved it. The customer's peers loved it. And it created a community outside of just our, our first degree network of employees and customers. So I would say if you're going to do it, make sure that you include people around what the mascot is, what the color is, what the mission is, right. Get a committee of people that are involved and then start introducing it into the internal culture of the company. And if it hits and it works, then you can talk about introducing it outside of it. Kathleen (31:34): That's good advice. Yeah. We we have, the Attila's logo has always been a gorilla who's named Attila the gorilla. So that's one of the things that I've been like, trying to figure out is what do we do with Attila? So there may or may not have been a little selfish inspiration behind that. Kyle (31:52): Well, you got, I mean, you can, you can introduce a ton of stuff like plush gorillas, like just things stickers that people can put on there. Like there's just a lot that, that you could do with that to see if, and as long as you're not forcing it, then, you know, people should like it. Kathleen (32:09): Yeah. Well, fascinating story again. I love, I love what you're doing and there's so much creativity behind it. And I can't wait to kind of see where you take it with Lessonly. Especially as you look to build your audience. I'm gonna just shift gears for a second. There are two questions I ask all of my guests. And I'm curious to hear what you have to say, especially because you've had this interesting combination of like agency, VC and operator background. This podcast is all about inbound marketing. And is there a particular company or individual that you think is really like setting the standard for what it means to be a great inbound marketer right now? Kyle (32:48): Man, I, I I've been, there are two that I respect a lot, but they're there, they're usually the ones that people say, which I, so, so I'll give you three. Kathleen (33:03): Alright deal. Kyle (33:04): So Dave Gerhardt at Privy is probably the best inbound marketer that I know hands down. I steal things from him all the freaking time. And my team steals things from Privy's team all the time. Anthony Kennada, who was the COO of Gainsight and is now a COO at Front, he, he is extremely good at category creation that then drives the inbound for sure. And the other one's Kathyrn Loheide, who was VP of marketing at Formstack and Formstack is a local company in Indie, the remote, like a remote culture. But she is, she is the, one of the better demand gen leaders. Well, Mar I mean, marketing, I'm not even gonna, I'm not gonna say she's, she's a marketing leader. Like she has all the facets, but she's very good at the demand gen side of it. Very good at the process and the science side of it. I just can't get her to get on a podcast with me. She's too busy working, right? Kathleen (34:06): Yeah. Well, that's always the challenge with the good ones and that's, those are really good ones actually. So I have interviewed Dave Gerhart and I totally agree with you. And funny enough, his is the name that comes up the most for a reason, obviously. But I didn't, I haven't heard of the other two. So I love when I get those answers. Cause now I have two new ones to go check out as does everyone who's listening and maybe I could convince them to come on podcast. Although it sounds like Kathryn, probably not. Cause you're gonna hear. Kyle (34:32): Yeah, I can. I can, I can, I can try to set that up. But I would say like the, the marketers that have the ability to scale companies are the great marketers. Anthony is an example of somebody that was early in his career and helped Gainsight scale to a hundred million dollars in six years. And there are very few people that can do that. And it, it shows a lot of rigor, a lot of process and a lot of creativity and those people should be continuously celebrated because there are very few that will stick with a company that long to see it through most of the time you see people jumping every one or two years, but the great marketers in my opinion, will stick around and try to try to push people past their comfort zones to grow revenue Kathleen (35:18): Well, and I agree with you because it's also a very special person who is able to be successful as the company scales, because I have found, and you talked about like liking to work for a smaller company versus a bigger company. You know, some, sometimes it's just people, people don't like to be in those, like you get bigger and by definition, they're not happy in that environment. So somebody who is able to like chameleon-like shift and be successful in all of those situations, that's really unique. Kyle (35:47): Absolutely. As long as long as you know that the time to leave, if you force it and the company struggles because you're forcing it then you need to make the decision it's fine to move companies. Every two or three years, sophomore is not an easy job, right? It's very stressful. It's very fast paced and it's okay, but you need to know like, Hey actually, somebody I'm a shareholder, you know, and Anthony said this on a conversation I just had with him on he's he's a shareholder of a company. He wants the best person in that role to grow the company bigger than what he did, but he had the, he had the wherewithal and the personal insight and integrity to say, it's my time to move on and do this again at front from Gainsight, because he knew that somebody would be better at this next stage of the company's growth. Kathleen (36:45): That's great. I love that story. All right. Second question. The biggest pain point I hear from marketers is that digital marketing is changing so quickly that trying to keep up as like drinking from a fire hose. So how do you personally keep yourself educated and, and stay on the cutting edge? Kyle (37:04): I actually disagree with that comment. I don't think that it's changing that dramatically. I think that marketers who try to figure out how Tik Tok and drive leads are just looking at the next shining object. There is nothing has changed since I've been, I joined ExactTarget and I've been doing digital marketing for 15 years. Nothing's really changed. Email ads, direct mail events. So maybe, maybe social is more of a communications play, right? Like it's not changed that much organic. So, you know, I think that, that I think you have to get, you have to truly, we spend way too much time chasing these new things. And we don't try to understand how customers are buying our prospects and want to buy, right. And it might be that you just need a great email newsletter to drive our business. And you don't need to try to figure out how to build an AI artificial intelligence engine on the front of your website to change content based off of who's visiting, which I think is really cool, but you know, maybe you don't need that and you don't need to chase the shiny objects and you you're, you aren't selling, you know, a product to a bunch of tweens, right. Kyle (38:24): And if that's the case, then you need to understand how tweens buy right now. Right. So that, sorry, I'm on a soap box. But that being said, if I, the way that I stay in front of things is through the group that you and I are in, which is Revenue Collective. I mean, if you could find a community of people that are, that are the best at what they do that are constantly sharing content with each other, that's where, that's where I learned about things to test. Kathleen (38:49): Yeah, I totally agree. That's been an amazing group for me as well and well worth it. So check out revenuecollective.com if you want to learn more. Kyle (38:59): 2010 people were saying email marketing is dead. Kathleen (39:03): People have been saying email marketing is dead since email started, let's be honest. And I think marketers also like to say things are dead because they know people will read whatever they're about to say. Kyle (39:13): I mean, I have a, I have a slide deck on my LinkedIn page that says marketing is dead. Kathleen (39:18): Yes. Everything has died many times, you know? Well this has been so much fun. If somebody wants to learn more about you or connect with you online or learn more about Lessonly, what's the best way for them to do that. Kyle (39:34): Kylelacy.com. Lessonly.com. I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter, Kyle P Lacey. And that's the best places to find me. Kathleen (39:43): All right. Well, I will put all those links in the show notes. So if you're interested in connecting with Kyle head over there to check that out. And if you're listening and you learned something new, of course I would love it if you would head to Apple podcasts and leave the podcast a five star review, because that's how other people find us. And if you know somebody else doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork because I would love to make them my next guest. That's it for this week. Thank you so much, Kyle. Kyle (40:11): Thank you for having me.

Anthony Kennada is the CMO @ Front, the startup that provides your team with better email so they can treat every customer like your only customer. To date, Front have raised over $138M from some leading names including Sequoia, Eric Yuan @ Zoom, Ryan and Jared Smith @ Qualtrics, Michael Cannon-Brookes and Jay Simmons @ Atlassian and Frederic Kerrest @ Okta to name a few. As for Anthony, prior to Front Anthony was the founding CMO at Gainsight where he and his team are credited with creating the Customer Success category. At Gainsight Anthony and the team developed a new playbook for B2B marketing that fueled the company’s growth from $0 to over $100M of ARR. If that was not enough, Anthony is also the author of Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love. The book debuted as a number one new release on Amazon. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Anthony made his way into the world of SaaS starting in the sales team at Box and how that led to his entering the world of marketing and creating the customer success category? How does Anthony marketing playbook change when making the move from Gainsight with higher ACV’s and longer sales cycles to Front with lowers ACV’s and much higher volume? How does Anthony think about ABM today with Front given the lower ACVs? At what ticket size does ABM make sense? How does Anthony feel about brand marketing? Why did Anthony and Front decide now was the right time to engage with billboards? How does Anthony think about data and tracking for brand marketing? Does Anthony believe that all marketing has to be tied to a number directly related to revenue?   How does Anthony seeing a changing relationship between customer success and marketing? How is marketing being pushed further into the realms of CS? What is the optimal relationship between CS and marketing? How does this compare to the relationship of sales and marketing more traditionally?        Anthony’s 60 Second SaaStr: What does Anthony know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of his time in marketing? What is the hardest element of Anthony’s role with Front today? Who does Anthony think is killing it in the world of marketing today? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Anthony Kennada

In this 30-minute interview, CMO of Front, Anthony Kennada discusses with Golden Spiral: What is Category Creation? Is creating a new category a good idea for every company? Are Gartner and Forrester still relevant? The signals that you should pursue category creation Lessons learned from being a CMO Download a free excerpt from his book Amazon link to book

Subscribe | Transcript | Comment The Episode in 60 Seconds Our world seems enamored with AI. Should our marketing be? We discuss: Brand is the human bridge your prospects and customers cross to get to you Category creation is, at its core, a human process Anthony Kennada's thoughts on human marketing Plus, we tell stories about what happened at The Dead Rabbit, at a private dinner with a start-up founder, and on a plane back from Manhattan. Our Guest Anthony Kennada is Chief Marketing Officer at Front. His team is taking on email. He said, "Email is the workplace communication standard that has not seen much innovation since Wilson Phillips was on top of the global music charts." Prior to joining Front, Anthony was the founding CMO at Gainsight where he created the Customer Success category. He is the author of Category Creation published by Wiley. He has previously worked at Box, LiveOffice, Symantec, and serves as an investor, advisor, and board member to enterprise software startups around the globe. He calls himself a "B2C marketer trapped in a B2B body." Anthony is married and the father of a sweet daughter. Show Notes Category Creation is not for the faint of heart. It's also inherently human. John Farkas: "Anytime something new happens, you have to mark the moment. You have to say, 'Think about this differently.'" Allen Gannett, The Creative Curve: "You always have to mix the novel with the known." Listen to the entire interview with Anthony Kennada. Download a free excerpt from Anthony's book, Category Creation. John Farkas: "Brand is the human bridge." John Farkas articles on Category Creation: Category Creation: The Power of Understanding Your Buyer's Problems Do You Have What it Takes to Be a Category Creator? John Farkas: "Don't miss the handshake." Read more about empathy here and here. Mark Whitlock: "I learned about The Power of One through my radio experience."

I'll admit that the idea of creating a brand new category is intimidating. Not many of us feel like we might be the next Steve Jobs. But creating categories is not only more approachable than we think, but often right in front of us. All it takes is a simple re-framing of how you position your business as a specific human-focused solution. When broken down, creating a new category can be the answer to some very simple problems. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, you only have to position yourself in a way that speaks to a group. Once the validation comes then you can explore the world- or category- you're creating. If you're not receiving a response, you're probably not creating a category. But if it's working, the category will organically unfold.  To help us better understand the process of creating categories, I've brought on marketing expert Anthony Kennada. Anthony is the CMO of Front, and was the founding Chief Marketing Officer at Gainsight. He is passionate about creating new market categories, scaling thought leadership programs, and customer-centric marketing. His book Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love details category creation strategies from HubSpot, Salesforce, Gainsight and other iconic brands.  To learn how to become a strategic and human-focused category creator download this episode. THE WARRIOR OF FAITH “At the heart of category creation is a person.” -Anthony Kennada Highlights - Category creation is the inverse of disruption.  At the heart of category creation is a person.  All business should be thought of as B2H: Business to Human. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Category creation is about re-positioning your business into something that speaks clearly to a specific group. Once your category is created you have to let it unfold and let your audience respond.  All businesses are on their way to irrelevance.  Brick and Mortar businesses are finding ways to thrive through the human experience that are then driving online sales. Guest Contact - Anthony's Twitter Anthony's Book: Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love Contact Jeffrey - Website Coaching support My book, LINGO: Discover Your Ideal Customer's Secret Language and Make Your Business Irresistible is now available! Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!  Resources - Have Your Website Brand Message Reviewed! Is your website and are all your marketing materials speaking the right LINGO of your ideal customers? Often it's not which is why you're not converting traffic and leads to clients and attracting your most profitable customers. Fill out the simple LINGO Review application and I'll take a look at your website. If I have suggestions for you to improve your brand message (I almost always do), we'll set up a complimentary 30-minute call to discuss. A select number of websites are also chosen for my LINGO Review Video Series. Fill out the application today and let's get your business speaking the right LINGO! Music by Jawn

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Anthony Kennada, CMO at Front. You probably know Anthony by now — his name started popularizing itself after he helped grow Gainsight from $100K to $100MM in ARR. Anthony's also the author of Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, & Investors Will Loveo. On this episode, Anthony taps into how businesses can transform themselves with category creation. What You'll Learn  How to initiate category creation Anthony's journey from sales to product to marketing How to leverage lessons from the B2C world  

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Anthony Kennada, CMO at Front. You probably know Anthony by now — his name started popularizing itself after he helped grow Gainsight from $100K to $100MM in ARR. Anthony’s also the author of Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, & Investors Will Loveo. On this episode, Anthony taps into how businesses can transform themselves with category creation. What You’ll Learn  How to initiate category creation Anthony’s journey from sales to product to marketing How to leverage lessons from the B2C world  

Do you run a technology company that doesn’t fit neatly into an existing tech category—say, CRM software, data analytics or collaboration tools? One that doesn’t get much analyst coverage (because analysts don’t know how to classify you) or attention from the press? Then congratulations: You might be creating a new category. In this episode of Powered by Battery, Anthony Kennada, currently a Battery executive in residence and the former CMO of software company Gainsight*, walks marketers through the best practices for creating a brand-new tech category. It’s what he did at Gainsight, which pioneered the category of “customer success” software to help businesses hang onto—and upsell—customers paying through a recurring subscription model.

Building a company is hard enough, but what if there's no clear market to launch into or no incumbent to disrupt? That's the situation Gainsight CMO Anthony Kennada found himself in when he joined the company that would become Gainsight in 2013. There was no playbook for category creation, so they built their own—and catapulted Gainsight into one of the fastest growing private companies in the world. On this episode of Scale, Anthony joined us for an open and honest look into their playbook for building the Customer Success category: the needle movers, the mistakes, and everything in between

From starting as a tech recruiter in 2008, Anthony Kennada quickly switched into marketing and hasn't looked back since. Now as CMO of Gainsight he has been instrumental in shaping the customer success category using a combination of brand, content and community marketing.

Dan Rogers, Chief Marketing Officer at ServiceNow, joins Anthony Kennada to discuss the power of purpose in B2B companies and the role that marketers can play to express purpose internally and to the world.

Maria Pergolino, Chief Marketing Officer at Anaplan joins Anthony Kennada to share her vision for recruiting and scaling a team of fearless marketers.

My guest for Episode 89 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Anthony Kennada, the CMO of Gainsight. Anthony started his career in Business Development where he joined Box as employee number 37. He then took on a senior product manager role at Symantec after their acquisition of Live Office before joining Gainsight as employee number 19 to start the marketing team for the business, where he is now the Chief Marketing Officer of the company. Gainsight is the world's leading Customer Success Management platform, helping businesses grow faster by reducing churn, increasing upsell, and driving customer advocacy. Gainsight has been recognized by Forbes as one of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world (2016 & 2017) and by Deloitte as #7 on the Technology Fast 500 (2016), among many other accolades. To date the company has raised over $150M in VC funding from leading funds such as Battery Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Summit Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Cisco Investments and other top-tier Silicon Valley investors. I had a lot of fun recording this interview and we covered a range of topics across marketing for startups including: The compounding value of community Risk taking for B2B marketers When startups should build brand The challenges of building out a new category Marketing from 1st principles   WATCH ON YOUTUBE PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling THE E-COMMERCE PLAYBOOK ACCELEPRISE AUSTRALIA STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION    Show notes: - Box - Nick Mehta - Symantec - "Who's fired Up" - Rap song - Carpool Karaoke - Customer Success edition - Al Ramadan - Play Bigger - Geoffrey Moore - Aaron Levie  - Tien Tzuo - Pulse Conference (Sydney) - Anthony Kennada (Twitter) - Anthony Kennada (LinkedIn) Feedback/ connect/ say hello:  Rohit@startupplaybook.co @playbookstartup (Twitter) @rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit) Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn) Credits: Intro music credit to Bensound Other channels: Watch the video on Youtube here. Don't have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud The post Ep089 – Anthony Kennada (CMO – Gainsight) on marketing from first principles appeared first on Startup Playbook.

Anthony Kennada is a B2C marketer trapped in a B2B body. He is CMO of Gainsight and has been with the company since inception. Anthony has a bit of an unconventional marketing background that you'll learn about in the podcast. Marketing was something he hadn't done before starting with Gainsight. On this episode, you’ll discover how Anthony applies a B2C mindset to B2B brand marketing with exceptional results to show for it. View the show notes: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/b2b-brand-marketing-drive-growth

Anthony Kennada, VP of Marketing at Gainsight, joins the Content Pros Podcast to share how he prioritized branding with content to create a start-up positioned for success.   Special thanks to our sponsors: Oracle Marketing Cloud Uberflip Convince & Convert: The Business of Story   In This Episode Why launching a brand new category means pitching it without mentioning it How meeting with specialists but following your intuition leads to informed and inspired innovation Why starting a new technology platform means focusing on the human, instead of technical, element How putting the brand first when starting out leads to better retention, recruiting, and investment   Resources Anthony Kennada on Twitter: @akennada Gainsight An Unapologetic Defense of Brand Marketing for B2B Growth Pulse 2017 CategoryDev Pulse Conference 2015 Speakers Sing "Blank Space" (A Cappella)   Visit ContentProsPodcast.com for more insights from your favorite content marketers.

In this episode we talk to Anthony Kennada, Vice President of Marketing at Gainsight.

Anthony Kennada is the VP Marketing at Gainsight, building and leading the Customer Success industry. He is responsible for managing the company’s global marketing strategy, from demand generation to brand marketing, and is credited with creating the “Pulse” community of Customer Success leaders. Today, over 3200 executives attend the annual Pulse conference in Oakland and the over 30 chapters of PulseLocal communities across the globe. We chatted with Anthony about the Business of Customer Education, Pulse Conference 2017, and the future of Customer Success. Get on the email list at helpingsells.substack.com

There is a new generation of startups pioneering into industries not yet ventured into before - no playbook included. This is where account-based marketing offers up opportunities and nuances when your target buyer isn’t clearly defined. In this episode, Anthony Kennada, VP of Marketing at Gainsight, talks about the long list of opportunities that ABM presents for companies entering into new product categories.

I am delighted to present Part 2 of our feature of Gainsight. Joining me today I have Anthony Kennada, the founding VP Marketing at Gainsight where he is responsible for managing the company’s global marketing strategy, from demand generation to brand marketing, and is credited with creating the “Pulse” community of Customer Success leaders. Anthony began his career as an early employee at Box. He later joined LiveOffice and managed their OEM partnership with Symantec from contract signature to acquisition for $115M. Prior to joining Gainsight, Anthony led the Emerging Cloud Products division at Symantec, and was responsible for the first organic product development effort that spanned both consumer and enterprise market segments. In today's show with Anthony we discuss: How Anthony came to be VP of Marketing at one of the hottest startups in the valley? Being the founding VP of Marketing, how did Anthony look to grow the team? What were the actual steps Anthony used to scale the marketing at Gainsight? How has B2B marketing changed, from Box to today? With this evolution, what are Anthony’s marketing learnings in creating new categories vs. new players in existing categories? How should we be thinking about marketing, both Demand Gen and Corporate, differently in crowded spaces? ? How can marketing help support going up market and driving ACVs up?  Both Box and Gainsight did this. How should CEOs and VPMs think about, and budget events?  What if they don't have all the capital Gainsight does? In a round we call the 60 Second Saastr, we also hear: Billboards: Stupid or effective? Fave SaaS resource and why? 3 Biggest Tips For Running a Successful Event? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings Saastr Anthony Kennada

Anthony Kennada, VP Marketing at Gainsight discusses building communities through meetups and the importance of Conferences for SaaS and Customer Success Community