Podcasts about modern marketing engine

“AI can accelerate everything, but if you don't have a clear strategy and alignment across leadership, you're just scaling inefficiency faster. Before you invest in tools or systems, you need to know why they matter, how you'll measure impact, and whether your organization is built to move fast enough to see results.” That's a quote from Mark Goloboy and a sneak peek at today's episode.Welcome to Revenue Boost, A Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Kerry Curran—revenue growth expert, industry analyst, and relentless advocate for turning marketing into a revenue engine. Each episode, we bring you the strategies, insights, and conversations that help drive your revenue growth. Search for Revenue Boost in your favorite podcast directory and hit subscribe to stay ahead of the game.In a world where AI is evolving faster than your org chart, how do you build a marketing engine that's both smart and scalable? In From Strategy to Speed: Building a Modern Marketing Engine with AI, I sat down with Mark Goloboy, founder of Market Growth Consulting. We unpack how AI is transforming B2B marketing—and why strategy still comes first.From RAG pipelines and LLM optimization to lean team structures and rapid execution, Mark shares what today's business leaders need to know to move fast, stay aligned, and drive measurable growth. If you're tired of the AI hype and ready for more practical ways to accelerate performance, this one's for you.Be sure to listen through to the end, where Mark shares what you need to do to get started building your AI marketing engine today. Let's go!Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:01.359)So welcome, Mark. Please introduce yourself and share your background and expertise.Mark Goloboy (00:07.502)Excellent. Thank you, Kerry, for having me. Mark Goloboy, I'm the founder and CEO of Market Growth Consulting. We provide a variety of services to everything from small businesses to public companies. Our clients range from a private manufacturer north of Boston to global public companies.My background is on the sales-facing side of marketing. I've been the head of demand gen, marketing operations, and marketing analytics as I grew into marketing leadership. About two and a half years ago, I went out on my own to work directly with CEOs to fill in marketing gaps.At smaller companies, we place fractional CMOs and heads of demand gen to lead marketing, filling in subcontractors and agencies to execute. At larger companies, we run projects covering everything from marketing strategy, org strategy, budgeting, go-to-market strategy, and building out systems—we're currently doing a HubSpot to Salesforce and Marketo migration. We also do executive staffing, placing directors through CMOs either as temp-to-perm so clients can try before they buy, or through contingent staffing where if we find the right person, the client hires them for their future marketing leadership.Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:37.057)Excellent. Thank you, Mark. You've seen it all and are still very involved across business challenges and needs from a marketing, demand gen, and go-to-market perspective. There are lots of hot topics we could cover, but what are you hearing the most from your clients today? What's hottest for them?Mark Goloboy (02:03.662)Marketing really grew in 2022 and 2023 in terms of department size. But I think a lot of us felt it—venture-backed companies especially, but really everyone—wanted to get smaller again in 2023 and 2024. That was a painful adjustment across the industry. Now, as we move through 2024 into 2025, everyone is focused on:How do we do more with less? How do we think about fractional or contract roles in areas we never would have previously?That extends into AI-driven marketing, where every leader is looking to be more efficient and scale faster and smarter by using tools that take over some of the marketing workload. The real challenge now for marketing leaders is finding the balance between the people they need to hire, the money they need to spend, and where AI can make them faster, smarter, and more scalable—while still needing human review and strategic oversight.Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:38.947)Yeah, I agree. And you see so many emerging tools. I think if you search for AI in MarTech today, there's been a huge increase in companies claiming to offer something new or different. But AI actually means a lot of different things. You and I were talking earlier about how important it is to dig into the formula and structure behind what's labeled "AI." What are you seeing from that perspective?Mark Goloboy (04:15.054)Well, I think the big challenge, for me at least—I'm a solo entrepreneur running my own business with just myself and no employees—is figuring out how to work efficiently while wearing many hats.I use subcontractors who are experts at what they do, and I hire based on likeability and capability because my clients will keep rehiring me if they like who I bring them and the work gets done right.But because I'm a solo operator, I have to maximize my own productivity. So every day, I start by looking at what's on my plate and ask: "Could AI help me do this faster, better, or more scalably?"Whether it's a deliverable, a proposal, or a project plan, I always pause and think about how AI can be part of the solution—even if it's just for my internal work, not necessarily client-facing marketing.Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:31.545)Thank you.Mark Goloboy (05:43.870)Each of the major frontier models—OpenAI, Google Gemini, Claude, and others—are developing rapidly. Every time I try something, it's a little different, and the outputs are constantly improving.Last week, I had a meeting with a prospect using an ABM tool I had never heard of. I wanted to appear knowledgeable, so I asked OpenAI to compare it to Sixth Sense and Demandbase, which I know well.Within a minute, it gave me four pages of detailed research on each tool, plus a comparison grid. That would have taken a junior marketer on my team two months to produce. That's how fast this technology is evolving.Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:57.549)Yes, same for me. There's so much you can do faster now. You mentioned video editing, and I recently used napkin.ai to turn raw text into beautiful slides. It's such a game-changer for solo entrepreneurs.Mark Goloboy (07:27.790)Exactly. Externally, too, clients come to us with needs, and it's up to us to creatively think: "How can we use AI to deliver this better?"Last year, we trained an AI model to write like a PhD psychologist who had run a department at Columbia Med. Using her writing, interviews, and videos, we trained Google Gemini to mimic her voice—and she couldn't tell which blog posts were hers versus AI-generated.This was mid-2024, when people still said AI content was bland. But we were producing PhD-level work that passed her own review.Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:39.865)Yeah, it's pretty incredible. It helps us do a lot more and get a lot more out of our hours and days—getting smarter and more effective. What are some of the other ways or tools you've developed for your clients to help them with their demand gen and other aspects of business?Mark Goloboy (09:00.270)Yeah, so I joke with my clients that I didn't know what the letters RAG meant in December—but now I do. It stands for Retrieval Augmented Generation. That's about developing agentic pipelines to connect your internal data sources—whether documents, databases, or internal systems—to the large language models (LLMs), so you can move information between them and generate outputs informed not just by public data, but by your own proprietary data.Right now, we're building RAG agentic pipelines for a PR firm, for example. Their CEO prioritized the three use cases that would save their account managers the most time:Meeting scheduling and rescheduling, which wastes hours every week. Contract review, since they're doing placements in major media outlets and need to review hundreds of contracts a month. Media monitoring, summarizing brand mentions across the web and sending daily summaries to clients—something that takes an hour per client per day. By automating these processes, they save massive amounts of time, and as they grow, they don't need to hire as many new account managers.Kerry Curran, RBMA (10:58.467)Yes, that's super valuable. I love that it allows them to free up time to be more strategic instead of bogged down in busywork. So what are some of the steps required for someone to set this up? How did you learn more about creating these pipelines and the RAG system?Mark Goloboy (11:20.398)There are some really good places to learn. The first one I always recommend is the Marketing AI Institute. Paul Roetzer is the founder, and I learn the most from him.Paul and his content lead put out a one-hour podcast every week that breaks down everything that's changed in AI since the last episode. It's incredibly rich information. I usually listen at 1.5x speed and get through it in 40 minutes. I don't care about every topic, but I hear what matters and know where to dive deeper.Beyond that, I follow a few amazing marketers—Liza Adams, Nicole Leffer, and Andy Crestodina—who are brilliant at testing new things and sharing what works. They save me countless hours of trial and error.Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:41.133)Thank you—we'll be sure to include all of those in the show notes as well. One thing you mentioned was that the podcast covers what's changed in just the past week. AI is changing so fast. What should people keep in mind when they're building these tools or leveraging different sources?Mark Goloboy (13:01.336)I'm used to building very permanent, robust systems—CRM, marketing automation, ABM platforms—that are meant to deliver value for years. But with AI, we have to accept that some development is disposable.It's crucial to prioritize effort. We help clients understand: we're not building something that will last 5 years. Some of the code we build today might be obsolete in 6–12 months.For example, OpenAI just launched a new pipeline tool that replaced the one we were using. If we had spent six months building on the old system, it would already be outdated.So we advise clients: build for today's ROI and be ready to pivot constantly. If you're rigid, you'll miss the opportunity.Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:47.747)Yeah, it made me think about how, in a lot of organizations, it takes so long just to get buy-in and approvals to start using new tools. It's a whole culture and mindset shift—especially for marketing leaders.Mark Goloboy (15:07.788)Exactly. I couldn't imagine a one-year approval cycle for an AI project. By the time you'd get sign-off, the tools would have changed and you'd have to start over.You need faster review and approval cycles. Otherwise, AI-driven innovation simply won't be possible.Kerry Curran, RBMA (15:29.475)Yes, definitely. And that's another benefit of bringing someone like you in—you're well-versed in what's changing, and you have the curiosity and experience to guide them through it.Mark Goloboy (15:45.954)Exactly.Kerry Curran, RBMA (15:47.407)So for people listening who want to get started—maybe building custom pipelines or just leveraging AI more—what are the foundations they need to have in place?Mark Goloboy (16:14.830)The most important thing is a good strategy.When we come into companies, often because of turnover—whether it's the CRO, CMO, CEO—they don't have strong alignment on strategy anymore. If you don't have a clear strategy that demands an investment, and you don't know how you'll measure the value of what you're building, you're setting yourself up for failure.So we always start at the strategic level first.We also move fast. If you want a slow project, there are large consulting firms that are happy to take years and millions of dollars. That's not us. We think in three- to six-month project cycles—then we operate and optimize from there.We want to move quickly and get you results now, not years down the road.Kerry Curran, RBMA (18:29.229)That's such an important point. And it ties back to so many of the themes we talk about on this podcast—internal alignment, clear business goals, and unified execution across the organization.One of the tools you mentioned that I think is really fascinating helps address the trend of AI tools becoming new search engines. Can you talk about how you're helping your clients optimize for that?Mark Goloboy (19:19.950)Absolutely. Most of my clients are B2B. And historically, Google was how people found solutions. You wrote your content for Google—end of story.But now, with ChatGPT and other LLMs, people are searching inside AI to get answers. It's shifting fast—from 80/20 Google to maybe 50/50 Google/LLMs within a few years.We partnered with a tool called Brand Luminaire. It analyzes how LLMs like Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT surface information about your brand and your competitors.Critically, it shows you what sources the LLMs are pulling from. That means you know where to focus your writing, PR, and SEO efforts—not just for Google, but for the LLMs too.It's a massive shift. Brands that don't adapt will lose mindshare at the point of research and decision-making.Kerry Curran, RBMA (22:06.307)That's excellent. It's something all brands are going to need to prioritize as search behavior expands beyond just Google.So this has been great, Mark. Thank you so much for sharing so many practical insights and tools. For people who want to get in touch with you and learn more about your services, where should they go?Mark Goloboy (22:29.454)They can email me directly at mark@marketgrowthconsulting.com—I'm very functional with my branding: market growth consulting is what I do!Or you can find me on LinkedIn—I'm easy to find with my unique last name.Kerry Curran, RBMA (22:46.541)Awesome. We'll put that in the show notes too. Thank you again, Mark, for being here and sharing so much of your expertise.Mark Goloboy (22:55.064)Thank you so much for having me, Kerry.Kerry Curran, RBMA (22:57.071)Thank you.Thanks for tuning in to Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast. I hope today's conversation sparked some new ideas and challenged the way you think about how to incorporate AI into your marketing strategy and initiatives.If you're serious about turning marketing into a true revenue driver, this is just the beginning. We've got more insightful conversation, experts, guests, and actionable strategies coming your way. So search for us in your favorite podcast directory and hit subscribe!And hey, if this episode gave you value, share it with a colleague and leave a quick review. It helps more revenue minded leaders like you find the show. Until next time, I'm Kerry Curran, revenue marketing expert helping you connect marketing to growth one episode at a time. We'll see you soon.

In this episode, I had the pleasure of discussing midlife fulfillment with Bernie Borges, host of the Midlife Fulfilled podcast.  We discussed the difference between happiness & fulfilment, the most common misconception about midlife, and 2 things that you can do right now to feel more fulfilled. If you're seeking greater fulfillment in your midlife season, this conversation is definitely one you won't want to miss. I encourage you to check out episode 66 of Bernie's “Midlife Fulfilled” podcast, where I went as a guest and opened up by discussing my “before fulfilment” to “after fulfilment” story. If you enjoy Personal Development Mastery podcast, I am sure you will find value in Bernie's “Midlife Fulfilled” podcast! Listen to my appearance at Bernie's podcast, where I spoke about my BF (before fulfilment) to AF (after fulfilment) story: https://midlifefulfilled.com/podcast/from-dentist-to-podcasting-a-journey-to-personal-development-mastery/ ⠀

This week I sit down with Bernie Borges, he's got an interesting story, he's an entrepreneur who after many years working for himself, got a job!  I call him the reverse engineer entrepreneur. I think you'll enjoy his story and how he's got a side hustle exploring what it means to be fulfilled in midlife, or at any season of your life.  In this episode we chat about:

B2B influencer marketing is not the same as it is in B2C, where you have celebrities like top athletes and Hollywood actors endorse a brand and post on Instagram about it. B2B marketing leaders can leverage industry influencers in their marketing efforts with a solid plan. That is the topic of conversation with my guest in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, Amisha Gandhi, SVP of Marketing at Tipalti. Amisha is a groundbreaking B2B innovator with deep marketing and communications expertise across multiple industries and geos. She was recognized in PR Week’s Women to Watch 2020, Top 50 Influence Marketer by Talking Influence and Top Digital Marketer on LinkedIn. Amisha is also an accomplished speaker at multiple industry conferences including Content Marketing World, MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum, and many others. Listen to our conversation to learn how to find and work with B2B influencers. What is a B2B Influencer? Influencer marketing is the practice of engaging internal influencers at your company or industry who are experts, analysts, bloggers or public speakers who have active networks of influence. They can influence their audiences to help you achieve your business goals. “It's about people,” Amisha says, “it's about community. B2B influencers aren't celebrities, but they could be celebrities in the business world. They've written books, some of them are even academics.” Start by asking yourself: Whose audience do you want to reach?  Why do you want to reach them? What are you trying to convey and what is the outcome that you hope to achieve by working with influencers? How to Find B2B Influencers Amisha says there is definitely a process to identifying and selecting influencers. There are specific tools you can use, but you can start by using Google and search for the top influencers in your industry. Then use LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Clubhouse. “It just depends who you're trying to reach and how you would like to relate to your audience.” Amisha says. “You have to find out where your audience is and who they're listening to and who they’re influenced by. Look at the conferences, third-party associations and other places where people are speaking, you'll start seeing some names popping up.” Then you have to look deeper at the content these people are sharing and the level of engagement their content has. Once you have a list of potential influencers, you should assess which ones can help you achieve your goals in a mutually beneficial relationship. Amisha says you should look at influencer marketing as a holistic practice that you can apply across the entire customer journey. For example, can you get some good top funnel content? Can you create some demand? Can you create a community of advocates? “Once you find folks that are really influencing your audience, reach out to a couple of influencers, start talking to them, see if they’d like to work with you. Say, ‘we're thinking about doing this upcoming campaign, what do you think?’ And have a conversation, because they may tell you, ‘I don't think that's going to work for my audience.’ That will help you frame up your campaign and make it even better than what it is.” Start with top of the funnel activities, like a podcast, to create awareness with their audience. Then you can go into demand generation content like co-authored ebooks or a webinar series where people are willing to give you their information. “There are some influencers who are very speaker heavy and they don't do long form content. They are thought leaders and they do more podcasts. That's why you have a group of influencers. You're going to have some people that are going to do top funnel and events and some people who are great speakers and great on video. There are some people who are great only in voice and folks that do longer form content.” Over time some influencers can become advocates. This happens when they keep talking about your brand even when not taking part in your marketing campaign, because they consider your content to be of value to their audience. Listen to episode 299 for specific ideas of what you can do when working with an influencer and some of the pillars and best practices for co-creating content and sponsored content. Finally, Amisha reminds us that customers can be our best influencers, so we should take care of them.

Most CMOs favor external communications (demand generation, content marketing, etc.) over internal communications. Why? Because these external activities seem to create more measurable ROI. However, with the modern workforce internal communications are now more important than ever to motivate and activate people within the organization to be a channel of communication. My guest in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast, Mark Derks, has great insights about how much effort marketing should put into internal communications. Mark is the CMO at BlueGrace Logistics. Founded in 2009, BlueGrace Logistics is one of the fastest growing leaders of transportation management services in North America. As a full service third party logistics provider (3PL), BlueGrace helps businesses manage their freight spend through industry-leading technology, high-level freight carrier relationships and overall understanding of the complex $750 Billion U.S. freight industry. Listen to our conversation to learn the pros and cons of allocating resources to internal communications versus external communications. Five Pillars to Develop a Profitable Internal Communications Strategy 1. Develop your strategy/goals. Any successful program must identify the goals it is trying to achieve and the strategy and tactics to get there. Ask yourself these questions about your internal communications: Is it going to be multi-touch? How frequently will I communicate to the organization? At what velocity will information be shared? Some examples of goals are:  Having 100% of your internal resources know and being able to recite your mission, vision and values.  Having your internal resources know your company revenue projections and targets and your gross profit targets. “I think that our own internal resources and our own people are a marketing channel for the company,” Mark says. “You should build a strategy around and goals around things that bring strong results. So there has to be a metric if you're going to engage in a robust internal comms plan. What are the key factors to success and what are the metrics that you as an organization are going to agree on that you can either identify as a success or identify those gaps where you need to continue to refine and improve.” 2. Mission/Vision/Values Mark says that case studies have shown, organizations who have stated missions, visions and that drive stated values are higher performing than businesses that do not, because they build a strong culture around those pillars.  “We're empowering our employees to share public information that they've learned through internal communications to our external customers,” Mark says. “And to be really successful, you have to make it easily accessible to all employees. We need to make it available in multiple places, on our website, in our hallways and on the signage and our offices.” 3. “How does my job contribute to the company’s success?” “We have to look at our organizations where every employee adds value and it's our job through internal communications to tell them how they do that, to make sure that they know how their specific job leads to company growth.” Highly engaged employees are those that understand how their contributions help the company grow. And when they know that, they become more creative, more productive, more innovative, and they're more successful in their own professional goals and what they're trying to do. 4. Content Content is at the intersection of external communications and internal comms, sharing content between teams and channels. Not all internal communications can go externally, but almost all external communications can be shared internally. You can take the content that you share with your customers, partners, suppliers and share it with your internal teams through an employee advocacy program. Mark says that will make them better service providers, better salespeople, better marketers. Listen to the whole episode to learn some great ideas on how to repurpose marketing content for internal comms. 5. How does the CMO lead the internal communication strategy? “Make sure you have a solid strategy and stated goals that you're pursuing and that everybody knows,” Mark says. “So when we measure our efforts we can clearly come back and see if we've been meeting our goals. So be a leader of strategy, focus on what's important, communicate that strategy, clearly measure the impact and ROI.”  As the CMO you don't do this by yourself. “You're a leader, but you have teams, so consider allocating head count as a resource to internal communications. Consider adding resources around culture and standing up things like diversity, equity and inclusion programs within your company. Make sure that you're communicating critical attributes of your ideal customer profile.” Your employees are one of our best external marketing channels, but they're only good if they have internal comms that have educated them on messaging, target customer profile, new products, new customers, changes within the organization, mission, vision, and values. Don’t miss this episode to learn more about finding a balance between external and internal communications and how to develop a profitable strategy.

How would you plan the marketing strategy for a new brand? What are some factors that marketing leaders should take into consideration when rolling out a new product? That is the topic of conversation of this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast, with my guest Armen Najarian. Armen is the CMO at RSA Fraud & Risk Intelligence, which is part of the larger RSA Security, a 38-year old global brand. As his division expanded and with more revenue and customers around the globe, they decided to transform the Fraud & Risk Intelligence division into a stand-alone business. As the CMO, Armen was responsible for creating and implementing the marketing strategy for this new business unit. Listen to the episode to learn how he did it and some key lessons you can implement in your own organization. Creating a Marketing Strategy 1. Assemble a Team “I'm spending a lot of time on organizational design,” Armen says. “I'm working very closely with the HR leader for this business and really plotting up the next three years and the type of organization I need to assemble.” What are the roles you need and what is the hiring priority? Listen to find out. 2. Develop the brand “Second, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about the brand, knowing that we are moving from a product portfolio within the broader RFA family into a more independent business with its own identity. How we describe that business, what we call it, how the product is positioned.” Armen and his team decided to create a new name while taking advantage of the history of its parent company. However, the buyer persona of the new company is different from the persona of RSA Security, which created new challenges. To navigate the complexities of rebranding a global company, Armen hired an external agency to help create a new website and sales collateral pieces. 3. Content Strategy “We have a product called Fraud Action, and that is our risk intelligence team,” he says. “So this is actually the team that investigates the dark web, goes deep undercover and understands the organized crime organizations around the world, uncovering very important and interesting insights. So we take those insights and we actually package those up as services.” This primary research is the fuel for great thought leadership, so they publish Quarterly Trends Reports from the insights, blog posts and a podcast. “Every CMO should have a content strategy. We have 3 or 4 anchor pieces that are evergreen, that we are always refreshing, always publishing, and our Director of Content Strategy is largely accountable and responsible for keeping that pipeline of great content flowing.” Listen to the whole episode to learn about the challenges Armen has faced during this transformation, including organizationals challenges, managing finite resources, prioritizing areas of focus and issues with having a global presence (language and privacy issues).

How do you formulate an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy? How do you decide which accounts to target? And what is the role of analytics in ABM planning? That is the topic of this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast with my guest, Chris Rack, President at PureB2B. PureB2B leverages a database of B2B decision-makers in combination with their predictive analytics technology, to provide a full suite of solutions that help their clients meet their specific B2B demand generation sales and marketing revenue goals. Listen to this episode to learn how to plan a successful ABM strategy. Building Your ABM List Who is responsible for creating the ABM list? Marketing or sales? Chris says it should be a very collaborative approach, “taking a data approach and combining thought and feedback from both leaders, frontline sellers, sales leaders and front line marketers to come up with a real collaborative list.” Marketing must go through a process of digital marketing transformation to rely on data and analytics to build a list of target accounts. Instead of just going for the larger enterprise clients out there, marketers should start by looking at their CRM data to see: Who is buying with the highest frequency Who are the prospects answering sales calls Who is engaging with your website Who is engaging with your emails Which gates have the highest conversions on your website Once you have that list, start filtering them by: Job title Company size Geo Industry Buyer personas Roles Level  Influencers Buying history Public/private All of the above are analytics that marketers can use to determine which accounts to target using internal data. Using Analytics Data Now, there are also external analytics or predictive indicators marketers can use, with some tech tools available. However, Chris says, the intent signals from these tools are not designed to identify when people are ready to buy. “Only Google knows that,” Chris says. External analytics can identify when a buyer has a problem they need to solve, based on their content consumption triggers as well as public data such as job board postings. For example, certain tools can identify companies who are consuming content across topics that are related to the solutions you offer, either content on your own website or other websites.  If you want to know when a customer is “in market,” your first task is to know the ICP and then partner with analytics providers to acquire intent data. Chris says that companies of all sizes have access to these analytics tools, but large companies have more data to process from their CRM and many more products to sell requiring more analytics to uncover intent signals compared to smaller companies. There are also many analytics companies as a service who can help smaller companies analyze data to identify buyer intent. Chris says that in a startup scenario his first hire would be a Rev Ops person to understand their buyers and to select the tools needed to create a successful ABM target list. Listen to the whole episode to learn more about using analytics and sales tools in your account-based marketing plan.

B2B buyers have changed dramatically, especially during COVID. Consider these three recent trends, for example: B2B buyers are looking critically at any opportunity that comes to them, whether it comes from marketing content or from a sales conversation. B2B buyers are giving less access to sales people and traditional conversations. In fact, 83% of the buyer journey does not include a sales rep. B2B buyers place a greater priority on perspective and recommendations from people who aren't sales people, from their peers and from subject matter experts via content marketing. So, as marketers, how do we approach the modern buyer? That is the topic of conversation in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine with my guest, Spencer Wixom, Sr. VP Marketing at Challenger. Listen as Spencer unpacks marketing’s role in the modern sales experience. The 3 Pillars of the Modern Sales Experience 1. Role of messaging to the buyer “I think it's really critical for B2B marketers to think about how we are interacting with today's buyer,” Spencer says, “who is putting more scrutiny on their decisions, who's giving less access to traditional channels for education and who is listening to so many other sources.” Spencer believes that B2B marketers should use the three-act structure of classic playwriting to engage with buyers. Act one is about introducing and building the understanding of the various characters, and introducing the problem those characters are going to face. “In act one of the messages we create, we need to establish our credibility, why we have a perspective or a point of view about that customer’s business and we need to introduce a problem in their business that we're going to have a perspective or point of view on.” Act two is the journey or the struggle. In act two of the marketing message, we have to introduce the status quo or the current actions that the customer is taking.  “Those actions are costing them something in rational and emotional ways, and we need to explore that to build some motivation.” And act three is the solution. We must suggest the next steps they need to take and connect that to our differentiators or our solution. So, what is marketing’s role in developing this narrative? Spencer says marketing should not create this message by itself. “It really is a cross-functional group that needs to come together to develop that narrative and we'd recommend marketing play a key role in that. But you also need to get the feedback of sales people who will ultimately be delivering that narrative as part of a conversation. You need to make sure that product is involved in representing the end part of that narrative where you do talk about the solution.” Think about the story you want to tell to the market and then “atomize” it. That means telling the story in bite-size content throughout your website, social media posts, sales conversations, pitch books and other channels. Listen to the whole episode to learn the three types of content you must use: Spark, Introduce, and Confront. 2. Foundational skills for sales to deliver the message Research reveals that buyers are not satisfied with the experience that sellers create in the remote selling environment.   Spencer says that it is on the shoulders of salespeople to improve that experience, to get better at presenting information, listening, using silence to build constructive tension more effectively, and having more engaging virtual experiences with customers. However, marketing must look at the narrative and give sellers compelling content to bring to the conversation. In essence, sellers need to: Address the unique perspective they have of the customer’s business Express what that perspective means to their business And marketers can help with more confront tools, with bite-size content for natural conversation and making it easy for sellers to create conversation. “If you can build a confront tool that can get that buyer or that buying group to really evaluate themselves and capture that data and you put that in the hands of your sales people, then they're not having to do that confront exercise on their own. They can take the output of that exercise and have a powerful conversation with the buyer around that output.” Don’t miss this episode to learn more about creating great sales messaging for sellers. 3. Arming sellers with the right content for the right time Buyers trust others in their network more than sellers. In fact, only 12% of buyers rank sellers as top trusted resources. That’s why modern sales must be done through advocates of mobilizers. Marketers have to build content not only for their sellers to use, but that B2B customers can understand and then use within their organizations to build consensus. “It has to be clear,” Spencer says. “It has to be defensible. So when they get those questions and objections, they can easily handle those because they have the resources and the information they need to be able to defend the narrative, the concept, the insight that you've presented to them.” Sellers need to identify those individuals and pass that content to them at the right moments so they can use it in consensus-building. Sales enablement tools will help teams to know what information and when it should be used to interact with customers. Listen to our conversation to learn how to measure the efficacy of your marketing content in sales conversations.

Marketing professionals need to have a strong grip on data. These uncertain times have inspired marketers to rely less on qualitative insights and more on data-driven insights.  This is what my guest realized during 2020. Paul Cowan, CMO at FreshBooks, joins me in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast to talk about why they are doubling down on customer data marketing in 2021. FreshBooks serves mainly the small business owner segment with easy-to-use accounting software. As many organizations, the pandemic affected their business initially but it then bounced back and they started to experience growth in 2020. So, they decided to invest in a direct sales force, target international markets and focus on demand generation to accelerate growth. Join our conversation to discover how you can use customer data in your own marketing organization. Leveraging Customer Data Marketing Paul says that after 15 years of operations, FreshBooks realized they were sitting on a lot of data they had not previously leveraged. For instance, they had a tremendous amount of invoice and expense data within the SMB universe ― 15 years of historical data on how small businesses have either created revenue or spent their money.  For example, looking at the data, they discovered some interesting trends and published a report on the impact that Covid had on women business owners and how it took them longer to recover than their male counterparts in many different industries. “When we talk about the opportunity in data marketing,” Paul says, “we're sitting on this huge resource to be able to turn that to our customers or to prospects in the industry in general and say hey, here's how your business should be performing, here are all the historical norms that you should be expecting your business to do.”  Besides reports on specific trends, FreshBooks has created gated microsites with specific information related to particular verticals and industries. “People can go through and see how their vertical looks, how it has changed and be able to drive insights into their business so it helps them with their planning and then eventually, we all assume that it's going to then help drive activity back to us and convert through the funnel.” This focus on content marketing using data has been driving leads for FreshBooks. Furthermore, data on their engagement with the content brings even more insights on their customers that then they can use to improve their marketing efforts. “The cool thing is that it's like this virtuous data circle where it all started with knowing something about our customer and then bringing other people in and then progressively knowing more about them because they engage with customer data. We'll bring them all through and then at the end of it all it helps us improve our overall funnel efficacy and in our conversion rates overall.” We also discussed the dynamics of the current marketing team and why it is important for marketers to understand data analytics and the sales process.  Listen to this episode to learn more about how FreshBooks is using customer data to improve marketing and how they incorporate the feedback from their sales teams.

The pandemic hit just about every industry hard and many companies are still trying to recover. That’s why stories of B2B companies helping out others around them are so encouraging. And I’m excited to bring you one such story in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast. My guest is Kathie Johnson, CMO at Talkdesk, a cloud-based contact center, unified communications and artificial intelligence software provider. Customers use their contact center software to scale and improve their customer support experience. Traditionally, customer support was limited to call centers, which involved agents receiving phone calls. But today they're really contact centers because when people reach out for service or support or to even purchase online, they use many different channels, not just the phone. “We like to say we're the best solution for those companies who are customer-obsessed,” says Kathie. Listen to this episode to discover how Talkdesk became a mission-driven organization during the Covid crisis. Mission Driven Marketing in Response to Crisis At the start of 2020, Talkdesk had plans to launch 20 new products. But then, Covid happened. “It was a fun marketing campaign idea,” Kathie says. “But the world had shifted, what was important to people had really shifted. So we pulled together a group of people across the company to say, what can we do to help? You know, we said we're customer obsessed, so we want to figure out, what can we do to help our customers, other companies and the community at large?” As a result, Talkdesk revisited their 20 in 2020, and launched a program called Business Continuity, with 12 of the original 20 offers. Pre-Covid, 5% of the workforce in the US worked in a contact center, and 85% of them worked on-premises. That meant that many organizations would face a challenge to get their employees remote and safe. “In a contact center, they're sitting three feet apart,” Kathie says. “There are hundreds or thousands of people in a room making calls or answering emails. So this was a pretty big issue for companies. How do I get my employees out of the building? And how do I still maintain productivity for my business?” They rolled out their strategy in the following three phases. Phase 1: Get Remote The first challenge was to get employees remote and fast. They launched this offer on March 4th, helping clients get remote in only 24 hours, and offered the service for free to industries like travel and hospitality. Not only that, but they launched Mobile, to allow employees to connect from their phones. Phase 2 : Get Productive By March 21, Talkdesk began phase 2, to get employees productive and leverage AI and training to help not only their clients, but people in the community. In this phase, Talkdesk launched a new gig economy platform, called CX Talent, which trained people to become certified agents or supervisors in a matter of hours and then paired them with companies looking for agents.  “This was one way we could really help not only our customers who needed to hire agents quickly in remote locations who are trained, but also to help people out in the world who all of a sudden were displaced and didn't have a form of income.” Phase 3: Permanent Remote In the summer, Talkdesk began thinking about the future of their clients, anticipating there would be a new normal, where remote working could be permanent. So on July 1st, they launched phase 3 with remote management solutions and solutions against fraud and for authentication. This is now a reality, where remote selling is the norm and our customers are working from home. “We're still in Phase 3,” Kathie says. “Companies today are still making the decision on what their contact centers will look like in the future. I believe most will be hybrid. But some people are going back into offices and we'll have people working in buildings again.” The Impact on Marketing and Sales The marketing team at Talkdesk was doing full-throttle marketing at this time, educating analysts, sending out press releases, raising awareness through thought leadership and blogs. “There was no playbook for Covid for any marketer,” Kathie says. “But we really found that people had a huge appetite for content. So we spent a lot of time writing content to help companies and people understand what's happening, the impact on the business and how we could help them continue to survive and hopefully thrive in this environment. So full-funnel marketing across every offer is we brought to market.”  Kathie says that the sales team at Talkdesk really embraced the challenge of offering free services and giving back to the community.  “This is why I talk about this as being mission-driven,” she says, “the way that we could help people, the way that we could help the community, the way that we could help companies. I think everyone at Talkdesk rallied behind that.” Listen to this episode to learn more about what Talkdesk is continuing to do in phase 3 and innovating in driven-mission marketing.

What is the future of buying and selling? How do marketing and sales approach digital native decision-makers? That is the topic of this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine with my guest, Dave Boyce. Dave is the Chief Strategy Officer, XANT, where he divides his time between corporate development, corporate strategy, and operational strategy. He is also a board member of Forrester Research Inc. since 2017. This episode was inspired by two articles that Dave published on LinkedIn: The Future of Buying The Future of Sales Join us in this conversation to learn why marketers must understand the modern buyer. The Journey of the Modern Buyer Both marketers and sellers must be aware of the changes to their buyer personas in the past year.  Today, our buyers are sitting in their living room, the people who are signing purchase orders are at home, almost nobody is at an office. That means that almost everyone involved in the decision process is using digital channels to research potential suppliers. Dave says the modern buyer is a digital native. That means that: They will do independent research online about our products and our competitors They don’t like to fill out forms so they will rely on ungated content They trust their network and will ask other people for recommendations and experiences After the steps described above, the buyer is now 60% to 70% of their way towards understanding their options. “The remaining amount of her journey,” Dave says, “she's going to have to do collaboratively with the sales team. But her silent partner during that 70% of her journey was our marketing team. Not that they were talking to her, but they were publishing and orchestrating and curating a learning journey that was either easy to use and therefore she really leaned into it or is less easy to use and therefore she learned from our competitor.” Marketing needs to focus on providing a great experience during the modern buyer’s journey, even if it means ungating content.  Dave says that instead of collecting information through forms, marketers can use technology like intent signals. This technology tracks searches from domains to know when people from certain companies are searching for specific terms related to your solutions. Then it can flag your CRM so you can do outreach to existing contacts from those companies. The Modern Seller In the US, 56% of the B2B sales force were field sellers. But with now remote selling being the norm, those sellers are either out of a job or doing something different. And the truth is that buyers like the new normal and don’t want to go back to the old field sales model. “The buyer doesn't want protracted exchanges with the salesperson,” Dave says. “They don't want to retreat again from acquiring information digitally. They don't want us to force them into the conference room to have a stakeholder meeting with a white board. They actually like the way it's working right now and it's better for everybody. If we're honest with ourselves as salespeople, we're more efficient. If we're not spending our time navigating airports and trains and cabs and Ubers and instead we're on the job of selling most of our time. So it's not going back. We have to figure out how to lean into the future and do it faster than our competition.” Sales leaders must now focus on modernizing their sales teams with the five modern seller attributes: Fast (answering to their messages quickly) Always-online (engage the buyer when they want to engage) Customer-centric (being empathetic, sympathetic and helpful) Content-rich (adding value with information that is helpful to the buyer) Technology-enabled (it's not just Zoom and LinkedIn but the entire marketing and tech stack, including a CRM and sales prospecting tools) “It's all about being where the buyer is and being a resource to the buyer,” Dave says. Don’t miss this episode to hear some great insights from Dave about the role of the modern seller.

This is a different, but very special, episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast. My guest is Hang Black, VP, Revenue Enablement, Juniper Networks and I invited her to talk about her new book, Embrace Your Edge: Pave Your Own Path as an Immigrant Woman in the Workplace. This book has the potential to be life-changing for some. Hang says the idea for this book was in her head for a decade. It not only describes Hang’s experience as a Vietnamese immigrant to the United States, but also deals with important issues of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. So don’t miss our fascinating conversation about inclusion, diversity and access from a perspective you haven’t seen before. Tokenism Although Hang was raised in a diverse culture, she really never felt included or excluded. As an Asian, she wasn’t shunned from the black community when growing up, but neither was she fully embraced -- and the same thing happened within the white community. “One of the reasons I wrote the book was there's a lot of conversation about diversity and inclusion,” Hang says, “but it's an incomplete conversation without a discussion about access.” Whether it’s women or ethnic minorities, more and more people are gaining access to leadership roles in the workplace. Nonetheless, they may still be a minority. Hang explains that minorities are the smaller population in the room. However, when there is only one person of a minority group at the table, that person may feel that she got a token seat and will try to hold onto that position at all costs --unintentionally excluding others. This is known as the Queen Bee syndrome. Hang thinks this needs to change. “I never ever proposed a revolution,” she says. “I prefer Evolution. And that's where I'm trying to have these very frank conversations because the most heartbreaking thing for me is to see minorities who bemoan injustice, turn around and do the same to other minorities behind them.” Building Access The reality is that sometimes a person from a minority is invited to the table because there was a diversity initiative.  “So the question is,” Hang says, “once you get to the table, do you have a voice? Do you have your role? Do you know what your goal is at the table? Are you sitting, are you serving or are you speaking? They’re all very different things.” Access is not just about getting to the table, but once you get there, how much voice are you allowed to have? And if you don't have a voice, how do you gain that voice?  Hang’s experience is that there will always come a point in a person’s career where they will need to find a person who will give them access to opportunities where meritocracy is not enough. “Meritocracy works for a while, it works through the individual contributor ranks. But as you move up, you need to find a person who will show you the secret door and give you the secret code. That's what access is.” The people who will help others move along the journey to the top are a combination of mentors, sponsors and allies. Be sure to listen to the whole episode to learn the difference and how to identify them. Intentional Evolution Hang says that there needs to be an intentional evolution in the conversation about diversity and inclusion. That means we need to get to a point where it is not an issue, but it just happens. And it all begins with leadership. “It's so important to ensure that leaders not only talk the talk, but they walk the walk,” Hang says. “Every executive has about three to five people in their closest circle. In that circle, do they have any one that represents diversity? Even if it's just one. There are many categories of diversity: age, tenure, religion, gender, all of that stuff. And if they don't, my challenge to leaders is: are you willing to find someone, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it goes into a little bit of a lower rank than you're used to, because there have not been enough women and minorities promoted?” Embrace Your Edge Hang wrote Embrace Your Edge for the next generation, those who are exhausted, for people who don’t have access and for people in power to understand this population. This book is written for those who did not inherit access, but who have clawed their way to earn every step forward. It is written for those with will and grit, who are searching for guidance to build their own powerful networks and to shape their own destinies.  This book is dedicated to those who are highly capable but may be exhausted or stuck.  This book is also written for those in power who want to attract these scrappy ones, the often diverse talent pool who possess an innate entrepreneurial spirit. And for this audience, the book is written without anger or accusation, but with a simple mission to seek mutual understanding and support. Listen to the entire episode to discover more on this important topic from Hang Black.  

What drives the success of a sales team today? Knowing how to engage the digitally savvy modern buyer. And modern buyers need modern sellers. While digital marketing is a mature ecosystem with proven processes and practices, digital selling is still evolving. Many sales organizations were reluctant to implement a digital sales transformation until COVID-19 came and forced everyone into remote selling. Today, digital selling is more important than ever. In this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, I talked with Ed Terpening, Industry Analyst at Altimeter Group, who recently released the 2020 State of Digital Selling research report. This survey sought to understand the capabilities and key success factors enabling the digital transformation of selling among B2B businesses. It was based on a survey of 506 sales professionals across North America, Europe, and China, and it offers a comprehensive view of how B2B sales teams are leveraging digital in their sales processes. Listen to this episode to learn about the key findings of this report and how you can apply that knowledge to your organization. The State of Digital Selling Ed provided some great insights on the key findings from the report. Here they are: 1. Now, more than ever, selling is a team sport. The customer is the center of experience in any business. Marketing is the front end of customer experience. They then go through sales and then they go through service and customer success. So it's really important to connect all of those dots between those organizations and think not just about digital marketing but also digital selling and how they work together and then customer success and service. “All of the teams that touch the customer must have a consistent view,” Ed says. They have to understand what white papers the customers are reading from marketing, what service problems they're having, what kind of value propositions work in the sales process.” Their research found that those selling teams that had a well aligned Marketing, Sales and Service teams always did better than others that didn't. 2. Sales teams need to make the digital mindset shift. According to the report, a sales team with a strong digital culture will accomplish its objectives and perform better, as sellers trust the value of data and the tech tools they use. “The technology industry really outperformed other industries when it came to digital selling,” Ed says, “because they have a digital culture, they're in this business and they're actually much more effective in this world and achieve higher results. Making that culture mindset shift is so important.” The seller's mindset needs to really shift and think about engaging digitally through value.  3. High-touch, high-value cross-functional selling outperforms automated high-volume selling. Automation in sales has been rapidly growing in the past few years, but Altimeter Group’s research found that it underperforms when compared to other high-touch approaches, such as Account-Based Marketing and Account-Based Selling, which are more customer-centric. Cross-functional teams that partner on key accounts are more effective in achieving revenue and customer success goals than sellers who rely on automation. “This reinforces the fact that it's not just digital, it’s people teaming together and getting the highest results,” Ed says. Listen to the episode to learn about the three models of selling they tested and which one performs better. 4. Top performers focus on the customer through customer-focused metrics, cross-functional teaming, and selling by vertical industry. The fourth key finding was that top sales organizations prioritized customer satisfaction above metrics such as sales quota achievement, recognized and addressed the diversity of B2B buying committees and customized sales approaches by industry vertical.  “Successful companies are focused on the customer,” Ed says. “Digital sellers that were not as mature were focused on things like revenue growth, rather than leveraging existing customers and really optimizing the value from those customers. Instead, they tended to seek out new customers.” Part of having the right focus is knowing that the modern B2B buyer expects sellers to understand their industry to the point that they become a trusted partner in their own success. 5. As teams build digital excellence, boundaries are likely to blur between sales and marketing teams. Digital marketing automation is a mature practice, while sales automation is evolving. Ed provided the analogy of left brain versus right brain to talk about this difference between digital marketing and digital selling.  “Marketing is sort of the left brain, very analytical, very focused on data to make decisions,” Ed says. “Versus the sales team that might be more about the gut feeling, more relationship-based. They're complimentary, of course, but as sales teams become more digitally mature, they rely more on data analytics technology and AI to guide their next moves.” Sales must undergo a cultural shift to develop trust in sales automation and data, using sales prospecting tools and sales forecasting software, for example. 6. Digitally mature sellers are outperforming less mature teams through the COVID-19 pandemic. Altimeter found there was a very strong correlation between mature digital sellers and less mature sellers regarding their success during the pandemic. Digitally mature teams have the enablement tools, the digital culture, the data, and the leadership alignment to succeed in a remote selling environment. The pandemic has laid bare the challenges businesses face as they transition, such as finding cross-functional alignment to achieve seamless customer experience, made possible through leadership alignment.  Ed’s advice to marketing leaders is to get ready to help your sales teams succeed in embracing digital. Marketers should see themselves as partners of the sales team.  Don’t miss my conversation with Ed and don’t forget to download The 2020 State of Digital Selling.

The year 2020 has brought a lot of pain and confusion due to the pandemic, but also many opportunities for companies to show compassion and generosity. And that willingness to help others can sometimes reap rewards in the marketplace. That’s exactly the story my guest in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, Adriel Sanchez, CMO at Newsela shares. Newsela provides instructional content to K-12 schools in the United States, serving 35 million children.  What do they do exactly? They take content from reliable sources around the web and incorporate changes to make it ready for the classroom. First, they rewrite every piece of content at 5 different reading levels, so in a single class every student can access the content at their own reading level. Then, they surround content with instructional support for teachers, so it would be easy for them to embed the content into their lessons. And finally, Newsela attaches the content to individual grade standards by state (over 130K in the US), through machine learning, algorithms and human intervention. Newsela is both business-driven (they are a for-profit company) and mission-driven (making education better for as many teachers and students as possible). This podcast is brought to you by Postal.io. A Sales and marketing engagement platform that generates leads increases sales and improves customer retention. Request a demo to learn how to integrate direct mail and gift into your existing strategy by visiting Postal.io. Doing What is Right for Your Customer Newsela went from one to four products in January, 2020, with great plans of expansion. Then the pandemic hit in mid-March and education was one of the hardest-hit sectors. Most schools around the US closed. Many teachers and students were unprepared for the shift to remote learning, with some school districts panicking over what to do, as they lacked the resources to implement remote education. Although Newsela has four stakeholders (Education Administrators, Students and Teachers, Investors, and Newsela employees), they could not serve the immediate interests of all four at the same time during the COVID lockdowns.  Adriel says they decided to do the right thing for the schools above the business needs. So they provided their entire product portfolio for free to students and teachers. No conditions, no questions asked. All schools had to do was ask for it. How did they implement the plan? They came up with three phases to their response to the crisis. Provide the product for free and get the word out. This phase included a message from the CEO and social media outreach. Word got out quickly and in the first 7 days 15,000 schools signed up. At the end of the program, two thirds of US schools (about 90,000) had signed up for some component of Newsela. Make sure the product was adopted. Adriel says that it wasn’t enough to give away the product. They needed to make sure people were using the platform and getting value.  During March and April of 2020, virtual classes were new to teachers. So Newsela deployed training 7 days a week and had 1 to 1 coaching for teachers and administrators. A lot of people were exposed to Newsela’s team and people really appreciated the support they provided. If they provided that kind of support for non paying customers, how would it be if they paid? This focus on customer service paved the way for future sales conversations. Start sales conversations. By June 2020, Newsela was preparing to turn some of those free users into paid subscribers. The fact that they had given the product for free, no matter if the schools were open or closed, gave them trust and credibility with their customer base. People really felt supported. “Timing was very important,” Adriel says. “Start too early and you could be perceived as exploitive. Start too late and you could miss out on budget allocations elsewhere, competitors and other priorities.” Sellers had to be situationally aware when they started those sales conversations. So the marketing team at Newsela identified 10 criteria to start sales conversations, analyzing macro and micro leading indicators, state by state. Here are some examples of the indicators they used. Macro leading indicators Had states released a budget? Were schools closed or still open for in-person sessions? How much did states receive from the Federal education budget? Micro leading indicators Had administrators asked about pricing after June 30th when the free period was over? Was there a renewal scenario? All the information was tracked in the system for sales. Sellers were able to track it state by state and account by account, looking for patterns on a weekly basis. Adriel says the effort was a collaboration between marketing, sales and product. “It was a Marketing-led initiative, who owned market intelligence (stimulus funding, budgets, etc.). But sales ops helped to rollout, track, and adjust as they learned things in the field.” The CRM tracked two basic metrics: Rate of account contact (were schools taking the calls from the sellers?) All Systems Go metric (was the account ready for a sales conversation based on the macro and micro criteria?)   Sellers would look for patterns by state in the CRM to see if they were open and ready, so they could be more upfront with their sales conversations. Reaping the Rewards Although 70% of education companies offered something free during the first few months of the pandemic, only 25% saw an increase in paid subscribers. Newsela was part of that 25% and growth surpassed their expectations, reaching their 2020 revenue goal in August 2020. They started with the idea of what is the right thing to do for their customers and the hypothesis that the marketplace would reward them for that, was validated. They now have sales conversations with entire states and school districts that they never had in the past. Listen to this episode to hear more about Newsela’s story and how showing that you care can result in increased revenue.

Sales messaging is a vital part of a sales reps’ daily work. It’s how they engage with prospects and it can make a big difference in their results. While the perfect sales message will connect and engage the buyer (eventually leading to a sale), a weak sales message will just be ignored, or worse, will damage the reputation of your company. In this article and episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast, my guest, Mario Martinez Jr., CEO and Founder at Vengreso, discusses what marketing and sales leaders need to know about sales messaging and some actionable tips you can start implementing today. Plus, he announced a new tool Vengreso created to help your sales team deploy a consistent message throughout your sales organization. Now, it is self-evident that sales messaging is crucial for sellers, but why is sales messaging important for marketers? Mario says that marketers should be supporting the sales team with all of the right messaging, from the Go-To-Market messaging to the messaging to engage with buyers, including messages for social media and sales enablement content such as playbooks, sales cadences, case studies, ebooks, blogs and the like. At the end of the day, there is just one type of messaging: messaging designed to attract your buyer, not sales or marketing messaging. Today, the modern marketer is more integrated in the sales ecosystem than EVER before, so it’s imperative that marketers have a defined sales messaging strategy. Things Every Sales Messaging Strategy Needs Automation in sales and B2B marketing has made life easier for our teams in many regards. But it also has reduced a lot of the personal touch we used to have in sales messaging. That’s why at Vengreso, we teach our sellers to leverage personalization and hyper personalization in all their sales messages. In fact, we created a sales methodology with the foundation of hyper-personalization. It’s called the PVC method, which stands for Personalization, Value, and Call to Action. The PVC Sales Methodology focuses on prospecting, from the “pre-hello” to the “hello.” The purpose of this methodology is to help salespeople who are having a hard time connecting with potential customers, create more conversations with their targeted buyers.  And the best thing is that the PVC sales methodology can be used in inbound or outbound sales, when writing an email, a text message, a LinkedIn message, or making a phone call or video conference via Zoom. No matter the medium, every effective sales messaging strategy needs to be personalized, valuable and contain the appropriate call to action for the situation. “Sales messaging should be structured around PVC to attract our buyers, not detract or distract them,” Mario says. “Never before has the buyer been so digitally connected, socially engaged, mobile-attached, and video hungry. And salespeople must be as well, becoming video producers to create engaging video messages.” Mario says that in the new normal, sellers will be remote 60% of the time. In fact, according to Gartner’s Future of Sales research, by 2025 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in digital channels. Why? Because 33% of all buyers desire a seller-free sales experience (44% for millennials). There is no going back to a sales rep that is 100% of the time in the field. That’s why we must teach sellers social selling skills, including how to personalize their messaging, bring value and add the right CTAs to their sales messages. At Vengreso, we offer virtual sales training programs in modern selling skills, such as Selling with Video, Selling with LinkedIn and more. Now, let’s look at the PVC components in more detail. Components that Every Sales Messaging Framework Should Have Let’s talk about each of the components of your sales messaging framework: P – Personalization V – Value C – Call-to-Action Personalization is more than just using the prospect’s first name. If possible, sellers should take the time to research the prospect’s social networks and find shared experiences or recent events or news related to the prospect’s company that they can mention in the sales prospecting message. When creating a sales messaging strategy (whether cold calling scripts or video messages) make sure the sales message brings value to the conversation. Adding value may sound like a cliche, but we must realize that each buyer has an individual business pain, and if our messaging speaks to that particular pain, we’ll have a greater chance of getting through. So, how do you bring value? With content that helps solve their problems, especially related to the solution you are selling. It can be a webinar, a report or a relevant blog article. Provide value instead of just asking for a meeting. Instead of asking for a meeting, add a call to action that keeps the sales conversation going, such as asking a question for them to respond or inviting them to an event. Sales-Ready Messaging vs. Marketing Messaging What’s the difference between a sales-ready message and a marketing message? Marketing messaging is generally one-to-many. For example, marketing will create an email drip campaign to take leads, convert them to MQLs, then to SQLs and finally hand them over to the sales organization.  Sellers do the same thing but instead of one-to-many, they do it one-to-one. That is why sellers have to deliver hyper-personalized messages. Marketing can’t create messages the same way.  Marketing messaging is focused on the buyer persona, trying to hit the pains of that persona. In sales-ready messaging this can also be the case if the seller doesn’t have enough information to personalize the messages, as in a cold email or cold call. But the ideal sales-ready message is hyper-personalized to the individual, not the buyer persona. The seller must be able to find out details about the prospect, such as interests, particular needs, and other background information. For example, when Vengreso sellers reach out to sales leaders, they do it through video, holding a whiteboard and writing the prospect’s name on the board. They find bits of information to use in their sales-ready messages such as an interesting LinkedIn post or a recent promotion. That way, they can personalize their messages with phrases like “I saw that you posted….” or “Congratulations on your recent promotion to…” Now, who’s responsible for writing these sales messages? Marketers usually cringe at the idea of a seller writing a message. And, in general, you don’t want salespeople writing messages if they are not writers, as it would take them too long to write and may not be as good as the text from a trained copywriter.  Mario says that the responsibility for writing these messages falls on the shoulders of the Sales Enablement team -- or if you don't have one, the marketing team. “But the marketing team must be in tune with what is happening in the field before writing. We have our marketing team listen to sales calls weekly so they can structure sales messaging. They must understand the sales process in order to create messaging that attracts buyers and sells more.” What is a Sales Message vs. a Product Message? Another important distinction we must make is between a sales message and a product message. In short, while a sales message includes the PVC components discussed above, a product message centers around features and functions. Product messaging should always reside inside of marketing. The idea is to take the features and what the products do and translate them into benefits, into how they solve real-world problems. Sellers are usually trained on products to attract a potential customer, but they are sometimes not trained in communicating how the product solves actual problems. From our experience, if you were to ask 100 sales reps at a company to tell in one sentence what business problem they solve for their customer (the value proposition), 80% would not be able to answer consistently. Marketing must be able to articulate in one sentence the business problem that the company solves and sales leaders should make sure their sellers know it well so that they are all communicating the same message. For example, at Vengreso we know that VPs of Sales have two common problems: a) they want to increase the number of sales conversations that their sellers are having and b) increase their sales pipeline. So, a message to that buyer persona (if the seller doesn’t have details to personalize the messaging to the individual) would start by asking if they have one of those two problems. If the answer is “no,” they would just stop reading. If the answer is “yes,” they’ll continue reading. In that case, the sales-ready message should provide value before introducing the solution.  For example, the sales-ready message could say: If you have any of those two problems, here are two resources that can help you out: I encourage you to watch this webinar [ADD LINK] with your team in your next one-hour call. It will take you through two things your sellers can do right now to create more sales conversations on LinkedIn. Read this blog article [ADD LINK], which tells you five things you can do to improve your sales video messages. Do you see what we are doing here? We are providing value, which is what a good sales message will do. Once a conversation is started with the prospect, product messaging comes in. That’s when the seller goes deep to explain the product features and translate those features into business benefits.  How to Develop Sales Messaging The PVC method will help you develop your sales messaging with the right elements. But how do you deploy those messages so your team can use them? Usually, the marketing team would create a “42-page document” with the messaging, upload it to a local server or the internet and send the link to the sales team for them to use. The reality is that most sellers will not use that document. That is why we created a sales productivity and sales messaging tool called FlyMSG. FlyMSG is a text expander tool under the sales prospecting tools category. This Chrome extension helps marketers and sellers improve their productivity and efficiency by letting them expand pre-written communication templates and messages for use in their daily digital communication. Or as we like to say it: “Type less. Sell more." FlyMSG solves these three real-life problems: Allows sales and marketing professionals to write complete messages, emails, LinkedIn connection requests and more using only a short and simple shortcut (FlyCut), leaving more time to focus on the needs of the customer. Increases the reach of sellers in their pipeline, allowing them to focus more on selling and less on administrative tasks. Uses a centralized repository of each user’s best, templatized messages (FlyPlates), creating unity in each user’s overall messaging. A large portion of our PVC Sales Methodology templates are inside of FlyMSG for free to download. FlyMSG is the only text expander tool that allows you to add images, video, rich text format, hyperlinks, as well as categorize your templates. Mario says that with a corporate account, a marketing team can own the creation and distribution of a company’s sales messaging. “Marketing can write the messages, add the templates to FlyMSG and make them available to all sellers,” Marios says. “Then, all sellers have to do is type the shortcut (FlyCut) and the message will automatically expand, ensuring usage, adoption and consistency in all sales messaging across the sales organization.” Mario gives the example of a FlyCut he created called -bookameeting which he created to expand automatically to a pre-written sentence inviting someone to book a meeting with him with his calendar link included. It's a huge time saver since he uses it often. 

In recent history, there have been three important events that have led marketing teams to shift their focus and embrace digital marketing transformation.  The first event was 9/11 in 2001 and how fear and uncertainty gripped the U.S. (and others) which hindered planned marketing activities including travel and events where thousands of people congregated. The second event was the economic crisis of 2008 which had both businesses and consumers concerned about the repercussions that came out of every dollar spent. Third, is how COVID has affected many lives and how we conduct business.  March 2020 provided the world with a new chapter. Those who accepted and embraced the changes with compassion for each other have figured out ways to conduct business, despite the challenges many businesses have faced.  My guest this week on the Modern Marketing Engine podcast is Sara Larsen. Sara’s experience and “marketing scars” come from years of marketing leadership roles at organizations such as IBM, SAP, and Dassault Systems. Most recently, Sara was the CMO at Brightcove, the leading online video streaming platform.  Sara and I spoke about what she describes as the three digital marketing transformation pillars every organization needs in order to become successful in the face of significant change.  Marketing Transformation Pivot Before I reveal Sara’s three pillars, the word pivot warrants attention. This word is likely on the list of words that marketers didn’t anticipate we would use so much in 2020. The word is commonly used to define a slight change that ensures short term survival. This is exactly what many marketers thought 2020 needed, a slight change in the way we market our businesses.  But as the events of 2020 unfolded, we continued to see no indications that things would return back to its pre-COVID state. So, the word pivot was not only used to describe short term survival, instead, it was used to describe long term resilience and growth. Most organizations have already gone through the first part which is ensuring short-term survival. For example, some businesses in B2C have adjusted for the short term such as bakeries pivoting to sell kits to bake at home and alcohol distilleries pivoting to make hand-sanitizers. However, these adjustments or pivots aren’t necessarily sustainable and we now need to think about how we pivot towards long-term resilience and growth. Pillar #1 - How Relevant are you during this Marketing Transformation? Many organizations began to experience the reality that some customers didn’t view them as necessary or relevant in the “new normal.” As marketers, we need to understand that buyer’s needs have changed, and we must ask ourselves, is what we’re selling still relevant? This is where marketers need to be aligned not just with sales but also with your product strategy. Sales can tell you what conversations they’re having with buyers. What are they looking for now? What are their highest priorities and where in their organization does your product fit in? This will help define how imminent a pivot will be from what you were doing before to what you need to be offering now.  We’ve always seen alignment as important but in the face of digital marketing transformation we see that it is more important than ever. Business continuity is also at an all-time high. For example, video messaging can sometimes substitute for those virtual meetings that your buyers may no longer consider as high-priority.  Pillar #2 - The Marketing Mix Has Fundamentally Change Interestingly, many of us can tell you the exact day, hour, and even minute when we realized back in March that our plans for the year were going to be turned upside down. When the COVID-19 outbreak has deemed a pandemic everything changed. The most notable marketing pivot in 2020 centered around events and event planning. Most events have either been canceled or have gone entirely virtual. These new events have given organizations the need to step up their innovation to keep attendees engaged.  Though Sara estimates that in-person events are likely to resume after Q2 of 2021, the results from virtual events have been mostly positive. At in-person events, it was tough to keep an attendee engaged for over 20 minutes, but virtual events allow organizations to showcase technology and this is all thanks to video best practices. Social content, podcasts, video content, these are all great platforms for brands to showcase their assets. We referenced both 9/11 and the 2008 economic crisis earlier in this post. In 2008, similar to this year, everyone was saying that things would resume in 2009, and for the most part, things did. But how are things different this year? For starters, people’s lives are in play by contrast to 2008, which was an economic-only event. Today, the technology is more advanced, and with so much invested in digital marketing transformation and content marketing, marketers have the ability to pivot to this new normal. Sure, events will come back eventually but we might be looking at hybrid events.  Being Helpful can Benefit you in the Long Run Sara’s team at Brightcove began to offer free live-streaming video to organizations who could use it to support their community. They offered this service to schools and churches and community theatres. They offered up to 50 free hours and this was not only rewarding but was also a very helpful research opportunity.  With the information gathered, they began to see what problems organizations were facing during the pandemic in the midst of their digital marketing transformation. It was a good way to learn what problems most organizations were facing and what solutions they needed.  Pillar #3 - Evolving Talent Needs in the Midst of Digital Marketing Transformation Marketers often raise the question, what do I need to learn next? Marketing leaders and their teams need to continually keep up with the latest trends to stay competitive. But this year things have been different. It used to be, what would I need to know next year? Today it’s what do I need to know for next week? Trends are changing at an alarming rate. Selling with video and selling with social media used to be a suggestion, today it’s a necessity to stay relevant.  Sara says that as marketing leaders, we need to know where the world is headed. What does the buyer care about? How do we speak to buyers on their preferred digital channels? The conventional wisdom that in order to close bigger deals, customers need to meet with salespeople face-to-face is no longer true…That big sales aren’t likely to happen virtually. Sara highlights a recent study conducted by McKinsey that says, over 70% of B2B buyers are open to self-service models of up to $50k. Over 27% said they’d spend over $500k.  What does this mean? That your buyers understand that the world has gone virtual so you need to adapt as well.  A study conducted by Gartner in 2020 states that the modern B2B buying committee only spends 17% of its time in their customer journey, talking to suppliers. The rest of the time is spent defining their requirements, looking up websites, competitors, and watching videos and reading reviews. That means, instead of worrying about how much time you spend speaking to prospective buyers, you need to be thinking about what content will appeal to your buyer to be included in their research. This includes all forms of content including video, podcasts and social media posts.  Many executives are reluctant to invest in online training or peer mentoring because they would rather wait until “things get back to normal.” Sara is an advocate of staying current by keeping talent up to speed on the trends that are needed today. She says that current talent demands include event planning, putting on digital experiences, investing in digital training, and lastly, research. You need to determine whether or not your buyer type is the same or if your product or service is best suited for a different buyer persona.  Shifting Towards Digital Marketing Transformation I thoroughly enjoy speaking with marketing visionaries who are constantly looking to better themselves and those around them. Sara says that digital marketing transformation isn’t always planned and this year is a clear example of it. We ended the episode on a high note with Sara emphasizing the importance of having empathy for your team, clients, and colleagues while driving our businesses forward.  This change has affected everyone so as we move out of this pivot and into the long-term resilience and growth, empathy will carry us through and into our next chapter.  Outline of this Digital Transformation Episode [2:40] Sara Larsen Bio and Introduction [3:50] 3 digital transformation pillars she wants to talk about [4:00] Importance of Pivoting towards short term change and long term resilience and growth [4:30] First Pillar: Are you Relevant? Will your traditional marketing strategies be enough? [11:00] Second Pillar: The Digital Marketing Mix has Fundamentally Changed [12:30] When are events coming back? Importance of Digital technology. [15:45] The difference between this market change and the change in the 2008 economic recession.  [20:30] Third Pillar: Evolving Talent Needs [25:40] Invest in Online Training and Peer Mentoring [27:00] Marketing evolution and continuous need to reassess 

What is the most effective way to attract and retain customers if you sell to consumers through distributors? According to Paul Ackah-Sanzah, it’s an Omnichannel marketing strategy. Paul is VP of Marketing at Phantom Screens and a 20-year marketing veteran. Paul has an impressive career journey at Phantom Screens, starting out as their retail sales manager, moving to brand marketing manager, and has been their VP of marketing for two years.  In this episode of The Modern Marketing Engine podcast, I dive into what a B2B to C organization does when their target market is both distributors and consumers and how this affects the customer experience. Listen to this episode to learn about Omnichannel marketing, B2B to C marketing, and how to ensure quality when selling through a wide array of distributors. Who is Phantom Screens? Phantom Screens manufactures and sells retractable screens which are installed in residential homes as patios, porches and lanai screens. They offer many useful features including ventilation without the pests and can be rolled into a canister when they’re not in use. These screens allow homeowners to add an accessory to their home that won’t sacrifice the decor and can be added or removed in minutes.  Phantom Screens has been in business for nearly 30 years and my guest, Paul has been part of their marketing team for two decades.  The company is in what is known as a B2B to C market which means they sell through a network of over 150 distributors (B2B) and those distributors sell to consumers (B2C) and install the product in the consumer’s home.  Phantom Screens follows a do-it-for-me mantra which means that with every purchase, consumers are provided with the installation by the distributor from whom they purchased. Omnichannel Marketing to Consumers Instead of marketing solely to distributors or to the general public (as many organizations do), Phantom Screens has adopted an Omnichannel marketing strategy to get their name out there with both audiences. Given that they aim to be known by the distributors who sell and install the product and the homeowner that ultimately makes the purchase and uses it in their home, the company’s marketing approach is designed to reach both target audiences.  During 2020, Phantom Screens recognized huge potential to communicate the benefits of their product to the homeowner who found themselves spending more time at home due to the pandemic. However, this opportunity didn’t come without its challenges.  With their do-it-for-me philosophy, homeowners understandably expressed concern about installers showing up at their home and interacting with them and their families. This created an interesting challenge for Paul and his team of marketers.  Phantom Screens deployed their Omnichannel marketing plan to reach consumers with videos featured in social media platforms on how installations were being performed and how their engagement with installers was safe. Their CEO, C. Esther D. Wolde was front and center speaking to the end consumer thus impacting the overall customer experience. They also created videos on the precautions taken by the distributors responsible for installing the screens. Today’s modern buyer wants videos that show authority on a subject matter and don’t want to be restricted to 2,000-word articles describing the precautions taken and the equipment used in their homes with each installation. They want to see (literally) what measures Phantom Screens and their distributors have taken to keep consumers safe and this is best done through video.  Marketing Strategy for Distributors Although it is important for Phantom Screens to build awareness with consumers directly, as described earlier the purchase and installation is completed through their network of 180 distributors.  Since distributors sell and install Phantom Screens’ products this raises an even bigger question. How does the company ensure that distributors are following brand guidelines when performing installations? The answer is trust.   Phantom Screens has been in the market for nearly three decades and they view every distributor as a partner. They are teams that need training to provide the best possible customer support. They are the customer-facing ones who ultimately are the brand ambassadors for Phantom Screens.  Paul and his team are in constant communication with their distributors to ensure that their values are aligned. They provide resources and offer product, corporate sales training and an onboarding process for every new distributor. It’s difficult enough to market to two different groups (consumers and distributors) but the challenge Paul faces is to make sure the training they provide to their distributors is aligned with the brand messaging provided to the end consumer. Relationships with distributors include the same consumer-centric messaging being provided to their consumers.  This podcast is brought to you by Postal.io. A Sales and marketing engagement platform that generates leads increases sales and improves customer retention. Request a demo to learn how to integrate direct mail and gift into your existing strategy by visiting Postal.io. Embracing Omnichannel Marketing It was back in 2017 when Vengreso’s Founder and CEO, Mario Martinez Jr. said that it would take five years for the sales profession to go all-in on digital engagement. That sales would embrace social media as an engagement vehicle and that Omnichannel marketing would prevail. Fast forward only three years and Covid 19 has accelerated Mario’s original timeline. I spoke to Paul about the type of marketing that appeals to the modern buyer and what businesses need to do in order to remain competitive.  To which Paul replied, “marketing and sales are more aligned than ever before and to ensure your organization is on the right track, sellers need to think like marketers. They need to know where your target audience digitally "hangs-out" and engage with them on their preferred channels.” Ultimately, Paul ends this episode by saying “if you want to achieve success in your market, instead of considering pivoting from one vehicle to another, it’s important to look at an Omnichannel marketing strategy.” Outline of this Omnichannel Marketing Strategy Episode  [2:25] What are retractable screens? [4:37] Shifting roles after years working for the same organization [6:09] B2B to C model marketing [12:20] Phantom Screens Marketing Strategy [16:30] The marketing impact of 2020 [21:48] 2020 success stories [26:30] Omnichannel Marketing Strategy [27:40] Summary

A unified marketing and sales funnel is the solution to better prospecting in any organization. In this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast, my guest, A. Lee Judge, Global Digital Marketing Director at Hexagon GeoSystems, discusses his approach to digital marketing and how it is contributing to sales prospecting with a focus on quantifiable attribution.  B2B Marketing leaders are being held to a higher standard in 2020. CEOs and CROs want to see marketing drive activities that demonstrably help salespeople be more productive. Sales prospecting is one of the most undesirable activities in sales. Marketers are asked to deliver marketing programs that enable sales prospecting to be more productive.  Listen to this episode to learn more about how marketing can help sales to prospect better. This podcast is brought to you by Postal.io. A Sales and marketing engagement platform that generates leads increases sales and improves customer retention. Request a demo to learn how to integrate direct mail and gift into your existing strategy by visiting Postal.io. How the Full Marketing and Sales Funnel Works Marketing must identify the buyer persona using feedback from the sales team. There must be a two-way communication between sales and marketing to clearly understand the changing needs of the customer. Data shows that prospects will self educate and conduct research before engaging with a sales rep, so marketing must get ahead of the competition and educate their prospects first. How? By understanding the prospect’s questions and pain points, which sales knows really well. Sales organizations should never hold back information from the marketing team, otherwise the competition may end up educating their prospective customers. Lee says that organizations must understand that it’s the customer’s journey not the sales journey. And it's not a linear journey that they can control. That means neither sales nor marketing own that journey. There shouldn’t be a wall between sales and marketing when optimizing for the prospect’s journey. Prospects will interact with sales and marketing on and off during their journey, talking to a sales rep, while reading the blog or social media posts, then going back to the sales rep and so on. According to Lee, there is just one funnel, the Sales and Marketing Funnel. In traditional sales funnels, marketing doesn’t know what is going on with the SQLs they handed over to the sales team, so if there is a roadblock or lack of information, then marketing can’t help. But when there is only one funnel, sales and marketing are in constant communication, collaborating to move leads through the funnel. Marketing can provide the content sales needs to help the prospect understand the solution and move through the funnel on their way to making a buying decision. In his role as Global Digital Marketing Manager at Hexagon GeoSystems, Lee supports hundreds of marketers in this process, helping them use technology and understand the business, so they can have a clear view of sales and marketing activities and create content that is enabled for sales. The Modern Marketer is Data Savvy Today’s modern marketer is not just a creative person who creates great content, but also a very data-savvy marketer. The modern marketer must understand data because data is what holds marketing and sales together. Data will help marketers understand where people came from, how they responded, as well as to segment people by campaigns. That data must be shared with sales so they know what the prospect’s needs are. Marketing should be able to show Sales a picture of the customer’s journey. For example, how many times the prospects visited the website and which pages, how many emails they received and opened, which webinars they attended and so on. The prospect’s digital journey provides very valuable information for the sales reps. That means marketing needs to collect that data and make it easily accessible to sales. “Marketing can’t qualify, Lee says, “but if sales lets marketing know who they are looking for and what they expect to know, then marketing should be able to set up the processes to deliver on that information.” How to measure attribution Lee tells the story of a company who made the decision to cut particular tradeshows from their budget based on the information the sales people put in the CRM. The sales reps were asked to identify which deals could be attributed to trade shows. The CEO didn’t cut the show which was attributed to deals, hence proving to deliver ROI, but cut the rest of the events from the budget. This story illustrates the importance of attribution data. The attribution dilemma stems from the difficulty of connecting an opportunity to a multi-touch sales cycle. Was it the first touch, the last touch, or several touches? Lee says there is no right or wrong answer to this question. It depends on the length of the sales cycle, how in sync sales and marketing are, and the structure of the CRM and the tech stack. If there is a culture of documentation within a company, then attribution is easier. Such a culture states that “if it’s not in CRM, it didn’t happen.” When sellers take the time to document in the CRM what they did, not only do they help marketers know what is going on, but they can prove the ROI of their sales tools. Finally, Lee says that the bottom-line message for sales and marketing is to keep the one team mindset in mind, communicating with each other, knowing both have the same goal. Outline of this Episode [3:00] About Hexagon GeoSystems and A. Lee Judge [6:10] How Marketing Can Help Sales Target Prospects [11:05] The role of technology in the sales and marketing funnel [12:50] The characteristics of the modern marketer [20:01] Sales Prospecting Attribution  [26:14] The one team mindset for sales and marketing Featured on this Episode Connect with A. Lee Judge on LinkedIn Follow A. Lee Judge on Twitter: @ALeeJudge Website Resources & People Mentioned The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr. Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast

Why do salespeople need to think like marketers? What training do they need to be more successful in engaging with prospective customers? How can marketing collaborate with their sales teams for a more effective process? Bernie Borges jumps on this episode of the Content Callout podcast to share his take. Bernie is a co-founder and Chief Customer Officer at Vengreso. He is one of the top 50 content marketing influencers and 60 best marketing speakers and social marketing influencers in the world. Don’t miss his expert take on the world of content marketing. Outline of This Episode [1:40] Bernie’s rapid-fire actionable tactics + strategies [2:51] The difference between salespeople and marketers [3:48] How to equip salespeople with valuable content [5:23] What marketers must include in content [6:27] Your buyer’s pain point might be you [10:58] The concept of essential marketing [12:15] The Modern Marketing Engine podcast [15:40] How to connect with Bernie Borges Resources & People Mentioned Vengreso Modern Marketing Engine podcast BOOK: Fanocracy by David Meerman Scott BOOK: Essentialism by Greg McKeown The LinkedIn State of Sales Report Connect with Bernie Borges Connect on LinkedIn Follow on Twitter Bernie’s Instagram profile Connect With the Content Callout Team https://ContentCallout.com Subscribe to CONTENT CALLOUT on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts

In 2020 with in-person conferences being redirected to online events, marketers are looking for alternative ways to continue to grow their demand generation efforts and ensure that they can drive quality leads into the sales funnel. One of those ways is gift marketing. Marketing teams are allocating budgets and efforts toward gifting, as opposed to sponsoring virtual events, as some marketers are not seeing the ROI from a $10k+ sponsorship. How can you use gift marketing in your company and what are some great use cases? That is the topic of this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast with my guest, Nick Grant, Head of Marketing at Postal.io. Postal.io is an integrated direct mail platform for sales and marketing teams that leverages machine learning to automate and optimize the creation, delivery, and reporting of personalized physical assets (a.k.a. gifts) in the sales process. The Postal.io platform integrates into HubSpot, Salesloft and Salesforce.  Postal.io activities can be tracked in CRM, such as if the gift was received or denied, and reports on different metrics so marketers can know what works and doesn’t. It can also trigger other events to happen, like an email or call right after the gift was received. Listen to this episode to learn more about modern gift marketing. How Companies are Using Gift Marketing Almost every industry can use gifting to help with their marketing. One common way is to share knowledge by sending books. The book helps build rapport with customers and it can be about something that supports content your business writes about or contain content that your prospect will find relevant for their specific business. For example, Postal.io often uses Giftology: The Art & Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through the Noise, Increase Referrals, and Strengthen Retention, to educate their clients on how they can effectively use gifting in their marketing and sales process. Although some brands have their own books, most don’t. However, they can use books from recognized thought leaders in their industry. For example, agencies use books like This is Marketing by Seth Godin or Sales Engagement from the team at Outreach. These books not only educate their prospects, but also help position themselves as an expert in their space by providing these hand-picked resources. Most books cost around $20 and are a very cost-effective way to experiment with driving more engagement at the top of the funnel. Personalization in Gift Marketing Although it is difficult to automate and scale personalized gifts, Nick says that he has seen it often in the SaaS space. There is a lot of competition in the SaaS industry, so companies try to get in front of key prospects and get them into their sales funnel through personalized gifts. “This is where swag can come into play,” Nick says, “as you can do a bit of research on a prospect and often find out some info about things they’re passionate about, like where they went to college or a sports team that they support. Just find what they post about on Instagram and perhaps send them a Yeti Mug with their college logo on it, or a hat from their favorite sports team.” Another common example is companies sending gifts that relate to their client’s pets, like a box of cat toys. Such gifts help companies stand out amongst the competition. An added benefit is that people get excited when they receive the gifts and usually post their pictures with the gifts on social media, raving about the company. Nick talked about some interesting use cases for gift marketing in particular industries. Finance and Real Estate Nick says that clients in these industries are often introducing new services and they need a way to market them to their existing clients, so they can try to get them interested in learning more about their new offerings.  “This is where we often see food-related items used to help get them into the funnel and engaged with the new offerings. Like sending a box of cookies or fruit basket with some information for them to review, which helps to make them more receptive to learn about the new offerings.” Veteran-Owned Organizations “We have a client who is a veteran and he owns a sales training company that works with a lot of other veteran-owned businesses,” Nick says. “He likes to leverage an American Flag as a gift to help drive leads into the top of the funnel. This was not something we originally had in our marketplace, but when he told us about his business we brainstormed and thought it would be the perfect item for him to use.” In gift marketing, every gift should be tailored to the company’s unique business needs to get the best possible results.  Webinars and Virtual Events With in-person events went virtual, a lot of demand generation managers shifted their focus onto webinars as a way to drive leads at the top of the funnel. However, with so many webinars going on right now, it can be difficult to get people to sign up and attend. Nick says he has seen some really savvy SaaS companies using gift cards after a webinar registration occurs to help drive registrations AND attendance. “We see them use a mix of charity gift cards, where the recipient can pick from a variety of charities, often going with someone local they want to support. Or having it go to a Covid related charity. In addition we see food delivery or coffee gift cards used as well. Being able to have lunch while watching a webinar is a great pairing and all of these digital gifts help build rapport and trust, so that registrants want to attend and see what the webinar is all about.” Can Gift Marketing Contribute to Marketing and Sales Alignment? Nick says that they often see marketing partnering closely with sales to help send out gifts to secure meetings with their strategic accounts that hadn’t responded to outreach in the past.  “This really boosts the ability for marketers to get these leads engaged and help sales to drive more meetings that they could with only relying on emails, texts, phone calls and Linkedin InMails.” Through Postal.io sales and marketing can see what types of gifts are effective to book meetings, fill the pipeline and close more sales.  Don’t miss this episode to hear more about how you can use gift marketing in your marketing strategy. Featured on This Episode Connect with Nick on LinkedIn Follow Postal.io on Twitter and Instagram Postal.io website Outline of this Episode [1:50] About Postal.io [3:09] What is modern gift marketing [4:50] How are companies using gifting [7:20] Personalization with gifting [12:14] How does a marketer track the gift in the CRM [15:00] Webinars and gifting [17:24] Gifting and Marketing and Sales Alignment   Resources & People Mentioned The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice.

Podcasts are becoming more popular each day (there are more than a million podcasts and more than 30 million episodes available). So it’s not surprising that marketers are deciding to create a B2B podcast as a strategy to reach their buyers. But how do you start a B2B podcast and how do you make it work? That is the topic on this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast with my guest Rachel Clapp Miller, Vice President of Marketing and Digital Engagement at Force Management.  Force Management is a B2B sales effectiveness consulting firm that helps its clients define sales solutions and create management tools that produce measurable results. In her role, Rachel manages communication and content generation that drive leads and client engagement.  She is also the host of The Audible Ready Podcast, a weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and revenue-driving executives, who share their best insights on how a focus on sales effectiveness can help companies increase revenue, improve sales margins and gain market share.   Listen to this episode as Rachel tells us how she started the podcast and those factors that have made it successful. The Evolution of a B2B Podcast The Audible Ready Podcast was born organically, almost by accident.  Rachel was in charge of content marketing, blogging regularly, posting on social media and running demand generation activities. “I needed to get into the heads of the subject matter experts,” Rachel says. “So I started scheduling regular content chats with co-founder John Kaplan. We had conversations every other week about sales planning, pipeline, whatever it was we were producing content on.”  Rachel decided to record these conversations so she could listen to them later, but soon realized that she had a B2B podcast on her hands. So she kept recording the interviews as a podcast without telling John that she planned to publish them… A risk that paid off! After producing and editing some of the interviews, however, Rachel asked for the official green light to make the interviews an actual podcast. Fortunately, she got the approval and the podcast launched in 2015 as The Force Management Podcast.  Although people liked it, originally it was just a hobby and not a regular production of content.  However, as the company was growing, the podcast evolved. Rachel evaluated the marketing tactics and realized the podcast was a low hanging fruit, an effective B2B marketing tool they could leverage. So she hired a writer for the marketing team to maximize resources and also contracted an outside company to edit and publish the podcast. Rachel realized that since 2015, B2B podcasts had grown exponentially and to compete, Force Management had to take their podcast to the next level. That’s why in 2020 they did a complete rebranding, changing the name to The Audible Ready Podcast. The Goals of a B2B Podcast As a B2B marketer, how do you measure the impact your podcast has on your business?  The first thing is to set some goals, whether it is lead generation, sales enablement or branding. For Rachel and her team, the goal is to increase visibility and brand awareness. “There are many sales consulting firms, so we need to differentiate ourselves, and the podcast helps us do that,” Rachel says. “We sell to the C-suite and high-level sales leaders on the go. We want to give them different avenues to find us, other than the newsletter.”  The podcast also serves to remain top of mind with their target audience, in this case, sales reps, who are the users of their training programs. Furthermore, they have integrated the podcasts as added content to their training program, which not only increases the audience but serves as a tool to reinforce learning. We do the same with the Modern Marketing Engine podcast and our Modern Selling podcast, integrated into our Vengreso On Demand training portal.  Where to Find Content for a B2B Podcast So far, Rachel’s guests have been Force Management executives with stellar sales backgrounds.  “They are working with fast growing tech companies, so they have a boots-on-the-ground perspective,” Rachel says. However, she is planning to interview outside guests in the future. One thing that I loved about our conversation is that Rachel mentioned that the Force Management salespeople use the podcast to provide valuable information to their clients and even sometimes send her ideas for new episodes. In fact, she has on occasion bumped episodes to incorporate ideas from the sales team. That’s what I call real marketing and sales alignment! Measuring the Results of the Podcast  In business and in marketing we are always measuring the results of our activities to know if it is worthwhile to continue with that activity. A podcast is no exception. Rachel says her primary metric for her podcast is the number of unique downloads. This metric has been increasing over time. “The longer the podcast is out, the more downloads it gets. The podcast is building positive brand awareness, and that is valuable.” Another way Rachel’s team measures the success of the podcast is by the feedback and engagement on LinkedIn. For instance, John Kaplan regularly gets comments on his LinkedIn posts from people who heard him on the podcast. Don’t miss this episode to learn more about how a B2B podcast can help you build brand awareness and stay top of mind with your customers. Featured on This Episode Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn The Audible Ready Podcast Force Management’s website Outline of this Episode [2:25] About Force Management [3:25] History of The Audible Ready Podcast [9:33] Goal setting when doing a B2B podcast [13:34] Who to invite as guests for your B2B podcast [14:45] How sellers can use podcasts in their selling activities [18:26] Measuring the results of a B2B podcast Resources & People Mentioned The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/  https://twitter.com/bernieborges  https://instagram.com/bernieborges  https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast 

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice. The year 2020 has seen many marketing events cancelled, postponed or gone virtual due to COVID-19. And Content Marketing World, the largest event for content marketers held in person each fall is going 100% virtual as well.  My guest on this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine is Cathy McPhillips, VP of Marketing at the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), the organizer of Content Marketing World, which is one of my favorite marketing events (I have never missed one since its inception), by the way.  Cathy oversees all marketing efforts for CMI, their events, their Chief Content Officer magazine (now digital only), their research, CMI University and all other CMI properties and happenings. Her goal is to grow the CMI community and audience online and offline. Pre-CMI, Cathy has 20+ years experience in marketing, including agency life, B2C, national restaurant and nonprofit marketing, and her own marketing consulting business. She’s currently also a board member for The Orange Effect Foundation. Listen to my conversation with Cathy to learn about the exciting plans for this year’s Content Marketing World virtual event. Content Marketing World’s 10th Anniversary Content Marketing World is CMI’s flagship event and although many marketers like me were looking forward to attending the 10th anniversary event live and in person, we all understand the need for this year’s event to go virtual. However, this won’t be your typical online event. Cathy explains how the CMI team didn’t design a virtual version of the annual in-person Content Marketing World, because mimicking the live event is not feasible. Instead they are focusing on the tracks that make sense for virtual delivery and the speakers who embrace virtual speaking. This year’s theme is “Break the Rules.” As marketers we all have documented content strategies, such as frameworks, templates and calendars that we are following -- which are great of course. But, the CMI team asks, what if we step out of the comfort zone, be creative and break the rules to do something new? If we want to differentiate ourselves and our organizations, we must break the rules. That’s what the speakers at Content Marketing World will be talking about, bringing some great case studies. In fact, I have the privilege of delivering a session on Account Based Podcasting (ABP), a term I use for using podcast content for lead generation at target accounts. So, what’s different about this year’s event? Cathy says the CMI team wanted to create an epic experience for attendees but also avoid Zoom fatigue and the heavy load that comes from working from home and juggling a million things. So they reached out to their loyal community and asked them what they wanted for this virtual edition of Content Marketing World. Additionally, the CMI team studied hundreds of virtual events to see what they liked and disliked, not only in marketing but also in other industries to avoid limiting their creative thinking. Here’s a quick overview of what they came up with and what you can expect from the 10th Content Marketing World. Community activities before the event and sneak peeks of some talks to warm up the attendees.  Extra sessions in November and December to follow up on what will be taught during the event in October. Access to speakers to ask questions. Online discussions within small groups before and after sessions. Events spread across several days. Workshops and forums available as video on demand. Main conference over four days - October 13 to 16, 2020 Live keynotes. Virtual happy hours and entertainment. Cathy says they have also created a strategy for attendees and sponsors to connect virtually. Registrants will answer a few questions about their company and their needs, and then will be matched with exhibitors who match their interests in the “Solutions Hub.”  “I want attendees to know which sessions to attend and which sponsors to visit, craving time with sponsors,” Cathy says. The goal of the Content Marketing World team is that attendees leave with the ability to create epic content experiences for their customers and stakeholders. Speaking from personal experience, CMW has achieved this goal for nine consecutive years. I’m confident they’ll do it again in 2020.  Don’t miss this episode to learn more about the most epic event for content marketers and why you must attend. Hope to see you there! You can save $100 when you register with the code: BORGES100 Featured on This Episode Connect with Cathy on LinkedIn Follow Cathy on Twitter: @cmcphillips CMI’s website Content Marketing World   Outline of This Episode [2:10]  About the Content Marketing Institute [4:21]  Content Marketing World’s 10th Anniversary [11:30] Why this is NOT the virtual version of CMW [20:40] What CMI learned from studying other virtual events   Resources & People Mentioned The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice. There’s a powerful analogy used to describe the difference between an outbound and an inbound marketing strategy: an outbound strategy is like chasing or hunting for leads, while an inbound strategy is like attracting or luring leads to you. And although both marketing strategies have their merits and their limitations, my guest in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast, found great success for her organization when she shifted from an outbound to an inbound marketing strategy. Cynthia Barnes, Founder and CEO of National Association Women Sales Professionals (NAWSP) is a repeat guest here on my podcast. Cynthia is a LinkedIn Top Sales Influencer, highly sought-after keynote speaker, and Champion for Women in Sales, known for motivating others to feel confident, empowered, and brave. She founded the National Association of Women Sales Professionals (NAWSP) with one simple mission: to help women in sales reach the Top 1% and end gender inequality in sales. Women from around the globe have joined together to create a community of 15,000+ women in sales who band together for the support and professional development that only other women can provide. They want to level the playing field. They want to have conversations otherwise considered taboo and who want to hold leaders accountable and ask the hard questions. Listen to this episode to learn how Cynthia was able to grow NAWSP’s membership to more than 15,000 with a simple but well-thought of inbound marketing strategy. The story of NAWSP Cynthia recalls how a Facebook meme inspired her to start NAWSP. The meme said: “The true test of whether you are successful in life is not based on how well you do. It’s based on how many others you helped do well.” She realized she had been in the top 1% for many years and wondered how many women she could help reach that top 1% in sales. Women in sales have unique challenges that men don’t have, but also have innate strengths that they can tap into to get to that top 1% faster. Cynthia explains that women are often held back by the imposter syndrome or their inner critic and don’t know how to express themselves in the right way. NAWSP teaches women how to tap into their strengths such as relationship building and time management to overcome those challenges. And because 89% of sales leaders are male, when a woman wants to reach the top 1%, it benefits her to have a male sponsor. So, NAWSP has men who serve as allies, sponsors and mentors who help women in sales ascend the corporate ladder in their organizations. NAWSP’s Inbound Marketing Strategy At launch in 2016, NAWSP didn’t have a defined marketing strategy. In Cynthia’s words, it was a “cluster and haphazard at best,” doing Meet-ups and LinkedIn groups. But when they  started identifying the demographics and psychographics of their ideal member, things began to change.  There’s a marketing formula that NAWSP began to apply: M x M = R. That is: Message X Media = Result The first M is the message. What do you say to your target market to get them to stop scrolling? The second M is the media. Where do you put your message once it’s fine-tuned? Social media, radio, billboards? Result. In 2016, NAWSP didn’t have a clearly defined message nor a media platform to place that message, so their results were terrible. Once they identified how their ideal member thinks, her goals, her values, and her objections to the sale, they were able to create the right marketing message and found she was most likely to engage with them on LinkedIn and their results skyrocketed. In the early days, the focus was an outbound strategy, chasing potential members. But then they shifted their focus to attract members to what they had to offer. The current attraction content strategy includes blogs, webinars, events and the NAWSP community. They provide women with content that helps them become part of that top 1% in B2B sales organizations that are usually male-dominated. And once they have that, they want to be part of the community. NAWSP conducts polls about every 90 days to learn what their members want to achieve from the organization and to learn from a community of peers. This continuous conversation with the community, allows the organization to constantly nurture them with the content they want and need to reach their goals. An Inbound Marketing Success Story  A marketing strategy that NAWSP uses is to take one piece of content and repurpose it many times. For example, they created a webinar for their members to uplevel their skills and knowledge and at the same time used the webinar to attract sponsors interested in hiring women. According to Cynthia, their webinar sponsors see a 64% increase in women in sales hires, thus reaching their diversity and inclusion goals. NAWSP only partners with companies with strong women in sales initiatives that seek to attract, hire, develop and retain female sellers. The success of NASWP lies in their ability to attract members with the right inbound marketing strategy but also in retaining them through initiatives like the NAWSP Tribe, an online community where women in sales can bring their challenges, celebrate their successes and discuss what it is like to be women in sales. Listen to this episode to learn more about the NAWSP Tribe and how to grow your organization’s women in sales marketing strategy. Featured on This Episode Connect with Cynthia on LinkedIn Follow Cynthia on Twitter: @CynthiaMBarnes NAWSP website NAWSP Tribe Outline of This Episode [2:04]  What is NAWSP [2:57]  The inspiration for starting NAWSP [4:47] The unique challenges that women in sales face [5:35] The marketing strategy at launch vs. today [10:50]  NAWSP’s two member types  [11:31] The role of men in NAWSP [13:22] A success story with sponsors [15:59] Member’s ideas and the challenge of focusing on the mission [17:21] NAWSP Tribes [18:38] The vision of NAWSP in 2020  Resources & People Mentioned The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr. Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice. Companies must have a strategic plan to grow and expand, especially in challenging times like the current pandemic, where market dynamics have shifted and priorities have shifted. Most B2B companies use traditional market reports to guide their strategic decisions, but they are not enough. However, with the right market intelligence, B2B organizations can prioritize their accounts, reevaluate territories and rethink their ideal customer profile to actually thrive. In this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, my guest, Elizabeth Cholawsky, PhD, describes how technology intelligence helps companies plan with confidence and make better decisions. She is a seasoned executive leader in the technology industry with a strong focus on growing successful SaaS-based businesses. Elizabeth has led and worked with companies to build market-leading offerings, using in-house talent as well as through partnerships and acquisitions. Elizabeth is the CEO at HG Insights. The company has built the world’s largest and most accurate database of B2B technology customer intelligence, tracking more than a million businesses and the specific technology stack products they are using. Elizabeth won Comparably’s 2019 Best CEO for Women Award. This post summarizes our conversation. I invite you listen to the entire episode (33 minute interview) to learn more about market intelligence and how it can help your marketing or sales team succeed. Success Begins with Strategic Planning Whether your company is trying to determine which territories to expand to, how to align sales and marketing with the right accounts, staff your business appropriately and invest in effective tools for growth or persuade investors to fund you, or pivot due to COVID-19 you need strategic planning. But where do you start? You must start with data. Unfortunately, traditional market reports are not enough to make informed decisions. Most are based on customer surveys interpreted by analysts and provide only high-level numbers on potential size and growth of a market. These reports are too generic and not very actionable. This is where technology intelligence comes in. Technology Intelligence Elizabeth says that her clients are usually looking for much deeper insights than what’s provided on an analyst report, which is generally an estimate of the total available market (TAM) or serviceable available market (SAM). What they need is to understand their serviceable obtainable market (SOM), which represents the segment of the market they think they can realistically capture with their product or service. And to obtain the SOM, they need detailed tech intelligence on what technology products their accounts or prospective buyers have installed. Tech intelligence allows the entire organization to make better decisions. For instance: Sales leaders use granular tech intelligence to map out and divide their sales territories into regions that contain accounts that match their ideal customer profile (ICP). Sales and marketing teams use tech intelligence to develop and deliver highly relevant campaigns with messaging customized to a prospect’s strategic initiatives, existing solutions and pain points. Product teams use tech trending information to make decisions on which products they need to enhance or end, and what new solutions they need to develop to better compete in the future. Elizabeth says that the data HG Insights provides is so detailed that their clients can understand what technology products are installed at each account and what the budgets are for those products. That way they can make fair comparisons between markets. In our interview, Elizabeth shared an example contrasting tech intelligence between Germany and France, providing data to support the decision to invest in one country over the other. In Challenging Times You Must be Able to Change Your Plan Quickly When a crisis such as COVID-19 hits, organizations must re-think everything: from reevaluating territories to reevaluating their ICP. In the current environment, account prioritization becomes critical. How can the right market intelligence help marketing and sales teams to focus their efforts? Elizabeth says that tech intelligence can help sales by identifying accounts with the highest propensity to buy, with insights about a company’s tech stack and what their budgets are. And it can help marketing in developing messaging to address pain points for better engagement rates. One success story Elizabeth shared is Citrix, which used tech intelligence to build an $80M pipeline, reduce sales cycles by 30% and quadruple the rate at which they turned leads into opportunities. Listen to the entire episode as Elizabeth shares more details about how the right market intelligence can enable B2B companies to identify the best opportunities, even in the midst of the COVID crisis. Featured on This Episode Connect with Elizabeth on LinkedIn HG Insights website Outline of This Episode [1:58] About HG Insights and Tech Intelligence [4:35] Elizabeth’s journey: From PhD to CEO [6:57] Having the right market intelligence: Where do you start? [9:25] The role of market intelligence in strategic planning [12:55] The Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) [14:55] What are companies doing with intelligence data in 2020? [18:30] The impact of market intelligence on product teams [20:39] A success case study of a company increasing their pipeline with market intelligence  Resources & People Mentioned HG Insights The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice. Marketing and sales plans conceived in early 2020 are either no longer relevant or no longer work, so B2B sales teams have had to change how they sell (and sometimes even WHAT they sell) to adapt to the new environment of the COVID world. In this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, I talk with Jillian Ryan about some of the pivots B2B companies are making to respond to the changing marketing and sales landscape. Jillian is a principal analyst on the eMarketer vertical for Insider Intelligence. Her expertise and analysis focus on B2B marketing, advertising and sales, as well as trends in marketing transformation and the modern workplace. As a former B2B marketing director, Jillian has over 15 years experience driving strategy for B2B software companies and digital publishers. She is also a frequent presenter at industry events such as The B2B Marketing Exchange, Advertising Week and Social Media Week and her commentary has been featured in Bloomberg, CNN, The Wall Street Journal and Ad Week. Listen to this episode as we discuss how B2B sales teams are pivoting to succeed in the COVID world. Two Pivots for B2B Sales Teams At the beginning of the COVID crisis, many B2B sales teams were left in the dark while executives shifted priorities and marketing teams figured out new messaging. Sellers wondered what would happen with their quotas, if their jobs were secure and what would the future look like. Sales leaders had to pivot and inform their teams that budgets shifted from live events to other channels such as video conferencing and video sales prospecting. Pivot #1: From Live Events to Virtual Events For B2B companies, in-person events in a pre-COVID world were a pivotal touchpoint to drive demand, secure active deals and build stronger connections with prospects. These events took on many forms: some companies hosted their own events to launch new products and features and provide their audience with educational and thought leadership content. Other B2B companies relied on trade shows to showcase their products, while others participated in large scale industry events to meet with partners and potential customers. Today, virtual digital events are the norm. This is what Jillian discovered in her research. Pivot #2: From In-Person Meetings to Virtual Meetings Without face-to-face events, business travel and meetings, sellers have lost critical touchpoints with their prospects during this pandemic. Further, navigating conversations with potential buyers during an economic crisis is not easy. B2B sellers who are consultative, creative and empathic can find success. The obvious pivot is to virtual meetings with 77% of salespeople in North America saying they are doing more while sheltering in place, according to April 2020 research from LinkedIn®. Phone calls (57%) and emails (51%) also saw increased usage with sellers looking to engage with buyers. How Sales Video Came to the Forefront in the COVID World Without the possibility of face-to-face interaction, video calls are on the rise. This includes asynchronous video sales messaging. Although it’s very easy to hop on a call now because work schedules are less cluttered with business trips, getting a buyer to respond is also increasingly challenging as bandwidth for Zoom calls competes with the pressures of being locked in the home with kids, family members and other COVID-driven challenges. There is no universal answer to these challenges: it depends on the individual buyer. That’s why sales leaders are increasingly teaching their sellers to use sales video messaging to connect with prospects in a manner that allows flexibility in how they respond while working from home, but also includes the personal touch that is lost in written digital communications. In fact, according to LikedIn®, video messages have 5x better response rates than written messages. Jillian says that not only the message has to pivot in the COVID world, but also the format -- and video is the way to do it. ABM in the COVID World Tactics and strategies that enable B2B teams to be more precise with their messaging and dissemination will get results in a COVID world. This includes segmentation, personalization and target account-based marketing (ABM) approaches. Jillian says that today buyers are being more intentional, so marketers and sellers need to be more intentional. B2B companies must identify and prioritize their target accounts. Of course, any data analysis and account identification that was done pre-COVID needs to be revisited as it may no longer be valid. Buyers are different now; therefore, the approach to reach them needs to be different. Some industries that were hit hard by COVID (such as airlines) are harder to reach. “They don’t want to talk to you,” says Jillian, “unless you help them pivot and recover; show them how your solution is a necessity in this period of time.” Listen to this episode as Jillian explains how to rethink ABM and how to get serious about customer data. Now is the time to serve and support your customers with their current needs. In the new normal, buyers will remember those sellers that were supportive during the COVID crisis. Featured on This Episode Connect with Jillian on LinkedIn eMarketer website Jillian’s article: COVID-19’s Impact on the B2B Industry Outline of This Episode [1:45] Jillian’s work at eMarketer. [4:12] Why marketing and sales plans from early 2020 don’t work anymore. [10:29] The importance of sales video in the COVID world. [17:37] Why the B2B buying process is more complex now. [19:29] The Pivot to ABM in the COVID world. [31:33] B2B pressures ahead.  Resources & People Mentioned eMarketer Insider Intelligence The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr. Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice. Growth marketing is what drives pipeline and increases sales in the long run. The correlation is undisputed. During a time of social and financial disruption like the current COVID-19 pandemic, growth marketing can be perceived by some as insensitive and opportunistic. What is the modern marketer’s best response? I’m happy to have Meredyth Jensen as my guest on this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast. She serves as Senior Vice President, Corporate Marketing & Brand Communications at RGP. During our conversation, I learned that RGP is a spinoff from Deloitte in 1996 and has become a global company that has served more than 80 of the Fortune 100 companies with services spanning financial, legal, HR, IT and supply chain. Meredyth’s perspective is simple yet powerful: Marketing that is human is marketing that works, no matter the social or economic climate. Join us for this intriguing conversation where Meredyth outlines her personal approach to her own marketing career, why RGP has not missed a beat in its marketing efforts despite COVID-19, and so you can benefit from her advice on ways you might want to adjust your marketing approach to reach your ideal customers. We Marketers Still Need To Do Our Job During Social And Economic Crisis Every season in the life of a business has its unique challenges, but right now (H1 of 2020) companies worldwide are facing unprecedented obstacles. COVID-19 has changed the story when it comes to the needs of the consumer or business we’re marketing to. Many things that used to be pertinent talking points have become irrelevant — or at least no longer appropriate to be part of the marketing conversation. In this environment, marketing teams still have to do their job, albeit with more compassion than ever. Meredyth acknowledges that although this is true, it doesn’t change the approach of brands who have been doing marketing with an authentic emphasis on people all along. Meredyth approaches marketing from a “human” perspective, meaning she leads her team to craft both her marketing approach and messages to the person on the other end of the conversation. She wants to provide true care FOR that person, whatever form it might take. That's a big reason why her transition into her current role at RGP is such a perfect fit. Hear more about when you listen to this episode.  RGP’s moniker is "The Power of Human." This is a mindset that most marketers would say they want in their approach but one that's not always practiced. Listen to this podcast episode to hear Meredyth explain the RGP mindset to get inspired in your own growth marketing strategy. How Can A Company Be Truly Human? It may sound like hyperbole to say that RGP, a business that serves over 80 of the Fortune 100 companies is a “human” company, but it’s legit. Meredyth explains that she hears it from their customers. One of the most common sentiments expressed by their customers goes something like this, “You don’t just work for us, you work with us.” To Meredyth, that’s proof that the RGP team has “the power of human” in their DNA. The vision is more than a slogan at RGP. Human is how they do business. The people on the other end of their marketing are what matter. The assumption that when the customer is cared for in a human way, loyalty and profitability are natural outcomes, has proved to be true since their founding in 1996. Marketing practitioners have much to learn from such a great example. Listen to learn more about how to orient your growth marketing around a human approach. Growth Marketing Cares For The People On The Other End At the outset of this episode you’ll hear Meredyth say the following… “I don’t even want to say we’re marketing to people right now. We’re helping people. How can we be helpful and be a resource and be useful?” Her comment is at the heart of what it means to be human as a company. It’s a practice of care and concern for the people behind any possible sales conversation. COVID-19 is a stark example of how the circumstances that happen in life impact both the needs of companies as well as the needs of the people within those businesses.  Think it through for your situation — as those you seek to do business with work through the situations caused by this pandemic. Consider how you can be a resource to them in ways that are helpful and of value? That type of care and concern for the people your business serves builds a level of trust that may not yield immediate business results but may open the door to a relationship that can serve both you and them in the future. This mindset is well suited for a virtual sales team as well as they engage in their selling activities with customers whether it’s an existing customer or a new customer.  Join us for this conversation to learn more about how growth marketing can be human. Featured on This Episode Meredyth on LinkedIn Meredyth on Twitter: @mljinpdx RGP The RGP resource page for COVID-19 concerns Outline of This Episode [2:06] Meredyth’s role at RGP and the mission of the company [4:55] The three pillar approach to modern marketing Meredyth applies [7:12] What drove RGP’s recent rebrand? [10:45] How RGP achieved its “more human” reputation in the industry [13:28] COVID-19 has impacted growth marketing in these ways [17:04] The sales mindset shift required in the COVID-19 era [22:12] My summary of this conversation and Meredyth’s take away points Resources & People Mentioned The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice. Every team of marketers needs to drive marketing results that matter, and as my guest on this episode says, “I’ve never heard a marketing team say, ‘We’ve got all the budget we need!’ “ That’s especially true for small teams. On this episode, David Buffaloe, CMO of Vertical IQ shares the steps marketing leaders can take to drive marketing results despite having limited resources. Vertical IQ provides insights into what’s happening on a variety of levels in over 500 industries. By tapping into the data available through Vertical IQ you will quickly become an industry expert; which equips you to find, connect with, resource, and close new customers and nurture relationships with existing customers. You’ll enjoy hearing the insightful strategies David has for assessing your marketing approach, choosing and using automation effectively, locating the right talent and nurturing their success, and producing marketing results that drive the bottom line profitability of your company. I invite you to listen! The First Step To Optimizing Your Small Marketing Team Is... ...Assessment! David has only been in his present position as CMO of Vertical IQ for 7 months at the time of this conversation, but he’s been in marketing for over 25 years. His approach when stepping into leadership at any organization is to assess the state of the company and the current marketing approach. This includes understanding the needs of the company and the needs of the audience they are selling to. He asks questions about the content currently being produced and what is missing. He considers the opportunities for driving demand, building brand awareness, and how thought leadership is being used and can be used more effectively to build expertise in the industry.  When this kind of assessment is done you’ll better understand how to make best use of what you have in place and what skills are needed on your team to utilize those resources and drive marketing results. There is so much here, you won’t want to miss what David has to share. Prioritizing Tasks That Drive Marketing Results For small marketing teams a clear set of priorities must be established so that the real limitations that exist can be optimized. As David says, “You can’t do everything and you can’t do everything well.” Choosing the right priorities and balancing the difference between long-term needs and the short-term impact you can make is essential. It’s your assessment that will help you identify and drive the right priorities.  Once you’re clear on what you need to be doing, you should set up your processes and systems in agile ways. This is important with a small marketing team because things change too quickly for a “set it and forget it” approach. Adaptable, flexible teams and systems can make the most of every situation and continue driving qualified leads to the sales team so they can generate closed-won deals. Learn To Balance Automation With The Need To Remain Adaptable Since David emphasized the need to be agile, it was interesting to hear that he also encourages the use of automation. When I asked him to clarify how the two fit together he said that marketing automation is great but that you can have too much. When overburdened with automation options, a marketing team can hamper its own efficiency and effectiveness.  David recommends you start sorting out your automation needs by asking yourself “WHEN is the best time to automate within our current marketing and sales alignment sequence?” He encourages you to understand your audience intimately, understand the typical buyer’s journey, and THEN you’ll see clearly WHEN is the right time to automate. Some suggestions for where automation typically fits best are... Adding automation to the initial touches with prospects so they receive helpful, value-adds immediately upon showing interest. When a prospect comes into the funnel but is not entirely ready to have a sales conversation, you can add automated sales enablement and industry-specific pieces that will add value to them and address questions or reservations that are common with people in their position. What Metrics Indicate Marketing Results That Matter? Metrics are vital for any marketing team. Without them, how are you going to know which of your efforts is effective and which needs to be improved or abandoned? David agrees and emphasizes that you need to focus on the right metrics. What he calls “vanity metrics” are to be avoided. What are vanity metrics? The typical questions asked around vanity metrics are… How many leads came in this month? How many followers do we have on social? How many website impressions are we seeing?  While these questions will undoubtedly have numeric answers, they are not specific enough to be truly helpful. Instead, David says we should be focusing on what he calls “Impact metrics:”  How are we doing at moving people from one stage of the buyer’s journey to another? How many opportunities have we created and how many of those have turned into pipeline? What marketing activities are directly attributable to closed-won deals? Listen to hear David describe these important distinctions and how to use them effectively to drive marketing results that will make a difference in the bottom line of your organization. Featured on This Episode VerticalIQ’s website: https://VerticalIQ.com/Covid-19 Follow David on LinkedIn Connect with David on Twitter: @dbuffaloe Outline of This Episode [1:12] Why industry intelligence is beneficial to sales and marketing teams [4:14] What’s the role of a marketing team in getting things done? [11:14] Finding a balance between adding automation and remaining agile as a team [16:09] How to identify the skills needed to focus on your top priorities [20:25] What about measurement? What needs to be measured, what doesn’t? Resources & People Mentioned VerticalIQ’s FREE COVID-19 Resource site: https://VerticalIQ.com/Covid-19 The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice. With the changes happening in the business world due to the Coronavirus crisis, many marketing leaders are learning that managing a remote team of marketers is not a simple matter. Since the entire Vengreso team is remote- now known as “WFH” (work from home) - I wanted to offer help for those making the transition. I invited Matt Langie, CMO of Xant to help me pull it off. And, he delivered!  Matt’s background working for tech giant Adobe and other tech firms has enabled him to amass the experience you’d expect from the CMO of an up and coming sales technology company like Xant. During his career, he’s had plenty of experience working with remote marketing teams so his insight into the subject will serve you well. If you’re a team member who’s now working from home or a manager looking for tips on how to manage a remote team, you’ll find Matt’s advice to be golden. Don’t miss it!  This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at www.SalesCadenceGuide.com Managing A Remote Team Begins With Setting Clear Expectations If your marketing team has been moved off-campus due to the “shelter at home” restrictions implemented by local authorities, you're not alone. If you're a team leader, you’ve got to remember that many of your team members have never had to work in that kind of an isolated, distraction-prone environment before. They’re going to need your help to set proper boundaries and approach their work with an attitude that will enable your entire team to thrive. Start by setting expectations for work hours, meeting attendance and protocols, and the use of tech platforms you’ll use to communicate and share resources. When remote team members understand what's expected of them and the tools they’ll be using to accomplish their work, they’ll feel more confident in their new environment. Your proactive leadership and patience will go a long way in helping them make a healthy transition. Remote Marketers Need To Set Appropriate Boundaries At Home Consider the differences between working in an office environment as opposed to a home office. First off, many people on your team who are transitioning to working from their homes don’t have an actual office in their homes. They may have to set up shop on a dining room table, in a corner of the basement, or in a spare bedroom. That sort of isolation in itself is going to be very different for them. In addition, many of them will have pets, children, or spouses at home who need to be considered and taken into account—and your team still needs to get their work done! Help your team understand the importance of setting appropriate physical and psychological boundaries for themselves and with their family members. When they do, they will help their “home team” (their families) come alongside their efforts to continue working and will make it easier for everyone to understand how this “new normal” needs to work. Matt has great advice about the issues to address and how to address them sensitively and with compassion. A Remote Team Needs The Tools To Succeed It’s wise for marketing managers who are transitioning team members to remote work to take a careful look at the tools typically used in their office environment. Does the software and platforms you’ve been using for on-campus work fit the digital/remote context? Do you need to find new ways to communicate, collaborate, and deliver assets? Matt says that most teams will need laptop computers, clear channels of communication, and processes that fit the remote work situation. Making communication clear and effective is key. Matt says that his remote teams have weekly check-in meetings every Monday morning using a video conferencing platform. Seeing each others’ faces, hearing the tone of voice and seeing the body language of team members goes a long way toward building a sense of being in this together. As well, getting clear on the workflow for the week helps everyone be on the same page and feel connected to what’s going on. In his words, managers need to “over-communicate” to ensure everything is understood clearly, including deliverables and deadlines and that work is progressing according to schedule. Don’t Forget To Celebrate The Wins Of Your Remote Team In your office environment, you experience natural opportunities to celebrate with your team. Office drop-ins, high-fives, and other regular celebrations of progress and success are fairly common on a healthy team. When team members go remote, team celebrations become more difficult but no less important. If you are the team leader, it’s your job to ensure that wins are still celebrated and that everyone has the opportunity to join in. Matt suggests using a portion of your meeting time each week to share wins, large and small. He also suggests the use of workflow platforms to encourage sharing and interaction that builds and supports team spirit. The point is that team members and the contributions they make are no less valuable when accomplished remotely. The manager needs to ensure everyone feels valued and is recognized regularly for their part in the success of the whole. There’s a whole lot more Matt and I talked about on this episode, so make sure you take the time to listen. You’ll hear how he’s been able to lead remote teams successfully and I’m sure you’ll learn some tips to help you make your team’s transition to remote work successful. Featured on This Episode Xant online Connect with Matt on LinkedIn Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattLangie Follow Xant on Twitter: @XANT_AI Connect with Xant on LinkedIn Outline of This Episode [1:32] Xant’s place in the marketplace and Matt’s role there [6:31] How marketing leaders can motivate remote teams who are newly remote [11:39] Why physical and psychological boundaries are important for working at home [13:32] What are the best ways to manage projects and deliverables remotely? [15:27] How can you celebrate wins together when working remotely? [17:10] Strategies to make online meetings productive and powerful [20:58] Managing remote teams toward appropriate working hours Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at www.SalesCadenceGuide.com Trello Wrike Zoom GotoMeeting Microsoft Teams Blue Jean video platform The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Marketing 2.0 a Decade Later is a deep dive into “Modern Selling” with the Godfather of social media marketing Mr. Bernie Borges.  Bernie is currently the Chief Marketing Officer of Vengreso.  He is host of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast and the author of Marketing 2.0, one of the first 50 books written on social media strategy.  This episode unpacks the evolution of online marketing in the decade since Bernie authored his book.  From social media marketing to “modern selling”, Bernie Borges has remained a thought leader and one of the most respected figures in the digital marketing world, continually recognized for his leadership.  Bernie is recognized by TopRank as a Top 50 Content Marketing Influencer, by Onalytica as a Top 100 Artificial Intelligence Influencer, as well as a Marketing Insider Group Top 60 Marketing Speaker.  He is a regular contributor to Social Media Today and Business 2 Community. 

  Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice. Growth marketing is about increasing pipeline so the sales organization can be more successful, faster. My guest on this episode of the podcast approaches growth marketing through hyper-personalization. What is that? Imagine yourself driving down the highway and two billboards appear along the road. One is a generic, “buy this product from us” presentation while the other speaks directly to you, addressing a very specific personal need you have. Which are you most drawn to? Ari Capogeannis is Senior Marketing Director in charge of Demand Generation for Cumulus Networks.The company designs and sells a Linux operating system to deliver networking solutions for large datacenter, cloud computing, and enterprise environments. . Ari has seen how hyper-personalization —directed at every person within the decision-making unit of mid-market and enterprise businesses — can accelerate sales pipeline with truly qualified leads as well as decrease the time to close. Listen to hear a brief but deep-dive explanation of what hyper-personalized growth marketing could do for your modern marketing strategy. This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at www.SalesCadenceGuide.com Acquisition, Engagement, Retention: Three Pillars Of Growth Marketing Ari explains that there are three aspects of growth marketing that must be mastered:  Acquisition Engagement Retention  He explains how a hyper-personalized approach to growth marketing can improve the effectiveness of each of these pillars by introducing a new concept: He calls it “Demand Gen 3.0.” Demand Gen 1.0 is marketing that’s focused on marketing qualified leads (MQLs) which is primarily a volume play with limitations. Demand Gen 2.0 is focused on generating opportunities within target accounts and managing those opportunities in collaboration with the sales team. It uses scoring models to develop accountability and measure the journey of those opportunities. It’s less about leads. It’s all about driving opportunities at accounts.  Demand Gen 3.0—which is what Ari is advocating— refers to a holistic approach whereby marketers create a digital experience that addresses specific pain points of each person encountered on the website and other digital channels. Different than 1.0 and 2.0, this 3.0 approach is not just lead gen and it’s not just coming up with scoring models that allow sales teams to be more efficient. Demand Gen 3.0 is about leveraging the marketing technology stack to deliver messaging that speaks directly to the pain points of the varied members of the decision-making team within a prospective customer's decision-making unit. It’s done by segmenting content according to role and persona and also providing it directly to the sales team for their use. What Size Marketing Staff Is Required to Hyper-Personalize Marketing This Way? An approach to growth marketing that dives so deeply into hyper-personalization by personas and buying stages sounds very people intensive. It’s understandable to think that it could require many people. But Ari explains how, by making the right choices about tools within the MarTech stack and centralizing the data, these tasks can be handled by a team of one, two or three people, of course depending on their other responsibilities. He says you must hone in on the tools that can integrate effectively. You may need to replace four or five separate technologies in your MarTech stack to achieve centralization of data that enables your team to manage personalized messaging. This change will impact everything, including targeting, predictive analytics, sales enablement and more in a way that accelerates your ability to be effective in this growth marketing strategy. Effectively Passing Personalized Assets To The Sales Organization By using this streamlined set of predictive analytics tools and other MarTech solutions, Ari's team can discover insights about the prospect’s buying journey, both on and off the company’s website. Off-site: Are people researching key brand terms or other terms related to the products that Cumulus Networks sells? Are they exhibiting behavior that indicates an interest in the company’s offerings?  On-site: Ari's team can tell exactly when people from matched accounts are hitting the website each day, tie it to a sales territory, and arrange to sort each one by sales engagement stage. Then he can identify leads that indicate buying intent and provide them to the appropriate person in the sales organization. The integrated and centralized way the tech stack works enables sales to understand the content paths they should use—by vertical, purchase intent, stage, who they are competing against, etc. Ari refers to this as “People-Based Marketing”—it IS ABM but not focused on the account, it’s focused on the people within the account’s decision-making unit. Among the many results, Ari says that this hyper-personalization reduces time to close by as much as 50%. That’s impressive. Listen to this episode to hear first-hand from Ari about growth marketing through hyper-personalization.    Featured on This Episode Connect with Ari Capogeannis on LinkedIn Follow Ari on Twitter: @Capogeannis Cumulus Networks - where Ari serves as Senior Marketing Director Outline of This Episode [1:39] Ari’s role and goals at Cumulus Networks [3:05] Why should growth marketing take place through hyper personalization? [7:48] Unpacking the tools and approach underneath Demand Gen 3.0 [10:03] What impact does this approach have on a marketing staff? ]17:03] Reviewing metrics of prospects and decision-makers [27:50] Metrics that show the effectiveness of these growth marketing approaches  Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at www.SalesCadenceGuide.com The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice Who is best equipped to carry out an effective Sales Enablement Strategy? Sales? Marketing? Maybe another department? Bernie’s guest on this episode of Modern Marketing Engine is Genefa Murphy PhD, SVP and CMO at Micro Focus, one of the world’s largest digital transformation solutions providers. Genefa believes that Marketing should own Sales Enablement and the goal of this podcast episode is to understand why. We'll also get a peek into how it’s being carried out at Micro Focus.  You’ll learn how Genefa’s team organizes “Sales Councils” to inform and empower Sales Enablement, how they go about repurposing and creating the right content for Sales, and how she evaluates Sales Enablement efforts both qualitatively and quantitatively. Be sure you listen to the entire podcast episode! This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at www.SalesCadenceGuide.com Is There A Compelling Reason For Sales Enablement To Belong In Marketing? Genefa believes that the buyer’s journey is influenced by both marketing and sales. Marketing delivers messaging to the marketplace, which establishes brand identity and reputation, while sales delivers the message first-hand to potential customers. She says it’s crucial that identical messaging is happening in both of those scenarios and that Marketing is best equipped to ensure that happens. But, the insular perspective of a marketer could come up short when it comes to real-life scenarios that sellers face. Additionally, the buyer’s journey is not linear, so there must be a continuous feedback loop that allows for iteration and improvement of resources, training, and Sales Enablement methodology. In Genefa’s words, having Sales Enablement under the Marketing banner “enables marketing and sales to be singing from the same sheet of music.” However, contrary to what you might think the relationship between Marketing and Sales isn’t always completely harmonious. In her words, there needs to be a “healthy tension” between them so there is a kind of push-back that allows for mutual growth and accountability between the two teams. How Content Fits Into An Effective Sales Enablement Strategy One of the clear areas of need that Sales Enablement must meet is that of creating effective tools and resources that can be delivered to team members in all roles within the sales organization. With that goal in mind, Genefa’s Sales Enablement team has developed a robust content repository that enables them to get the right content into the hands of the right team members, and in the timing that matches each stage of the buying journey. They’ve developed: Case studies Competitive battle cards Buyer profiles and personas Competitive intel Sales flows Objective handling resources Door openers and MORE This wealth of content enables sellers to reinforce company messaging more effectively, avoid duplication of effort, increase consistency, avoid fragmented customer experiences, and leverage the knowledge and expertise of the individuals on her team who have in-the-trenches sales experience. Making Contracts Between Sales And Sales Enablement Through A Sales Council A great example of applying a Sales Enablement Strategy to great effect can be seen in the way Micro Focus rolled out its new sales methodology. In order to get buy-in from everyone company-wide and to facilitate consistency, the Sales Enablement team created a “Sales Council” in collaboration with Sales Leadership. It’s a team made up of individuals from all roles within the Sales organization who serve as a sounding-board for Sales Enablement. Genefa says this step was vital because it enabled the Sales Enablement team — those responsible for building the methodology into practical tools — to create something relevant and useful for the Sales team, those who consume and use the content. An additional benefit is that the members of these Sales Councils became vested in the process personally and thus became advocates within their departments for the Sales Enablement strategy behind the new Sales Methodology. Adoption was effective as a result. How Genefa Measures Micro Focus’ Sales Enablement Strategy Genefa confesses that she enjoys data and the insights that come from it. But she also realizes that the data may not tell the whole story. There are ways to measure the effectiveness of their Sales Enablement strategy that are not strictly tied to the metrics, but also give them viable insight into the impact of the strategy. To that end, Genefa pays close attention to what’s happening during the day to day interactions with the sales team. Are Sales professionals reaching out to the Sales Enablement team with questions or for help? If yes, that means the tools being created by Sales Enablement are being used. During sales meetings, are sales reps referring to the tools Sales Enablement has provided pertaining to their selling activities? If so, it’s a great indication that the right tools have been created. But that’s purely a qualitative analysis, what about the quantitative markers that metrics provide? Genefa looks at the data to discover whether the Sales team is becoming certified in the new methodologies in greater numbers, if there is evidence of greater pipeline productivity, if they are closing more deals or closing them faster, and if they are increasing the value of opportunities. All of these metrics indicate that the tools created by Sales Enablement are being used and are proving to be effective in the sales organization. Listen to hear more details of Genefa’s Sales Enablement Strategy at one of the largest digital transformation companies in the world - Micro Focus. It’s on this episode of Modern Marketing Engine. Featured on This Episode Genefa Murphy on LinkedIn Follow Genefa on Twitter: @GenefaMurphy Micro Focus - where Genefa serves as Chief Marketing Officer Outline of This Episode [1:54] Genefa’s role at MicroFocus and how her career path led her to it [3:51] The definition of “Sales Enablement” from Genefa’s perspective [5:23] Making the case for Sales Enablement being part of Marketing [7:18] Threading the pieces together: the MicroFocus approach [10:22] Putting together “sales councils” within the company [14:27] The ongoing challenge of delivering Sales Enablement to a massive sales team [20:10] Measuring success of Sales Enablement efforts [22:47] What’s next for the MicroFocus Sales Enablement team? Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at www.SalesCadenceGuide.com The Challenger Sales Methodology The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice. The Unique DNA Of This Global Brand Sykes is a leading provider of customer engagement services with a rich, 40 year history serving global and emerging brands. One demonstration of how Sykes is uniquely different than many long-lived brands is the story of how Ian Barkin came to be part of the company. Ian was previously co-founder and CSO of Symphony Ventures, a professional services firm focused on designing, delivering, and managing modern business processes. The company was so successful that it got the attention of Sykes leadership and was acquired by the company. When that happened, Ian was offered a spot in the C-suite of Sykes as Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer and he says now that he couldn’t be more delighted with this role. Ian says the exposure he had to the culture at Sykes while acquisition talks were underway impressed him. Particularly, he appreciated that Sykes leadership often referred to team members as “family,” a practice he and his co-founders at Symphony had intentionally used as they developed their 200-person team. When he was offered a role on the Sykes executive team after the acquisition was complete, Ian felt it was a great opportunity and an amazing fit from a cultural perspective. You don't see that kind of open attitude at the global level very often. Pillar 1: Internal Marketing That Fuels The Global Brand When we speak of “internal marketing” we’re talking about the communication of the company values and mission to those already employed with the company. Ian doesn’t feel the Sykes approach of using the #OneSykes messaging was anything novel, but the way they implemented it was quite unique. The strategy is “to teach us about ourselves, to get us all aligned.” This means enabling everyone on the team to know about the rich set of services the company offers, to cultivate a very real sense of unity among team members, and to encourage a sense of integration and collaboration between services. In the end, Ian wants everyone within the Sykes employee family to feel a sense of pride about being a part of the team and about delivering amazing solutions to their customers.  To market these values and distinctives internally, Ian has been traveling to company offices around the globe, meeting with managers and teams and amplifying the “We Are One Sykes” message. He’s had rich experiences as he’s connected with teams around the globe and witnessed their enthusiasm and determination regarding the company’s approach to serving its customers. Pillar 2: Branding In The Marketplace For Education And Reputation Building The interesting part of what the Sykes team is doing in this regard centers around the company’s traditional set of services — which primarily provided call center services. Many in the industries they serve view them as “the call center people," which is now only a subset of their overall portfolio of solutions they offer to the global marketplace they serve.  With a desire to expand awareness among customers and prospective-customers about the company’s robust solution portfolio, the Sykes team devised a somewhat tongue-in-cheek campaign they refer to as #NotJustAllTalk — a play on words that communicates how the company offers much more than call center support services while at the same time proving that they deliver on what they promise. This marketing approach is contributing to an expansion of opportunity within their customer base and elevation of the brand’s reputation in the marketplace.  One such example of creative communication is the Sykes OneTAKE video podcast, hosted by Ian. The purpose of this show is to feature a business leader on topics that span innovation, sustainability, entrepreneurship, sales, marketing, customer service and more. Bernie was recently featured on OneTAKE where he spoke with Ian about the evolving role of modern selling to engage effectively with the modern buyer.  In fact, this podcast was recorded on site at the Sykes OneTAKE studio. Pillar 3: Branding for Talent Recruiting As a global brand, Sykes is always recruiting new members for its team. Ian says that part of his role is to deliver marketing messaging that fuels the perpetual recruitment engine. A huge challenge to this task is that Sykes is recruiting for positions around the globe. The potential for cultural and social differences in different regions can impact the strategy when communicating recruitment messages. Though his team could be developing messages to recruit for one position, that role may be carried out in various places around the globe. That means how the message is said and knowledge of which social media channels are prevalent in each geographic region are vital to recruiting effectiveness. Ian says that he works closely with local HR and recruitment teams to ensure that the approach he’s taking is on target. The team members on the ground in the area where recruitment is done have the best perspective from which to approach the communication. Featured on This Episode Sykes Connect with Ian on LinkedIn Follow Ian on Twitter: @ibarkin Bernie Borges on Sykes OneTAKE video podcast Outline of This Episode [1:35] Ian’s journey as CMO of Sykes, a global brand that helps companies help their customers [4:35] An overview of the 3 areas Sykes focuses on for marketing [9:18] The basis of the cultural “gelling” that happens within Sykes [10:02] The #OneTake strategy and mindset [13:10] The massive array of services Sykes has added to its offerings [17:18] Working to attract and retain team members across the globe Resources & People Mentioned The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice.  Events have been a notoriously difficult marketing channel to measure when it comes to adding qualified leads to the sales pipeline. Much of that difficulty has been due to the limits of the technology marketers have used for years, but there are also shortfalls that have happened in the realms of strategy and planning that need to be addressed. Bernie’s guest on this episode of Modern Marketing Engine is Corey McCarthy, CMO of Socio—a company whose customizable event apps are changing the way companies engage with and measure event leads. Listen to discover how to coordinate event lead generation efforts with sales, how to get marketing and sales on the same page for event planning and strategy, how to make sure event leads make it into the sales pipeline, and ultimately how to measure contribution to sales pipeline through events. Mark your calendar for February 26th and 27th in Salt Lake City at the Grand America Hotel for NEXT 2020. Register now using the discount code ‘Vengreso’ and save 40% Click here to sign-up! Why Has The ROI On Events Been So Difficult To Track? In the past, lead capture at events has not been easy or effective. Corey points out that the paper-spitting dinosaur marketers have used for years - printers - are still around and are part of the ongoing problem of tracking event ROI.  The good news is that events don’t have to remain on the fringes of effective tracking. This is the age of data and technology has changed in ways that provide options for capturing and integrating leads from events into existing CRM systems. There are also many lessons-learned from past failures that savvy marketing and sales leaders can implement to make event planning and strategy pay off more. Listen to hear how Corey leads her team to make the most of events through effective planning and the use of technology. How To Effectively Tackle The Handoff Of Event Leads To Sales To make sure leads collected at events make it into the sales follow-up pipeline, you have to start at the top. Corey says you must align marketing and sales at the highest levels so that everyone is pursuing the same goals for the event. Part of the problem in the past has been that while sales leaders have often set goals for events they have failed to clearly set KPIs for the sales team selected to attend the event. There has also been a failure when it comes to setting ground rules for event participants. An example that resonates with Bernie is that sales reps at the event should not be allowed to conduct sales calls or demos from their hotel rooms while at the event if that would require missing pre-assigned event responsibilities.  It’s also beneficial to understand the context of an event to maximize the spend and manpower invested. Event attendees are often decision-makers who are hard to connect with through traditional means, so wisely making a priority of connecting with them at the event is key to effectively creating sales conversations .  How Marketing And Sales Can Collaborate For Events From A Planning Standpoint Corey was kind enough to walk Bernie through her event planning process to demonstrate the pieces that make for effective collaboration and strategy.  Corey says that she (the CMO) looks at her calendar for the coming year so she can plan events the company will participate in— and identify the personnel that should be assigned to participate in those events. She’ll coordinate with sales leadership to select the sales reps for each event whose skills best match the needs of the potential attendees. From there, Corey communicates with sales leadership so they can plan travel budgets and clear the schedules of sales reps accordingly. Once the top leaders from marketing and sales have chosen their team, they will pull together that team to discuss the event, their goals for it, and to communicate expectations and KPIs. They will assess prospects who are expected to attend and get their SDRs started with outreach to those individuals. They hope to book meeting times with those prospects during the event. This kind of collaboration from the top levels of sales and marketing is essential. If strategy doesn’t start from the top it breaks down quickly. Make Sure Event Activities Fill The Sales Pipeline Too often, those who are chosen to staff booths at events get busy chatting with each other or checking email on their phones while prospects are walking right by them. This behavior is detrimental to the goal of an event - to generate sales leads.  Corey suggests setting clear expectations and accountability to avoid this problem. She’s had success placing a respected Senior Marketer from her team as the lead person over the event, and she gives this person a vested interest in event-specific outcomes. This motivates the team from the inside and drives active participation. She also recommends setting daily goals for the event and coordinating end-of-day recaps to assess KPI achievements and make plans for the next day.  When it comes to making the booth appealing, she says you have to develop creative ideas that provide reasons for people to come to your booth. In this conversation, you’ll hear her describe two of the successful approaches her teams have taken in the past, including a “party bus” her company provided to shuttle attendees to the evening meet-ups—and the only way to get a pass for the bus was to visit their booth! Listen to learn how you can make events pay off for your company in qualified leads and the ability to track the ROI of your event spend. Featured on This Episode Connect with Corey on LinkedIn Follow Corey on Twitter: @Testarossa4 Socio - where Corey serves as Chief Marketing Officer Follow Socio on LinkedIn Follow Socio on Twitter: @SocioEvents Outline of This Episode [1:50] The services Socio brings to the marketing world and Corey’s role there [3:32] Why has it been so difficult to track the ROI on event spend in the past? [5:20] How sales and marketing need to collaborate better for events [11:55] Making the event itself a success from a lead / sales standpoint [14:40] How to strategize in light of limited budgets [16:05] Ideas for effective post-event follow-up [19:10] Tracking leads into pipeline - including multi-touch attribution Resources & People Mentioned Mark your calendars for February 26th and 27th in Salt Lake City at the Grand America Hotel for NEXT 2020. Register now using the discount code ‘Vengreso’ and save 40% when you attend NEXT 2020. Click here to sign-up! Salesforce CRM The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice If you haven’t heard of AI sales assistants, chances are you may have interacted with one and didn’t even know it. That’s especially true if you’ve purchased or leased a car in the last few years and made your contact with the dealership by digital means. Automotive dealerships are becoming increasingly more tech-savvy and AI sales assistants are one of the newest tools in the marketing plans of many dealerships. But while this week’s podcast conversation showcases the automotive industry as an example, it's not just about the automotive industry - it’s about how many industries around the world are increasingly deploying AI sales assistants. On this episode of Modern Marketing Engine Bernie speaks with Micah Burgess, Vice President of Sales at Conversica, the only provider of sales conversion management software for marketing, inside sales, and customer service groups. In this conversation they speak about the current state of the automotive industry, the marketing pivots many dealerships are making, and how AI technology is one of the newest ways dealerships are handling incoming sales calls at scale and converting them to sales. This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com An Old-School Industry Goes Modern Automotive dealerships traditionally approach marketing and sales in tried and true ways. Newspaper inserts, television and radio spots, and even billboards are the mainstay in traditional automotive marketing. But many dealerships have recognized that the internet has changed everything and that there are major gains to be made as a result. To take full advantage of the technologies available today, mindsets had to change. That mindset change is well underway. Auto dealers are thinking less like they are in the “car” business and more like they are in the business of business. That means they are thinking more about customers, customer experience, multiple touchpoints, and how to make the most of every opportunity. Data and technology are driving many of those decisions.  Is Your Organization Making The Most Of Every Opportunity? The typical automotive dealership is doing business in a very competitive space. Not only are there multiple brand dealerships within a given metropolitan area, but there are also other automotive brands in the area. That being said, the typical buyer is not walking into the dealership as the first step of their buying journey. They research online, price their selected automobile online, and most will eventually contact the dealership that has the automobile of their choice through a digital channel as well. This is one of the first touchpoints for dealerships, making the most of the opportunities automotive buyers give them through digital contact. When it comes to digital connections made through dealership websites or automotive comparison sites like Carfax or Cars.com, many of these dealerships are making use of AI sales assistants. Keep reading to learn more about how they work and listen to hear more details of how dealerships are putting them to use. Could Your Team Handle Thousands Of Incoming Leads Per Week? Volume and scale are two of the reasons businesses of all types need to make use of automation. With the ease of communication that digital technology provides comes massive opportunities that human beings simply can’t respond to efficiently. As an example, Micah explains that many automotive dealerships receive thousands of incoming leads through their websites, comparison sites, social media, and more every single week. No sales team can adequately handle that volume of leads. That’s where AI technology makes a difference. An automated “sales assistant” can interact with the potential buyer conversationally, answering questions, providing information, and making connections. “Speed To Lead” Is THE Deciding Factor In Getting The Sale Most Of The Time In the digital economy, buyers only reach out to the dealership itself when they are already well along on their buying journey. They are a warm lead at that point, which makes it even more important for the sales team to respond to each lead quickly. But more importantly, the buyer has likely reached out to multiple dealerships at the same time which means the one to respond first is likely to get the sale. Micah refers to this dynamic as “speed to lead” and says that it is the dominant factor in determining which dealership gets the sale. Is your industry similar? Do you need to put more focus on the timeliness with which you respond to leads when they come into your business? The difference between a quick response and a delayed response could be the difference between making the sale and losing it to a competitor. Listen to this episode to understand the impact of an AI sales assistant. It might be just what your business needs.  Featured on This Episode MIcah Burgess on LinkedIn Follow Micah on Twitter: @Mader44 www.Conversica.com Conversica on Twitter: @MyConversica Outline of This Episode [1:22] What Conversica does in the B2B marketing and sales industry [2:59] The shift in the automotive industry and how technology is driving it [4:52] Major shifts in how automotive business are running their operations day to day [7:10] Marketing approaches the automotive industry is using these days [11:01] The role conversational AI is playing in the automotive industry’s marketing [18:23] The impact of digital marketing on traditional marketing channels Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice When it comes to creating and successfully implementing an International business expansion strategy, there are numerous variables that must be addressed. Wouldn’t it be great to have a seasoned International expansion advisor on your team? On this episode, Bernie speaks with an executive who has overseen or been a part of International expansions for many companies. Most importantly, he’s done so successfully and can share lessons-learned that will be of great benefit to anyone seeking to expand to International markets. On this episode, Bernie speaks with John Pincott, GM of Conversica Europe. John has extensive experience with International expansion and is very passionate about the nuances of expanding a successful business into another region of the world. Listen to learn how to know if your company is ready to expand, what it takes to do so, and pitfalls to watch out for along the way. This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com If You’re Looking To Expand Be Thoughtful, Not Opportunistic Many companies have a “go global” ambition. There is nothing wrong with that but you need to ensure that your organization as a whole is ready for expansion. John believes 4 things should be considered.  Is the organizational maturity level ready for expansion? John says you need to honestly assess whether your team is ready, if your company is in the right stage of business for expansion, and whether your product is truly ready for the “big time.” In his words, “If you haven't cracked the nut’ in your domestic market, the thought that you’re going to be successful in a foreign market is very slim.” Do you have the resources in place to expand? It’s alluring to think of International expansion but if your systems and other resources are not to the point that they are working well in your current market, you’ll be better off in the long run if you don’t export an offering that is less than ready. John says this applies to the areas of technology, human resources, and virtual resources. Is there a team commitment across the organization to expand? If expansion is a siloed exercise that doesn’t have a clear strategy across the organization, then what you’re considering is not going to work as well as it should. A company-wide focus will make success more likely.  Are you ready to adopt a startup mentality as you enter a foreign market? John points out that even though you might be entering a new market as a mature organization, you have to change the way you think as you move into a new market. In many ways, you are truly going back to the startup stage, almost as if you’re launching your company all over again. Be Sure You Do Your Homework Thinking of International business expansion can feel very “glamourous” but John points out that you can’t let the exciting things keep you from doing what he calls “the boring work.” What would this include? Be sure to ask questions like these... What do we do best? Is our product offering an established category in this region? Do we know the TAM (Total Addressable Market)? Do we understand the geography, verticals, and market segments? What are the routes/channels to market and their relative cost? Have we done a S.W.O.T. analysis - strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. What do we understand about the culture in the new market? What do we know about the competitive landscape? Is the talent we need available in the region? What are the legal issues we need to be aware of? When Conversica expanded its AI Assistant technology solutions into Europe they discovered that there was not much competition on the ground in this market. There wasn’t even an existing category for their product. That may sound like a dream, but it requires that the organization’s approach focuses to a large degree on educating potential buyers on the merit of their solution. John has extensive advice that he shares on this episode, particularly about cultural differences and the route to market. You won’t want to miss his advice. Be Clear About What Success Looks Like And Set Goals And Budgets John says agreeing on success metrics is a huge part of reaching it. Alignment has to be achieved around the definition of success because it will dictate whether or not everyone on the expansion team is rowing in the same direction. With alignment on a success plan everyone can establish realistic expectations and time frames. Expansion efforts frequently take longer and cost more than expected. A phased approach is the way to go rather than trying to accomplish too much too fast.  You might start with U.S. based benchmarks such as cost of customer acquisition, conversion rates, and other KPIs. - but you’re actually using it as a thesis that you’re testing in the new market. Your success will look very different in a new region, so take a long term perspective. As John describes it, “Take a land and expand mindset.” Begin To Prove Your Thesis Through Execution The premise of any International business expansion strategy must be to leverage the expertise you have domestically into the new market abroad. As you do, you’ll have to iterate and adapt to the new culture and business market. This is what John calls the “test and learn” stage - use the approaches to assessment what you already have in place domestically and begin applying them to your International business expansion strategy. You’ll discover ways you need to modify your approach. You want to do ongoing assessments regarding your execution, how it evolved, and whether you hit your goals. When you achieve your goals, you can expect to get the green light to keep going. If not, you’ll want to change your approach using data to steer your decision making so you increase your success in your strategy. This episode is packed with insights from John Pincott, GM of Conversica Europe based on his rich experience in expanding companies Internationally. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from him.  Featured on This Episode Follow John Pincott on LinkedIn Follow John on Twitter Check out John’s company - Conversica Outline of This Episode [1:30] Get to know John Pincott and his company, Conversica [3:50] Discerning whether your organization is even ready to expand [20:20] Is it smart to pull personnel from your domestic branch to get started? [26:56] Bernie’s recap of the topic of International Expansion [30:45] When you get into the new market, things will be different than you expect  Resources & People Mentioned HSBC Cultural Differences Campaign The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice. Long term profits are like the constant heart-beat that keeps successful businesses running. Bernie’s guest on this episode has co-written an excellent new book that explains how neuroscience and the human connection can position your business for long term profitability through the creation of raving fans. David Meerman Scott is a well-known marketing expert, globe-trotting keynote speaker, and consultant whose body of work is undoubtedly familiar to Modern Marketing Engine podcast listeners. His seminal book, “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” is a standard among marketing professionals with more than 400,000 copies sold and available in 29 languages. Now, with the help of his millennial daughter, Reiko he’s penned his eleventh book, entitled “Fanocracy: Turning Fans Into Customers and Customers Into Fans.” Listen to learn how your brand can become the favorite among a dedicated group of raving fans and reap the reward of long term profits. Can Any Organization Or Business Create A Loyal Group Of Fans? David says the answer to the question is an emphatic “Yes!” Fandom, while seemingly mysterious, is actually a natural human reaction that occurs when people truly love something. What does that mean for business leaders and marketers? Business leaders are well served to embrace the research-based insights in David’s book Fanocracy to consider ways to develop customers into fans and fans into customers. Listen as David describes the research he and Reiko conducted over five years and what they discovered about how fandom occurs - and the practical lessons marketing and sales professionals can take from their findings. Believe It Or Not, Neuroscience Supports The Phenomenon Of Fandom Why do we tend to gather into groups of “fans” around such things as musical groups, comic book franchises, movies, athletes, celebrities and more? David says the answer is found in the way we are wired. Our brains are designed to move us toward environments where we will be safe - and belonging to a group where people share common values or interests is one of those environments.  While fans of a musical group who gather before a concert may not be creating an environment of safety, the brain doesn’t view it that way. It is drawn to the group - yes, based on musical preferences in this case - but for the purpose of giving us a place to belong under a common interest or passion. We become members of a “tribe,” and the brain likes that. Beyond the compulsion to belong, there is also the fascinating reality of a particular set of neurons in the brain referred to as “mirror neurons.” These neurons create sensations in our brains related to what others do, see, or experience. This enables us to participate vicariously in the experiences of others. It's difficult to explain but David gives a great example in this conversation. Put these mirror neurons together with the desire to belong to a tribe and you have the makings of true fandom. Applying The Principles Of Fanocracy In Your Business When it comes to business, these principles of Fanocracy can be immediately applied. Based on the research in his book, David suggests that you should conduct an audit of your websites and promotional materials and remove elements that don’t inspire fandom and replace them with things that do. Here are two of his suggestions: Remove all stock photos and replace them with photos of real people, cropped so that the viewer feels physically close to the person in the image. This appeals to the brain’s desire to feel “safe” because it's close to the person in the picture. Examine the language of your website and other materials, paying attention to techno-speech, flowery language, or industry jargon. Nobody is going to become a “fan” of what you provide unless you feel real and relatable. Remove such language and instead transform your copy into more natural language. But, there are also long term ways you can cultivate a fan base for your brand or product. David says that it’s imperative to develop a new mindset about your product or service. What is the mindset? Once your product is out in the marketplace, it is no longer yours. It belongs to your fans. Allow them to use it how they wish, to develop clubs around it, to make up their own jargon, etc. In this episode, David provides one great example of a well-known brand that does NOT do this and two great examples of well-known brands who are doing it right. Be sure to listen to learn who they are and what these brands are doing in their Fanocracy strategy.  What A True Fanocracy Means For Long Term Profits Every (for-profit) company is in business to make produce a profit and a Fanocracy is a direct line to profit on a long term basis. How? Think of it this way… If you are a Harry Potter fan you don’t blink an eye to spend money on all things Harry Potter - books, movie tickets, fan meetups, studio tours, online communities, etc. That’s because you are truly in love with the entire Harry Potter storyline and world. Transferring that to a business context - yes even a B2B brand - realize that when your customers truly become fans of your brand, they won’t hesitate to tell others about it, spend money to attend your events or upgrade to the latest version of your offering, etc. In fact, your fans will be happy to do so over and over again because they are truly your fans. Join Bernie and David as they discuss the power of fandom, discuss its impact on business, and provide practical tips on how any business can develop its own Fanocracy strategy whether it’s a new or an established brand. Featured on This Episode David’s website: https://fanocracy.com David on LinkedIn Follow David on Twitter: @DMScott Follow Allison on Twitter:@Allison_Reiko Follow David on Instagram: @DMScott Outline of This Episode [3:14] The impetus behind David’s decision to write his new book, “Fanocracy” [6:17] The unique experience of co-authoring a book with his daughter [9:01] How neuroscience is built into David’s “fandom” thesis [14:54] Applying these concepts to existing brands [23:08] How does fandom translate into revenue for a company? [25:22] Fandom is an infectious thing that translates to customers Resources & People Mentioned The Modern Selling Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice If your Customer Success team isn’t contributing to your growth strategy, maybe this function is in the wrong department? Your customers not only need to be happy with what you sold them, they also need to have a great experience with your brand. Creating a team that is exclusively focused on providing that experience is one of the best ways to ensure customer happiness, loyalty and repeat purchases. But where does the Customer Success team fit inside the broader organization? That’s a question not always so easily answered. This episode of Modern Marketing Engine features Jeanne Hopkins, CMO at Lola.com - a business travel company that makes it easy to track expenses, save money, and create a more enjoyable experience for business travelers. Jeanne explains how and why she’s made Customer Success at Lola an integral part of the marketing team. She also unpacks why marketing is the natural fit for this vital customer-facing team. Most Companies Don’t Know Where To Put Customer Success Jeanne points out that CEOs and Boards often know that an effective Customer Success team is vital but that they don’t always know where it fits into the existing organizational structure. It sometimes winds up as a part of the product team, sometimes is attached to sales, and other times it is integrated into technical support. But are those teams the most relevant resources to work hand in hand with Customer Success? Jeanne says, “No.” In her mind, marketing is the natural fit for Customer Success. Why? Because marketing owns the website, runs webinars, has direct access to the CRM, and because everything they do touches what Customer Success is all about. None of the other organizations within a company have the power that marketing has to reach customers and solidify a communication calendar across the organization. First 90 Days Are Vital For Customer Success Are you familiar with the phrase “time-to-value?” Jeanne uses it a few times during this conversation to express how important it is for new customers to quickly benefit from the service her team provides. Her Customer Success team is focused on making the time-to-value as small as possible for their customers. The target time frame her team works toward is 90 days. Listen to hear how the Customer Success experts at Lola.com - known as Wombats - drive adoption of their app within the first 90 days and tangible customer success. Jeanne explains the results they achieve from hitting this goal, and how ongoing interaction and connection with customers even after the 90-day target is essential to renewals, product updates and features, and more business opportunity. Customer Success Must Tackle Friction Points Head-On As with any service or product, trouble spots can occur. Any point where customers typically experience frustration, setbacks, inconvenience, or other types of friction are vital to address. For the Lola.com team, many of those areas initially appear to be outside their control - confused hotel bookings, ever-changing airline schedules, and missing or incorrect rental car reservations are all examples within their industry. Jeanne and her success team have decided that it’s not acceptable to allow their customers to be at the mercy of the services they’ve booked through Lola. The Customer Success team digs deeply into their partnerships with service providers, working on the customer’s behalf to prevent issues from happening and to correct problems rapidly should they arise. This proactive approach has made the Lola Customer Success team a shining example of how to care for customers and drive ongoing revenue through renewals. Making It Profitable For Salespeople To Be In Alignment With Customer Success True customer success is more easily achieved when a customer success mindset is baked into the company’s overall DNA. Since salespeople are the ones to work alongside prospects to the point they become customers, they must have a vested interest in that customer’s success once they have sealed the deal. At Lola, sales teams are part of the customer success formula, with certain aspects of the future revenue of their salespeople tied to ongoing customer success and retention. That enables salespeople - whether in direct sales roles or account management roles - to be highly motivated to continue providing great value and assistance to customers every step of the way. Featured on This Episode Jeanne on LinkedIn Jeanne on Twitter: @JeanneHopkins www.Lola.com - where Jeanne serves as CMO Lola on LinkedIn Lola on Twitter: @LolaTravel Lola on Facebook Outline of This Episode [1:32] Jean’s role as CMO at Lola and how she’s come to be a marketing leader [4:35] Strategically, what is the role of Customer Success? [9:02] Why WOMBATS? And how the company pivoted toward business travel [11:28] Why Customer Success resides in the marketing team at Lola [15:20] How the Sales department integrates with Customer Success at Lola [23:05] Bernie’s summary of what Jeanne shared about her Customer Success team  Resources & People Mentioned Expensify Capterra Trust Pilot Kayak American Express Global Business Travel The State of Digital Selling 2019 Report The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

This week on The B2B Mix Show, we speak with Bernie Borges the CMO at Vengreso about lessons learned in podcasting. Bernie is also the host of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast. He's a seasoned podcaster with over 250 episodes under his belt. During our conversation, we touch on the following: Why start a podcast Expectations vs. Reality   How to find guests And more lessons learned in podcasting Want to connect with Bernie online? Bernie's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ Bernie's Twitter: https://twitter.com/bernieborges Bernie's Instagram: https://instagram.com/bernieborges -- Company Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/govengreso/ Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vengreso/ Company Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoVengreso Company Website: https://vengreso.com/ -- About The B2B Mix Show: The B2B Mix Show with Alanna Jackson and Stacy Jackson is brought to you by Jackson Marketing. Need help with your B2B online presence? Let's talk! Connect with us on social media: The B2B Mix Show -- Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook Stacy Jackson -- Twitter, LinkedIn Alanna Jackson -- Twitter, LinkedIn

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice In a global marketing campaign, is it possible to focus on Brand Messaging and Demand Generation at the same time? The team at Nutanix has pulled it off incredibly well in their 2018 “Freedom” campaign and now in their new 2019/2020 “All Together Now” campaign, which launche in October 2019. The Nutanix brand focuses on bringing siloed technologies such as computing, storage, virtualization, and networking into an integrated single software stack that can operate on just about any hardware. Their goal is to bring siloed technologies and siloed teams together. This episode features Julie O’Brien, Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing for Nutanix. Bernie and Julie discuss the road from the Freedom Campaign into the All Together Now Campaign with an eye toward unpacking how the demand generation side of the equation is integrated into the campaign in a way that stays true to the brand’s promise in clear and concise ways. You’ll hear how the campaign was intentionally created to be outside the creative norm for their industry, about the marketing assets they are using to create the campaign's public messaging, and how they've trained their team around 3 specific sales plays which have set them up to reap the rewards of all their hard work. Listen now! “All Together Now” Is Outside The Creative Norm In Its Marketing Approach In conceiving the new campaign for 2019 and 2020 the Nutanix team desired to focus on the core of their brand promise - simplicity, choice, and delight - but to also tell the brand story in a differentiated and fun way that communicates their technology solutions. This meant they would focus their team on three key sales plays and roll them out to their sales organization in a way that stays consistent with their brand promise. The, “All Together Now” campaign is aimed at communicating the desire to break down silos so that teams within companies can truly work together. The Nutanix creative team decided to communicate that message using people to personify the tech and apps in the cloud that are part of their solution. This makes their messaging fun, human, and relatable. They also used eye-popping colors which are very different from typical enterprise marketing and advertising campaigns. To wrap it all up nicely, they created an “anthem” for the campaign from the old song by The Turtles, “Happy Together.” As you can tell, the All Together Now campaign was masterfully thought out and put into action methodically and carefully. Listen to hear more of the details from Julie and to consider how you can approach your next campaign with similar creativity. A Global Campaign Comprised Of Many Facets to Generate Sales Pipeline  Julie explains how this campaign has hefty sales pipeline goals and how her team is attributing contribution to pipeline. The campaign tells the story of the three-stage journey the Nutanix team sees their customers going on in their journey with Nutanix. First, they build a private cloud as the core foundation. Second, they run their own apps on that foundation. Third, they build an environment where the best of the technology from their private cloud is merged with the public technology cloud where and if it makes sense. To communicate that journey in an effective marketing campaign, the team used many assets and resources. Digital paid media Retargeting Takeovers in key publications/sites where their customers go Surgical out of home placements Opportunities where buyers are, but the company is not (like trade shows - Julie calls these “guerilla marketing takeovers”) ABM micro-targeting where their top 50 customers are located And broad demand generation such as webinars, direct mailers, and other “meeting makers” How To Be Brand-Centric And Demand Generation Centric At The Same Time Julie says that the Nutanix global marketing organization has grown into the stage it is in now - able to execute a far-reaching global campaign that has measurable impact on sales pipeline. But it hasn’t always been integrated in a way where global demand generation activities were synchronized globally. The learning curve the team has been on has enabled them to learn what works and what doesn’t - and to modify their approach on the fly when necessary. Three different sales plays were organized, resourced, and rolled out to both inside and outside sales teams long before the campaign launched. Everything from customer-facing presentations, call scripts, channel enablement, and the overall marketing blitz (direct mail, digital, webinar series) had to be aligned with both the brand’s identity and the demand generation needs of the organization. What Kind Of Team Does It Take To Do Such An Effective Campaign? The Nutanix global marketing team responsible for planning and executing this impressive campaign is in the range of 200 people, under Julie’s leadership. They are able to pull in sales, customer support, and marketing professionals from their entire global workforce to advise about various aspects of their customer’s needs. They also engaged agencies for help with many aspects of the campaign.  Are there ways you can take a similar approach with a smaller team and fewer assets? Absolutely. Julie says… “The best ideas often come from inside the company… you probably have the creativity within your own walls now. Who are the people you can bring into a meeting room, close the door, and riff on a whiteboard what your demand generation goals are, what your brand value proposition is, and how you can bring that together and be smart about the resources you have. That might be bringing someone in from inside sales, bringing in someone from product marketing, and bringing in someone from your customer support team who is talking with customers every day.” Julie's advice goes on to include budgetary constraints and more. Be sure you listen to this in-depth conversation to learn more about the Nutanix All Together Now global campaign! Featured on This Episode Nutanix - where Julie serves as SVP of Corporate Marketing Julie on LinkedIn Julie on Twitter: @JulieAObrien The Nutanix All Together Now video: https://youtu.be/WUMmCb4dgn0 Nutanix on LinkedIn Outline of This Episode [1:06] Introduction to Julie O’Brien, SVP of Nutanix and her company’s vision [3:03] What is a hyper-converged infrastructure? [4:59] The current “All Together” campaign Nutanix is running: What is it about? [6:52] What goes into a Nutanix global campaign? [9:20] Blending branding and demand generation to great effect - how Nutanix does it [12:10] How the sales team was brought onboard for the campaign [18:02] The marketing team behind these great campaigns [20:00] Does the campaign change over time as it is running? [22:06] Advice for listeners with smaller marketing teams [28:35] Why it’s important to be as relatable as possible in spite of the technology Resources & People Mentioned “Happy Together” by the Turtles The Register TechTarget TechCrunch Grizzly Creative Agency 2 Rivers Video and Audio Production Oracle Open World Microsoft SQL Server The State of Digital Selling 2019 Report The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice How does a company with a premium offering, but little or no brand recognition, market to a universe of buyers who assume that solution providers are all pretty much the same? It’s not easy or simple, but thankfully there are companies out there demonstrating there are ways to to build brand equity and gain the attention you need to set up their sales team for conversations with qualified prospects. This episode features, Dean Nicolls, Vice President of Marketing at Jumio. Jumio as a company has found itself in the position described here - in spite of having won numerous impressive awards in its market segment. Dean speaks with Bernie about the ways he’s leading the Jumio marketing team to use PR, analyst relations, and sales enablement to elevate the profile of what the company has to offer as a premium brand. Unknown Premium Brands Build Reputation Through Education At Vengreso, we often say that modern sellers need to sell in ways that modern buyers like to buy through providing valuable content that demonstrates expertise and ability. Dean agrees with that approach. He says that sales is not about selling, it’s about educating.  The Jumio team works overtime to educate their ideal buyers about the challenges of their current approach to identity verification. Any brand who requires a user to register or sign up online - banking, consumer goods, etc. - can recognize the limitations or problems of their current identity verification solutions. Consequently, they are more willing to engage in conversations about how to improve their approach to minimize abandonment and improve the user experience. Listen to learn how you can use an educational approach to build brand equity for your company. Jumio’s 30/70 Split Between Brand Awareness And Demand Generation Dean says that Jumio spends about 30% of its marketing efforts and budget on building brand awareness. The other 70% is used for demand generation activities. The branding side of the split is of particular interest for marketers who find themselves fighting an uphill battle to gain the recognition their solutions deserve. How does Jumio do it? The company works with many PR firms that use a variety of strategies to get the company into the spotlight. Among those strategies are the publication of byline articles, trend jacking, and traditional press coverage when the company has a new product or rolls out an update. But there’s also emphasis placed on entering the company and its products into recognized competitions within the industry. Winning provides a natural way to gain wide-scale attention that puts them on the radar of their ideal buyers. Utilize Stories And Practical Tools To Empower Your Sales Team Success stories have a way of demonstrating product fit that are much more effective than slide decks and presentations. That’s because stories connect to the human beings involved in the buying equation, enabling them to picture themselves in the story, experiencing the solutions described. Dean’s marketing team has developed assets that enable the Jumio sales team to tell effective stories about their product’s positive impact on real-life customers. During this conversation, Dean also tells a story of his own about a big win the Jumio team has experienced through the creation of an online calculator. One member of the Jumio Latin America sales team made use of it in ways the marketing team didn’t anticipate and was able to increase his personal sales numbers to the point that other sellers on the team began to take notice. As you hear what happened through the creation of this easy to use tool you’ll recognize there are likely similar tools or resources your marketing team could create.  Find Champions On Your Team Who Can Empower Everyone Else Premium brands that succeed in penetrating their market do so as a team. They work together to increase the visibility and effectiveness of efforts across the board. One of the ways Jumio has been able to do this is through identifying marketing and sales champions who are excelling in their roles. These team members are invited to share their experience, to become role models for the rest of the team. They’ve discovered that just like their clients appreciate relevant stories, their internal teams appreciate the impact of real-life stories - and when those stories recount the successful experiences of co-workers, their enthusiasm for the Jumio brand value proposition gets amplified and effectiveness increases. Join Bernie as he invites Dean to reveal the careful thought and diligent work that goes into building brand equity for an unknown premium brand, on this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast. Featured on This Episode Dean on LinkedIn Dean on Twitter: @Dean_Nicolls Jumio - where Dean serves as VP of Marketing Outline of This Episode [1:20] The challenge of getting noticed among premium brands [2:08] Jumio: Online identity verification - and Dean’s role as VP of Marketing [3:18] The needs of the customers that Jumio markets to (those with something at risk) [7:45] A not-so-well-known brand has unique challenges when it comes to marketing [10:31] The PR / Analyst balance to brand building [15:26] How can the sales team be enabled to meet the needs of modern buyers? [18:39] Challenges to telling better stories and how to overcome them [20:37] Collaboration is imperative between marketing and sales Resources & People Mentioned The State of Digital Selling 2019 Report The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice  

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice Whether or not marketers should use the approach of gated content is a hotly-debated question. Should content be entirely free, or are there valid cases for gating content to ensure lead capture for your sales funnel? Bernie’s guest on this episode is James Kessinger, CMO of Hushly. James has spent his career in corporate marketing, product marketing, services marketing, field marketing, and partner marketing - leading both large marketing organizations and smaller teams. James has seen it all and in his role as CMO at Hushly, he is responsible for defining, building, and executing on all marketing, PR, go-to-market, and partnerships. On this episode, James shares his thoughts about whether or not there is a place for gated content in the modern marketing approach - and suggests there is a middle ground that marketers should be pursuing. What Are Good Reasons For Gating Content? When considering the choice to gate or ungate marketing content, it’s important to look at the pros and cons of doing so. James believes that providing content through a gated approach does make certain assertions to the website visitor - and that it provides certain things to the marketer: Gated content implies there is greater value to the content behind the opt-in form Asking for identifying information tends to generate higher quality leads This enables the marketer to better target those leads It also makes it easier to track marketing strategy and performance overall What Are The Cons When Gating Content? There is no doubt that everyone reading this has encountered an opt-in form when seeking to download content. But what is the typical effectiveness of that approach? James says that only 3% of people who begin to fill out a form convert to become a lead. He believes it’s because visitors to those opt-in forms are leery because they have filled out forms in the past and received content in return that wasn’t as valuable as they were led to believe. This leads to what James calls “form rage,” a resentful feeling that an opt-in form is required at all. From a marketing perspective, opt-in forms can become more trouble than they are worth. Those who do complete forms often provide fake information, which adds costs to the sales process to weed out fake content. James points out that it creates unnecessary friction to the marketing process on both the visitor and the marketing sides of the relationship. Listen to hear James elaborate on these points, as well as his comments about how mobile devices impact user experience and lead form completion. If You’re Going To Use Gated Content - Is There A Better Way To Do It? Do certain types of content do better in gated content scenarios than others? James says that video is a clear winner and communicates greater value. The opportunity to engage at a level that expresses personality and authenticity - which video provides - is always beneficial. He also explains that his practice is to ensure that anything beyond 3 pages in length is always behind an opt-in form of some kind. Those interested in such content prove to be more serious about the subject matter and thus, represent a closer match to his buyer avatar. He also mentions that much of the decision about whether to gate content or not relates to the role and experience of your targeted leads. Those with technical or high-level roles - engineers, developers, high-level marketers, and C-suite execs - tend to appreciate longer-form content that is appropriate for gating and will often opt-in to receive it, whereas those with support or administrative roles tend not to have interest in lengthy content that works well in a gated approach. Micro-Gated Content May Be The Answer In James’ view, you can give away valuable content and still get a lead out of it. He recommends using one box opt-in forms to make it easy for users to complete the form. What should that one box ask for? A business email address. The Hushly platform James uses can require a business email instead of Gmail, Yahoo, etc. before it will allow a download of any kind. The next step is to verify that the email address given is valid, which is part of the opt-in process. At that point, the email address record is enriched with the company’s minimum data requirements and human-verified against the person’s public LinkedIn profile. Once all of that is done, the data is added to the marketing automation platform via API to determine the appropriate next steps. Should the lead go into the nurture funnel? The sales enablement funnel? Or should it be sent directly to the sales team? Listen to this episode to learn whether gated content is right for your organization - or whether James’ suggested micro-gating concept will generate the quality leads your organization needs. Featured on This Episode James on LinkedIn James on Twitter: @JamesBKessinger www.Hushly.com - where James serves as CMO Outline of This Episode [1:02] James Kessinger, CMO of Hushly and his experience with gated content [3:51] For what reasons SHOULD we gate content? [7:27] What are the cons associated with gated content? [10:29] Is there a better type of content to use in gated content situations? [12:23] The right choice: Gated or Ungated? James does micro-gated content [15:35] What to do after microgating your content [17:22] Does microgating assume a “top of funnel” lead? Resources & People Mentioned The State of Digital Selling, 2019 Report GDPR California’s CCPA Statute Discover.org The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice On this episode of Modern Marketing Engine, you’ll hear from Kelly Bousman, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing for AVI-SPL about the powerful role a Customer Advisory Board can play in your business. Kelly says that a Customer Advisory Board is one of the most direct and effective ways to listen to the voice of the customer. When you are able to understand the experiences of your key customers you can develop products and marketing and sales strategies that address real customer needs - both for existing and future customers.  VOC (Voice Of The Customer): Informs All Aspects Of Marketing Strategy The experience your customer has with your product or service is the most important source of data available to help you improve your offering and maximize your customer’s experience with your brand. When you are able to tap into the voice of the customer, you’ll discover answers to many pertinent questions: Is your brand relevant in your industry? Is your user experience design truly meeting customer needs? Is your lead generation targeting accurate? Are there brand advocates within your customer base you can identify? But beyond those things, knowing the voice of your customer helps you understand what motivated your customers to choose your solution in the first place and what challenges they may face in working with your brand. This will help you validate your purpose for them and align your offerings to their needs. As a bonus, you’ll also be able to more effectively align your marketing efforts with your sales team so you can provide tools and enablement services that are effective. A unique way to go about the discovery of this “voice of the customer” information is through the development of a Customer Advisory Board. Listen to hear how Kelly and the team at AVI-SPL did so - and the amazing benefits the CAB is providing them. How AVI-SPL Formed Its Customer Advisory Board AVI-SPL’s Customer Advisory Board is a formal organization containing members who serve in limited terms. Those members are chosen via an official nomination process and the board attends a regular cadence of official meetings. But that’s the mature version of the Customer Advisory Board. The journey to that stage is the interesting part. Five years ago, AVI-SPL began inviting key customers (Porsche, Boeing, MasterCard) to join their CEO on stage at their annual global sales meeting. Their goal was to help their sales teams understand the company's ideal customers better. In these “fireside chat” style conversations, customers shared not only their experience with the company so far but also future-looking insights. The AVI-SPL team knew from what they were hearing that they must use those insights to create even more value for their customers. That’s when their idea to form a Customer Advisory Board was born.  Kelly embarked on the research of best practices for launching and managing successful, customer advisory boards. Her research led her to an advisory firm – Ignite Advisory Services. She hired them to be her advisors in order to have third-party objectivity that would provide a more formal approach to working with their customers. Listen to hear how Kelly presented the Customer Advisory Board strategy to her company’s executives and got it approved - and how the CAB works practically - including how it grew to 20 members, conducts at least four meetings per year, and hosts a 1 to 2-day annual retreat. The Challenges And Benefits Of Managing An Advisory Board Of Customers You are probably already thinking that a Customer Advisory Board could be an extremely challenging group to manage and move forward in consistently valuable ways that high-level executives actually WANT to be part of. If so, you are right. Kelly says if you focus on what’s in it for the board members, you’ll stay on track. While the coordination is a job in itself, in her mind the peer networking that flows out of the CAB is the most significant benefit to the customers involved and makes all the effort worthwhile. Kelly’s team also works diligently to discover the common challenges and topics the customers need to address. They do this to create meaningful content that can serve as a framework for discussion around those topics. Any successful Customer Advisory Board must first offer value to its members before creating value for the host business.  How To Get Started With Your Own Advisory Board Kelly’s suggestion for developing your own Customer Advisory Board begins with the identification of customers who have a significant impact on your business. Those are the customers who are both benefiting from your offering the most and are able to give you the greatest amount of insight into how your solutions can improve or be evolved to help them drive their goals forward. Next, think of the kinds of conversations you’d like to have with those customers to more deeply understand their current initiatives and challenges. Once you’ve had a number of those conversations, develop a theme or mission from what you’ve heard and wrap that mission into a charter that lays out the operating rules. At this point, you’ll begin to invite members, conduct onboarding interviews to identify topics you can tackle together, and develop a cadence of collective problem solving and co-creation of new approaches. When you can frame involvement around addressing the challenges that your customers face and utilizing the insights and experiences of customer peers, you’ll have a much greater degree of buy-in and commitment. Take the time to listen to this episode - you’ll learn how you can implement these principles in less formal ways if your budget or resources don’t allow for a structure as formalized and consistent as what Kelly describes. You’ll also have your creative juices stimulated, which will enable you to see ways you can use your current customer interactions to gain valuable insights to improve your offering and maximize your customer’s experience with your brand.  Featured on This Episode AVI-SPL - Where Kelly serves as Senior Vice President of Marketing Kelly on LinkedIn Outline of This Episode [0:51] Introduction of Kelly Bousman, Senior Vice President, Marketing, AVI-SPL [2:42] What do we mean by VOC - the Voice of the Customer - and why does it matter? [5:29] Why AVI-SPI developed a Customer Advisory Board [11:12] The challenges of getting the CAB off the ground and making it successful [16:35] Are the insights you learn from your CAB are relevant across companies? [18:41] How you can begin a Customer Advisory Board [21:38] What to do if you’re not ready to form a Customer Advisory Board Resources & People Mentioned The State of Digital Selling, 2019 Report Ignite Advisory Services Cisco Webex / Teams Microsoft Teams Gartner Frost & Sullivan The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr h2>Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine on your app of choice

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Marketing leaders across the globe have a challenging job - to help their marketing teams remain aligned with company goals and contribute to bottom-line results. It’s a tall order and one that is becoming increasingly more complex as technology saturates every area of business. For this episode of Modern Marketing Engine, Bernie speaks with Heidi Melin, Chief Marketing Officer at Workfront. She and the team at Workfront are enabling teams across all industries to do their best work. Listen to hear the findings of the 6th annual Workfront 2020 State of Work Report. Heidi and Bernie dive deep into one particular finding - that work is getting in the way of work - and discuss how to address it. Work Is Harder And More Complex Than Ever Before One of the obvious conclusions of this conversation is that the way work gets done has changed forever, and will continue to change as technology advances. There are more opportunities for optimization and integration than ever before - but with them comes the possibility of confusion, distraction, delay in meeting project deadlines and unfulfillment among staffers. The 2020 State of Work Report reveals 4 key themes Employees are engaged and want to make a strategic impact on the business Work is getting in the way of work (a recurring theme over the past 6 years) Technology can help - but it has to be the right technology Employees feel accountable, but not always aligned In this conversation, Bernie and Heidi dive into the most concerning of these issues - that work is getting in the way of actual work being done. Listen to hear Bernie and Heidi discuss how you can help your team overcome obstacles to real work so they can accomplish the things that really matter. How Is Work Getting In The Way Of Actual Work - For Marketers? The 2020 State of Work Report reiterates a trend that’s been happening for all six years of this report’s availability. Workers report that they are only spending 40% of their time doing the work they were hired to do. That means 60% of the time they are doing tasks that are not directly related to their job description. How can that be the case? Because workers are becoming consumed by tasks that are not vital to the primary focus of their role. What are the things that are taking up so much of their time? Wasteful meetings (driven by poor alignment mechanisms) Excessive email Excessive oversight Listen to learn how marketing leaders can address this startling trend. How Marketing Leaders Can Help Their Teams Do The Things That Matter  Marketing leaders can help their teams improve the quality and effectiveness of their work by directly addressing the 40/60 split explained in the 2020 State Of Work Report. They should begin by asking a simple question: How is work currently getting done in the organization? Heidi says that the work team members do needs to be viewed as a “Tier 1” asset and given the attention that goes along with that priority. It's an approach that will bring many things to light - the need for tier 1 work tools is among them. Listen to hear more! 5 Ways Marketing Leaders Can Improve The Quality Of Their Team’s Work  When you consider that 60% of the work getting done (including by marketers) is not directly related to the role workers were hired for, it begs the question what can marketing leaders do about it? Heidi suggests these 5 ideas… 1 - Improve goal setting strategies and practices 2 - Break your team into smaller, streamlined teams 3 - Increase specialization among team members 4 - Set realistic time limits for projects and prioritize to meet them 5 - Better manage workforce and workflow through better software and integrations Listen to hear how these suggestions can contribute to greater success with your team’s ability to get work done. You’ll also learn how you can download your own copy of the 2020 State of Work Report from Workfront. Featured on This Episode Workfront - Where Heidi Melin serves as Workfront CMO Heidi on LinkedIn Heidi on Twitter: @HeidiMelin Outline of This Episode [3:56] Why Workfront produces the annual “State of Work” report [5:15] The 4 key takeaways from the 2020 report [7:20] What do modern marketers mean when they say work gets in the way of work [19:25] How setting time limits can help with the optimization of work time [21:50] The virtual workforce creates more complexity within a marketing team Resources & People Mentioned Previous episode featuring Heidi’s CEO - Alex Shootman BOOK: Done Right Workfront’s 2020 State of Work Report ZDNet article mentioned in the podcast Slack Jira Netsuite Oracle SAP Salesforce Vengreso’s State of Digital Selling Report The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts One of the hot, hot topics these days in the sales and marketing arena is sales enablement. To clarify the issues and highlight the importance of enablement for every sales organization, Bernie invited Jake Braly, Vice President of Global Marketing at Highspot to be his guest on this episode. The Highspot team provides a technology solution for sales enablement that prepares sellers to speak to buyer needs, engage buyers with answers to the questions they have about a potential solution to their problems, and does it all in a way that optimizes performance and increases deal velocity. Jake’s everyday experience in the sales enablement world makes him an expert to speak to the issue. Join Bernie and Jake for this enlightening and challenging conversation. This episode is brought to you by Gong.io, the number one conversation intelligence platform for sales. Gong helps you achieve revenue success, which means you win more deals, skyrocket rep performance and gain critical market intelligence. Get powerful visibility into your customer conversations with Gong. Head to http://bit.ly/gongio to get started. What IS Sales Enablement And Why Is It Important? Before we can get too deep into how sales enablement works and why it’s so important, we must have a working definition of the concept. Simply put, sales enablement is the task of… Equipping all of the customer-facing people in your organization to have the content, tools, and insights they need to engage effectively with customers. That means a sales enablement strategy should not only provide the content that sales teams can use to start and engage in buyer conversations, it should also train them how to effectively use the content. This two-fold focus is vital because of the changes that have happened over the last decade. 1 - Every industry uses technology, which makes innovation cycles faster. 2 - Buyer behavior has changed: they have more information on-hand before they agree to speak with someone at your company. That means your reps need to provide more insight than customers can attain on their own. 3 - Technology has evolved to allow us to automate elements of engagement with buyers and increase deal flow. Listen to better understand the compelling case for sales enablement in your organization. Enablement Makes A Positive Bottom-Line Difference Enabling sales is important from a tactical perspective, but it’s more than just tactics - it’s a strategic part of how the organization functions. Why is it important to think of sales enablement in those terms?  Because modern analytics reveal that in the fast-moving and highly competitive sales environment the enablement function has a positive business impact on the things that matter like... quota attainment conversions deal velocity win rates Listen to this conversation to get a better idea of how a serious focus on sales enablement could increase your bottom line. Enablement Is An Equal Partner With Marketing And Sales The old way of doing business positioned enablement as a sort of bridge that aligned sales and marketing. But Jake says that is a very limited way of viewing the role sales enablement plays. The reality is that sales and marketing should not be focused on aligning with each other, they should be focused on aligning with their customers, together. Enablement makes that happen. Sales enablement works in close concert with sales and marketing to provide a great customer experience through relevant content, delivered effectively and in a timely way for each stage of the customer’s buying journey. Enablement gives both marketing and sales teams the superpowers that connect with buyers, engage them in fruitful conversations, and win more deals. How Enablement Serves The 3 Primary Stakeholders Implementing an effective sales enablement function in your business not only makes sense from a strategy and implementation perspective it also serves the interests of everyone it touches. Those focused on driving revenue (EXECUTIVE TEAMS) would do well to take a keen interest in sales enablement since the data shows that an effective enablement process positively increases revenue. Those who interact with customers or prospects (MARKETING and SALES teams) become more effective when they make use of the resources and training an enablement function can provide. The buyer (CUSTOMERS or PROSPECTS or BOTH) is better served when enablement is a strategic focus. Why? Their biggest need is to evaluate your solution efficiently, understand how it differs from other solutions, and understand how they will achieve value should they decide to use your service/product. Don’t miss this foundational discussion of the sales enablement function. It's becoming a strategic essential to every company in every industry. Featured on This Episode Jake on LinkedIn Jake on Twitter: @JakeBraly Email: jake.braly (@) highspot.com www.Highspot.com - where Jake serves as Vice President of Global Marketing Outline of This Episode [1:51] The role Jake plays at Highspot, and what Highspot does for sales enablement [6:05] The reasons sales enablement has become such a hot topic these days [7:45] Why sales teams need technology for sales enablement [11:36] How sales and marketing leaders are trying to align to their customer’s needs [15:56] Who are the stakeholders who benefit most from sales enablement? [18:30] Where to start to get sales enablement going in your organization [25:56] Sales enablement increases the competitive win rate Resources & People Mentioned This episode is brought to you by Gong.io, the number one conversation intelligence platform for sales. Gong helps you achieve revenue success, which means you win more deals, skyrocket rep performance and gain critical market intelligence. Get powerful visibility into your customer conversations with Gong. Head to http://bit.ly/gongio to get started. The Highspot Definitive Guide To Sales Enablement The State Of Sales Enablement 2019 Highspot CEO Robert Wahbe Salesforce www.SalesEnablement.pro Sales Enablement Society The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts B2B marketing and sales have always been close cousins, but Bernie’s guest on this episode of Modern Marketing Engine says that the advent of Account Based Marketing has made them even closer than that - and he says that when they get together as part of the same team, bottom-line growth of the company is the result.  Sangram Vajre is co-founder and Evangelist of Terminus, an account based marketing platform that helps B2B marketers run efficient ABM programs at scale. His experience at Terminus - and previously as part of the Salesforce team - has enabled him to see that ABM is simply the way B2B should function overall. Sangram’s new book, “ABM is B2B” explains how an account based approach that unites marketing, sales, and customer success teams as #OneTeam empowers the entire company to focus on target accounts and generate real revenue outcomes rather than vanity metrics such as “leads generated.” This episode is brought to you by Gong.io, the number one conversation intelligence platform for sales. Gong helps you achieve revenue success, skyrocket rep performance and gain critical market intelligence. Get powerful visibility into your customer conversations with Gong. Head to www.gong.io to get started. The Problem: Less Than 1% Of Leads Become Customers One of the points Sagram highlights in the beginning section of his book is that less than 1% of leads generated by the average marketing team ever become customers. That’s an appalling statistic, one that Sagram says would cause many marketers to lose jobs if the CEOs knew it was the case. It’s a statistic that proves that the common “get leads into the funnel” mentality of marketing teams simply isn’t working - and isn’t the right way to approach the B2B marketing role. Sangram believes that every marketer should be asking, “What is the total addressable market we can actually sell to?” If they are unable to answer that question, it reveals that they are not clear enough on who their future customers should be. He contends that if your company is only going to close a finite number of deals this year, then as a marketer you should be going after THOSE accounts - and there’s plenty of data to help you determine which accounts they are. Join Bernie and Sangram for this compelling conversation about how marketing and sales should work together to create an unstoppable team. The Value Of Marketing Is Defined By Sales Many marketers have bristled at Sangram’s comment that “The value of marketing is defined by sales.” They point to brand building as one example of a valuable activity that can’t be so easily quantified. But Sangram points out that branding ultimately does have a measurable goal - growth of the company (sales). To drive the point home, he points out that there are no B2B companies that have big marketing teams and no sales teams - but there are many companies with large sales teams and no marketing team. Sangram makes it ultra-clear when he says, “Our job as marketers is to either incrementally or exponentially grow the business. We are an extension of the sales team to help them close more deals.”  He believes that marketers have a bigger opportunity to drive revenue than ever before - they have access to information, know the target accounts, and have the technology that can tell them how to engage with them - so there is no reason they should sit back. In his mind, it’s time for marketers to earn their place on the team by pursuing the right kind of leads - the ones that have the greatest potential to convert to customers. Why Your Company Needs A T.E.A.M. Instead of Separate Teams One of the strengths that Sangram and the team at Terminus bring to ABM is a clear and simple focus on the things that truly drive account based marketing success. He refers to it as T.E.A.M. - Target, Engage, Activate, Measure. TARGET - the right accounts ENGAGE - those accounts where they are ACTIVATE - the sales team MEASURE - in a way that shows the entire customer journey and combines attribution and influence reporting Sangram believes that these four areas of focus allow marketing and sales teams to have intelligent conversations with CEOs and CFOs that create a compelling case for the tech needed to generate the right kind of leads. It also puts the marketing and sales teams on the same page, enabling them to work together in an integrated way that puts customer needs and customer success first. How One B2B Marketing And Sales Team Attained A 95% Close Rate To point out how much of a difference these principles make when applied company-wide, Sangram points to Thomson Reuters. This massive company applied ABM principles to their expansion deals, and their win rate increased to an astounding 95%. Compare that to the 1% statistic at the beginning of this conversation. It’s mind blowing but a testimony to the power of good execution on ABM practices. This is the kind of metrics B2B marketing and sales teams need to be able to show to executive teams or boards to explain what needs to be done and the kind of results that should be expected. These are the conversations that give credibility to marketers much more than how many events were run last quarter, how many banner ads were clicked, how many MQLs and SQLs got delivered to the funnel. If the leads marketing generates are not from the best-fit target accounts, marketers will never come close to the accomplishment of Thomson Reuters. Featured on This Episode Terminus - The company where Sangram serves as Chief Evangelist Sangram Vajre on LinkedIn Sangram on Twitter: @SangramVajre Sangram’s new book: “ABM is B2B” Sangram’s daily podcast: Flip My Funnel Outline of This Episode [1:36] Sangram’s story, his role at Terminus, and his daily podcast [7:28] The problem: Less than 1% of leads actually become a customer [10:27] Trends in marketing and sales Sangram has seen from 2016 through 2018 [13:35] How is the value of marketing defined by sales? [19:11] T.E.A.M. and #OneTeam :  [22:11] Why the CEO needs to understand this approach first [25:46] How some companies are seeing bigger deals, and 95% closing rates [31:07] Why it’s important to ask yourself, “What matters to me?” Resources & People Mentioned This episode is brought to you by Gong.io, the number one conversation intelligence platform for sales. Gong helps you achieve revenue success, skyrocket rep performance and gain critical market intelligence. Get powerful visibility into your customer conversations with Gong. Head to www.gong.io to get started. Katie Bullard Scott Brinker’s Martech Conference Thomson Reuters Salesforce The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Today’s consumer is digitally connected across multiple devices. When interacting with a brand, the consumer expects personalized communication that speaks directly to them. Bernie’s guest on this episode discusses how to bridge marketing, sales, and service to deliver a great experience to the modern consumer. Niki Hall, CMO of Selligent an intelligent digital marketing technology platform designed to create holistic marketing campaigns shares how creating an Omni-channel marketing communication plan results in a better customer experience resulting in higher engagement and higher conversions with consumers. Succeeding in the digital age requires an integrated rather than siloed view of customer engagement. The information that the sales and marketing departments obtain should be available to those in customer service and in real-time. Listen in as Niki shares how this is not only possible but also preferable from the consumer perspective. She shares how Selligent has created a solution for intra-department integration that buyers love because it creates a relevant experience. This episode is brought to you by Gong.io, the number one conversation intelligence platform for sales. Gong helps you achieve revenue success, skyrocket rep performance and gain critical market intelligence. Get powerful visibility into your customer conversations with Gong. Head to www.gong.io to get started. Why Brands Should Bridge The Gaps Between Sales, Marketing, and Service The modern connected consumer expects much more than previous generations when it comes to individualized communication. Consumers want to be spoken to individually. When brand messaging is clear and consistent across all digital channels, customers feel heard. Then enter intelligent platforms like Selligent Marketing Cloud that allow businesses to harness customer data and share that information across internal departments. Brand messaging becomes consistent and individualized content and timing helps consumers connect with the right product or service with just the right information in the moment. Today’s consumer is constantly marketed at, using shared data allows businesses to market to their buyers in the moment, ensuring the communication is timely and relevant. Breaking Down Silos With AI Niki shares a couple of poignant examples of how various brands use AI to break down the silos of marketing, sales, and service. Most notably, she mentions how Coollue, a Dutch retailer similar to BestBuy, uses AI to create a seamless customer experience. Prior to integrating AI, the customer would make a purchase, but then a breakdown would occur when they had questions about how to use the product. With AI-powered intelligent marketing technology, Coolblue tracks the buyer journey, and within moments of receiving their shipment, the customer receives an email with a how-to video on the use of the product. Coolblue has experienced a 30% reduction in returns and a 28% increase in cross-sell conversions. They also converted many of their customer service agents to inside sales reps because the customer had fewer customer service related questions. How cool is that?!  How To Keep Up With The Expectations Of The Connected Consumer As AI becomes more prevalent, the question becomes how do brands keep up with the ever-rising bar of consumer expectations? Many brands have turned to more personal means of communication. The key is making sure the consumer receives targeted communication that connects with the consumer’s specific interests in their journey with a brand. The increased efficacy of digital marketing technology as consumer data gets smarter enables brands to segment their buyers. For instance, one UK retailer sends out coupons at the exact time a buyer is looking to purchase. This is possible only because of the ability of data mining platforms to zero in on buyer intent cues. Implementation Is The Key To Engaging The Connected Consumer  Having information about the consumer is not enough, brands must use the information effectively to create an experience the connected consumer will love. By empowering customer contact centers with access to consumer interaction history, the conversation turns from one of fact-finding to providing solutions which leads to a happier customer. To do this, CRM,, website, SMS and email medium must all communicate and share customer information, which is where intelligent marketing platforms come into play. The connected consumer is everywhere. We all have multiple sources of input and data that we interact with every day across multiple devices. The role of today’s modern marketer is to pull that information into a relevant conversation with the consumer. This requires breaking down the silos of marketing, sales, and service by enabling them to sync up in real-time to create great in-the-moment consumer experiences. Featured on This Episode Niki on LinkedIn Niki on Twitter: @nikihall Selligent on LinkedIn Selligent on Twitter: @selligent Selligent on Facebook Selligent on Instagram Selligent on YouTube Coolblue’s website Outline of This Episode [01:27] Welcome to the show Niki Hall, CMO of Selligent. [02:31] Niki provides information on Selligent and her role there. [03:25] Why should brands build a bridge between service, sales, and marketing?  [05:08] What role does customer data play in relevant marketing?  [08:50] How does AI fit into breaking down silos?  [10:33] Learn how technology seamlessly impacts the customer experience. [14:36] How to keep up with increased customer expectations as the bar gets higher. [17:44] Brands must learn how to process and filter the data provided by the consumer. [20:18] What is required to implement the information provided by intelligent platforms?  [22:15] Bernie begins his summary of the conversation. [26:51] Connect with Niki. Resources & People Mentioned This episode is brought to you by Gong.io, the number one conversation intelligence platform for sales. Gong helps you achieve revenue success, skyrocket rep performance and gain critical market intelligence. Get powerful visibility into your customer conversations with Gong. Head to www.gong.io to get started. Selligent.com The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts The path to leadership in marketing can be a daunting one for women. Bernie’s guest on this episode is Tricia Sacchetti, VP of Worldwide Marketing for Learning Tree International, a leader in the IT training industry. Tricia shares the story of her journey to a marketing leadership role and provides actionable advice for women looking to have a fulfilling career in marketing including earning leadership roles in their organizations. Tricia initially started her career in journalism but found that the industry was a hard one to break into. She took her communications background and applied it to marketing instead. She has since worked her way to the head of worldwide marketing in the leading provider of IT training, an industry dominated by male leadership. Tricia is passionate about being a role model for other women on their journey in their marketing careers. This episode is brought to you by Gong.io, the number one conversation intelligence platform for sales. Gong helps you achieve revenue success, skyrocket rep performance and gain critical market intelligence. Get powerful visibility into your customer conversations with Gong. Head to www.gong.io to get started. Mentorship Is Key To Building A Successful Career for Women in Marketing No matter what industry you are in learning from other leaders’ experience is invaluable. Women especially stand to gain by associating with other women leaders in marketing. When done properly, a mentor can help women navigate career decisions, provide insights into other people’s leadership styles, and help propel them in the right direction.   A mentor can help women narrow their focus and niche into an appropriate marketing discipline as experience is gained. Many corporations have mentorship programs, so Tricia recommends check with the HR department before reaching out to individuals directly. There are also programs through LinkedIn and LeanIn.org where women can find join a local LeanIn Circle and build strong relationships with other women.  How Women Can Gain Visibility Early In Their Career Visibility is a key component of reaching higher levels of leadership in an organization, but the question is, how should women in marketing make themselves more visible? Tricia recommends finding projects to work on that showcase your skills and your leadership ability. Also, offer to help members of the leadership staff with tasks and projects that they are working on. Becoming visible requires time and a willingness to put in good hard work, but the return on that time usually pays off. By offering your time and skills, reaching out to other women in the organization, and making yourself available, you are showing your willingness to learn and grow. That drive and need to succeed will get you noticed. What Does It Mean To Be “Stratactical” As Women In Marketing Tricia has come up with her own word to describe an affliction that affects many women in the workforce. Women typically have a “do it all myself” mentality but need to learn to delegate tasks and think strategically while executing tactical details. A certain level of hands-on is needed to show that you can do the work, but remember that not every task is tactical, some are administrative. Women in marketing looking to be effective women leaders in marketing can only get to that pinnacle if they learn how to distinguish career priorities. Tricia warns that the more tasks you take on, the more your organization will put on your plate, but becoming a leader does not mean taking on every task. Think strategically about your career as well as the needs of your organization and execute those tactical moves needed to get you to your goals. Properly Navigating Workplace Culture Leads To Greater Opportunity Every organization has a vibe to its company culture that influences behavior and action in the workplace. Aside from linking up with a credible and invested mentor, understanding and navigating the culture in your organization will help women propel forward in their career. Attempt to understand the organization’s culture and model actions and decisions accordingly. Finding a mentor, understanding workplace culture, making yourself visible, and learning how to be stratactical are the keys to successfully becoming a woman of leadership in marketing. Tricia’s final advice for women in marketing is to be authentic, recognize your value within an organization, and realize when you’re the one holding yourself back. If you don’t have the skills needed for a role, learn them, and be enthusiastic about the drive to learn. Marketing needs women in leadership roles, and the roles are there. Follow Tricia’s advice to help you - and other women in your life - enjoy a fulfilling career in marketing. Featured on This Episode Tricia on Twitter: @piscestls Tricia on LinkedIn Tricia on Instagram Learning Tree International LTI on Twitter: @LearningTree LTI on LinkedIn LTI on Facebook: @LearningTreeIntl LTI on YouTube Lean In Circles Outline of This Episode [01:18] Welcome Tricia Sacchetti, VP of Worldwide Marketing at Learning Tree International (LTI). [02:37] Learn more about Tricia, LTI, and her role there. [04:38] Tricia shares more about her journey into marketing. [05:49] What is the first piece of advice Tricia shares with women in marketing? [07:07] How should women seek out mentors in their industry? [08:55] Should women in marketing seek out a niche or stay in a generalist role?  [11:34] Hear Tricia expand on a pivotal moment in her career and ABM versus ABE. [15:05] Tricia shares words of wisdom for creating visibility on the path to leadership. [17:40] What does stratactical mean and how do you use it? [20:38] Tricia gives advice on navigating the dynamics of culture in the workplace. [25:13] Bernie begins his summary of the conversation. [29:44] Hear Tricia’s final addition to the episode. Resources & People Mentioned This episode is brought to you by Gong.io, the number one conversation intelligence platform for sales. Gong helps you achieve revenue success, skyrocket rep performance and gain critical market intelligence. Get powerful visibility into your customer conversations with Gong. Head to www.gong.io to get started. LinkedIn Mentorship Groups Sales Management Matrix: gong.io/matrix The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Understanding how customer conversations drive sales is a requirement in today’s data conscious business climate. With changes in technology happening daily, keeping up with what is and is not working in sales conversations is a must. Listen in as Bernie chats with Udi Ledergor, VP of marketing at Gong, about how customer conversations reveal key data points every business can and should use to increase the efficacy of their salespeople’s daily conversations with prospects and customers.  Two Israeli entrepreneurs founded Gong after searching for a solution to a sales dilemma and being unable to find it. After an abysmal quarter in one of their former companies, they sat down to listen to sales calls in an attempt to understand what’s changed in the current quarter versus a previous one. The call information that they found was an ineffectual data source because the recordings were poorly housed, labeled, and interpreted. To fill the gaps in the sales call data collection process, they created Gong, a conversation intelligence platform for sales and service personnel. Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report to learn how sales professionals stack up on requisite modern selling skills. You’ll hear from 15 executives with their insights and key recommendations. You’ll also learn how you can arrange to get your own custom digital selling benchmark for your sales team. Just go tostateofdigitalselling.com. Why CRM Systems Fail The Modern Salesperson When a salesperson is conducting a sales call, they usually speak upwards of 6,000 words in a single conversation. The number of those words that make it into the CRM system for future conversations is typically closer to 30. This is because salespeople choose the words and they do not have the time to properly update and manage their CRM data.  Not only is the data provided in a CRM system an incomplete picture, but it is also inherently biased. Udi candidly notes that he has yet to meet a salesperson who willingly notates their CRM data with information regarding their actual performance on a call. The CRM was created to help sales managers and marketing leaders understand the sales activities within their company, but it is not helpful for the salesperson in the trenches who needs real-time data on their customer conversations.  How Does Conversation Intelligence Solve The CRM Dilemma? Gong is a conversation intelligence platform that records sales conversations and then mines the data found in those conversations to identify trends, areas of opportunity or threats, as well as success factors. The goal is for every sales representative to be able to learn from the top sales performers. What are they doing right? What are they doing wrong? Where are the areas of opportunity in changing the conversation from a maybe to a yes?  Udi reveals the process that Gong takes to record customer conversations and then label, house, and mine the recordings. Rather than creating extra steps for the salesperson prior to a call, Gong interfaces with their Google calendar and records any customer conversations noted on the calendar. Those calls are then identified, labeled, and stored for easy access and use.  Salespeople Have Found Tremendous Benefit In Using Gong One of the biggest concerns going into the creation of the program was determining how the average salesperson would react to having their calls recorded. While the practice of recording calls is fairly standard, the feeling that one is being recorded by “big brother” is hard to overcome. This has not been an issue with Gong users, however, because sales teams recognize the value that the conversation intelligence represents to their sales performance.  The training opportunity that the recorded calls represent is extremely advantageous both for new representatives and experienced representatives. Additionally, the calls are automatically transcribed and documented into the CRM system, so the representative no longer has to take that extra step of documenting a call in CRM. Additionally, Gong can set reminders on promised activities and alerts when sales conversations veer away from successful topics. How Customer Conversations Affect Marketing Practices  Marketing leaders can now use conversation intelligence to get closer to their market in real-time. They are hearing the voice of the customer as they discuss pain points and objections and can use that data to design campaigns. The marketing leader can also verify that the sales teams are using proper brand messaging and confirm that the message is being conveyed as intended. Marketers can get real-time feedback on the viability of their messaging. Using Gong’s conversation intelligence technology provides an endless supply of training material, real-time market information, and trend dynamics. The ability to pinpoint what works in a sales conversation versus what doesn’t is extremely valuable in today’s fast-changing sales landscape. Listen in as Udi provides insights into how measuring sales conversations in real-time can boost your sales and marketing results. Featured on This Episode Udi on Twitter: @ledergor Udi on LinkedIn Gong.io Gong on Twitter: @gong_io Gong on Facebook Gong on LinkedIn Outline of This Episode [01:02] Welcome to the show Udi Ledergor, VP of Marketing at Gong. [01:37] Listen as Udi shares the origins, history, and purpose of Gong. [03:09] What does marketing at Gong look like and focus on?  [04:11] Udi shares why CRM systems hinder sales conversations and training. [06:02] How machine learning and customer conversations enhance sales. [08:05] Udi shares the feedback they’ve received from salespeople regarding call recording. [15:40] Gong reveals success metrics at the people, deal, and strategy levels. [17:08] How integration with CRM, emails, and other platforms equal success. [18:24] What is the role of marketing in customer conversation and machine learning?  [21:02] Bernie begins his summary of the conversation. [25:14] Udi’s final thoughts and contact information.  Resources & People Mentioned Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report to learn how sales professionals stack up on requisite modern selling skills. You’ll hear from 15 executives with their insights and key recommendations. You’ll also learn how you can arrange to get your own custom digital selling benchmark for your sales team. Just go to stateofdigitalselling.com. LinkedIn State of Digital Selling Report The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts In his 27 years of marketing experience, Steven Handmaker has seen the industry evolve tremendously. Over the years, marketing has become equal parts creative and data science melded together, connecting the dots to help increase sales. Steven has been on the marketing team at Assurance since 2004 and on this episode, he shares with Bernie Borges how marketing has evolved in his time there. Assurance is a B2B commercial insurance brokerage managing over 6,000 clients for all things insurance, to include property and casualty, employee benefits, life insurance, worker’s compensation, etc. Steven was the first full-time marketing person on staff and has worked to build the brand of not only the company but also the individual brokers. Listen as he shares how Assurance has evolved from the days of cold calling into the world of digital sales in an industry that has been around since the 19th century. Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report to learn how sales professionals stack up on requisite modern selling skills. You’ll also hear from 15 executives with their insights and key recommendations. You’ll also learn how you can arrange to get your own custom digital selling benchmark for your sales team. Just go tostateofdigitalselling.com. Why Building A Brand Is The First Priority Of Marketing When Steven first started at Assurance, his initial focus was to build the brand of the company. Their goal was to be the “Google” of insurance in workplace morale and environment. They wanted to attract the top brokers, to their company and in Steven’s opinion, they’ve succeeded.  After building the Assurance brand, the marketing focus shifted toward its online presence. Steven realized that while Assurance needed a strong brand, so too did its brokers. The modern buyer does their research prior to interacting with a company, so their brokers need to be prepared to enter into conversations with potential clients at any point in their journey. Building the individual brands of their brokers became the new focus to widen the Assurance net of influence. How Social Platforms Affect Marketing Strategy To build their broker’s individual brands, Steven and the marketing department focused on building professional, branded social profiles. They recognized that the buyer was interested in what their brokers were sharing online both on their personal and professional profiles. They encourage their client-facing employees to share valuable content on their branded social profiles to establish their expert status in the industry.  Once their client-facing employees’ profiles were established, Steven’s team turned toward the entire company workforce. Assurance encourages every employee to brand their profile and share information about the company and the industry, expanding the online presence of Assurance. By using the digital signals of their potential clients, the marketing team creates content that speaks to their client’s pain points. That content is shared by their employees across all of their professional profiles. Why In Today’s World Marketing IS Sales In Steven’s words, gone are the days of marketing being singularly creative. They are no longer only the “make it pretty people.” Every marketing interaction is a potential sales opportunity and marketing and sales have become one. Marketing enables sales to do their jobs by providing useful data on the modern buyer.  The sales team uses the data provided to them through their marketing channels to reach out to pre-qualified clients. Every piece of content that the marketing department creates aims at bringing the modern buyer deeper into the sales process so that the sales team is working with qualified leads. Marketing continues to nurture those potential buyers making them warmer through every interaction with the company. How Marketing Leadership Has Evolved  As digital selling has become more prominent, the role of the marketing leader has turned toward being an educator. The marketing professional has to train and help salespeople use the tools provided to reach their target audience more effectively. The salesperson has to know their market. Not every interaction needs to happen online, but regardless of the industry, the broker needs to know how to engage using social platforms. No matter the industry or the target, salespeople need to prepare to be available and willing to respond quickly. Speed is important because the modern buyer is always on and so too should be the sales professional. Listen in to this episode with Steven Handmaker, CMO of Assurance to hear why education, speed, and marketing and sales alignment are the key focal points in Assurance’s marketing strategy.  Featured on This Episode Steven Handmaker on LinkedIn Steven Handmaker on Twitter: @handmaker Assurance Assurance on LinkedIn Assurance on Twitter: @AssuranceATeam Outline of This Episode [01:12] Welcome to the show Steven Handmaker, CMO at Assurance. [01:55] Learn more about Assurance and Steven’s role there. [05:00] Steven shares how marketing has evolved since he started at Assurance. [08:47] How did they deal with individual broker branding along with corporate branding? [10:14] Why salespeople alone are no longer the only brand ambassadors in a company. [11:36] How has Assurance prepared their brokers for digital selling?  [16:23] At Assurance marketing and sales are not just aligned, they are the same. [17:45] Learn how Steven empowers his brokers to view sales and marketing holistically. [19:38] How has marketing leadership evolved to succeed in today’s digital world? [21:52] Are the brokers adopting the new digital sales concepts quickly? [24:25] There’s a new expectation amongst modern buyers regarding speed and communication. [26:10] Hear Bernie’s recap of the episode. [29:52] Steven shares exactly how marketing has changed in his time with Assurance. [31:16] Connect with Steven. Resources & People Mentioned Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report to learn how sales professionals stack up on requisite modern selling skills. You’ll also hear from 15 executives with their insights and key recommendations. You’ll also learn how you can arrange to get your own custom digital selling benchmark for your sales team. Just go to stateofdigitalselling.com. The State of Digital Selling Report The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.  

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Bernie and his guests have discussed using AI assistant technology for increased marketing efficiency several times on the show and each time in a slightly different way. Bernie’s guest today is Kevin Colosimo, Senior Director, Digital Strategy and Innovation, North America Marketing at Oracle. Kevin describes how his team is augmenting their workforce with virtual sales assistants powered by AI to produce more conversation-ready leads, aka CoRE. Oracle is best known as the world’s leading provider of database software, but after investing over $6 billion in research and development today it’s recognized as the global leader in business software with a broad portfolio of solutions for companies of all sizes. Kevin is part of the North America Marketing team reporting directly to sales. His goal is to help marketing and sales work more effectively together to achieve better results. One solution his team is implementing is identifying conversation-ready leads faster with AI assistant technology from Conversica. If your company has considered integrating AI sales assistants into your sales and marketing workflow, you won’t want to miss this episode.  This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com What Are Conversation-Ready Leads And How Do They Impact Sales And Marketing? Kevin defines conversation-ready leads as those that are ready to talk with sales; they are actively in a buying journey. The issue that Oracle faced prior to implementing AI powered sales assistants was that marketing brought in tons of leads, but approximately 80% weren’t ready for a sales conversation. Neither sales nor marketing were happy because the leads weren’t converting fast enough into opportunities.  Oracle’s sales and marketing teams approached the problem in two ways. The first was to identify qualified leads through a machine learning lead scoring system. This system ended up being less than effective because the lead scoring model identified leads that hit several of the metrics, but they weren’t resulting in more conversation ready leads. The second was through implementing AI-powered virtual assistants. Rather than funneling more non-CoRe or non-conversation ready leads through the nurture campaigns, they pushed them towards the virtual assistant programs.  How AI Assistants Have Altered The Oracle Team Structure Oracle now has four virtual assistants that the marketing team funnels potential leads to when they are not conversation-ready. The four assistants Cynthia, Nicole, Isabella, and Wendy answer questions in a prompt and polite manner with responses specifically designed for certain projects. They also reach out to customers on a consistent and persistent basis that the human element cannot maintain. Through their conversations with the leads, the virtual assistants identify CoRe leads and automatically funnel those leads to the sales team.  By augmenting their workforce with AI assistants, Oracle has opened up opportunities for their reps to become more efficient and effective in their roles. Rather than nurturing leads that are not yet ready to be delivered to sales because they’re not yet ready to have conversations, the sales reps can focus solely on those leads who are “conversation-ready” because they’re in the buying mindset. The reps have more meaningful conversations with those buyers because of the information obtained by their virtual assistants. The result is faster conversion to opportunities. Of Course There Were Challenges When Implementing The New Program... As with all major infrastructure changes, there were certain challenges to overcome. The North American Marketing team at Oracle put in place three key principles that increased their level of success when implementing the AI assistants. Those principles were: 1) building an internal support system with program champions, 2) selecting the appropriate use cases for their pilot program, and 3) redesigning their email messaging to support helping versus selling.  Instead of moving the entire sales and marketing department to the virtual assistant program at once, they created specific scenarios in which to use the assistants. By starting small and selecting the right lead development reps and managers to work with, the transition to the use of virtual assistants was fairly seamless. When you show the positive impact a program has had on one group of reps, the rest of the teams are more likely to want in. The Results Of Implementing AI Assistants Into The Lead Workflow Oracle’s AI-powered virtual assistants have been operating for about a year as of this episode and their results have been positive to say the least. They are generating a high quality conversation-ready leads that convert faster into pipeline. While their sales teams receive fewer leads overall, the quality is much higher. They also KNOW that their AI assistants are better at identifying CoRe leads that convert into opportunities than their traditional nurture programs, which both the sales and marketing teams love! Cham - Insert image #3 here from the PPT supplied by Kevin. For more insights on how you can implement AI assistants into your lead generation programs, listen to this episode. Kevin gives an in-depth look at the process Oracle uses to implement the technology and how that implementation is positively impacting their sales and marketing results. Listen in for a unique look at the AI conversation. Featured on This Episode Kevin on LinkedIn Kevin on Twitter: @kcolosimo Oracle on LinkedIn Oracle on Twitter: @Oracle Outline of This Episode [00:53] Bernie introduces today’s guest, Kevin Colosimo of Oracle. [02:15] Kevin provides a quick background of Oracle and his role there. [05:07] What are the drivers that have pushed Kevin’s team towards an AI assistant? [06:58] How are “conversation-ready” leads defined?  [09:39] What approaches did Kevin take to define a model to produce more leads? [10:41] Why machine learning models reveal holes in the lead scoring approach. [13:30] How augmenting the marketing and sales teams with virtual assistants increased human capacity and efficiency. [15:17] Why the combination of AI and human resources led to increased volume. [19:40] How did Oracle overcome the challenges faced when implementing AI assistant tech? [23:35] Did the change in processes equate to increased conversation-ready leads?  [27:04] How the virtual assistants have changed Oracle’s messaging strategy. [28:18] Any unexpected outcomes from augmenting the workforce with AI assistants?  [29:55] What’s next for sales and marketing at Oracle?  [31:42] What is marketing’s role in building awareness and engaging customers?  [33:13] Hear Bernie’s summary of the conversation. [36:16] Kevin provides his final thoughts for the conversation. Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com Episode 188 of SBE - How Conversational AI Provides Marketing And Sales A Competitive Edge Oracle The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Companies have used marketing automation software since the 1990s when the internet became widely accepted for business use. The focus of the first two stages of sales and marketing transformation was on automation and integration of the two departments in a direct selling model.  Bernie’s guest on this episode is Jay McBain, Principal Analyst, Channel Partnerships & Alliances, with Forrester. The third stage of marketing automation is through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) per Jay, and he explains why. Jay has spent 25 years in channels, started his own channel software company, and currently serves as local Channels Practice Manager at Forrester.  In this episode, Jay walks through the history of marketing automation, why through-channel marketing is the future, and what businesses can and should do today to prepare. This episode is full of great tips and information if your company is looking to move into the third stage of marketing automation to leverage distribution channels more efficiently. Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report to learn how sales professionals stack up on requisite modern selling skills. You’ll also hear from 15 executives with their insights and key recommendations. Lastly, you’ll learn how you can arrange to get your own custom digital selling benchmark for your sales team. Just go to stateofdigitalselling.com. How TCMA Differs From General Marketing Automation With cloud technology and high-speed internet, sales and marketing automation software companies sprouted up like weeds. Now, where there were once over 150 marketing automation software companies, there are now about five major players. Companies created automation software to take all the bits of marketing from email campaigns to social media campaigns to direct marketing and automate many of those processes for maximum efficiency.  Traditional marketing automation tools focus solely on the brand itself and how to market the brand to the world. TCMA focuses on marketing through various channels, partnerships, and alliances to reach a larger audience in a more individualized and organic way. Because this means working with many channels, the automation process is more complex with many permutations requiring a multi-layered and faceted automation process.  Why TCMA Is The Third-Stage Of Marketing and Sales Transformation Sales and marketing leaders are tasked with increasing sales and profit margins quarter over quarter, but the market share is ever changing. Rather than increasing the number of salespeople, increasing the number of marketing partners makes the most sense for many businesses in many industries. Your product is vetted by your channels and then marketed to their audiences, giving your business a wider reach than experienced in the past. Jay uses Microsoft to illustrate the need for TCMA. Microsoft has over four-hundred thousand partners and brings on over seven-thousand five-hundred new partners each month. Microsoft runs a new campaign every month that has to be replicated four-hundred thousand times for each individual partner. Successful integration and on-brand marketing could not be accomplished by human managers alone, thus the need for TCMA. How Success Is Measured And Defined With TCMA. Companies measure the success of TCMA through the return on investment of the direct funding of partners with marketing tools and adoption of those tools. Because large channels might pay out billions of dollars in marketing funding to their partners, there are checks and balances in place to curtail fraud and overpayments. Measuring the actual return by the partners in the channel is one way to measure success. The overall adoption of the automation tools by the partners is another way of measuring success. The vendor or brand invests large sums of money into the automation tools, marketing materials, and training, and when properly adopted, the returns increase. Many partners, however, want the marketing tasks done for them rather than adopting the systems provided to them. This is specifically problematic within the technology industry. Why Adoption Rates In Technology Are Low And How This Is Changing Jay delves deeper into the challenges in the technology space by referencing the book The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. Essentially, many companies started in the last 20 to 30 years did so without much help from automation. The owners don’t see the value of changing the way they market to their customers and as such, they don’t see the need to integrate TCMA into their current marketing process.  This mindset is steadily shifting as more millennials make their way into leadership roles and look to make their mark in the technology space. Jay stated that he sees the tide of adoption rates steadily increasing in the technology sector as those millennials drive the third stage of marketing transformation forward. Listen in to learn more about hybrid distribution models and how the tools for marketing automation are layered for maximum efficiency. Bernie and Jay also discuss how sales and marketing integration has affected the channel and partnership departments. Additionally, learn why Jay believes market consolidation is on the horizon for TCMA software companies. This is an episode you won’t want to miss. Featured on This Episode Jay on LinkedIn Jay on Twitter Jay’s Blog Post: Through-Channel Marketing Represents The Third Stage For Sales And Marketing Leaders Forrester BOOK: The E-Myth by Michael Gerber Outline of This Episode [01:00] - Welcome Jay McBain, Principal Analyst, Channel Partnerships & Alliances for Forrester and modern marketing expert. [01:40] - Learn the third stage of sales and marketing transformation. [02:53] - Jay discusses Forrester and his role within the company. [03:56] - How through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) differs from general marketing automation. [05:53] - Further, learn why marketing through a channel is necessary in today’s world. [09:15] - Why the complexity of channel marketing requires a different type of tool.  [11:09] - Jay shares what level of TCMA is needed for those companies already using marketing automation tools. [12:40] - Learn why TCMA is the third stage of sales and marketing transformation through the example of the automobile industry. [14:18] - Why would consolidation occur in the TCMA process? [17:40] - How is success measured and defined in TCMA?  [20:51] - Why is the adoption rate for technology partners so low?  [23:01] - Learn why there is resistance to the use of vendor marketing funds and why that’s changing. [24:51] - Jay gives advice to those listeners who are in hybrid marketing strategies. [26:54] - Listen in for Bernie’s summary of the episode. [31:19] - Jay provides one additional point on why most marketing tools favor local business and how your partnership benefits from that favor. Resources & People Mentioned We’ve surveyed 862 B2B sales reps across five industries to measure their digital selling skills. The results we found validate a common concern among sales leaders – despite the digital age – most sales professionals lack the basic skills to find, engage and connect with the people they need to meet to start more sales conversations. Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report to learn how sales professionals stack up on requisite modern selling skills. You’ll also hear from 15 executives with their insights and key recommendations. Lastly, you’ll learn how you can arrange to get your own custom digital selling benchmark for your sales team. Just go to stateofdigitalselling.com. Selling with Social Podcast Episode 115 - Leverage Your Channel Sales Partners to Grow Revenue Through-Channel Marketing Represents the Third Stage for Sales and Marketing Leaders, by Jay McBain The E-Myth by Michael E Gerber The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Vengreso recently published an original report titled The State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn in 2019. We surveyed 862 B2B sales reps across five industries: professional services, technology, manufacturing, healthcare, and financial services to assess their digital selling skills. The sales reps were asked 10 multiple-choice questions about how they use LinkedIn in their sales activities to assess how their use of LinkedIn impacts their digital selling results. Tune into today’s episode as Bernie and his guest Kurt Shaver, Co-founder and CSO at Vengreso, summarize the key findings that are published in the 20-page report. Get the full report on the Vengreso website or at stateofdigitalselling.com. Don’t miss out on the full report’s finding to understand how reps are being effective in digital selling through LinkedIn. How Has LinkedIn Impacted Digital Selling? One of the key takeaways from The State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn in 2019 report is that LinkedIn has been severely under-utilized by sales and marketing professionals. Despite being the largest publicly available B2B database in the world, the number of professionals using the platform for sales engagement is disappointing. LinkedIn is a comprehensive tool sales professionals should use to find, engage, connect with, and foster relationships with potential customers. The scope and depth of information housed in the LinkedIn platform are enough to keep most sales professionals’ digital Rolodex full of prime prospects for years. It has already revolutionized digital selling among those sales and marketing teams who use it appropriately. Your LinkedIn Profile Is More Than A Resume Most LinkedIn users recognize the platform as a way to present a professional face to the business world. However, beyond uploading a professional picture and completing the resume portion of the bio, most salespeople fail to optimize their profiles. Sales professionals need to move beyond using LinkedIn solely as a resume and instead focus on presenting a profile written through the eyes of their target customer. The report shows that most sales professionals are unaware that LinkedIn allows you to upload a variety of media files to include documents, PDFs, videos, and reports. The backbone of digital selling is creating and maintaining credibility with your target customer. The percentage of salespeople using LinkedIn to repurpose existing content and spread new content is surprisingly low considering the power such information has in generating trust. Are Your Connections Referring You Business? It’s true that the quality of your connections is more important than the quantity, but approximately half of the sales professionals surveyed had fewer than 500 connections. The salespeople who generate the most revenue are those with the biggest network. Having a net of just anyone is not effective, but when you focus on connecting with large numbers of people in your area of focus, you enhance your ability to sell more effectively and consistently. When you have a large network, you have more people from whom to gain referrals. However, the number of individuals in sales who are not using their network for referrals is astounding. 93 percent of those surveyed in The State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn in 2019 report have not or are not sure if they have ever asked for a referral from their connections. Considering the networking opportunities on LinkedIn, this is a huge area of improvement needed by sales professionals. Why Aren’t Sales Professionals Using The Advanced Search Feature? Not only are sales professionals not using their connections often enough to generate referrals and leads, but they are also not using the Advanced Search feature within LinkedIn. Perhaps most salespeople are unaware that this feature exists since 40 percent of those surveyed indicated they have never used the Advanced Search tool. This feature provides sales professionals the ability to create and save searches to find people they want to connect with and create Search Alerts that notify the user of new contacts matching the search criteria. Those who know how to use the Advanced Search feature are more effective at prospecting on LinkedIn. Bernie and Kurt closed this episode with an invitation to get the full report to read key insights on how to use the findings gained from this survey. To get the full 20-page report just go to www.stateofdigitalselling.com. Featured on This Episode Kurt on LinkedIn Kurt on Twitter: @KurtShaver Outline of This Episode [1:04] Bernie introduces today’s guest Kurt Shaver, CSO, and co-founder of Vengreso [2:16] Bernie reveals the purpose behind The State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn in 2019 report and how the data was obtained. [3:40] Which version of LinkedIn are most sales teams using? [5:34] The version doesn’t matter so much as the training supplied to the reps. [6:33] How does the profile picture affect the efficacy of the profile as a whole? [9:03] Media takes your LinkedIn profile from a digital resume to a digital resource. [14:19] What the number of LinkedIn connections say about profile optimization? [17:01] Referrals through LinkedIn are tremendously underutilized. [18:55] LinkedIn’s least used resource? The Advanced Search feature. [21:08] How often are individual reps sharing content with their LinkedIn network? [25:28] Better sales calls are made when the sales rep does research. [26:29] Are salespeople using personal video messages in their digital selling tactics? [30:04] What does your LinkedIn SSI score say about your LinkedIn profile? [31:56] Download the report at stateofdigitalselling.com for additional insights. [32:35] Kurt’s final thoughts on the insights gained from The State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn in 2019 report. Resources & People Mentioned Episode 217 of The Modern Marketing Engine Podcast: The 4 Digital Selling Skills of the Successful Modern Seller Episode 242 of the MME Podcast: How Marketing & Sales Contribute To Digital Transformation At CenturyLink Episode 230 of the SBE Podcast: The Influential Role of Content in Sales Enablement Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP Eric Yuan, CEO and founder of Zoom Video Communications Episode 246 of the MME Podcast: The Career Journey of the Modern CMO Episode 251 of the MME Podcast: 3 Ways to Ensure Marketing And Sales Produce Measurable Results The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.  

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts B2B marketing teams strive to derive actionable insights from the vast amounts of data they collect to generate viable sales opportunities through buyer intent signals. They must have a strong definition of their ideal customer profiles (ICP), their target market segments, brand identity, buyer’s journey, and more. However, the volume of data is too much for marketers to identify buyer intent signals without the proper methods in place. In this episode, John Steinert, CMO of TechTarget explains the power of intent data and how marketers can harness it in account-based marketing (ABM). Be sure to listen all the way to the end, as John provides an in-depth view of the process through which TechTarget garners information supporting their buyer intent signals. How To Glean Buyer Intent From Buyer Behavior For the past 15 years, consumers and businesses have built patterns of buyer interest and intent in purchasing by consuming content on the Internet. Signals describe what businesses know about user behavior and how those interactions can provide insights into buyer intent. However, the number of interactions marketers can analyze on the Internet is intensely voluminous. Determining what information is pertinent to the buyer’s journey and what information is not is the goal of all sales and marketing teams. Using the information provided by buyer intent data to better distinguish interest signals versus purchase signals strengthens account-based marketing planning. Which Roles In Sales And Marketing Make Use of Buyer Intent Signals? Many roles in the marketing and sales groups can make use of buyer intent data, but demand generation marketers, inside sales and product marketers can use the data for maximum impact. The data identifies people at accounts that are in-market searching for solutions to a business problem, as well as who is responsible for purchasing that solution, and which direction from which that person intends to approach the solution. Product marketers use this information to understand customer requirements, which guides their sales enablement content and activities. Inside sales reps use the data provided to structure their outbound calls and identify and solve a prospect’s business problem. Demand generation marketers use the information to emphasize messaging that promotes the ability of their company to solve the specific business problem. The marketing team creates targeted messaging appealing to the ICP by addressing the problem from their point of view. Any Special Technology Requirements Needed To Harness Behavioral Data? Companies are getting much smarter at understanding their historical data and identifying the accounts they should be able to sell to. TechTarget focuses on the ideal customer profile and qualified accounts to provide relevant data to salespeople, allowing them to find the ideal starting place for sales outreach. Armed with the qualified accounts, outbound sales reps only need a computer and a phone to reach out to their identified warm leads. With the buyer intent data in hand, sales professionals make warm calls versus cold calls. Each account they contact will have already made their intent to purchase known. Even the smallest tech companies taking an ABM approach see huge returns when they enable their sales teams the ability to reach out to qualified versus cold accounts. How Does Buyer Intent Data Impact Sales And Marketing Team Structures? The beauty of buyer intent data is the broad use across many roles in marketing and sales. Almost all levels of sales including field sales, inside sales, and business development roles can benefit from the data provided by intent and purchase signals. Demand generation, advertising, and most marketing roles can use the information to better attract accounts that are looking to purchase a technology solution. The data allows both small and large teams to plan their ABM activities more cost effectively. TechTarget has generated massive amounts of gated content specifically developed to attract people who are searching for enterprise technology solutions. Buyers opt-in to consume relevant content that’s useful to their purchase journey. The gated content helps buyers learn about available solutions while making the seller and buyer interaction more efficient for both parties. This process has made TechTarget the global leader in purchase intent marketing. Featured on This Episode TechTarget - where John Steinert serves as CMO John Steinert on LinkedIn John on Twitter: @TechTargetCMO Outline of This Episode [1:03] John Steinert, CMO of TechTarget shares insights on B2B buyer intent signals. [2:33] What is TechTarget and who do they serve? [3:13] What are buyer intent signals and where do they fit in the marketer’s role? [5:24] The trick for marketers and sellers is learning how to prioritize high-value signals. [8:19] Purchase intent is a specific signal within a group of behavioral signals. [8:37] What is the difference between an interest signal and a purchase intent signal? [10:15] Who makes use of real purchase intent signals and what are their roles? [11:28] How does each role use the signal data? [12:35] What is in the data and what does it signify? How does it help the sales and marketing teams? [17:50] Where are clients in the adoption curve as related to the B2B buyer intent signal? [19:10] TechTarget allows salespeople to contact only sales qualified accounts. [22:48] Priority Engine allows sales teams to prioritize the accounts where people are showing purchase intent. [23:23] How does this technology impact marketing and sales team structure? [25:58] Bernie provides his summary of the conversation. Resources & People Mentioned Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report, to learn how sales professionals stack up on basic digital selling skills. To get the report go to stateofdigitalselling.com. www.techtarget.com The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.  

 Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts The marketing and sales teams in fast-growing technology companies must be aligned to produce measurable results. Conversica is a fast-growing tech company with a leadership team dedicated to marketing and sales being tightly aligned. Learn what it takes to create united marketing and sales groups and how unity produces measurable results, with Rashmi Vittal, CMO, and Gregg Ames, CSO of Conversica. This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com How Traditional Marketing and Sales Alignment Is Defined Traditionally, marketing and sales have been organized independently of one another in an organization. The marketing team is responsible for brand building, lead generation and attracting opportunities in the market for a company. The sales team is responsible for diligently following up on leads to meet revenue targets. Historically, each department handled their individual tasks with individual goals rather than working collaboratively. Separating marketing and sales activities and goals has led to distrust and disagreement over many topics ranging from the quality of leads to the meaning of data and metrics. Each team sought to achieve their results based on their own goals. At Conversica, marketing and sales leadership works very collaboratively. In fact, their mindset is one of unity between marketing and sales with a shared focus on meeting the needs of their customer. The Ideal Customer Profile Explored And Defined Gregg explains that marketing and sales work closely together to define the ideal customer profile, aka ICP. Additionally, the success and delivery teams also play a key role in understanding their ICP. They have created a bullseye chart to define and illustrate their ideal customer profile. They constantly monitor their achievement in winning customers within their ICP and even explore winning outside their ICP bullseye. The leadership team at Conversica invests heavily in training and enablement. The more knowledgeable their teams are, the more effective they are in their sales conversations. Investing in ongoing training and in industry knowledge empowers and enables the sales team to grow their lead conversions. Both Gregg and Rashmi believe that collaboration has strengthened their vision of the ideal customer profile and the message they use to attract companies to learn how Conversica’s AI assistant technology can help improve their business results. Feedback From The Customer Success Team Fuels Change Deriving and interpreting feedback from the Customer Success (CS) team is critical to ongoing success. Customer Success interacts directly with the client and is the gateway through which both marketing and sales garner information about how they use Conversica. These insights enable them to be responsive to the needs of the customer during the buyer’s journey. The collaborative work between marketing and sales enables them to revise the sales process as needed. Customer Success teams also play a paramount role in reducing “churn.” Their feedback on how the customer uses Conversica‘s products, allows the marketing and sales teams to take action to minimize churn and maximize winning best-fit customers. How Mutual Accountability Drives Performance Gregg and Rashmi are impressively passionate about how their teams are accountable to each other and to the company. They both want Conversica to succeed and stay profitable and they understand they must win together through collaboration. Digging into the data together, evaluating operational details, and working together on a shared view of the business allows them to optimize their time and make adjustments where needed. Rashmi explains how working together through open lines of communication builds and maintains mutual respect and trust. This allows the teams to work more effectively. Gregg touches on how marketing and sales are not static. United marketing and sales teams continuously adapt and refine their processes. Building integration and collaboration across marketing, sales, and customer success play a huge role in Conversica’s ability to create measurable results while being adaptive to evolving market dynamics. Featured on This Episode Rashmi Vittal on Twitter: @rashmivittal10 Rashmi Vittal on LinkedIn Gregg Ames on LinkedIn Conversica on Twitter: @MyConversica Conversica on LinkedIn Conversica on Facebook: @conversica Outline of This Episode [1:07] Welcome Rashmi Vittal, CMO, and Gregg Ames, CSO at Conversica [2:19] What is Conversica? [2:40] How is AI assistance providing value for sales and marketing teams? [3:48] Rashmi discusses the traditional definition of marketing and sales alignment. [4:57] Gregg defines the ideal customer profile for Conversica. [8:32] Gregg and Rashmi unpack the role of the customer success team. [10:45] What does it look like to be united in marketing and sales at Conversica? [14:42] How do you create mutual accountability in moving toward performance goals? [17:22] Stronger alignment is more collaborative and creates better results. [18:56] Sales and marketing is a process of continuous improvement and collaboration. [19:28] How alignment affects team staffing. [21:36] Bernie’s summary of the conversation about sales and marketing alignment. [25:20] Rashmi notes that Conversica is at the beginning of the journey to unity. Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com Conversica The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts   A marketing executive’s go to market strategy depends on whether their company is in an established category — going after market share gains — or if they are in a new category that requires awareness building for the category itself. Utpal Bhatt is the SVP of marketing at Qubole, a SaaS platform that processes cloud data and provides support for many large companies such as Oracle and Lyft, as well as many start-ups. Utpal heads up marketing and is responsible for brand awareness, product marketing, and lead generation. In this episode, Bernie and Utpal discuss the different go to market strategies that should be used when entering a cold market versus a hot and happening market. Listen to learn how to determine if you should create a new marketing category or if you are in an existing category and need to differentiate your product. This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com Where Should You Start When Creating A Go To Market Strategy? According to Utpal, the first thing a marketing leader must decide when determining how to market a new product is whether the product belongs to an existing category or needs to be defined as a new category. All subsequent decisions such as team building, content strategy, and marketing direction stem from this initial decision. Determining if your product belongs in a new category versus an existing category requires looking at your competitors. Do you have competitors that have very similar products and services? If so, you’ll likely be entering a “hot” market. If you do not have direct competitors, then you will need to consider building a new category to market your product or service. How To Create A New Category If you find that the best strategy is to create a new category, prepare to build the audience for the category. The key to successfully creating a new category is to drive awareness, encourage adoption, and look to capitalize through monetization. Driving awareness requires having the right spokesperson, someone able to describe and articulate the value of the category and how it addresses a business problem for your target customer. You then need to build awareness by creating content that supports the thought leadership of your product within the category and provide training initiatives. Once you have a spokesperson and content for this person to share, you then need to create a platform for your speaker to market from. Hosting events and creating a social media platform are just two of the ways that your spokesperson can reach your audience. After you have driven awareness to and about your product within the category, you then need to encourage adoption of that product. This is done by creating a community of people who are excited and motivated to spread the word about the value of the product. Your community will want to write blogs and post on social media because they “love” the product and the category. Finally, the goal of every marketing campaign is to capitalize on monetization. When creating a new market category, monetization is a long game that is best enhanced with appropriate targeting and segmenting of the community you built during the adoption phase. As awareness grows and adoption solidifies, monetization occurs with a portion of the loyal community you have built. Differentiation Is Key To Marketing In A Hot And Happening Category If your product already has a category to market within, then the key to a strong go to market strategy is differentiation. How does your product differ from others in the category, and how are those differences beneficial to your target customer? Take hold of market-share by creating content and a messaging strategy that works together to differentiate your offering from the rest of the competition. Should Your Go To Market Strategy Change Based On Category Heat? Going to market in a new category versus one in a hot and happening category requires a very different team building strategy. When you are building out a category, you initially need a renaissance sales rep, a person who will approach all aspects of the product and can hand-hold each prospect through the entire process. Once the category is established and built out, the type of salesperson you need to hire is very different. In a hot market, the category has already been created and built out. Rather than explaining the value of the category to a prospect, the salesperson needs to identify the most likely prospects based on recognized need. The goal is not to go after every single person in the category but to target those businesses and prospects who are most likely to recognize how your product meets their need in the category. For example, when analytics was a new category, the renaissance sales reps explained the value of analytics. Now, data analytics sales reps sell the unique virtues of their specific analytics system to prospects who are best-fit candidates for their analytics product. If you are creating a new category, your content needs to speak to the benefits and of your product and how to use it within the category. In a hot market, your content needs to show how your product is unique and valuable as measured by authorities in your niche. While there are many other concepts and ideas to consider when evaluating entering a hot versus new market, this conversation provides a wonderful high-level overview of considerations when choosing your marketing category and strategy. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from this conversation with Utpal Bhatt! Featured on This Episode Connect with Utpal on LinkedIn Utpal Bhatt on Twitter: @bhatt_utpal Qubole - the company where Utpal serves as SVP of Marketing Qubole on Twitter: @qubole Qubole on Facebook: @qubole Connect with Qubole on LinkedIn Outline of This Episode [1:50] Introduction to Qubole and Utpal’s role as SVP of Marketing [2:54] Should you create a new category or enter an existing category? [4:20] Where do you start when creating a new marketing category? [5:30] The three-step approach to creating a new category [5:55] What does it look like to drive awareness, adoption, and monetization? [7:00] Awareness: You need the right salespeople, content factory, and exposure plan? [10:10] Adoption: Easy to access education, training, tips and tricks, and samples [12:00] Monetization: Requires targeted audience segmentation based upon the community that was built in the adoption stage [14:55] Build your team gradually beginning with the awareness and adoption groups [17:58] When in an established category the strategy should be differentiation-centric [20:10] Distinction in going to market in a new category versus an established category [25:15] Bernie’s summary of the conversation Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com Hubspot’s 2019 Inbound Event The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Marketing and sales alignment in manufacturing has undergone an evolution as digital transformation has become more pervasive. Some tried-and-true methods have become less effective because of the change in buyer habits. In this episode, Bernie speaks with the head of sales and the head of marketing at Kadant Johnson - a manufacturing company - about their digital sales transformation journey. You won’t want to miss this episode as Dr. Wes Martz, VP of Marketing, and Carl Howe, VP of Sales, discuss how embracing digital transformation at Kadant has positively impacted their marketing and sales alignment and practices allowing their teams to reach customers previously unavailable to them. This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com How Tried And True Traditional Marketing Strategies Have Evolved Kadant Johnson is a manufacturing company that has been in business since 1930. They manufacture and distribute mechanical sealing devices that allow their industrial manufacturing customers to create paper towels, aluminum foil, corrugated cardboard boxes, etc. Traditionally their marketing and sales strategy has focused heavily on printed collateral, public relations, trade shows, and focusing on long-standing relationships in their key industries. Their message of value has not changed but how they communicate their messaging has changed. Dr. Martz discusses Kadant Johnson‘s evolution from print media to their website in the 90s, to their content marketing strategy and SEO focus providing them greater visibility in the online space. Their time and marketing spend are significantly directed toward their digital marketing platforms and being present in the major social media channels. These changes have increased the Kadant Johnson brand’s reach, which lends itself to a warm, direct selling environment. Digital Transformation Has Fostered Greater Marketing And Sales Alignment Carl speaks on how the Kadant Johnson sales force focuses on selling its products to three primary industries. Their brand name recognition is strong and recognized within those core industries, and each customer relationship leads to the next. They struggled, however, with building relationships in their secondary markets because the relationships were not there and the buyer has changed. Digital transformation is allowing his sales teams to reach out to the potential customers they want while also allowing them greater access to their company. In this approach, marketing and sales are aligned to create greater reach through digital practices and processes. The marketing teams build various funnels by generating appropriate content. When the customer moves through the funnel, the sales team takes over and maintains the message while providing further value that builds confidence in the brand. The sales team has also developed a greater ability to reach customers through digital channels that were previously unattainable, creating much greater marketing and sales alignment. Has The Changing Buyer Persona Affected Manufacturing Sales? At Kadant Johnson the traditional relationship-centered marketing and sales approach is as strong as ever, but how they foster the relationship has changed. Dr. Martz discusses how customers have evolved along with changes in the digital marketing world. Many times the buyers have also already researched Kadant before they ever look to engage with a salesperson. Dr. Martz takes this one step further in discussing the changing demographics of their customer base. The modern buyer is more educated, well read, younger, and brand focused. Rather than the buyer wanting to foster long-term relationships, they are looking online to find effective solutions that do not require a great deal of time to learn about and getting quick answers to questions.. How Digital Transformation Is Revolutionizing Sales Alignment And Processes Carl further discusses the changes that the increased online presence has made on the sales processes at Kadant. Traditionally, their sales team would drive down the road, see a smokestack, and reach approach the receptionist to find the gatekeeper at the company. Their sales team now uses LinkedIn and other platforms to find their potential customer’s information and to reach out through social media. The sales team has evolved from being focused mostly on face-to-face sales conversations to seeking out initial online engagement to start a conversation. From LinkedIn’s 3rd Annual “State of Sales Report,” one of the data points is that 62% of decision-makers read a salesperson’s LinkedIn profile looking for an informative profile before deciding to talk with that salesperson. Carl mentioned how surprised he is that customers and other people reach out and find him on LinkedIn and his salespeople without them always having to reach out. Kadant’s Digital Transformation Journey Unveiled Dr. Martz discusses the Kadant digital transformation more fully by bringing the conversation back to their updated LinkedIn profiles. Many businesses now use LinkedIn to research their potential vendors. Just as Kadant researches their potential clients, they know that they too are being researched and have arranged for their entire sales team to have their LinkedIn profiles made over into a resource for their current and prospective customers. The next step in their journey is to increase engagement between their sales teams and their prospective buyers on LinkedIn. The goal is to focus their traditional method of targeting their ideal industries and use that focus in digital channels, engaging with people in their target industries. Dr. Martz also wants to increase recognition of their company wins to create more excitement among the sales and marketing teams and increase their momentum through their use of LinkedIn. Carl Howe and Dr. Wes Martz expect to see the changes in behavior in their sales and marketing departments continue to build momentum accelerating their ability to sell and market Kadant Johnson in this new digital age. They have already seen some big wins and are looking forward to more. They have also noted a positive response from others in their organization. While Kadant Johnson has a decentralized corporate structure, their peers have noticed and are interested in learning how they too can benefit from the digital transformation that Dr. Martz and Carl have launched. Featured on This Episode Connect with Wes on LinkedIn Connect with Carl on LinkedIn Kadant Johnson on LinkedIn Kadant Johnson on Twitter:@Kadant Outline of This Episode [2:20] Introduction to Kadant Johnson, what they do, and who they serve [4:25] How Kadant Johnson started their marketing efforts [5:25] Traditional marketing practices that are still effective - Targeting [6:15] Marketing strategy has always been value-based but the medium has changed [7:25] Keywords and consistent presence have transformed Kadant Johnson’s outreach [8:43] Sales targeting is focused on 2 to 3 industries with long-established relationships [9:55] Digital marketing has revolutionized the relationship building side of the sales process [11:43] Evolution of the customer and how that affects sales and marketing strategy [14:30] The modern buyer is more educated than in the past; they do their research [17:10] How does the sales group get in front of potential customers? [19:30] How is LinkedIn providing avenues for market research and customer outreach? [20:55] Digital transformation is a journey - where is Kadant Johnson on the journey? [23:35] Digital transformation comes down to a behavior change [24:30] Discuss how the C-Suite views the digital transformation in sales and marketing [27:03] Bernie’s summary of the show Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by Conversica, AI software for marketing and sales that fosters real conversations to discover the most qualified sales opportunities. Learn more at https://conversica.com Byron Matthews, CEO - Miller Heiman Group - “The modern buyer has become better at buying faster than sellers have become at selling.” LinkedIn 3rd Annual State of Sales Report The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts   Great content marketing is about more than just publishing content. Your content has got to stand out - it's got to be truly great. On this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, Bernie hosts Stephanie Stahl, the General Manager of the Content Marketing Institute. She says that the companies that do content marketing really well are those that are providing the best content, content that is aimed at connecting with audiences emotionally about things that really matter to them. Listen to this episode to learn how brands are doing great content marketing, why webinars are still very effective, what isn’t working for content marketing, and why having a clear picture of your audience's content consumption preferences is one of the most important things to understand. As GM of the Content Marketing Institute, Stephanie brings a wealth of experience to this topic, so be sure you listen! How Does Great Content Marketing Work Differently For B2C and B2B? Content marketing has evolved over the years and has traditionally required differing approaches for B2C and B2B. Today, both require a similar philosophical approach because both are aimed at attracting an engaged and loyal audience - and in both cases, the challenge is that there is so much content out there, it’s hard to create truly great content that overcomes the noise. The answer is to create truly great content all the time. Consistency is key. Brands that are doing successful content marketing are showing their personality, speaking directly to their target audience as people, and appealing to the human desire to see the greater good served. Listen to Stephanie’s description of great content marketing and use it as a benchmark for assessing your own content marketing strategy. Are you building the trust you need to build? Are you speaking to your customer avatar in the right way and using the right methods? Webinars Are Still A Winner For B2B Content Marketing Webinars have long been a mainstay as an effective tool for great content marketing. Stephanie says they are still working extremely well for many brands, though the format and approach have changed in many ways over the years. Webinars are a great way for prospective customers to spend an hour taking a deep dive into an important topic to learn something valuable that makes a connection to the brand delivering the webinar. Research shows this to be true, as does Stephanie’s experience. In her gut, she knows that webinars are still very powerful for content marketing. Is your organization conducting webinars? Why or why not? Does Your Content Marketing Include A Variety Of Types Of Content? Content marketing isn’t just about getting attention - it’s about earning trust and credibility with your audience. That means you need to learn the formats and channels that best suit your audience. How are you going to do that? You need to explore all the channels of content that your audience uses. We refer to this as the “Omnichannel approach.” In most cases, your ideal audience will not be focused on only one form of content. Publish many types of content and then assess what is most effective in reaching and engaging your audience. Stephanie points out that content marketers must study what’s effective with their particular audience. Are the channels you’re using the best ones for your audience? Is what you’re publishing resonating with your audience? It’s the only way to ensure you’re spending your time in the most productive content creating practices. You'll also hear about the Content Marketing Institute’s annual event - Content Marketing World coming up in September and how you can get a $100 discount to attend this year's event. Bernie is speaking yet again at CMW. This year he is partnering with Seleste Lunsford, Chief Research Officer at CSO Insights, the research division of Miller Heiman Group. Bernie and Seleste are presenting key strategies for integrating content into sales enablement. (cham to insert CMW image of Bernie & Seleste here) Be sure to listen to the entire episode for Stephanie’s insights and recommendations for great content marketing. Featured on This Episode Stephanie on LinkedIn Stephanie on Twitter: @EditorStahl Stephanie on Instagram: @Stephanie_Stahl Seleste Lunsford on LinkedIn Outline of This Episode [2:49] The evolution of content marketing in B2B and B2C [5:23] What are the things that are not working in the B2B space? [9:17] The annual event CMI puts on: Content Marketing World [16:25] A preview of the fun activities that happen at CMW [18:41] Bernie’s summary of the conversation Resources & People Mentioned The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) Episode 206 of the podcast, with Cathy McPhillips of the Content Marketing Institute The Content Marketing World event (this year’s theme, “Amaze Your Audience” Seleste Lunsford, Chief Research Officer of CSO Insights The Rock N Roll Hall of Fame Punchbowl Social Get into the conference for $100 off. Use the code “MME100” The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Have you developed a plan that drives your high performing sales team? Listen in to learn how Marketing Leadership can create a vision and a plan in collaboration with Sales Leadership to develop the most successful high-performance sales teams. Bernie’s guest on this episode is Meshell Baker, Director of Global Sales Development at the National Association of Sales Professionals and the founder and spokesperson for the Women of Sales & Influence. The National Association of Sales Professionals (NASP) is the largest online community of sales professionals in the world. NASP is dedicated to empowering dynamic leaders, teams, and professionals to be focused on value first and provide them the tools and resources to succeed. Listen as Bernie and Meshell, discuss the six steps to building high performing sales teams through a 45-day challenge series that empowers sales professionals to alter the conscious and unconscious way that they approach selling. Attend the Brightcove PLAY event May 14 – 16, 2019. Visitwww.play.brightcove.com to get all of the details. I’ll be there both days, speaking on May 15th at 11am on how salespeople can use video to engage the modern buyer. Get 20% off by using this code: playpc2019. The Role of Marketing in Supporting High Performing Sales Teams The role of marketing has been evolving rapidly. In episode 246 Darryl Praill, CMO of VanillaSoft discussed the importance of helping sales make their number. It’s imperative for marketing and sales to team up to build a vision and a plan to help sales teams be successful. Read on to learn the six steps and the role of marketing in helping to build great sales teams. The First Step In Creating High Performing Sales Teams is Vision The first step in empowering a high performing sales team is to build a foundation with a vision of success. The sales team must have a clear goal in mind to maximize their interactions with their customers. This first step focuses and directs the sales mindset in pursuit of a greater goal. Marketing’s role is to provide clarity on the company’s brand promise so the sales team can build their vision around their customer’s success. The Power Of Breaking Old Habits The next and most important step involves analyzing and breaking down current habits to cull out those habits that do not align with the vision. Once the old habits have been broken down, new and stronger habits must be built that better align with the vision. The marketing message must support the creation of new habits and developing consciously competent sales professionals. They should know what their responsibility is, how to execute, and be empowered and encouraged to practice, practice, practice. Building New Habits Now it’s time to focus on building new habits that align with the vision. This is also known as becoming a conscious competent. This point of the 6 step program is around the 21-day mark. Sales professionals need a lot of marketing support to enable them to use new approaches in order for them to become conscious competents. Disciplined Imagination: Capturing The Mind Of The Buyer The human mind lives in the past, present, and future at once. The best sales professionals are able to capture the imagination of the customer by asking the right questions and help the customer imagine the desired outcome. Disciplined imagination is the conscious act of asking the right questions at the right time and embracing the art of storytelling to guide the customer on their journey to success. The role of marketing is to provide the resources for the sales team to know which questions to ask in each situation and equip them with relevant stories that can align with the customer’s path. Model The Beliefs Of Others To Strengthen The Sales Message A high performing sales and marketing team will look to model the beliefs and practices of other highly successful people and companies. The goal for each sales professional is to apply their own style to the modeled belief to create their own unique approach while leveraging a consistent message that represents your brand’s promise to the customer. Leaders should empower their sales teams to connect with their why and the experiences that make them unique so that their approach falls within their strengths and aligns with the vision. Marketing should provide vaulted content that is branded and relevant to the buyer’s journey, but customizable to empower the sales teams to play to their individual strengths. Operate In Intelligent Risk And Become Comfortable Being Uncomfortable The messaging is solidified, the processes are in place, training has been completed, and the sales professional is prepared and confident in their role. Success is the ability to confidently adapt in any circumstance and take intelligent risks in any situation. The messaging provided by the marketing team should allow the sales professional to adapt as needed to confidently respond to any objection while taking intelligent risks. Upon completion of these 6 steps across the 45-day challenge, the team has been prepared for success and it is up to them to continue to practice and develop their skills and mindset. The partnership between sales and marketing is a necessary ongoing process that fosters the creation of the best high performing sales teams. In fact, 91% of top performing sales organizations collaborate well with marketing. If your Marketing team is looking to make a measurable contribution to your sales team’s success, focus on building a collaborative relationship with Sales. Featured on This Episode Connect with Meshell on LinkedIn Meshell on Twitter: @MeshellRBaker National Association of Sales Professionals G2Crowd Sales Statistics Outline of This Episode [1:41] Why these 6 steps are important for marketers to use and embrace? [2:36] Who is Meshell and what is the National Association for Sales Professionals? [3:55] Build the foundation of the new strategy by creating a vision for success [4:56] Complete an analysis of habits and assess the misalignments between the new vision and the old activities [8:16] Build new habits to become consciously competent to reach success [10:36] Use disciplined imagination to ask the right questions to help the customer imagine the outcome [14:19] Model others beliefs and adapt to one’s own style to create a unique message [18:24] Implement steps 1 through 5 and be comfortable being uncomfortable [20:13] How marketing can show sales the way to flex and adapt to objections from customers and build confidence [21:12] Bernie’s summary of the conversation with Meshell [26:15] 91% of top performing sales organizations collaborate across sales and marketing departments and create a “We” attitude Resources & People Mentioned Attend the Brightcove PLAY event May 14 – 16, 2019. Visitwww.play.brightcove.com to get all of the details. I’ll be there both days, speaking on May 15th at 11am on how salespeople can use video to engage the modern buyer. Get 20% off by using this code: playpc2019. 91% of top performing sales organizations collaborate well with marketing The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr   Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Bernie’s guest on this episode is Darryl Praill, CMO of VanillaSoft, a Sales Engagement platform that provides sales and marketing teams tools to more efficiently engage, qualify and close the sale. Darryl is a passionate guy who has strong and informed opinions about the role of marketing. On this episode, he provides a clear picture of the evolving role of the Chief Marketing Officer, how it came to be the huge responsibility that it is, and even peeks into the future with his predictions of what is likely to happen for CMOs as time goes on. Don’t miss this episode. Attend the annual Brightcove PLAY event May 14 – 16, 2019. Visit www.play.brightcove.com to get all the details. The content at Brightcove PLAY is content you won’t find by searching online. When you attend PLAY, You’ll leave the event with a solid understanding of how organizations similar to your own are tackling video challenges and moving their business forward. Bernie will be there both days, speaking on May 15th at 11am on how salespeople can use video to engage the modern buyer. Get 20% off by using this code: PLAYpc2019 What IS The Role Of The Modern CMO? There are many things you could say about the work the CMO of today does to contribute to the success of their organizations, but Darryl says they really boil down to two priorities. ROLE ONE: Lead generation The CMO is responsible to significantly contribute to the sales pipeline in real, tangible, measurable, and substantive ways. ROLE TWO: Awareness Today’s CMO is responsible to create awareness of his/her brand and the solution it provides to buyers. That is achieved through a variety of means - content, influencers, press, analysts, social proof, targeted advertising, review sites, and more. The CMO must be a SPOKESPERSON who portrays the brand accurately and in a compelling way. This reduces the feeling of risk buyers have when considering a purchase. Why Is A C-Suite Level Marketing Executive Needed? Gone are the days when marketing and sales were two separate islands. So much has changed in the sales environment that demands an integrated approach between marketing and sales. Organizationally, the head of marketing now owns the marketing and sales technology stack (aka - tech stack). This happened out of necessity and the sales department has gladly given the responsibility to the marketing team in most cases. That puts marketing in a place of significant influence and importance. The marketing team is the keeper of the data with reporting responsibility for what leads are qualified, converting or failing to meet the qualification criteria. Marketing has become a structured, methodical, repeatable, transparent, measurable discipline. The CEO, CFO, COO, investors, and Board of Directors all love that marketing has evolved into a measurable function. For these reasons, a CMO has become imperative in the modern B2B organization. Should The Modern CMO Have Sales Experience? Darryl’s belief is that anyone serving as a CMO today needs to have at least some sales experience. Why? The integrated way that marketing and sales work in companies these days demands it. The CMO must understand the motives, thinking, objections, and requests the sales team is likely to make of them. It’s therefore highly beneficial for the CMO to have experienced rejection as a salesperson, to have had to refine their sales message on the fly, to have empathy for having a quota staring them in the face each quarter, and to have felt the pain of missing quota, as well as the excitement of closing sales. All of this not only enables the CMO to understand what the sales team is going through day to day, but it also gives the sales team reason to respect the CMO. How Does The CMO Build And Retain A Competent Team? The modern CMO is responsible for overseeing everyone on their team from junior marketers to a data scientist. How do they go about finding and keeping such a wide variety of individuals? Darryl says it comes down to how the CMO interacts and engages with the people on his/her team. Communication must be open and respectful The CMO must also understand that they can positively influence the career trajectory of those on their team. And they need to understand that most team members will likely evolve their careers to another company To foster loyalty, the CMO must create an environment where the team can be forthright and open Perhaps most importantly, the CMO must treat the team like the adults and professionals by holding them accountable for outcomes, not time in a chair or behind a computer screen Today’s CMO Could Be The CEO Of The Future Customers are increasingly able to research and make buying decisions themselves with greater ease. The impact on sales is significant. In many cases, sales is becoming more of an order-taking and customer experience role than an actual sales role. Currently, only one-third of sales development teams are reporting to marketing, and Darryl predicts that number will increase to two-thirds within 5 years. When that happens, the CMO role will evolve to a Chief Revenue Officer in addition to existing responsibilities. Darryl believes that will put more CMOs in a position to move into the CEO role. He believes it to be the most logical choice since they understand the data that drives customer decisions and how that data impacts the type of messaging the organization needs to win and keep customers. This fabulous conversation between two CMOs - both with significant sales experience - will help you think about the evolution of the modern CMO in light of what’s happened in the industry and what is still to come. Don’t miss it! Featured on This Episode Darryl on LinkedIn Twitter: @OHpinion8ted Instagram: @DarrylPrailll Darryl’s Podcast: Inside Inside Sales VanillaSoft Outline of This Episode [2:13] The place VanillaSoft plays in the marketing and sales workflow [3:55] What is the role of a chief marketing officer? [6:22] Why does the role of CMO even exist? [10:43] Should the modern CMO understand sales or need sales experience? [18:00] How does the CMO strategize on building and retaining staff? [24:32] Darryl’s view of the evolution of the CMO role Resources & People Mentioned Attend the annual Brightcove PLAY event May 14 – 16, 2019. Visit www.play.brightcove.com to get all the details. The content at Brightcove PLAY is content you won’t find by searching online. When you attend PLAY, You’ll leave the event with a solid understanding of how organizations similar to your own are tackling video challenges and moving their business forward. Bernie will be there both days, speaking on May 15th at 11am on how salespeople can use video to engage the modern buyer. Get 20% off by using this code: PLAYpc2019   The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Are you connecting to your buyers with video? Whether or not you are, this episode is one you should be sure to listen to. Bernie’s guest is Sara Larsen, CMO of Brightcove - Frost & Sullivan’s Global Company of the Year and Leader in 2018 Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Video Content Management. Brightcove specializes in video content management and delivery so whether you’re just starting out with video or building your brand around it, Brightcove empowers you to scale as you grow and promises zero growing pains. In this conversation, Bernie and Sara talk about the ways brands are using video to reach out and engage their target market, to highlight customer stories, and to make a human connection with those in their audience. Sara also shares a way you can attend the upcoming Brightcove PLAY event via a discounted rate. Be sure to listen to get all the details. Attend the annual Brightcove PLAY event May 14 – 16, 2019. Visit www.play.brightcove.com to get all the details. Bernie will be there both days, speaking on May 15th at 11am on how salespeople can use video to engage the modern buyer. Get 20% off by using this code: PLAYpc2019 How Are Brands Reaching Out To Customers And Followers With Video? There are many lessons to be learned by watching what the big brands are doing with video and other marketing tools. Bernie asked Sara what she’s seeing as brands use video and she shared a wide variety of approaches. Marketers are using video to find the right people at the right time Entertainment production companies are using video to get more subscribers to their programs Publishers are working with video to create a stickier website experience and connect better with their audience In these and many other use cases, Sara says the consistent theme is that these brands need a great way to connect with their audience. Video is their medium of choice because it’s the only content format that uses eyes and ears to make an emotional connection with people. Listen to learn from these great examples! Challenges To Building A Video-Based Connection With An Audience Naturally, no brand or marketer can jump right into video creation and effective distribution. There is a very real learning curve and technological hurdle to overcome. But Sara points out that the tech challenges are less formidable as the tools now available are smarter and easier to use. That means there is more time to focus on telling great stories, which is what is at the heart of using video well. The real challenge is to stay focused on that objective. In Sara’s mind, we are still in the early days of using video among corporate marketers. There is a lot that has been learned but much more that is still to be discovered about how to use the medium effectively. But it’s a medium brand marketers are starting to understand better. During this conversation, Sara highlights many of the approaches Brightcove customers are taking that are getting great results. How The Brightcove PLAY Event Can Help You Breakthrough With Video Many brands already know that video is one of the most powerful mediums to use in order to make human connections with customers and prospects. Sara believes that now is the ideal time for content marketers and brands to embrace video more than ever before. Brightcove is hosting it’s 9th Brightcove PLAY event in May of 2019 and it is a “must attend” event for those looking to get into video marketing or to take their video marketing to the next level. The event will highlight Brightcove customers who are getting great results from their use of video, and many themes will be laced throughout the event sessions. Some of them are… How are we better able to make true human connections with video? Where are we seeing new approaches and who are the trailblazers we can learn from? How can attendees become the Mavericks and evangelists of the video space? Bernie will be presenting at the event on May 15th on the topic of how salespeople can use video to engage the modern buyer to stand out from the competition. If you attend Brightcove PLAY, you will leave with actionable ideas, tips and best practices to leverage video to build a following and engage your customers more effectively. You’ll have plenty of food for thought regarding whether you should insource or outsource your video production, you’ll understand the learning curve surrounding video implementation, and you'll understand how to use video analytics tools well so you can measure effectiveness and maximize your efforts. Don’t miss this episode with Brightcove CMO Sara Larsen and don’t miss the Brightcove PLAY event May 14 - 16, 2019. Be sure to get your 20% discount when you register using code: PLAYpc2019 ! Featured on This Episode Connect with Brightcove CMO Sara Larsen on LinkedIn Sara Larsen on Twitter: @SaraLarsen Brightcove’s PLAY 2019 Event Outline of This Episode [1:15] Who is Sara and Brightcove and why do they focus on video? [2:42] The most common ways brands are using video [6:35] The challenges of using video as a brand [13:40] The Brightcove PLAY event: What to expect [20:09] Bernie’s recap of the conversation with Sara [25:27] How you can get a discount on the event Resources & People Mentioned Attend the Brightcove PLAY event May 14 – 16, 2019. Visit www.play.brightcove.com to get all the details. Bernie will be there both days, speaking on May 15th at 11am on how salespeople can use video to engage the modern buyer. Get 20% off by using this code: PLAYpc2019 Content Marketing Institute - Top 3 Types of Content Used By Marketers The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts Account Based Marketing is by no means a new topic to marketing professionals. But the advent of new technologies makes the ABM process potentially more effective - if we know how to integrate the proper tech and mindsets into our strategy. On this episode, Bernie speaks with Sydney Sloan, CMO of SalesLoft. Sydney brings a wealth of experience to the conversation, including a prolong at Adobe. In this conversation Bernie and Sydney discuss the 5 Pillars of an effective modern ABM strategy. Listen to learn how to know your customer, tier account priorities, integrate tools and technology, execute as one team, and then land and expand. This episode is brought to you by Zubtitle, a new online tool that makes it easy to automatically add captions to any video in minutes. Don’t let your videos get passed over on social media because people can’t follow along on mute. Head to http://Zubtitle.com/Vengreso to get started. PILLAR ONE: Know Your Customer Anyone listening to this episode has at least some understanding that an account based marketing (ABM) strategy is a viable approach to find new customers. Once that decision is made, the first goal is to establish your ideal customer profile and create a list of target accounts. There is so much information out there that allows you to identify potential customers. You want to consider the industry companies are in, the problems they are solving, the tech they may need, and more. Sydney says this kind of data can be used to identify and score potential organizations. Once you do, you have your initial universe of target companies. Next, you need to score those accounts using things like intent, online activity, the level of engagement people within those accounts are having with your company. Obviously, this requires essential pieces of technology in your tech stack that can be used to draw in and integrate the data in useful ways. Sydney highlights the tech needed and how to use it effectively, on this episode. PILLAR TWO: Tier Your Accounts And Set Priorities In the SalesLoft approach to account based marketing, tiers are set to enable the team to recognize the priority targets among the many that are on their ideal customer list. They have established tier one, tier two and tier three accounts. This helps the team (marketing and sales) stay on the same page in terms of effort and strategy for each account on the list. Sales and marketing work in tandem to create the list and ensure the tier rankings are set properly. The tiers are used to inform how the team implements a variety of actions that Sydney refers to as, “care, nurture, feeding, and growing each of the accounts.” It’s the process of bringing prospects along, guiding them through their own unique buying journey through engagement, interaction, and the provision of great resources that help them come to buying decisions. The goal of this first stage is to eventually set a meeting where that prospect can meet with a member of the sales team. But the ABM process is far from over when an appointment is set. It’s used to manage and track the entire customer journey experience. Sydney says, “We have a monthly meeting where we check in to review status on accounts, engagement levels on those accounts, and (we) are investing our time and budget jointly (between sales and marketing) on making sure that we're doing right by those customers.” PILLAR THREE: Integrating Tools And Technology Effective, modern ABM is predicated on using tools and technology the right way. That’s where the SalesLoft team really shines. In your case, you probably already have your CRM system, but you also need a tool that's going to help you identify levels of engagement with customers. It should be a tool that pulls in data from the open web so you can start to map the companies out there that are looking for what your company provides. That tool will then serve up ads that are going to warm up those accounts. As you can see, it's that combination of customer intent and your efforts at driving awareness to those target accounts that provide the greatest opportunities. The SalesLoft team invests in LinkedIn as well as other networks to surround potential accounts with awareness of the solutions SalesLoft provides. Additionally, they also offer them relevant content based on their profile, to draw them in. In Sydney’s mind, a great marketer can warm up a prospect and build awareness so that when sales reaches out, the buyer is already aware of SalesLoft and how they solve problems like theirs. PILLAR FOUR: Executing As One Team When you think about the complexities around B2B selling today, the process the customer goes through continues to expand. A sales organization might have 15 to 20 people involved in one deal or sales cycle. How do you make sure that everybody is informed and that everyone continues the dialogue with buyers in a consistent and strategic way? One way the SalesLoft team does it is by recording every interaction. It could be phone conversations, or email exchanges, or meetings - but these interactions are recorded so everyone involved is equipped to understand the entire sales cycle for that buyer. It’s data that needs to remain front and center for anybody that's involved in engaging with that account over the lifetime of the account. This enables the sales organization to better know how to align its teams to best serve that customer. Integration on this scale can only happen with an intentional focus on data collection and management in a way that is accurate and usable - and that requires the right tools. PILLAR FIVE: Land And Expand - With A Different Mindset It's easier than ever for customers to switch to a new provider, so your team has to work just as hard to maintain existing accounts as it does to acquire new ones. Sydney uses the term “land and expand” to explain the dynamic of building a relationship and a broader base of services with customers once they are initially secured. In her words, “I have the opportunity to serve this customer. My goal in life is to make them wildly successful. So that expands within their account, they continue to get more and more value from that. We build a long-standing relationship with that customer to the point where - when somebody on the customer’s team leaves that company to work someplace else, they bring SalesLoft to their new company because of the relationship that we've been able to establish together.” The point is to develop a long-term customer relationship, to cultivate it and serve the customer in a way that exceeds their expectations. As marketing and sales teams work in tandem, this is the point where you must figure out where that next step in the process is for that customer, where can you create the opportunity to expand and deliver more value to them? Featured on This Episode Sydney Sloan on LinkedIn Sydney on Twitter: @SydSloan SalesLoft Outline of This Episode [1:38] Who is the team at SalesLoft? [3:49] What IS modern Account Based Marketing? [5:39] How can marketers get to know their customers in today’s digital environment? [7:39] Tiering accounts for better management and prioritization [10:08] Selecting your tools and technology wisely [23:10] The final step: Land and Expand[ Resources & People Mentioned This episode is brought to you by Zubtitle, a new online tool that makes it easy to automatically add captions to any video in minutes. Don’t let your videos get passed over on social media because people can’t follow along on mute. Head to http://Zubtitle.com/Vengreso to get started. The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts   There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts As marketing professionals, it’s important that you think far beyond marketing campaigns - your brand promise has to be front and center in modern marketing. Why? Because your brand is what informs all the other marketing efforts you implement. To gain practical insights into this topic, Bernie invited Armen Najarian to join him. Armen is a 15 year Silicon Valley marketing veteran who serves as CMO at Agari, a company that makes it safe to open everything that comes into your email inbox. Among the first things he did after joining the Agari team was to lead the charge in rebranding the company in order to more effectively differentiate themselves in their market. In this episode, Armen explains why brand marketing must be integrated with the other demand generation vehicles already in place to make the most of your opportunities and stand out in your industry. Join Bernie and Amen on this episode of Modern Marketing Engine. This episode is brought to you by Zubtitle, a new online tool that makes it easy to automatically add captions to any video in minutes. Don’t let your videos get passed over on social media because people can’t follow along on mute. Head to http://Zubtitle.com/Vengreso to get started. Does Your Brand Have A Promise Statement? Are you familiar with the idea of a “brand promise?” It’s a statement that encapsulates what your company provides in a compelling way that promises customers a very specific outcome. For the Agari team, their brand promise is “Giving you the confidence to open, click, and trust everything in your inbox.” It’s worth the effort required to refine your brand promise. When you have it simply, but powerfully stated you’ll address the exact need your ideal customers have. But don’t try to create it in a vacuum as an isolated marketing team. It has to be fashioned in coordination with the executive team, partners, customers, and team members to ensure it resonates exactly as needed. Listen to learn how to better implement brand marketing for your organization. What Does It Mean To Invest In Your Brand? Investing in your brand has to do with clearly communicating the why and what of your company in ways that elevate your company profile and highlight your sterling reputation. In order to do it right, your company not only has to invest in the process financially, you’ll have to dedicate some time to get clear on why you do what you do, how you will go about communicating that to your team and customers effectively, and how you will integrate it into everything you do. Armen explains how he led the charge to do those things at Agari - from determining how the company is changing the world, all the way to the color schemes of visual branding and brand promises. Listen to learn how the Agari team brought it all together and gain insight into how you can do the same in your organization. The Single-Most Important Attribute Of A Brand Is Its Reason For Existing Armen says that even though he’s a marketer who loves his product and is happy to talk about what it does and how it serves end users, he has come to see that the halo above the product is why his company exists. It’s not only about the product, it’s about the mission the business is on and how it is making the world a better place. Ultimately, customers want to buy from companies they believe in. It's the brand mission that gives them reasons to believe in the company. Agari’s mission is to protect digital communications to ensure humanity prevails over evil. There is nothing in that bold statement about the product, its capabilities, or its features. It's only about their motives as a company. Armen says this is a step that often gets overlooked because it’s easier to talk about how you do what you do. Armen’s encouragement for anyone who wants to start up their brand marketing efforts is to start with the “why.” In his words, make it clear enough “that your Grandmother gets it.” How To Bring Brand Marketing To Life For Your Organization Mission statements are traditionally designed to be internally focused, but in recent years those messages are being focused externally. Armen explains how the Agari team has placed its mission statement front and center, not only in the minds of their team members, but in their exec overview decks, on their website, and more. It’s not words that marketing has put on paper, it’s a mission that the entire team buys into and integrates into their own stories as they interact throughout the company. Naturally, that means the visual expression of the brand is also constructed in a way that supports the brand narrative clearly. Additionally, the hashtag #TrustYourInbox is commonly used to support the brand messaging on social media. Why It’s Important To Promote The Brand Internally The employees, executive team, and board of directors at Agari have latched onto the new mission statement wholeheartedly. Everyone on the team now describes themselves as a “mission-driven business.” It’s an important aspect of what makes up the fabric of how the company operates. When the brand mission is integrated to that degree, it’s naturally disseminated in the product the team delivers. Do you see how important it is to implement a mission for your organization? More so, can you see how morale, productivity, and overall effectiveness can dramatically improve when everyone is on the same, mission-focused page? Listen to hear more ideas taken from Agari’s implementation of their brand mission and brainstorm the changes you need to make in your organization. Featured on This Episode Agari - Armen’s company Armen Najarian on LinkedIn Armen Najarian on Twitter: @ArmenNajarian Outline of This Episode [1:40] Who is Armen and what does his company Agari do? [4:07] The “why” of your brand is the single-most important thing [6:11] How to communicate the “why” behind your brand [9:26] Armen’s example of a brand platform and brand promise statement [12:20] Integrating the brand promise into every communication avenue [13:10] The brand purpose is what enables you to stand out in your industry Resources & People Mentioned This episode is brought to you by Zubtitle, a new online tool that makes it easy to automatically add captions to any video in minutes. Don’t let your videos get passed over on social media because people can’t follow along on mute. Head to http://Zubtitle.com/Vengreso to get started. Armen’s LinkedIn article about demand generation Momentum Cyber The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts   There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts For years Marketing and Sales have been complementary but isolated departments. There was no reason for them to function in any other way. But the world has changed - business has changed. With the rapid evolution of digital technology, business cycles are more complex and buyers are more sophisticated. Organizations who thrive in the world of digitally engaged customers are those that adapt to the buyer’s behavior by marketing, selling, supporting and delivering a great customer experience leveraging digital engagement. Chris Sikora is Vice President of Marketing for Strategic Enterprise and The Public Sector at CenturyLink. Chris has more than three decades of sales experience in the telecommunications industry. His background in sales uniquely equips him to help with the digital transformation journey the company is making - and it’s not a small undertaking for CenturyLink with 55,000 employees. He's been working diligently to equip his marketing and sales teams at CenturyLink to use digital tools to be effective at reach, engagement, and building sales pipeline. CenturyLink is a global telecommunications company and provider of technology solutions with IT, hosting, managed services, connectivity, cloud and security solutions for global enterprise customers. The company has customers in more than 60 countries and has an intense focus on the customer experience. Listen to hear how Chris is equipping his marketing and sales teams to embrace digital tools to reach and engage their customer - and the results they are experiencing. This episode is brought to you by Zubtitle, a new online tool that makes it easy to automatically add captions to any video in minutes. Don’t let your videos get passed over on social media because people can’t follow along on mute. Head to http://Zubtitle.com/Vengreso to get started. When The Marketing & Sales Gears Turn In Isolation, We Have A Problem When Chris took on his current role at CenturyLink, the structure of the business was very traditional. The marketing department did its thing and the sales department did its thing. Chris had spent enough time in a modern sales environment to know that had to change. The reason is that the modern B2B buyer is more educated about products and services they need, so marketing and sales need to work in tandem more than ever to gain the customer's attention, earn their trust and keep it. Listen to this episode to hear how Chris is leading the way as the CenturyLink team has changed its approach to both marketing and sales with a digital first mindset and strategy. The integration of social media, LinkedIn, social selling best practices, digital advertising and more are enabling salespeople at CenturyLink to be digital first and produce impressive results (see below). Sellers Need To Be Teachers And Guides To Customers The buyers that are considering the products or services you sell know almost as much about them as you do - from internet searches, from your company website, from reviews, blogs, downloadable content, comments from peers, and from friends or associates who may have used your product or service. They don’t need you to “sell” them, they need you to listen and to field their specific questions relating to their needs. Chris says that one of his biggest goals in leading digital transformation at CenturyLink is to help sellers become teachers and guides to buyers. Sellers have to understand their buyer’s journey and learn to provide resources they need in order to make buying decisions. On this episode, Chris explains the impact of social selling training his teams received from Vengreso to make them more effective at buyer engagement and through a digital first approach. A “digital first” approach to marketing and selling means many things. But primarily it’s about utilizing digital tools and online platforms to engage in a helpful way with the people who are potentially looking to buy your product or service. One of the things Chris’ team learned is the value of well-written profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, and other digital platforms. The training taught them how to use those platforms to build their personal brands as representatives of the company. This powerful strategy opened the door to greater effectiveness as a sales team. Listen to this episode to hear how Chris’ team is doing it. Do You Know How To Address Customer Problems From A “Digital First” Mindset? A “digital first” approach to marketing and selling means many things. But primarily it’s about utilizing digital tools and online platforms to engage in a helpful way with the people who are potentially looking to buy your product or service. One of the things Chris’ team learned is the value of well-writtern profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, and other digital platforms - then they learned how to use those platforms to build their personal brands as representatives of the company. This powerful strategy opened the door to greater effectiveness as a sales team. Listen to this episode to hear how Chris’ team did it. RESULT: 83% More Digital Engagement By The Marketing & Sales Teams As Chris’ team at CenturyLink was trained to work more effectively in the digital realm, they adopted the mindset needed to make an impact. They understand from their own lives as consumers how digital is changing the way people buy - including business customers - and how those changes in buyer behavior apply to reaching and engaging CenturyLink enterprise customers. Their change in approach has enabled them to connect with prospects and buyers more effectively. Chris shared statistics measured since the Vengreso social selling training was delivered. They’ve experienced a 42% increase in the use of tools among their team, a 50% increase in reach, and an 83% increase in digital engagement. Their approach has changed from random acts of social selling to a regular cadence of digital engagement. And, it’s having an impact on business results. Learn more about how the team at CenturyLink is experiencing digital transformation internally while helping their own customers on their digital transformation journey. On this episode, Chris Sikora explains how their digital first mindset is enabling the marketing and sales team to deliver a great customer experience from prospect to closed-won and beyond. Featured on This Episode Chris Sikora on LinkedIn CenturyLink CenturyLink Digital Business Transformation Outline of This Episode [1:16] Introduction to Chris and the work he does at CenturyLink [4:20] The ongoing evolution from classical marketing to digital marketing [9:22] Transforming marketing and sales in the overarching scope of the company [10:49] The impact of the changes on the sales organization [17:26] A bridge from internal transformation internally to external change [17:49] What Chris sees ahead as they continue their digital transformation Resources & People Mentioned This episode is brought to you by Zubtitle, a new online tool that makes it easy to automatically add captions to any video in minutes. Don’t let your videos get passed over on social media because people can’t follow along on mute. Head to http://Zubtitle.com/Vengreso to get started. CSO Insights 2017 Study CSO Insights 2018 Study Salesforce The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://twitter.com/mmenginepodcast   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts   The modern business landscape has changed - and that change is constant. It's imperative that business leaders, sales professionals and marketing teams lead the way in getting stuff done effectively. This episode features Alex Shootman, CEO of Workfront. Workfront is considered by many to be the first modern work management application that connects enterprise work, collaboration, and digital content into an Operational System of Record (OSR). As CEO, Alex drives the overall strategy, vision, and execution of the company, ensuring that Workfront is a dedicated partner in helping its customers transform the modern work experience. Alex is the author of a new book titled "Done Right," which is the main topic of this episode. The book is an interactive roadmap for next-generation leaders who need to get things done - from setting strategy to stakeholder buy-in to navigating roadblocks and taking action to get stuff done. This podcast show is about modern marketing, so Bernie wanted to dig into the specifics of the role of the modern marketer in the ever-changing business environment. Alex says that marketers have the opportunity to be leaders in modern business transformation. Specifically, he says that marketers need to come to the table with business acumen so that they can play a critical role in everything from product creation to product delivery - and directly impact the bottom line. Join Bernie and Alex for this conversation to gain insights into the things that make marketers - and all stakeholders - an indispensable part of the modern business. Learn Powerful Lessons From The Masters Of Modern Work In writing his book, “Done Right,” Alex made it his goal to glean the best practices for getting things done from 30 of his customers who have a track record of getting things done in spite of the complexity of their organization or business environment. They were asked, “How do YOU get things done?” Alex considers their responses to represent the best-practices in a modern company with a workforce that is engaging in digital transformation. Each chapter in the book is a principle learned from these “Masters of Modern Work” with accompanying stories and actionable artifacts at the end of each chapter readers can use to take action. Can you imagine how helpful those responses can be to you? Join Bernie and Alex for this great conversation! How Marketers Can Become Heroes In The Modern Business Marketing professionals can be right in the middle of their company’s digital transformation. How? By contributing to revenue. It’s a tall order, but one that Alex explains, on this episode. Modern companies that are transforming to work within the new digital environment need to communicate with customers in personalized, relevant, and consistent ways. Marketers can take a central place in making that happen by working alongside product, technology, sales/distribution and customer service teams. The reason the marketing team plays such a pivotal role is because they understand the customer. When the modern marketer shows up with good business acumen, he/she is stepping up to drive the business forward through workplace initiatives that call for effective use of the principles Alex outlines in his book Done Right. Modern Business Leaders Must Be Able To Effectively Communicate A Clear WHY When asked for his final thoughts on this podcast episode, Alex Shootman says that the main thing modern business leaders need to embrace is consistently and effectively communicating the REASONS behind why they exist as a company. A clearly articulated vision of WHY - to employees, the Board, the customer, and anyone who comes in contact with the company - is the most important factor in motivating people to getting things done. You really need to listen to this podcast episode. Alex gives us a glimpse of the insights from his conversations with 30 of the most effective business leaders whose practices form the basis of his inspiring book “Done Right.” Featured on This Episode Alex Shootman on Linkedin Alex on Twitter: @Shootman Workfront - the company where Alex serves as CEO www.DoneRightBook.com BOOK: Done Right Outline of This Episode [1:16] Why Bernie invited Alex Shootman, CEO of Workfront to be on the show [3:14] The question that inspired Alex to write his book: How do you get things done in the modern work environment? [4:34] Who are the masters of modern work? [7:58] How does the modern marketer benefit from reading “Done Right?” [12:36] Practical helps that come directly from the book: Digital Artifacts [14:11] The collegiate curriculum at Eccles Business School derived from the book [16:57] The kind of response Alex is receiving from readers of the book [22:51] THE most important thing: Communicate your WHY clearly Resources & People Mentioned Salesforce Workday Paige Erickson Dean Randall, Dean of the Eccles Business School The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.facebook.com/socialbusinessengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://twitter.com/sbengine Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Selling With Social Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Google Play | Google Podcasts It’s amazing but true - in 101 episodes of #SellingWithSocial I’ve published so far, I have not recorded one conversation focused on what goes into an effective sales message. It’s time to change that - and I can’t think of a better person to help me address the topic than Tim Riesterer. Tim is the Chief Strategy Officer at Corporate Visions, a company that makes it their business to study the facts behind sales messages. They do the work necessary to discover which turns of phrase and word choices are most effective - and they pass that information along to the sales community. This conversation follows right on the heels the Modern Marketing Engine podcast with CEO, Erik Peterson on customer conversations. Between the two of these podcasts… Well every sales and marketer should be able to crush sales messaging. Join me for this enlightening conversation. I’m confident it will help you fine-tune your sales message to get better results. This episode is brought to you by Zubtitle. Automatically add captions to any video in minutes. Don’t let your videos get passed over on social media. Visit https://zubtitle.com/vengreso to get started. When Products And Services Look Alike, The Best Story Wins Among the powerful points Tim makes during our conversation is this one: Data and facts don’t close deals as powerfully as stories. That may sound strange coming from a guy whose company digs into the data to find out makes for the most effective sales message. But when you consider that it’s their research that has shown them that stories are more effective, it makes perfect sense. But Tim’s not saying any old story will work. It’s got to be one the buyer can picture as their own, one that demonstrates the risk they are taking by not making use of what you are offering. There is plenty of nuance to this kind of storytelling, so be sure you listen to hear every aspect of what Tim has to share. For Existing Customers, Your Story Lives In The Current Status Quo Tim has become known lately for pushing back against the popular “Challenger” approach to sales. Remember, his push-back is based on the data his company has researched. He says the idea of challenging the status quo works if you face a scenario where you’re trying to replace an incumbent approach. You’re trying to convince the buyer that what they are currently doing is untenable. But if you ARE the status quo and you’re trying to get a buyer to renew, you should not challenge them to think entirely different than they are. Why? It decreases the likelihood of renewal because they will not assume your company is the only one that can help them make the change you are suggesting. They’ll begin investigating your competition rather than just accepting your proposed solution. 70% to 80% of the revenue that companies derive is from existing customers. Reinforcing the status quo is the most powerful way of getting renewals, price increases, and upgrades or upsells from them. The approach that wins should highlight what you’ve already done together and showcase the momentum they have gained using your solution. HOW Salespeople Say Things Can Make All The Difference Many times, salespeople are hired because they seem to be good at trafficking in words - which is the problem. They may be able to speak well but if they don’t know how to use words properly and effectively, they are not going to be very successful at sales. All day long salespeople tend to talk about the gains, the upside, the positive reasons for using their solution. But the data shows that’s not the most effective approach. Why? Because unless your solution is the one the buyer is already using (the incumbent), YOUR SOLUTION is the risky bet in their minds. They need to be convinced you’re worth the risk - and it won’t happen by explaining all the positives of your solution. The data shows that buyers are two to three times more likely to make a change if you position your offer in terms of what they will lose by CONTINUING as they are. You’re helping them see that what they are doing is the risky thing, a loss to be avoided. When you do - you’ll increase the probability of them choosing your solution by 70%. That’s a small change in your sales message that makes a dramatic difference. Increase A Buyer’s Propensity To Buy By Using The Word “You” Often, salespeople feel it’s a humble and collaborative approach to tell their stories and give examples in a way that uses the word “we.” They believe that it communicates partnership and trust. But it doesn’t engage the buyer, it doesn’t help them envision what is going to happen for them by adopting your solution. In Tim’s words, “They become somewhat disembodied from the message - they don’t feel responsible for it.” But now let’s make a shift… When you use the word “you” in place of the word “we” in those very same sales conversations, the buyer takes greater ownership of what you’re saying. That simple change provokes their imagination - they can see themselves doing something about their problem and they get more involved. You can increase a buyer’s propensity to buy - all the way back to their feeling of how relevant your solution is, how important their need is, and how strongly they feel about addressing the issue - by simply using the word “you” instead of the word “we.” Do you see how word choice can literally give double-digit advantage to your sales message? But you have to know the right words to use to make that the difference. Listen to this great conversation with Tim Riesterer and get some of the free downloads Corporate Visions offers. Applying their research to your sales messages could dramatically impact your effectiveness in a rather short period of time. This episode is brought to you by Zubtitle. Automatically add captions to any video in minutes. Don’t let your videos get passed over on social media. Visit https://zubtitle.com/vengreso to get started. Outline of This Episode [2:20] Who is Tim and why is he on this episode? What’s Corporate Visions about? [6:12] So many bad pitches and messages: What should be done differently? [16:01] Why “you” language is powerful and how it works [20:20] Your “best friend” voice may be the best sales voice you have [27:15] What the CV team has discovered that salespeople do right and wrong [35:39] Coming down hard on the Challenger sales methodology Resources Mentioned Tim Riesterer on LinkedIn Tim Riesterer on Twitter: @TRiesterer Corporate Visions Resources Page Get the “You VS We” report BOOK: The Tipping Point Morton Grodzins Alcoholics Anonymous Modern Marketing Engine Podcast- Bernie Borges Connect with Mario! www.vengreso.com On Facebook On Twitter On YouTube On LinkedIn Subscribe to Selling With Social Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Google Play | Google Podcasts

Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts   Very few B2B sales organizations are creating their own customer success tools - resources designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the solutions they provide in real-life customer scenarios. There’s really no better way to do it than to display your customer success results alongside those of your competition to enable your salespeople to make the claim with the evidence to prove it. It’s even more powerful when the details of the comparison are provided by an independent 3rd party. John Ryan is CMO of Crossfuze, a company that comes alongside organizations looking to maximize their use of ServiceNow, a digital workflow and systematization platform that is changing the way organizations work and serve their clients. Listen to hear how John took an observation from his CEO about the high rankings their company received from ServiceNow and created a Customer Success Index. Crossfuze’s CSI is used inside his company to communicate their success with customers, as well as a tool for sales enablement. The Best Response To A Complaint Is to Create A Solution Last year, John’s CEO - Chris Howard was lamenting the fact that it was difficult to differentiate their company from their competitors with the raw C-SAT score ServiceNow used to rank their company. Many of their competitors had the same raw score they did, but it wasn't an apples to apples comparison. That's because each company ServiceNow ranked had its own unique number of customer responses. That got John thinking... The more responses to customer surveys you have from which to create a score, the more accurate the answers typically are because you’re drawing from a wider data set. His company - Crossfuze - had received many more responses than their competitors. So, John came up with ways to display their Customer Success Index by showing both the raw score AND the sample size in a quadrant format. The two together call attention to the validity AND the strength of their CSI as compared to their competitors. How could your team use similar resources to develop a sales enablement tool that displays the customer success you provide? When Salespeople Can Get Past Numbers On A Page, They Do The Buyer A Favor Of course, John was interested in demonstrating how his company was providing a greater level of success for their customers than their competitors. In fact, that was the primary point his CEO had expressed about the issue. But John had another goal for his Customer Success Index as well - he wanted it to be of value to buyers. That’s because he knew that raw numbers alone wouldn’t necessarily convince a prospect to go with their solutions. They needed to see the unique role his company could play in their success. The Way To A Buyer’s Heart Is Through Education John makes a compelling point by saying that B2B buyers don’t make many buying decisions each year, but when they do it’s for important projects that must succeed. He sees the role of the salesperson who is trying to win the buyer's business to be an educator. They should be focused on providing as much great information as possible to buyers so they are well informed and able to make the right decisions. That’s the reason John’s company provides a number of resources to buyers who are researching their options - best practices, tutorials, ebooks, webinars and videos, and blog posts - all for the purpose of educating buyers. He loves being a marketer, and he knows that the more he can help salespeople communicate Crossfuze’s value on every sales call, the more successful the company will be. The Job Of The Modern Salesperson Is To Help The Buyer There’s an old maxim, “Nobody likes to be sold.” True, but everybody likes to be helped. That’s a good thing because modern selling is more about helping than it is convincing, persuading, or even generating revenue. When buyers are helped to make the best decision for their situation, everybody wins - and revenue generation is a natural result. John is a great example of a modern marketing leader who understands that the sales team can’t help buyers make buying decisions if they aren’t provided tools that can help them. That’s why he took it upon himself to formulate the Customer Success Index in a form that salespeople can use and then trained them how to use it. That’s right - the CMO stepped into the sales enablement role because the needs of both the sales team and their buyers demanded it. His quadrant-oriented customer success tool has become a visual indicator of his company’s effectiveness at bringing about customer success - and his sales team loves it. Join Bernie and John for this episode. You’ll find yourself thinking more deeply about how you can use the data showing your organization’s success in ways that can enable sales and help buyers. Featured on This Episode John Ryan on LinkedIn BOOK: Buyer Steps - John’s book CrossFuze CrossFuze on LinkedIn Outline of This Episode [1:35] The story of how John and Bernie worked together in the past [2:45] CrossFuze, John’s company and his role as CMO [8:32] How John uses his Customer Success Index for sales enablement [12:31] Training salespeople to use the CSI at the right time [17:19] What’s on the horizon for the Customer Success Index? Resources & People Mentioned How to get access to the replay of our webinar: The Impact of You Phrasing On Customer Conversations Service Now Accenture Soapbox Wistia The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine https://www.facebook.com/socialbusinessengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://twitter.com/sbengine   Subscribe to Modern Marketing Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts   There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above.

Subscribe to Social Business Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts   Do you have a dedicated team that is providing content for sales enablement within your organization? In the modern marketing world companies that don’t build a vault of sales resources are essentially expecting their sales team to produce results without the proper tools. You can find out how to build a vault of content that will accelerate your sales team’s results by listening to Bernie’s conversation with Viveka von Rosen. You probably know Viveka. She is widely recognized in modern marketing circles. In addition to being one of Bernie’s 3 co-founders at Vengreso where she has the role of Chief Visibility Officer, Viv is an international keynote speaker, a Forbes Top 20 Most Influential Personal Branding expert, and a published author of 2 books and 2 courses on Lynda.com. On this episode, Bernie and Viveka outline exactly what content for sales enablement is, why it’s vital to the modern marketing function, and the results that can be expected by putting together a great vault of content that enables your sales team to influence buyers at every stage of their buying journey. How Content Marketing Differs from Sales Enablement Content marketing should be a practice you’re very familiar with. It’s the ongoing act of publishing and sharing valuable content that helps potential buyers become educated about how to overcome the pain or problems they need to address. Content marketing builds visibility for a company, serves to attract and retain an audience, and influences that audience in their buying decisions. Sales enablement takes content marketing a step further, providing the sales team with content they need in order to engage in conversations with potential buyers, address needs in specific ways, and answer questions that arise throughout the buyer’s journey. Viveka outlines how content marketing and content for sales enablement work hand in hand, so be sure you listen to the entire episode. Content For Sales Enablement Is About Equipping Your Sales Team Effectively Your sales team will be much more effective if they have the right tools to do their job. That means they need to have a wealth of resources they can provide to buyers at the various stages of the buyer’s journey. We’re talking about content pieces designed to answer specific questions, demonstrate effectiveness or application, or address particular needs a buyer might have. This content, provided to your sales team, is what we are referring to when we say “content for sales enablement.” Viveka points out that sales enablement content needs to be organized in a “vault” of sorts that sales teams can draw from on an “as needed” basis. They use it to engage with their prospects by providing resources that help make informed buying decisions. In the modern sales environment, sales enablement content is not an option if you want to empower your sales team to close more deals because buyers are hungry for this content. Listen to this episode to learn how to establish your own sales enablement content vault and to hear examples of companies that have done it right. 7 Steps To The Buyer’s Journey When It Comes To Sales Enablement Content Most sales professionals have heard the traditional 3-step description of the Buyer’s Journey. Viveka expands that to 7 steps when she discusses content for sales enablement because the additional steps define different types of content the sales enablement team can create. Here are Viv’s 7 steps to the buyer’s journey: Create Awareness Generate Interest Instigation/Disruption Consideration Purchase Satisfaction Repurchase/Upsell/Refer Can you see how the creative team behind sales enablement efforts can focus on the creation of content in each of these categories, catalogue them according to where they fit in the buyer’s journey, and make them available to the sales team? And, can you see how providing vaulted access to content organized this way is a powerful way to equip your sales team with relevant content they can use to start and continue sales conversations with their prospects? Listen to this episode of The Modern Marketing Engine podcast to hear Bernie and Viveka outline the types of content that fit in each category and highlight best-practices, . Never Think Of The Buyer’s Journey As Linear. It’s A Circle As Viveka explained her expanded 7-step buyer’s journey, she was careful to point out that though she’s speaking in terms of “steps,” marketers and sales professionals should never think of the buyer’s journey in linear terms. By that, she means that it always loops around and starts over, therefore it’s better to think of it as a circular journey. Practically, that means you should never close a deal and walk away as if your work is complete. You’ve got to continuethe process again with that customer to earn referrals and repeat purchases. Not only will you generate more leads and make more sales, but you’ll also reinforce the value and service you’ve already provided to existing customers, solidifying the relationship for the long haul. Check out below some of the companies mentioned by Viveka and Bernie who embody this approach to the circular customer journey using content for sales enablement strategies. Featured on This Episode Viveka on Twitter: @linkedexpert Viveka on LinkedIn: @LinkedInExpert Outline of This Episode [2:39] Why talk about sales enablement on a marketing podcast? [5:11] How content for sales enablement is different than content marketing [7:40] What is vaulted content and how does it differ from “gated” content? [9:40] The new 7 step buyer’s journey: a scheme for useful organization of content [16:20] Examples of content for sales enablement across these 7 stages [26:53] Why this process is more like a wheel or web than a series of steps Resources & People Mentioned www.Vengreso.com/content-for-sales - get the infographic Bernie mentioned Poopuori Squatty Potty Uber AirBnB The Thanksgiving Dinner approach to content marketing Hubspot - Hubspot Academy OneMob Zoom LinkedIn State of Sales Report The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Social Business Engine https://www.facebook.com/socialbusinessengine/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/ https://twitter.com/bernieborges https://instagram.com/bernieborges https://twitter.com/sbengine   Subscribe to Social Business Engine Apple Podcasts |Stitcher |Google Play | Google Podcasts There are TWO WAYS you can listen to this podcast. You can click the PLAYER BUTTON at the top of this page… or, you can listen from your mobile device’s podcast player through the podcast subscription links above. This podcast originally appeared on Social Business Engine