The Future of Marketing through Gifting and Direct Mail - Kris Rudeegraap - Sendoso

In this episode of Marketing B2B Tech, Kris Rudeegraap, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Sendoso, shares how his experience in software sales led him to create a platform simplifying personalized gifting and direct mail. With global fulfillment centers and a robust marketplace, Sendoso helps marketers connect with prospects more effectively by leveraging personalization.

Kris highlights Sendoso’s competitive advantages, including enterprise-grade features, data capabilities, and successful campaigns for many brands. He underscores the importance of multi-channel marketing, creative strategies, networking, and long-term brand growth, showcasing how gifting can transform B2B outreach.

About Sendoso

Sendoso is a direct marketing automation platform that helps businesses enhance their engagement strategies through personalized gifting. By combining digital and physical sending options, Sendoso enables companies to create meaningful connections with customers, prospects, and employees. With intelligent analytics and tailored campaign solutions, Sendoso supports revenue growth, customer retention, and team recognition initiatives, making it a valuable tool for relationship-driven marketing.

About Kris Rudeepraap

Kris Rudeegraap, a key figure at Sendoso with more than a decade of go-to-market experience, has crafted solutions that resonate with 33,000 B2B tech enthusiasts globally. His insights into the future of marketing are both innovative and client-focused.

Time Stamps

[00:00:36] - Kris's Career Journey and the making of Sendoso.
[00:01:40] - Understanding Sendoso: Corporate Gifting and Direct Mail
[00:03:25] - How Sendoso Simplifies Gifting for Marketers
[00:04:44] - Positioning Sendoso Against Competitors
[00:07:34] - Value Perception: Gifts vs. Bribery
[00:09:38] - Customer Segmentation: Enterprise vs. Smaller Businesses
[00:10:21] - Successful Campaigns: Creative Gifting Examples
[00:12:49] - International Gifting: Overcoming Geographic Challenges
[00:14:27] - The Role of Marketers in Gifting Strategies
[00:15:57] - Future of Marketing: Trends and Technology
[00:19:19] - Final Thoughts: Networking and Career Advice
[00:20:55] - Conclusion and Contact Information

Quotes

"Your network is your net worth. So, don't be scared to go meet with another person.” - Kris Rudeepraap, Co-CEO and Co-Founder

Follow Kris:

Kris Rudeegraap on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rudeegraap/

Sendoso website: https://www.sendoso.com/

Sendoso on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sendoso/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Kris Rudeegraap at Sendoso

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Kris Rudeegraap

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today. Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. Today, I'm joined by Kris Rudeegraap. Kris is the co-CEO at Sendoso. Welcome to the podcast, Kris. Thank you for having me. So Kris, tell me a little bit about your career and also why, you know, you've decided to really build your career at Sendoso.

Kris: Yeah, of course, Mike. So before starting Sendoso, I spent about a decade in software sales, mostly in individual contributor roles and some sales leadership roles. But I really saw firsthand about a decade ago, email becoming more saturated. There was a tools coming out, making it easier than ever to create sequences and spam your audience. And so I thought, hey, there needs to be some other channels that you can use besides cold calling and social email, which were kind of the three go-tos. And so I started experimenting with sending out handwritten notes or going into our swag closet, packing up boxes in the afternoon, shipping it out, or being on a call and hearing a dog bark and thinking about, hey, maybe I'll go on Amazon, find a crate, a little dog toy and send it out to a prospect. It worked awesome, got me results I needed, but was terribly manual and annoying to go to the post office, to click on tracking links, to create expense reports. And so that really led me to say, hey, there needs to be a better solution for this. Email's only going to get more spammy. And this was a decade ago. I think that's still the case. And so I came up with Sedoso. And for those listeners that don't know what Sedoso is, so we are a corporate gifting and direct mail platform. So we make it really easy to send stuff out, whether it's a bottle of wine, 10,000 Yeti mugs with your logo on it, a handwritten note, anything you could think of. We provide all of the logistics, the sourcing, the procurement, and integrations into your tech stack so that you can click a button inside Salesforce or set up a nomination in HubSpot and things get sent out and tracked and reported on.

Mike: So, I mean, I'm really excited to talk about Sendoso. But before we do, there's another thing I kind of skipped over at the start. You're a co-CEO. So how does that work? I mean, there's two of you. Presumably, you've got to agree all the time, or do you disagree?

Kris: Yeah, so this is something that, you know, I promoted our He came in about a year and a half ago as our chief business officer, promoted him to do a co-CEO role. There's so much you have to do as a CEO. And dividing and conquering on areas of ownership is really helpful as you scale and get to the size that we are. It's also helpful to have somebody that you can go and talk to critical decisions on. Now, you're right. In some cases, there's disagreements. But I think having a healthy debate is really helpful for critical decisions versus one person just being like, yeah, let's do it like that. So I found it being super helpful. It also frees up my time to focus on certain things and frees up his time to certain things that would otherwise maybe not even make it onto the to-do list. So I'm a big fan of it. I think co-founders in early days when you're pre-seed or Series A, I think sometimes act as co-CEOs at times where you divide and conquer. Hey, you focus on this. I'll focus on this and we'll make our own decisions. But once you scale the co-founder relationship, I think can't work the same. You need to have more bifurcated roles. And so I brought that back.

Mike: That's fascinating. Now, let's go back and look at Sendoso because, I mean, people listening to the podcast are going to be marketers, you know, they're going to be really interested. So you described it really simply, you know, you're taking away the pain, I guess, about sending physical things to prospects. I mean, How do you do that? What do you do to make it easy for your customers?

Kris: Yeah, so one is we operate global fulfillment centers and global marketplaces. So it makes it very easy to pack boxes, ship things out, send something from point A to point B. We take care of all the sourcing and procurement, so you don't have to go find suppliers, you don't have to go search for things, making sure they meet standard requirements. We also make it really easy to set up budgeting and reporting. so that you can see all of the results integrated into your tech stack so data flows in and out, which makes it really easy. And ultimately, aside from making it easier, we make it so that you can do more of it. And I think a lot of marketers are in agreeance that, hey, direct mail works. Gifting is a channel that works. I just don't have either the bandwidth to do more of it, or I don't have the time or the skill set to do it. And so we can say, hey, we'll do all that. We help you figure out what's the right thing to send to the right person at the right time with the right message.

Mike: That's interesting that there are a couple of other companies in the space as well. So how would you position yourself versus some of the competitors?

Kris: Where do you Yeah, there's a handful of areas. So I think one is in our infrastructure layer. So we are really one of the only companies that operate these global warehouses versus just P backing on other three PLS. So that's an important factor. We also have the largest marketplace, so selection is a reason why people want to look at us. The enterprise, we focus there. So whether that's security, budgeting features, permission sets, enterprise reporting, branding controls, I think the enterprise-grade feature set. Services is also something that we excel at too. Implementation, we have a campaign services team that will dive into helping you take action and what almost agency-like. And I think the last thing, which is a big topic in recent years, is the data and AI. Because we are, you know, five to 10 times bigger than any of our competitors, we have so much more data. We have hundreds of millions of dollars spent and tens of millions of gifts spent. So, you know, 10x larger, and that gives us 10x more data to help then feedback into our engine to help our customers say, hey, what's the right thing that we should send? Or what's the right message we should write? Or what's the right time we should send something? And I think the data layer is critical nowadays.

Mike: So that's interesting. You're almost saying that there's two challenges. One is physically sending stuff, which is practically difficult. I know we've tried it. But also you're saying that making the decisions is hard. So, you know, why is that? Are people looking for the right value? Or are they looking for, you know, trying to work out what would make an impression? Or is it just there's so much stuff you can send, there's too much

Kris: Yeah, I think it's that. There's a lot of choice. And there's also the personalization is key. So how do you personalize? And we have a smart send feature that will personalize for you. And that could be in the framework that I look at is you can personalize around the person. So, hey, Kris likes golf. Kris has a dog. Kris lives in San Francisco. So I can send something personally to him that would get him to grab his attention and reply. You can also personalize based on the signal. Hey, Kris just changed jobs. I'm going to send him a bottle of champagne to congratulate him. So that's personalized around the signal. And then you can personalize around the action. Like, I want Kris to come to our executive golf event that we're hosting. I'm going to send Kris some branded golf balls, driving him to our event. And so those things take some kind of time and effort to think about. We can shortcut that almost to zero time. There's also then time to say, hey, if I want to source golf balls, I got to go find a vendor. I got to go brand it. Nope, that's just a couple clicks of a button or our campaign service team does it behind the scenes for you. So yeah, I think that's kind of the way to look at it.

Mike: And I mean, one of the things, you know, I'm interested, obviously, you're not talking about necessarily super high value gifts here. But do you have any issues with customers who may be a feeling that, you know, sending out too much that that is a, you know, a gift of some value could be seen in some way as bribery? I mean, do you do you see that issue from any customers?

Kris: Really? I think people, depending on if they use it right, see it as a gesture of goodwill. They also see this as thank yous. I think there's, in some cases, misconceptions around the case that it's bribery, being that if you're sending someone a very expensive thing and expecting a result. But the overall thing that I look at is, hey, you're just using it as a communication medium. You're using it as a reason to break the ice or break into a new account with grabbing attention. And so whether you're sending something that's $5 or $500, I think there's ways to make it feel like it's a part of the buying experience or the customer experience.

Mike: Yeah, I mean, that sounds very sensible. I'm actually quite interested now to ask, you know, you talk about that $5 to $500 range. I mean, where does the majority of the gifting sit? Is it at the lower end or do you see a lot of people at the high end?

Kris: It honestly depends on our customer and usually depends on their ACV or their segmentation of their customer base. If I looked at the entire customers, probably the average I think is around $40. But we have some customers that are very transactional, selling software or product services that are a few thousand dollars. And you could send things that are just a couple bucks. We have some fun, creative ways that you can send a treasure map with a note that says, looking for this golden solution, blah, blah, blah, or an empty pizza box that says, hungry for a new solution, or fake aspirin pills that say, hey, does your current solution give you a headache? Or you can go on the high end in a box that opens up and plays a video or a really nice bottle of wine and some custom branded high end wine glasses. You know, it doesn't have to be expensive. It has to grab their attention. And it could be the creativeness that grabs their attention, not the price tag.

Mike: That's interesting. And what about your customers yourself? I mean, do you tend to work mainly with enterprise? You talked about your focus on enterprise. But do you also have customers in the smaller sector of the industry? Or is it just prohibitive in terms of the cost of running a platform for a customer?

Kris: So again, we work across all segments. I think we've built ourselves for the enterprise, but then it lends itself to be able to have a motion where smaller size businesses that have 10, 50 employees, startups, etc. can use it. We sell really into any marketer, sales leaders, CX leaders. B2B is a big focus, but we have financial services, professional services, hospitality, sports and entertainment. If you think about it, gifting and direct mail at its core is just a communication medium. It's another way to send a message, to grab someone's attention, to thank somebody. And so it really can be applicable in any situation. And we have pricing plans to meet that based on the needs of, you know, a very small company to a Fortune 100 company.

Mike: That sounds good. I'm interested, you know, you've talked about a wide range of gifts, a wide range of values, a wide range of different reasons to send something. Are there some great campaigns that you can talk about where people have done something either very creative or they've been really clever about targeting that have worked really well for your customers?

Kris: Man, I could go on for hours on that. And we actually have some cool case studies and success stories on our website. But some that come to mind, some of our top customers. Gainsight, they send out this customer success book that's generated like 6 million in influence outbound pipeline recently. So that was a really easy send for them. Gong had tremendous success with these piñatas that they sent out that influenced over 30 million in pipeline. And they're just these little piñatas they send out with a fun note. Verkada has sent millions of dollars in mugs, specifically Yeti mugs, which has been a very specific tactic they've used. And they've done a really good job of looking at, for every dollar they spend on a Yeti mug, it generates $4 in ROI. And I think that's a really interesting way to look at it because you can compare that to a dollar spending on ads, a dollar spending on a trade show, and really decide where you want to toggle up and down your spend on these different channels.

Mike: That's amazing. I mean, there's such a mix of things. I think, you know, it really is down to getting the right thing for your customers, isn't it? Rather than necessarily being a magic answer. Totally.

Kris: And it could be many things. You know, if you think about the entire customer journey from the first time they interact with you, when you're trying to book that meeting all the way through the sales pipeline and through many years of being a customer. You want to be able to send different things at different stages, whether that's printed collateral, whether that's customer welcome kits, whether that's meeting makers to book a meeting. So you really want to think about this holistically throughout the entire customer journey.

Mike: That sounds fascinating. I think, you know, one of the things I'm also interested in I can guess how you might market the company, but how do you go about promoting Sendoso?

Kris: Yeah, so you know, we are typical kind of B2B type of company where we focus on inbound marketing and then traditional channels of content, digital ads, web marketing, etc. Outbound, we have a fantastic outbound motion. that we reinvented with AI recently as well. We have a strong partner channel. And then there's a lot of marketing tactics we use within those different strategies. We use that both on the inbound side to drive higher conversion on trials, on inbound demo requests, even on content. We'll offer up a nice little value saying, hey, thanks for downloading this case study. Here's a coffee gift card to enjoy while reading it. And again, not a hard call to action to reply, but just building goodwill so that there's a name and some appreciation reciprocity. And then obviously in outbound, we do that as well and in partner and channel too.

Mike: Yeah. And presumably, I mean, one of the things, you know, you as an international business, but also your customers could do is reach multiple countries. I mean, you mentioned having your own fulfillment centers in different geographies, but I know, for example, you can't buy a Starbucks gift card and then send that to another country because they just don't work. Precisely.

Kris: I'm presuming that's also an issue. Well, it's also a benefit of our platform is the internationalization, the localization, so that you can run these either global programs or campaigns or have synergies where there's a gift card one region you're using, maybe a gift card in a different one, but it's all through the same platform. Or you're sending, you know, macaroons from a local bakery in France, and you're sending these cake pops in Florida. And all that can be tracked the same way, enabled the same way, budgeted the same way. But you as the marketer doesn't have to frantically source these different partners. Or when you're enabling sales teams, you don't have to go out and spend a lot of different effort training. You can just use our platform. Or better yet, we have the recommendation engine so we can say, hey, we know this person's in France, send them the macaroons because we know they like that.

Mike: Absolutely, makes a lot of sense. I'm interested, you mentioned a lot about marketers. Presumably you've got marketers predominantly sending these gifts. Do you think that's a reflection of some of the research that's been done recently showing that customers are actually spending less time with salespeople and more time doing research themselves and therefore more time interacting with marketing materials?

Kris: I'll look at that in two different ways. One is we work with marketers a lot because marketers usually control the budget, want branding controls, and historically have owned more of the channel of direct mail and gifting. That being said, a lot of marketers will enable the sales team and it's a benefit of our platform to say, hey, you sales reps get $1,000 a month and here's some controls and go for it. And sales teams can go and click and send things as they see fit. I think it's a very nice alignment play where marketing can align and enable sales. But to your point, I strongly agree that more of the funnel and more of your audience is researching your products and services without you knowing it or without the assistance of sales. And so we see our solution playing into that where you can see intent data, you can de-anonymize website visitors and send them content in collateral. But we're also tapping into that trend too by investing more in the communities, whether that's these different Slack-based communities where we know our advocates are in, sharing thoughts on Sendoso or even on our website, enabling product tours and other things to enable the buyer to research more before talking to the sales rep.

Mike: That's interesting. I mean, you're investing a lot in technology. So, I mean, how do you see, I mean, I guess, generally, marketing changing going forward? And then particularly, how do you see Sendoso's role changing as the world evolves?

Kris: Yeah, so I think there's new playbooks, specifically, new channels that are less saturated, like gifting. So I think we're going to continue to see a surge in people using this as other channels get more saturated. I think email and ads with the rise of AI are even more spammy. So I think it's going to be more obvious that people are going to respond to less email. So you need to do other things to get in touch with them. I also think that there's a lot of changes in marketing and new marketing leaders are thinking about what's the new playbook for 2025 that is going to work, that tactics we used two years ago didn't work. and marketers are going to have to recruit different types of people. We're trying to stay ahead of this curve by using and leveraging AI in our platform to make it easier to use, to make it more automated, to make it integrate with more other data tools and integrate with your technology stack. But I think at the end of the day, marketing is still how do you grab the attention of a prospect and help them solve a problem they either know they exist or don't know exists yet. And the key there is grab the attention. And I think gifting and direct mail is a creative channel that shouldn't definitely be an attention grabber just because of the uniqueness. And there's some built-in channel fatigue prevention because you spend money on it. You can't go send every one of your 10,000 prospects a $500 iPad because you'd go out of business. You'd be broke. So inherently, you have to be more selective. And then also inherently, your recipients are receiving less of it. So it stands out more.

Mike: So it's that idea of cost is almost presenting saturation.

Kris: It prevents saturation, exactly, which I think has been for and the creativity. There's so many examples we have of like, you know, even sending up an empty pizza box with a hungry for a solution. There's just so many different unique ways that you can make someone smile or get creative. And we see so many of our customers, customers post on social being like, thank you so much for sending me this or wow, that was a super creative gift that I got or wow, this video mailer like really grabbed my attention, which is like, Not too many people will screenshot an email or an ad they see and be like, this was the best I've ever gotten. I love this email. Thank you for sending it to me.

Mike: Yeah, I can't say I've seen many screenshots on LinkedIn of marketing that I know.

Kris: But again, I will preface, I know I talk and smack on email and ads. I think they all have to be done together. B2B is multi-channel, multi-touch, grab the attention at the right time with the right channel and the right message. And they all work together. So I'm not advocating to stop email, to stop ads, to stop events, to stop community. What I am advocating for is think about the mix of it. If you're not doing gifting and direct mail yet, you're missing out or your competitors are, or if you're oversaturating and all your eggs are in the email basket, maybe think about putting more eggs in some of these other baskets.

Mike: Yeah, I think that's wise advice. I guess if I was to play the devil's advocate here, the one thing I know that some people who've tried gifting, particularly if they've tried it themselves to do it in-house, is with a much more remote world, it's hard sometimes to know where to send the gift. Which office is the person working at or are they working at home? Is there anything Sendoso can do to help with that?

Kris: Yeah, so there's a couple of ways that we look at. One is if you have their email address, you can opt them into an address confirmation feature we have. And so then they can confirm their address, making sure it gets to them. So that's a very low hanging fruit because almost everyone has the email address. We also have suggested address data providers that you can use to get mailing address data, and then we're coming out with a feature of beta called smart delivery that will actually optimize and tell you, hey, they're working remote, hey, they're in the office, hey, you should send it here. So make that even easier.

Mike: Sounds exciting. I mean, hopefully people listening are now thinking of different gifts that they can send their prospects. I really appreciate your insight, Kris. I mean, we have a couple of questions we'd love to ask people before they go. So in terms of those quick questions, you know, the first one, what's the best bit of marketing advice you've ever had?

Kris: Yeah, so really early on, I was given some advice to invest in our category education and invest in channels that have long term more brand awareness benefits than just short term lead gen. And that's been something we've been doing since day one. It's paid off eight years later, focusing early on on events, content, podcasts, and evangelism and educating the market and not feeling like you have to immediately be like, how many leaves we book from this? So I think take the chance on the long shot bet.

Mike: Awesome. The other question we ask is if you're talking to someone who's new into the industry, perhaps a graduate looking to start their marketing career, what advice would you give them to help them have a more successful career?

Kris: Yeah, my short and sweet advice, and I give this to a lot of folks, is it's not what you know, but who you know. And so you maybe just spent the last four years at an amazing university learning business marketing, or you're a couple of years into a career, Make sure you're networking. Go reach out to a random CMO and say, hey, can you be my mentor? Or go ping somebody and say, can we grab coffee? I love that you worked at X company. It's really interesting to me. And build that network. Another thing I like to say is your network is your net worth. And so don't be scared to go meet with another person. Even if you have no agenda other than just hopefully it was an interesting conversation.

Mike: Amazing advice. So hopefully people will take advantage of that and build their networks early in their career. I wish I'd built a network earlier on. I certainly see the benefits. Kris, I really appreciate all your time. You know, I feel like I've had a whistle stop education, not just around Sendoso, but around the benefits of corporate gifting as well. If people are interested to learn more about Sendoso, or want to contact you with some questions, what's the best place to contact you?

Kris: Yeah, they can go to sendoso.com, S-E-N-D-O-S-O.com. Email me directly if you want. That's Kris with a K, K-R-I-S, at sendoso.com. Or look me up on LinkedIn and add me, follow my content. And hey, if you want to network one-on-one, grab coffee in the Bay Area, shoot me a note. Love to meet with people. Love to network.

Mike: That's awesome. I'll definitely drop you a note next time I'm in the Bay Area. Thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast. I really appreciate it.

Kris: Yeah, thanks for having me on, Mike.

Mike: Thanks so much for listening to Marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes or on your favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.


Build Trust - The Secret to Closing Sales Effectively - ABB

In this episode of the Marketing B2B Technology podcast, Mike is joined by Sophie Neate, Global Head of Digital Marketing and Content at ABB Electrification. Sophie dives into her career journey and offers a glimpse into the strategies that set ABB apart. She discusses how ABB leverages its strengths across industries to deliver value to a broad audience and how it strategically communicates to different customer segments.

A key focus of the conversation is the buyer’s journey, an important framework Sophie uses to guide potential customers from awareness to decision-making. She discusses her approach to integrating the buyer’s journey into campaign planning, striking a balance between long-term brand building and the immediate priorities of lead generation and sales support.

About ABB

Building on over 140 years of excellence, our more than 105,000 employees worldwide are committed to delivering on our purpose with innovations that create success for ABB and all our stakeholders. Our solutions connect engineering know-how and software to optimize how things are manufactured, moved, powered and operated. In collaboration with our customers, partners and suppliers, we address the world’s energy challenges, transform industries and embed sustainability in everything we do.

About Sophie Neate

Sophie is a senior marketing leader with over 16 years of experience across the entire marketing cycle. Her background includes working for blue-chip companies on an international scale, where she has held global management roles, currently holding the position of Global Head of Digital Marketing and Content for ABB’s Electrification Service division. She has been responsible for establishing marketing teams and key functions, driving initiatives that have consistently delivered successful outcomes.

With extensive knowledge, capability, and a strategic mindset in marketing, Sophie delivers strong commercial results. Sophie holds a Bachelor of Business Studies (BBS) with a major in Marketing.

 Time Stamps

[00:43:2] – Sophie provides an overview of her career background.

[03:14.6] – Sophie shares insights into what makes ABB unique.

[05:58:7] – Sophie discusses the importance of the buyer’s journey in creating effective marketing campaigns.

[14:26:9] – Sophie explains the marketing tactics that work best in different scenarios.

[18:20:0] – Sophie talks about balancing the immediate demands of lead generation with the long-term goal of building a strong brand reputation.

[21:18:7] – Sophie discusses AI and how she sees her role evolving alongside advancements in AI.

[22:17:2] – Sophie shares the best piece of marketing advice she’s ever received.

[23:17:2] – Sophie offers advice for those just starting their marketing careers.

Quotes

"My passion lies in providing the best customer experience through innovative solutions and working for a company like ABB who pride themselves on this vision." - Sophie Neate, Global Head of Digital Marketing and Content at ABB.

"The buyer's journey for me is crucial in marketing because it maps out the path that a potential customer takes from becoming aware of the problem to making a purchasing decision." - Sophie Neate, Global Head of Digital Marketing and Content at ABB.

"Segmentation and targeting is key... we're able to build trust and credibility, which enables repeat purchasing and ongoing loyalty." - Sophie Neate, Global Head of Digital Marketing and Content at ABB.

Follow Sophie:

Sophie Neate on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophie-neate-2ba37849/

ABB website: https://global.abb/group/en

ABB on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/abb/posts/?feedView=all

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Sophie Neate at ABB

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Sophie Neate

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today. Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. Today I'm joined by Sophie Neate, who's the Global Head of Digital Marketing and Content at ABB.  Welcome to the podcast, Sophie.

Sophie: Thank you, Mike. Nice to be here.

Mike: It's great to have you on. I mean, one of the first things we like to do is just get a bit of background about your career. So, can you tell us about, how you've got to the point where you're now working at ABB?

Sophie: Yeah, no problem. So, I am a senior marketing leader with over 16 years of experience across the entire marketing cycle.  My professional background includes roles with blue chip companies on an international scale where I have held global management positions.  My passion lies in providing the best customer experience through innovative solutions and working for a company like ABB who pride themselves on this vision. So, to answer your question, Mike, I chose to work for ABB for a multitude of reasons, but the main ones being that ABB embodies innovation. Sustainability in a customer focused mindset all while providing opportunities for professional growth.

Mike: And your role is Global Head of Digital Marketing and Content at ABB. You know, ABB, which is a pretty big company, that sounds like a huge role. So, can you tell me a little bit more about what you're doing in your current position?

Sophie: Yeah, no problem. So, as you mentioned, I'm the Global Head of Digital Marketing and Content for ABB Electrification Service. So, one of our divisions which sit in the business area of electrification. So, what my role encompasses is focusing on digital activity, whether that be, I'd say SEO, SEM activities, obviously managing and covering the management of our websites, but then also from a content perspective, making sure that we develop compelling content that's going to resonate for our customers. Now with ABB being in over 100 countries and having over 105 talented employees, it definitely is a big global role, but what we tend to focus on is we produce global content, but then we localize it to reflect on the existing market trends for the relevant regions and countries that we cover.

Mike: And that's interesting. So, you're focused on the, the service part of the electrification business. What are the sort of customers that you're addressing, for that part of ABB?

Sophie: Yeah, so our customers can range from, you know, the maintenance or production manager, plant and facility manager. The procurement manager through to your C suite, so like your CEOs, CFOs, for example, but again, it depends on what marketing activity we are doing and what our overall objective is, I would say.

Mike: Yeah. So presumably that's quite a wide range of, people in the audience. So you're producing quite a lot of different types of content, you know, some for more technical, some for, you know, board level people. Is that right?

Sophie: Correct, correct.

Mike: I mean, obviously we work with ABB, I understand it, but probably some of the listeners are maybe less familiar. So, in terms of the electrification business that you're supporting, what is it that ABB does that's really uniquely brilliant?

Sophie: Yeah, this, this is an easy question to answer here. So, you know, I mentioned before we, um, excel in a vast number of disciplines, but the ones that come to my mind are First and foremost, innovation and automation and electrification. So what this is, is around, you know, we're a global leader in industrial automation and electrification offering solutions, enhanced productivity, efficiency and sustainability for industries like manufacturing, Energy and transportation, you know, expertise in robotics, control systems and digital technology, such as AI IOT helps businesses automate processes and optimize operations. Secondly, sustainability and energy efficiency. So we're known for our commitment to sustainability, providing energy efficient solutions and green technologies, especially in areas like, renewable energy, EVs or electric vehicle infrastructure and smart grids. So our technologies help reduce energy consumptions and emissions, supporting industries and cities and their transitions to become more sustainable operations. a thing I mentioned before, you know, we have a global reach with local expertise. So we operate in over a hundred countries, combining our global scale with deep local expertise. So we have a strong focus on research and development with a significant investment in R& D.  We continue to push the boundaries of technology, as I mentioned before. And finally, or furthermore, we have a comprehensive digital solution offering, which is called ABB Ability, which integrates cloud based technologies and data analytics to help companies monitor and improve their performance. So, these solutions support predictive maintenance, such as, you know, the division I'm in, electrification service, making us a key player in Industry.

Mike: That's, I mean, that's a lot of areas that we're dealing with, so, yeah, it's complicated. I mean, I'm interested, you know, kind of at a high level, what's your strategy to communicate, all these different areas where ABB have something that's really valuable to what is, as we said earlier, quite a broad audience?

Sophie: Yeah, another great question, Mike. So without giving too much away, um, and at a high level, our strategy really focuses on capitalizing on our strengths in technology, like I just mentioned, innovation and sustainability, whilst aligning with market trends and customer needs, all while ensuring we continue to deliver strong commercial results for the business. So that's kind of it in a nutshell.

Mike: Well, I'm going to dig a bit deeper. So, one of the things I do know is that you're a big fan of the buyer's journey as a way to build marketing strategies. So, can you just explain why you think, building and understanding the buyer's journey is so important to generate great marketing campaigns?

Sophie: Yeah, so the buyer's journey for me is crucial in marketing because it maps out the path that a potential customer takes from becoming aware of the problem to making a purchasing decision. So, understanding this journey allows us marketers to Deliver the right message at the right time. And this is where I'd say segmentation and targeting is key here. You know, we're able to build trust and credibility. So that enables repeat purchasing and ongoing loyalty, which is, of course, important, you know, enhancing the customer experience. So creating that customer centricity or delivering that customer centricity, optimizing resources and efforts so you can evolve to market trends over time, because we all know with market trends, they do evolve. And then, of course, increasing conversion rates of your marketing activities so you can deliver ROI. So, if you can't report an ROI, what you're doing is not necessarily the best way to utilize your resources. Um, and then, of course, which is one which I'm constantly, um, I'd say, communicating and emphasizing is the alignment between sales and marketing. So, which is an initiative, as I mentioned, that is part of. We're placing a really big importance on here at ABB. So ultimately for me, the buyer's journey is important because it allows marketers to be more strategic, targeted, and empathetic in the approach, leading to better business outcomes and more satisfied customers, which is our end goal for any business, to be honest.

Mike: I think you've covered a lot there. I mean, there's a lot of, individual points. Do you have like a, an overall strategy or process to actually make use of that buyer's journey when planning campaigns?

Sophie: That's a big question. So, when planning our campaigns, integrating the buyer's journey helps ensure that each stage of the customer decision making process is addressed effectively. So how we do this at ABB, so first we separate our campaigns into awareness and lead generation. So, our communications teams focus on campaigns in the awareness stage, so all around brand and thought leadership. Whereas Lead generation is covered by the marketing team, which focuses around that commercialization. So, you know, for example, an activity, if you were doing awareness, you would, you know, for example, utilize Google display as part of your strategy. Whereas when it comes down to lead generation, we tend to focus more on Google search because we understand that, you know, customers love to do their research before they reach out to us. And in fact, it's proven that, you know, 65. 70 percent of customers, by the time they come to our websites or interact with us, they've already made up their decision by that amount. So, it's really important we, you know, deliver that content that's going to resonate with them and be at the forefront. So secondly, we identify the value proposition and commercial landscape beach campaigns to ensure that we are segmenting our activities effectively. Thus, identifying our target audience and understanding the maturity of our buyers’ market. Because as I mentioned at the start, dependent on our objective of our activity, we need to understand what the target audience is going to be and obviously the maturity of that market. So, a key thing that we also do is before we launch externally, we also launch internally. So, we must get our customer facing teams, such as sales operations, et cetera, to be on board to ensure that we are all aligned and understand.  Because we understand that when we do campaigns, it's a multi touch approach, so they may not, you know, engage with our digital platforms. They may ring up our customer contact center. So, we need to make sure that our customer contact center teams are briefed as well. And so I mentioned with our sales and operation teams. The other thing we do is we implement a multi-channel approach. We also go from, as I mentioned, producing global content, but making sure it's got a local approach. So, we go global, as we like to say. So, we do this to ensure our assets and key messaging, resonates with our audience, which, of course, nurtures leads from marketing, qualified leads to sales, qualified leads, utilizing marketing technologies like we do at ABB. We use Power BI to continuously monitor our performance and adapt where necessary, whether it be on a monthly cadence or quarterly cadence. So, one thing I do also want to state here is that, you know, we at ABB are starting to move away from gating content so we can provide our customers as much information as possible to help them in their decision making phase. So, as I mentioned before, research has shown that by the time customers reach out to us, they've 70 percent made the decision. So, it is our job I believe to give them all the information they need up front, and we do this by putting our value rich content at the forefront instead of a hard sell approach, for example. So, we need to build trust before we close any deals, so to speak. So I believe there is still a place for gated content. However, it just depends on which stage of the marketing fun you're at. So, for example, awareness, the consideration phase, we tend to ungate our content, whereas it gets down to the conversion phase, we tend to gate content, but only, um, under special circumstances, for example. So again, just something to consider when you were, I'd say, Producing content and campaigns dependent on the buyer's journey. The final thing, I do feel that by aligning campaigns with buyer's journey, you ensure that each interaction feels relevant and timely, which not only improves the customer experience, but also increases the likelihood of conversion, which is our objective when we're doing campaigns.

Mike: I thought it was a great answer. You covered so many things there. So, I think I'm going to try and dig in and unpack some of those. at the start you were talking a little bit about some of the platforms you use. and I think, you know, what a lot of marketers, you know, maybe are concerned about now is their Martech stack. It's a very expensive thing to build. do you use that buyer's journey to actually define what tools you have in the Martech stack?

Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. So, the buyers journey is not only central to campaign planning, as I mentioned, but also plays a critical role in shaping our Martech stack. So, the set of marketing technologies that we use to effectively engage, nurture and convert prospects at each stage of the journey. So aligning our Martech stack with the buyers journey, We can optimize each touch point and ensure that our marketing activities are data driven and customer centric. So, for example, at the awareness stage, we use SEO tools, to help drive quality content to our customers at the consideration stage. For example, we use marketing automation platforms and webinar tools to help educate and drive value to our customers. And then finally, at the conversion stage, we use tools that help sales teams convert qualified leads.  And then for the post sales stage, for example, we use anything from survey tools, email marketing and retention tools to help retain upsell and nurture our customers

Mike: I love the way you think so clearly about the Martek stack and the tools you need. I mean, what do you think people do wrong when they build Martek stacks that are either ineffective, difficult to use or expensive? What are the mistakes they make?

Sophie: Yeah, I love, I love getting asked this question because I do get asked this question quite a bit. So, this is an easy answer for me. So, you know, I feel that doing and implementing. Everything and anything just because it's a trend as opposed to focusing on the business models and needs of the business is probably the biggest mistake that I see some companies make. So, my advice here is to carefully sleep the technology that's going to compliment your strategy and add value for your customers. So, we need to make sure that customers are always king. put them at the forefront of every decision we make and that includes when we go to select Technology. So, we need to use it wisely and respectfully, because as we know, technology these days is super powerful and if used in the wrong nature, it can be catastrophic. Right? So, in everything we do, we must, like I mentioned, put our customers at the forefront and adopt the mantra of customer is king. And we need to do that while we, I'll say, select the marketing technology that's going to deliver the best outcome for the business, but more importantly, our customers.

Mike: I think that's a great answer. And I love the idea of not following fashion in Martek, but actually looking at what it brings you. So, so that's. In a way kind of obvious, but actually I think something a lot of people forget.

Sophie: I agree.

Mike: You've talked a little bit earlier about the link between marketing tactics and different stages in the customer journey, do you want to delve a little bit deeper into that and talk about which marketing tactics work best for you in different situations?

Sophie: Yeah. So based on my experience, and I have over 16 years of that, account based marketing or ABM. So, for me, why it works is. For high value B2B clients, such as the customers we have at ABB, ABM or account based marketing focuses on personalized campaigns tailored to specific accounts. So, you know, if we are focusing on data center clients or F& B clients, food and beverage clients, for example, we can tailor Content that's going to resonate for them as opposed to doing a stock standard, uh, content base. It's going to resonate across the board. We want to be super specific because that's what's going to get the highest engagement. So, as I mentioned, by crafting highly relevant content and messaging for key decision makers, such as I mentioned before, the C suite, you know, our maintenance manager, facility manager, for example, it drives stronger engagement and higher conversion rates. Secondly, data driven marketing analytics. So, with me, every decision I make is data driven, so to speak. So why it works for me is, um, data driven marketing allows you to track the performance of campaigns and make informed decisions. So, by analyzing customer behavior and campaign metrics, You can continuously refine your approach for better results, which is going to be better for the business as well, right? Thirdly, uh, digital advertising and retargeting. So this is where my main responsibilities lie within the role So why it works, digital ads, such as Google, LinkedIn display ads, allow you to reach targeted audience efficiently, retargeting ads, keep your brand top of mind. For prospects who have already interacted with your website and content. So, the goal is to keep them coming back and wanting more. You want to whet their appetite, right? And how you do that is by utilizing digital, advertising, like I mentioned, to keep driving them back to our web pages or to a particular platform and making sure that each time they visit our website, we position to them a different sort of experience, that's more targeted as they go down the funnel. Fourthly, SEO and inbound marketing. So, SEO, search engine optimization. So why it works is that it ensures that our website ranks for key terms relevant to our audience. So, a solid inbound marketing strategy attracts high quality organic traffic and nurtures leads with valuable content. So, I just want to give an example here, Mike. So, we recently did a customer research survey and found that our customers use our website as one of the top channels to obtain information. So this is along with direct interaction with our sales reps, of course. But the thing that really stood out for me, which, you know, websites, not no longer business cards, for example, they are turning into lead generation machines and this research, outcome proves that, customers are going to our website and doing the research before they interact with us. So, it's a real top channel that we're going to utilize moving forward to, I'll say, drive further content and messaging to our customers. So, this is why we invest quite a lot in our website SEO strategy. So, with our recent ongoing campaign, as I mentioned, what we're doing is driving traffic to our website using both SEO and SEM initiatives. We also found after one year of implementing our SEO strategy, and we all know that SEO strategies, it's a marathon, not a sprint, right? But after one year, we saw a 58 percent in growth year on year. So, as I mentioned, it's a marathon, not a sprint, but it's really good to see that, you know, we can see these positive results and we have also some exciting activities happening next year, which relate to our website. So, uh, stay tuned, right?

Mike: That sounds really exciting. I mean, Again, we've covered quite a lot there. But one of the themes I think was run through this is that you seem to have a very clear differentiation between, building the awareness, building the brand and educating customers to actually generating leads. So can you just dig a little bit deeper about how you balance that long term goal of building brand, and really helping people at the start of their journey, versus driving leads and presumably making your sales team a little happier.

Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. So, balancing the immediate demands of lead generation with longer term goal of building a strong brand reputation requires a strategic approach that integrates both short term and long term marketing objectives. So this is how, this is the approach I take to, you know, have that balance. So, it's all around integrated strategy, right? So, I ensure that both lead generation and brand building activities are aligned. Within an overarching marketing strategy. So, while lead generation campaigns are typically more direct and focused on driving conversions, as I mentioned earlier, they are designed to reflect the brand values, messaging and promise. Like I mentioned around the commercialization, of any strategy that you should set. So, this creates consistency between immediate results. And as I mentioned before, long term brand equity, which is really important.  Secondly, developing content that serves both goals. So, for example, a white paper or webinar can establish industry expertise, so brand building, while collecting contact information or driving prospects further down the funnel, which relates to lead generation. So, it's really important that, you know, when you develop content, because content is king, we need to make sure that serving both goals around lead gen is also brand building. reputation as well. So, I keep hopping on, but it's all around data driven optimization as well. So, as I mentioned before, I rely on data analytics to measure and optimize both lead generation and brain building efforts. So, this involves, for example, setting KPIs for each and regularly reviewing performance, whether, as I mentioned before, that be on a monthly basis or quarterly basis. So, by analyzing customer behavior, I can identify opportunities where short term campaigns can support long term brain perception and vice versa, of course. Finally, what I feel is all around getting the equal balance is a customer centric approach. As I keep mentioning, customer is king, right? So a strong focus on understanding the customer journey allows for tailoring marketing efforts that support immediate engagement without losing sight of the brand's long term reputation, for example. So, this means ensuring that even lead focused initiatives deliver value to the customer. Reinforcing the brand promise of quality and expertise is also equally important.  So those are the, the four, uh, the four things that I really focus on to get that, uh, balance.

Mike: I think that's great. And I love the way that you link very closely the benefits of brand building and also the lead gen and the fact they work together. They're not two independent things.  to move on and talk a little bit, maybe more about looking at the industry in general. and one of the things you've talked a lot about is being driven by data, which really is a relatively new thing, you know, maybe coming over the last decade. so, you know, that's been one change. Obviously, AI is a more recent change. how do you see the role of senior marketers, CMOs, VPs of marketing, changing, perhaps over the next five to 10 years? with technology. I mean, what's going to happen and what's going to change?

Sophie: Yeah, so, I mean, I personally see my role evolving to be a more central driver of business growth and innovation. So, with the rise of AI, as you mentioned, you know, data analytics and other emerging technologies that we touched on, the role will increasingly demand a combination of both strategic leadership, acumen and customer and a customer centric approach. So, with that, obviously, technology is going to support that. But I definitely believe that, you know, instead of it being a more traditional.  It will go more into, you know, being a role that's going to be, a center driver of business growth and innovation. So, there's going to be a lot of evolution happening. which is a good thing. So, we need to evolve with the industry and the trends as well.

Mike: Sounds like that's quite a challenge for senior marketers to, take a more business focused role.  Um, this has been fascinating. I mean, we've covered, I think, an awful lot of ground in this conversation. there are a couple of questions we'd like to ask people, before we finish off.

So, if I just fire them out at you. The first question is really simple. What's the best piece of marketing advice you've ever been given?

Sophie: I've had a lot of mentors and a lot of advice given to me over the years that I've been in the marketing field. But one of the best pieces that I can recall, is focus on solving customer problems, not just selling a product. So, it emphasizes the need I feel to truly understand your audience, their pain points and how your solution can make their lives easier because, you know, it's all about making everyone's lives easier. And if you can find a solution to do that, marketing activities will be easy, so to speak. So, when marketing is centered on the value it brings, rather than just the features of the product or service, it fosters a deeper connection with our customers. So, you know, it builds trust and ultimately, will drive loyalty, retention, and ongoing sales and opportunities.

Mike: Perfect. I mean, that's great advice that everyone can take advantage of. the other question we like to ask is if you're talking to a young person who's starting out in their career, considering moving into marketing, perhaps a graduate, what would be your advice to them to help build a great career in marketing?

Sophie: Yes, so marketing to me as much as much about psychology is it is about creating and strategizing, so to speak, right? So focus on, you know, understanding what drives people's decisions and emotions, learn about human behavior. Not just about the latest marketing train. So you understand what resonates or what makes a person tick on. And then once you've got that value proposition, as I mentioned in my previous answer,  the marketing activities that you employ or implement will will come easy or or fly. So don't just focus on the latest marketing trains. As I mentioned before, don't just focus on the latest marketing technology and apply it. Make sure that you understand and have that deeper connection with your customers and build that trust and loyalty.

Mike: And I think that's a fantastic way to end. We've come back to really understand the customer journey as being the key.

Sophie: Absolutely.

Mike: Thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge and insight. if people would like to get hold of you, what would be the best way for them to contact you to get more information?

Sophie: Yeah. So if you can reach out to me on LinkedIn, if you just Google Sophie Neat, ABB and, uh, I will appear and yeah, please connect. I'm happy to have an offline conversation with, uh, any up and coming marketeer or, uh, marketeer that has been in the business for a while.

Mike: Amazing. That's very generous. Thank you so much for your time, Sophie. I really appreciate you being a guest on the podcast.

Sophie: Great. Thank you, Mike. Lovely to be here. Thank you for having me.


Go-To-Market Strategy and Social Media for B2B: Insights from Andy Lambert - Adobe

Andy Lambert, Senior Product Marketing Manager, at Adobe and founder of ContentCal, a social media marketing tool acquired by Adobe in 2021, shares his insights into the intricacies of navigating acquisitions and shares his thoughts on effective go-to-market strategies. He offers some great ideas on how to leverage social media in the B2B space, along with tactical advice on successful campaigns and practical tips to support your own marketing efforts.

About Adobe

Adobe is a global leader in digital media and digital marketing solutions with a range of creative apps and services for photography, design, video and more.

About Andy Lambert

Andy is a marketing leader who has spent the last 12 years setting up, scaling and selling multiple software businesses.

In 2016, Andy joined two others as part of the founding team of ContentCal, a social media marketing tool. Over five years, the team raised over $10 million, expanded to serve thousands of customers across more than 100 countries, won numerous awards, and, in late 2021, was acquired by Adobe Inc.

Time Stamps

[00:42.2] – Andy discusses his career from founding ContentCal to joining Adobe.

[03:52.2] – Andy talks about the importance of defining a target audience.

[10:59:1] – Andy explains his take on go-to-market strategies.

[15:39.5] – How can B2B businesses leverage social media?

[20:22.3] – Andy talks about some examples of successful marketing campaigns.

[24:48.7] – Andy discusses how the role of the CMO may change in coming years.

[27:31.3] – Andy shares the best piece of marketing advice he’s heard.

[28:16.9] – Andy offers advice for those just starting their marketing careers.

Quotes

"It's easy to get over enamoured with how quickly you can get stuff done with AI.  AI tools are an amazing opportunity to increase your utility and increase your leverage, but it's very important that we balance that… balance it with a deep understanding at an emotional level of what truly drives an audience.”- Andy Lambert, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Adobe.

“I just need to post more on LinkedIn, right? No. 80 percent of the content that happens about our brand on social should not be from us, it should be from other people. So, it's our job to try and find a way to unlock that.” - Andy Lambert, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Adobe.

Follow Andy:

Andy Lambert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyrlambert/

Adobe website: https://www.adobe.com/

Adobe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/adobe/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Andy Lambert at Adobe

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Andy Lambert

Mike: Andy, thanks for listening to marketing B to B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today, welcome to marketing B to B technology, the podcast from Napier today, I'm joined by Andy Lambert, who's a Senior Manager product at Adobe. Welcome to the podcast, Andy,

Andy: Hey Mike, good to be here.

Mike: So Andy, I know that you've had an interesting career and actually ended up at Adobe through an acquisition. So can you just walk us through you know what you've done and what took you ultimately to join Adobe, yeah,

Andy: I’ll keep it short. So my career started in sales, which I fell into by chance also fell into by chance that it was a B to B tech company. And in doing that, found that had a affinity for it, got really into B to B startups and SaaS and all that good stuff. And I thought, like any arrogant salesperson, would you like? How hard could it be to do it for myself? So here I am winning business for another business, fancy doing it for myself. So didn't have either the guts or the financial backing to do it back then. So I found someone who had an idea. Fortunately, we were introduced, and this idea was for the company that would become content Cal, which, as the name suggests, it is a content calendar product, so essentially allows people to organize their content and publish it. So we met in 2016 won the first customer towards the end of that year, and built it over the course of the following five or so years where we got it to maybe about 100 countries, three and a half 1000 customers, something like that. And in December 21 we sold to Adobe, which frankly, made us all fall off our chairs, if we're honest, from like a little company, from reading and London selling to one of the biggest companies on the planet, it's pretty cool. And the vision for for Adobe was that they were really pushing, or they are really pushing, on this product called Adobe Express, which to empower creativity for all. So Adobe obviously known for the Pro Tools in design, Premier Pro Photoshop, yada yada. So Adobe Express is a tool that allows anyone to be creative, even numbers like myself. And the idea here was to connect the design tools that exist in Adobe Express, typically, it's used for social media content creation, and connect that with a distribution platform, naturally would take a bit longer to for them to have built it themselves. So decided to to buy in the expertise, which is why I've now ended up as a senior manager of product Adobe.

Mike: That's fascinating. I mean, it's great to hear about that acquisition. I'm just interested. Was that something you were looking for to sell the business, or was it something where Adobe came to you and asked about purchasing?

Andy: Yes. So given our backing, we had been funded since day one. So raise some angel rounds and raise series A so probably raised about ten million all told. And when you've gone on that journey, you've pretty much you've only got one outcome, which is you're going to have to exit it at some point. So yeah, hands are kind of tied on that one. And of course, those investors all want their money back and then some so, so on that basis, you're really going for a large exit. Now, did we think we would sell as soon as we did? Because we just raised Series A, and we were on the on the path to hit those gross numbers, go to Series B and just just continue. So that happened earlier than we expected, and we were approached, and after a careful review of it, it seemed like the right strategic move for the business stakeholders, etc. So that's what happened.

Mike: That sounds exciting. I mean, presumably, you know, with your work, you've been focused on really selling to people who do marketing with their professional marketers, or people who've got it as a side job, particularly around getting content for social I mean, how do you look at that audience? You know, what do you think these people need? Is it one audience, or is it quite diverse?

Andy: I think initially, we made the very typical mistake of thinking our product was applicable for everyone, and certainly in the early days of building a business, I'm sure many people who've built marketing strategies would think the same or feel the same anyway, where you think, Okay, we've got broad applicability. Let's just go out to everyone. Make the messages fairly generic, so we could appeal to the solopreneur or the, you know, the enterprise, naturally, if you're trying to appeal to everyone, typically appeal to no one. So that was about six months of waste of trying to figure out who we were trying to sell to. So the way we thought about it was through a process that I still live by today. It's called the customer discovery process. Process from my favorite book on startups, called the startup owners manual. It's a very weighty tome, and this customer discovery process kind of flips the early sales process on its head, where you just spend more time sitting with lots of different customer segments and just trying to understand from it's more like a research project rather than like a sales mission, if you will. And that helped us understand that actually, you know, the audience that got us first was those, those smaller agencies and those freelancers that have a bunch of different clients, because they they felt the most pain in terms of content planning, collaborating with clients backwards and forwards on approvals. And that's where we had that initial traction. So we called that our minimum viable audience. This wasn't what we're going to build the whole, you know, multi million dollar vision on, but it was the thing that gave us that sustainable growth to start with. And because you've targeted such a focused audience, it means word of mouth spreads much quicker. So that gave us that nice foundation of growth, and as time went on, we started to add different segments, like going more into like B to B marketers. Does that make any sense?

Mike: No, that sounds really sensible. You know, I love that concept of minimum viable audience. I think that that's a great thing for companies that are growing or just starting out to think about you don't have to hit everybody. Hit the people who are going to be you know the best audience. You talked about this customer discovery process. Could you just explain a little bit more about exactly what you did there to work out what was your ideal audience or your minimum viable audience?

Andy: Yeah, of course. So the first step was, and it's fairly simple, to be honest, it spent a lot of LinkedIn outreach whereby I would approach a certain subset of individuals like we've just spoken about, and said, I'd love to take you out for coffee, because you're very experienced in your space. We're trying to work on something that I think can make an impact to you, but I would love your take on it. And at that point, I've not mentioned a product and not mentioned I'd like to sell to like to sell to you. It's just to find some time, particularly in person as well. Probably makes it sound a bit old school, but like they're nothing beats being in person for those early conversations. So then, when I sat with someone, buy my coffee, have a couple of slides of like. Our thesis of like, this is what we think is the challenge in the space, the challenge that you're facing, does that resonate with you? So it's kind of like validating our marketing proposition at the same time, and then, you know, talk me through what your challenges are, what you wish you could be able to do or achieve, to help you scale or hit your ambitions the other so those very open questions yielded such incredibly rich qualitative data that we could then go, okay, these people started to really resonate when we said these things. And they all connected about like, the pain of sending a spreadsheet or doing WhatsApp approvals, you know, backwards and forwards on content, people started to nod along. It was then, when we're like, all of those insights, then just inform all of our go to market strategy, all of our messaging, because essentially all we're doing is repeating back what people have told us. So it's just, it's a research mission, and yeah, it's always my, my thing is that marketers don't spend anywhere near enough time as they should, directly with customers, and that's where all the gold is.

Mike: I love that process. I think that's something we all could do, not necessarily as a startup, but, you know, wherever we are in our businesses. So I'm interested. You know, you started off you, you know, initially looking at these freelancers, small agencies, as you mentioned, you then grew it. I mean, what was the change that happened when he moved to Adobe? I mean, was that like a massive complete reset, or do you feel you're still doing somewhat the same things,

Andy: Complete reset, if, if we're honest, so which comes with positives and negatives. Essentially, the product, content, Cal is is no more. So as part of the acquisition, it's shut down the business. We're three years post acquisition, so the business shut down, and we focused all of our efforts. A lot of the team, unfortunately had to go. So because snapcha is a lot of duplication of resource, etc, and we've built the functionality from scratch inside of Adobe Express. So it is completely like a complete change that, being said, Adobe, being an amazing acquire, has been very respectful, because there is a lot of upheaval, right? So, you know, whilst it feels like a wonderful achievement to sell a business, I'm still obviously very proud. It's still, there's still some very painful moments and times post sale, as you can imagine, right? You've built a business together, you feel like a family in a startup or so, you know what it's like working in a small business, right? Mike, so you know that that's kind of painful, and it unfortunately, it's just the process it is. It is what it is. So who we're targeting right now is different. So we're targeting much more, smaller businesses that don't necessarily operate. Like agencies, not quite big businesses yet. And essentially we're kind of starting again, if you will, building smaller functionalities that allow like the solopreneurs to do what they need to or individuals. And then we're going to go back on that journey to scale it again, because essentially we've built the product from scratch, and it takes time to develop the product. And what you can't do as a business to say, Oh, well, we haven't got the features yet, or wait till we get the features and then we can grow it. It's like, given our feature set we have now, who can we appeal best to right now? Where's that overlapping? Ben, and that's where kind of the solo printer audience come into it.

Mike: Absolutely. I would just want to move on now to something perhaps less specific about content count and a bit more general. I mean, I'm interested because, you know, if you look at your LinkedIn profile, you talk a lot about go to market. And I have to say I'm a little bit of a cynic. I'm a bit of an old guy. I kind of feel that go to market is sort of marketing, as we used to call it, many years ago. I mean, what's your view? How do you define go to market?

Andy: When you sent this question over, Mike, I chuckled at this one, because I was like, fundamentally, you're right, and us in marketing, where certainly me and others are guilty of giving different names to the same thing. And I think that's often baked in the fact that many people don't understand what marketing actually means. Marketing is kind of a nebulous concept. Many people conflate marketing with promotion. People think, oh, marketing is like doing the tactical bit, and that's why I've typically called it go to market. So when I think about go to market, which you're right, that's, let's just clarify that I'm aligned with you, Mike, it is just marketing, but just for anyone listening when I when I say go to market and contextually, I'm interested to know if, if if you would still call this marketing when I explained it, think about it in three ways. So firstly, this all the market research or the diagnosis, right? All of the analysis, customer discovery, the stuff we've spoken about right at the top, right? So understanding who we're going after. Then the second stage, which is a strategy, and that's understanding, or at least thinking about the story we're going to tell, value proposition, commit, competitive differentiation, reasons to believe all of that go to market strategy, as I would call it. And then the third part is the tactical piece. It's like, how then do we instill that go to market strategy? Do we which does include promotion, clearly, like Google ads, LinkedIn, etc, includes like offline stuff, events or podcasts like this. But also, and this is an important point, and we might talk about this later in the evolving role of a CMO, is that it also factors in the sales decks, right the scripts the sales people use, the battle cards they'll use, also how Customer Success deal with customers, how they work towards upsells and even offboarding process. When people churn, you know, marketing, go to market touched on all of that. If there is any single interaction with a customer, it's in the go to market strategy, or maybe Mike you call it just marketing. How's that sound to you? Does that that resonate?

Mike: I totally agree. And I have to be honest. I mean, I do see a difference in the way people today approach this problem. So back in the day, you know, when I started out marketing, it was about the five Ps, which pretty much cover what you said in go to marketing, you know, price, position, place, people, promotion, isn't it. But the way it was done was you looked at each of those separately. And I think what perhaps go to market has done is it's made it more into a process. People have thought about it, more about a sequence of activities that then impinge on all these things. It impinges on the channels you choose. It impinges on your pricing strategy, your promotion, etc. But I do, I do understand that people today talking about go to market. They're a lot more sophisticated than people talking, you know, maybe 30 years ago about marketing generally. So I do see it as a positive. And I think that's interesting. I mean, do you see it as being, you know, much more of this process you run through, rather than this kind of list of five things you've got to tick off.

Andy: Yeah, it is. It's a continually iterative process. And I think this is, and I can only speak from my limited slice of the world that I've seen in my 38 years, right? So I've only got limited context, but like my strong hypothesis off the back of this is that all of this needs to to tree up to one individual that owns it, Chief Revenue Officer, CMO, whatever role you you want to put in there. Because often we see that kind of bifurcation, where you've got CMO or and a Chief Sales Officer or sales director, where they're kind of little bit at odds, and there's no one true owner of like that narrative messaging and that whole process, because it is an iterative process. You're like, like I said in customer discovery, it's not like we found our Minimal Viable audience. We're gonna have to do the whole darn process again to go for the next segment. So you're absolutely right. This is not a box check exercise. It's not like a like how business plans used to be. You create this. 30 page business plan, which then lives, yeah, in your top draw somewhere, and you never look at it again, right? So it's it needs to have someone looking at it all the time, and an overall owner of it. So yes, it's a short version. And my answer to your question, Mike,

Mike: Brilliant, it's good. We're agreeing. And let's move on to talking a little bit about tactics. And if people you know look at your LinkedIn or Google, they'll find you've got a sub stack all about B to B social media. So I'm really interested to know how you see B to B, or how you see social media fitting into B to B, and what you see the pros and cons of trying to do B to B promotion through social

Andy: I'm with you. So yeah, a couple of caveats on that one to call out the word of like, promotion that you just used like, it's, there's a be a promotional element to it, but like, predominantly, it's, it's not and, and secondly, it's, it's important to know, whilst I'm a huge advocate from my context and experience of social for B to B, it's, it's the only context I know. It doesn't necessarily mean it's applicable to everyone, so just want to caveat that from the outset. But the thing is, I personally and strongly believe it's the way that modern brands certainly B to B's will grow. Because, like we said, in that kind of customer discovery process, it's that when you know who your audiences are, and you know the language that they speak, that means that word of mouth spreads. Word of mouth spreads through online communities. And when I say social media, I don't just mean, oh, we're posting something to our LinkedIn company pages. It's, I mean, I know, you know that, Mike, but just to be just for the purpose of clarity, it's everything that touches social which is the sentiment that's happening on Reddit threads, for example, in Facebook groups, it's all of the communities that are that have your B to B marketers, in which, in our case, or whatever industry that you're in, there will be microcosms of communities online everywhere, and it's our job to have a voice in those or if at least we can't have A voice work with others that can have a voice for us, which then goes into the whole influence of partnerships and partnerships with communities, which was a huge Libra that we pulled on at content Cal, I spent as much time with customers as I did with communities that had access to the types of audiences that we want, and the value exchange there requires a delicacy of touch that's often hard to explain, because it's not just about, oh yeah, here's a couple of grand. Can you post something for us? Most those communities, if they're worth their salt, will say, No. Who are you? You're joking like, if you spend the time to build a relationship with them like you would a customer and go, Okay, so your community is amazing. You've built an incredible thing here. But is there anything that that I can do to help and typically, with those communities like that's interesting. So that, for example, for some communities, I would co create content like, my strong suit is like social media analytics. So I'd create them content to help their audience with how to analyze and define success on social media. I'd also give their community like 90 day free trials on the on the product, so it actually adds value to those communities. And we didn't pay them anything. It's just a value exchange so that they could get something that was good for their community, which in turn makes their community feel better too. So I spent a lot of time doing that. We also had some paid for influencer partnerships. But it's, it's all of those voices that started talking about us is a thing that became successful, and this is, and I'm sorry I'm on the soapbox here, so I'll keep it short, but honestly, that's, the biggest mindset shift and misunderstanding I see in B to B social. Because people are like, Oh, cool. I just need to post more on LinkedIn, right? It's like, no. 80% of the content that happened about our brand on social should not be from us. It should be from other people. So it's our job to try and find a way to unlock that of which is what I wrote my whole book on, to be honest. So yeah, an area I feel very passionate about, as you can probably tell

Mike: Absolutely, and I find it interesting. I mean, I think, like most things with B to B, it feels like social media for B to B is actually quite a bit more complex than social media for consumer I mean, do you agree with that?

Andy: I think it is. It requires a lot more nuance, I would say, yeah, and certainly, as it pertains to the influencer piece, harder to find, harder to work with, because, you know, we're not looking for celebrities to endorse our lipstick, right? We're we're looking for people that are have true domain expertise, that don't have, like, 10s of millions of followers, because there are cyber security experts, so they're not going to but we want to find people that have a deep connection with those CIOs in this example that we really want to reach. So yeah, that's why, yes, in that instance, it takes longer, and you've got to be a lot smarter about how you approach it. Definitely.

Mike: I mean, I do think, you know, sometimes people assume that it's easy. You just contact an influencer and it all works, and it is more complex. I mean, I'm interested. We can steal, perhaps, some of your good ideas here. You know, is there a particular campaign you've run that you think was either innovative or particularly effective, that you know, perhaps has some lessons for some of the people listening to the podcast.

Andy: So I'll do, I'll do two. I'll do one from content Cal days and one from A, B to B, tech company that I have huge respect for. One from content Calc. We not spoken about it so far. One of the most successful things that we did, and we leveraged this all the time, it was the cornerstone of our content strategy, was a simple, humble webinar. The most powerful thing, right? So webinars as a tactic won't be groundbreaking for anyone listening to this, but the thing that we did, that I think, was interesting, is that we paid very close attention to the people who we got on the podcast. So what we didn't do, even though we're appealing, you know, right, right at the outset, we're appealing to those kind of small agencies, etc. Our webinars was all about, how do we have a halo effect for our brand, for who we want to acquire in the future? So that way we invited like the head of social from Monzo or innocent drinks, those kind of brands are hugely respected. No, they weren't customers. But the wonderful thing that happens when you invite great brands in is that people make a mental Association, which are not prompted by us to say, Oh, wow. Like it's content color used by Monzo innocent drinks, Steven Bartlett, wow. They must be good. Weren't used by any of them. But the point is we, we gave a platform for these social media managers to share their strategies, and then we became like the social media strategy people. We just hammered that as a tactic. So on a bad day, our webinars would have 1000 people turn up, and that was our whole funnel based on so that's that one thing that has worked, not groundbreaking, just when we truly understand the audience and who we're trying to serve and where we want to take the business, and just curating appropriately, that's a tactic. And secondly, cognism, one of my favorite B to B Tech brands. They leverage the thought leader ads on LinkedIn, which are a fairly new thing, and basically they they've led into the personality led growth approach we all know like how important that is in B to B and yeah, they're essentially, they're promoting the content of their individual thought leaders, like their CMO or their chief sales officer, etc, and using that as their main content, because they know and you can see the results on their on their page, that's the content that drives the majority of the engagement.

Mike: Yeah, and I guess going back to that first point, we should probably say that Napier isn't the agency for Adobe. We're not working with Adobe. We don't actually work in your sector, but if you want to imagine we're that good, we're very happy that positive conversation. I really appreciate your time. Andy, I mean it, you know, I want to get to some of the questions we ask towards the end, where we try and ask the same questions to people, just to get different points of view on certain topics. And so kind of a bit of a quick fire round. You know, there's been a lot of talk recently, particularly in B to B, about people spending a lot more time researching online, a lot less time engaging with salespeople. You've obviously seen the light and move from sales into marketing, into a more broader product management role. I mean, do you agree that's happening, and what do you think marketers should do to actually take advantage of this and make their roles bigger?

Andy: Yeah, it's a great question. I think there's a lot of data that empirically proves this too. My single suggestion for this, my own personal perspective, is that as marketers, we need to empower the rest of our sales teams to become personalities in their own right online. So again, that personality led growth thing that I lean into quite a lot, and I've seen that just final point on that is that I've seen that play off very well from from me personally. So whenever I went into a sales meeting at content Cal, I'm now still at Adobe, people like, oh, I reckon I follow you, or I read, read your book, or I saw your sub stack, immediately the guard comes down in the conversation, you have suddenly that one to one conversation. So I think that that really will will help educate people earlier on in the funnel, and also when it comes to that decision making process. And if anyone you know sales people are still going to be relevant for some B to B's, and it really helps make those sales conversations work out a lot more positively.

Mike: That's fantastic. And I think we can lead on to the next question now is so you know, obviously you've kind of hinted that the role of marketing is is going to involve really building up the sales team and their brand and their reputation. But what other changes do you think are going to happen? You know, particularly to senior marketing executives. I mean, how's the CMO role going to change? For example?

Andy: Yeah, I think the the modern CMO, yes, like I said earlier, will need to assume responsibility for more than just marketing, right? We've seen the 10 years of. As CMOS, which are at their all time lowest, because typically, I think even CEOs don't understand this, because marketers are brought in as like chief promotion officers quite often, where they're like, oh, look, you didn't move the numbers in a year and a half. Yeah, goodbye. It takes, it takes more time than that. So I think marketers and CMOS, even though they're senior individuals, really need to start staking their claim as to, like, what's the macro impact of marketing and organizational level? What are we trying to do? So, for example, like being able to understand metrics like unaided awareness or share a voice, those elements take it away from especially B to be like lead and opportunities and sales and that kind of stuff, because the most important factor of all of this is that 95% of any given market is not in the market to buy. You'll know this anyway. So marketing needs to elevate the conversation a much more strategic level. That also means that marketers need at the CMO level to be the true experts of a customer. Really represent a customer. Voice know it better than anyone. You should not have a CEO understanding a customer better than you. Everyone should bow down to your knowledge, your deep knowledge of your customer, which will be engendered from those conversations that I spoke about earlier and as well, we've got so many AI driven tools as well to speed up market research, get our sentiment all across Reddit and Facebook groups aggregated into a to a nice dashboard. All of those tools exist, and I think that that modern cmo that's both data informed by all of this sentiment that's happening, and this is even conversations happening at the top of Adobe too, related to this kind of stuff as well. So we know, we know it's incredibly important those that can speak with expertise about the customer and use all of that data, but also bring that, that humanity to the business that we absolutely need. Because we know, fundamentally, despite all of this wonderful data and data driven decision making, fundamentally business is human, and it's a trust based business, so we need to, CMOs still need to be an expert in that kind of humanity and emotional led element of that too. So quite a hard balance to strike. But yeah, that's the future.

Mike: Sounds like the future could be quite challenging, but also quite rewarding. So I think that's super positive. I feel bad, you know, almost asking the next question. You've given us so much advice, so many insights, but is there a piece of market advice, really good piece of market advice we haven't covered, that you'd like to share?

Andy: Yeah, it's probably sounds trite, because I talk about it all the time, but it's the thing that I would have printed on a t shirt if I could, or if I was sad enough, it would be your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room. So that is not my quote, or no one said this to me because I'm not friends with Jeff Bezos, but I just I adore it. It speaks to all of the the kind of fluffy, emotional side of of brand. And a brand is just the feelings and the feelings you engender from the promises that you make. And that's it.

Mike: Love it. That's a great quote. And finally, I know you're you know you've been very generous of your time, but if there's a young person listening who's just starting out on their marketing career, what advice would you give them?

Andy: Second question, I would say it's easy to get over enamored with how quickly you can get stuff done with AI. AI tools are an amazing opportunity to increase your utility and increase your leverage, but it's very important, though, that we balance that, and I've said this already, balance it with the humanity and balance it with a deep understanding at an emotional level of what truly drives an audience, and when you combine the kind of the rational and the emotional, that's when you can truly do great work in marketing. So just, just don't get over fixated on all of the shiny tools, because the only thing that matters, nothing else matters other than the person you're trying to serve.

Mike: That's great advice. We nearly got through a whole podcast discussion without mentioning AI, but even managed to come in. Andy, thank you so much. It's been fascinating. It's been, you know, really interesting talking to you. I know there's a lot you do online, but what's the best way if people want to learn a bit more or find out about your views on B to B social, how can I either get hold of you or find out more?

Andy: Yeah, so thanks for the opportunity. Firstly, I'm on LinkedIn. Just search. Andy Lambert, you will also see my book, which is probably behind me somewhere. I don't know if this is going to be on video, but yeah, it's called Social 3.0 and I have a sub stack, which you can join for free. Just search social three dot sub stack.com, and, yeah, all of my ramblings are in those three areas.

Mike: That's awesome. Andy, I've really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you so much for being a guest on marketing, B to B technology.

Andy: Thank you for having me, Mike. Appreciate it. Bye.

Mike: Thanks so much for listening to marketing, B to B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode, and if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes or on your favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierbe to be.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn. You.


Simplifying SEO: How to Demystify Search Engine Optimization - Moz

Ethan Hays, General Manager at Moz, and STAT Analytics dives into the world of SEO. He shares his insights on simplifying SEO and the importance of democratising it within organisations, ensuring all stakeholders recognise its value.

Ethan compares the dynamics of startups and large enterprises, as well as the cultural differences between East and West Coast marketing landscapes. He also explores the evolving role of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and the need for integrating marketing and sales in today’s business environment.

About Moz

Moz is a marketing analytics software company that provides tools and resources for search engine optimisation (SEO). The platform offers features like keyword research, link building, and site audits to help businesses improve their online visibility and search rankings. Moz is also known for its educational content, including blogs and guides that simplify SEO for users of all skill levels.

About Ethan

Originally studying sports medicine, Ethan discovered a passion for SEO and has built a successful career over the past two decades. Having held various roles in startups, enterprises and agencies, as well as founding his own agency, he is now the General Manager at Moz and STAT Search Analytics.

Time Stamps

00:04:54 - Ethan's Career Journey: Startups to Agencies
00:08:33 - Cultural Differences: East Coast vs. West Coast
00:13:27 - The Misconceptions of SEO
00:16:30 - Democratizing SEO Within Organizations
00:18:08 - Moz's Approach to Simplifying SEO
00:23:40 - The Impact of Generative AI on SEO
00:32:15 - The Evolving Role of CMOs
00:36:01 - Quick Marketing Advice from Ethan
00:37:27 - Advice for Aspiring Marketers
00:40:16 - Contact Information

Quotes

“It shocks me… talking to executives at very large, sophisticated companies who to this day have not even approached SEO as a category. Like it’s too complex….” Ethan Hays General Manager at Moz and STAT Analytics.

“It [SEO] is the single most scalable source of high margin, high intent traffic.” Ethan Hays General Manager at Moz and STAT Analytics.

Follow Ethan:

Ethan Hays on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanhays/

Moz website: https://moz.com/

Moz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/moz/

STAT Analytics website: https://getstat.com/ 

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Ethan Hays at Moz

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Ethan Hays

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today. Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier.

Today, I'm joined by Ethan Hayes. Ethan is the General Manager for Moz and Stats Search Analytics. Welcome to the podcast, Ethan.

Ethan: Very glad to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Mike: So tell me about your career and how someone who studies sports medicine ends up in search.

Ethan: Yeah, you know, you would be shocked at the amount of times that I've heard that exact question. And, you know, it's, it's funny trying to think back and put together all the pieces, you know, I can come up with reasons. I can come up with rationales that the, the honest answer as to how I ended up in SEO is I just fell in love with it. I was working in the Bay Area, in the startup world, sort of just after the first internet bubble burst. And I happened into a job where managing networks of affiliate marketers was my job. the most successful affiliates were really good at organic search. And so I got curious about it. And the more I dug in, the more I found that was fascinating to me. And I just I fell in love and I've been in love ever since that I've been doing it professionally for, you know, 20 plus years. But I I think if I had to go back and say sort of what's the what's the connective tissue or the commonality between my interest in sports medicine and my interest in SEO, I would have to say that it's probably that I have an obsession with complex systems that have a human face. So in the sports medicine world, there's lots of very fundamental laboratory science you can do, right? You can spend your entire day in a white lab coat with a bunch of beakers in the chemistry lab doing various different kinds of chemical reactions. And to me, that was also so abstract that it never really caught my attention. But if you take that same study of chemical reactions and you put it in the context of this is how your body creates energy so you can do a vertical jump or something like that, suddenly it became alive and relatable and interesting to me. And I sort of found a similar thing in the field of SEO, where, of course, the everything behind the search interface, there's so much technical complexity. You know, the original big data was Google trying to, you know, essentially store a copy of the Internet locally. There's so much advance now, you know, with with machine learning and artificial intelligence, all the rest of it. But on its face, It's a very human and understandable pursuit. It's just a regular person like you and me going to the search box, typing in something and hoping to get an answer to their question. And so it was that mix of that complexity with that very sort of relatable human face that really drew me in.

Mike: That's fascinating the way you link those two apparently quite different disciplines together. I mean, clearly your career's in search. You've actually had quite a lot of different experiences. Do you want to talk about that? Do you want to talk about the industries you've worked in? And also I think you've worked both client side as well as working in agencies and even founded agencies. So tell me a little bit about the journey and what ultimately led you to end up at Moz.

Ethan: Yeah. You know, Moz was really a part of my, my SEO journey from the very beginning. I got started in about 2003. Moz sort of popped up in about 2004. And just because of that coincidence of timing, I enjoyed the Moz community. I spent a lot of time there. And so, so Moz was part of my professional journey from the very early days, but. To your question, yes, lots of different industries, lots of different sort of professional environments that I've been in. I spent probably the first 12 years of my career working with technology startups in Silicon Valley. And I absolutely fell in love with the startup space, just the energy of it, getting a small team of people together to solve a hard problem. I love that energy, fell in love with the startup world. But then of course, life happens. I had to move from San Francisco to New York City. And when I moved to New York City, I got my start in the agency world for the first time, worked at a B2B marketing agency called Gyro. They were the largest independent B2B agency in the world at the time. They ended up getting sold to Dentsu later, but got to know the agency world a little bit and just the difference in business culture from the West Coast to the East Coast. It's a very real thing, right? My joke at the time was that hopping on a plane and flying from San Francisco to New York City was like getting in a time machine going back about 10 years. It was just, it was such a different environment because this was, you know, it was about 2012 thereabouts. And I came from Silicon Valley, which is very, it's very technology forward, very data forward. You've got little companies trying to take on big companies. And so if you have a breakout gross channel, like a search engine optimization, you've got the entire organizational line behind it and everybody's pulling in the same direction. And then if you go to the East Coast and we at this B2B marketing agency, we had the very good fortune of being able to work with some very, very large clients, you know, Fortune 100, Fortune 10 in some cases. And the complete step change in the kinds of conversations that I was having was a bit hard to absorb at first, right? It went from, you know, what's the most cutting edge thing that we can do with our technology to increase our SEO performance to sitting down with the chief marketing officer of a fortune 100 company. And their first question to me is, so what is digital? And I'm like, Oh boy, I'm going to have to backtrack a little bit. Right. So it was, it was a very eyeopening experience, but also very necessary because it points to the fact that it is so easy for folks, especially technology folks. we get attracted by puzzles, we get attracted by technology, we tend to go down rabbit holes. And the rest of the world doesn't tend to do that. The rest of the world doesn't have that same sort of obsessive interest. And so the ability to zoom out, to up level, to understand a very different business reality, a very different set of personalities and priorities and calibrate your pitch to meet them where they are. That was a very meaningful step in my career that was facilitated by having to have these conversations with just much larger, much, much more complex companies. And that has served me well to this day. I've continued to work in both sort of a mix of, of startups, but also I've spent quite a bit of time in the past. seven or eight years working in private equity and organizations like that and mergers and acquisitions. And so being able to see so many different aspects of the professional world and start to learn a little bit of their common language and their frameworks for understanding the world has been very beneficial to me. I'm a big advocate for broadening your horizons.

Mike: I love that idea of broadening your horizons. I also really enjoyed the description of the differences between the East and West Coast 10 years ago. You've also worked on agencies and on the client side, as well as for established companies and startups. Do you also see cultural differences there, or is it more geographical? I mean, where are the differences really occurring?

Ethan: I will say that there are, I think, very real differences in sort of basic mindset and posture towards life. You hear people talking about like, oh, the easygoing West coasters and the hard charging East coasters. And to me, there is actually a great deal of signal in that stereotype. I've seen it over and over and over again myself. But to me, that has not been the primary differentiator. The differences seem to be driven mostly by the scale of the company itself. Uh, which is to say in a lot of startup environments, you're primarily working with companies that are, man, let's say at a hundred people, maybe 150 people. And you kind of have that Dunbar's number advantage going for you, where you can generally feel like, you know, most of the people and personalities and the names of folks. And then once you get into the large enterprise world, the scale just blows that out entirely. And you have to, because of the scale of the organization. the views of that organization necessarily become more abstract. So at the last holding company that I was at before, Ziff Davis, I reported directly to the CEO of that company and he had, I forget, 40 something agencies all around the world rolling up to him. His view of those businesses was a spreadsheet. It was your quarterly results. That's what he looked at. That was the data that was presented to him. And the story of that company had to be presentable and understandable in a spreadsheet. That is a very different view of the world than when you're in a small startup and you know everybody on a first name basis.

Mike: I think that's very true. I mean, certainly at Napier, we have the benefit of being small. Everyone knows everyone else. You have those close personal relationships. So as you alluded to, you moved to Moz and then Moz now is part of Ziff Davis. Let's talk about where you are today. And it's interesting because you're actually the first, if you like, repeat guest. So somebody we've had from a company where we've already had another guest. Inga Bubez was a great guest for us talking about SEO. I'm interested, what's your role in Moz and what are you doing to help people with search and search engine optimization?

Ethan: Yeah, you know, it is funny. So this year at Moz, we celebrated our 20th anniversary. So we had MozCon this summer and it was our big 20th anniversary celebration. And that felt wonderful, right? As a longtime member of the community, the fact that Moz has endured for 20 years, Not a lot of companies have a 20 year lifespan, right? So just celebrating that was fantastic. But I am really more focused on the next 20 years, of course. And I still, to this day, see the opportunity for SEO as being in relatively early innings. It shocks me to this day talking to executives at very large sophisticated companies who to this day have not even approached SEO as a category. Like, oh, it's too complex. You've got to find some rock star, some guru, some ninja to help you understand the space. And it's just, it's too much for us. It's too much. And that hurts me deep inside because I know it's not true. I know it's not true. The opportunity for SEO is absolutely massive for any company at scale that approaches it. It is the single most scalable source of high margin, high intent traffic that is broadly available to anyone with a website. That is true today. It was true 20 years ago. That reality has not changed. But unfortunately, The way that our industry has communicated with SEO broadly has continued to contribute to this, this mischaracterization of SEO is this like, you know, this black magic. One of my, one of my very early companies that I, that I worked with in the, in Silicon Valley, I founded the, the SEO and search focused product marketing practice at healthline.com. I was a tiny little company, 30 people when I started. It's now a huge company. It got sold to Red Ventures for $190 million. They do 200 million visits a month. They're a juggernaut. And the fact of the matter with SEO is that it gets sold in as something that is incredibly complex and incredibly technical and therefore regular folks can't do it. You hear these kinds of names in the SEO industry like, oh, I'm an SEO guru or I'm an SEO rockstar. That to me is just absolute poison for the growth of the industry. Back at Healthline, I was trying to introduce SEO to the entire organization. They were a tiny startup. They were taking on WebMD, which was the 800-pound gorilla in the category. Here we are, we're a tiny little team of 30 people, and we need to go out there and get as much traffic as we possibly can as quickly as we can. The CEO brought me in. He's like, okay, I need you to give a presentation to our engineering team about SEO. And the first comment I got from my lead engineer was SEO is witchcraft. That was the start. Right. That was the starting point. And that represented, you know, his experience up to that point in his life. And I realized I was like, oh boy, I've got a lot of work to do. And a lot of that work is actually internal. It's about educating the organization that you are a part of. up leveling that entire team so that they can see, oh, wait, this isn't witchcraft. This is a series of repeatable steps that we could do. And if we do these repeatable steps, the products that we're so excited about building, what should we go out and make more money for the company? And that reflects really positively on my team and my career prospects and my bonus at the end of the year. And it's having those kinds of conversations that are ultimately about democratizing SEO within an organization. For me, overwhelmingly in my career, that is where I see value. That is where I deliver value. That's where I've been able to deliver the biggest step changes in an organization's SEO performance. It's about being that rising tide that lifts all the boats, educating your coworkers, connecting the work that you're asking them to do with things that are materially important to them. Most of the product managers that an SEO team has to, by definition, has to work in partnership with in order to build well-optimized products. That product and engineering team, they are driven by the P&L of that product. That product has financial expectations associated with it. If you can help them understand how this process that you're bringing them along to help you with helps them drive better financial performance, increases their own career prospects, ends up being a gold star on their resume. When you can start drawing those kinds of connections in an organization, all of a sudden SEO becomes not just possible, but something that you have allies everywhere looking to help you. And I know that's possible. I've seen it. I've done it. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the SEO industry pushes pretty hard in the other direction. They push towards this idea of like the lone genius who has all of this magical knowledge and only this person can gift the organization with the precise recipe for success. That's a load of nonsense in my experience.

Mike: Yeah, I mean, I think Mars from day one has pretty much been renowned as the organization trying to help ordinary people understand how to do SEO and probably trying to simplify it. I mean, do you have some examples of what you're doing today that's helping ordinary marketers actually contribute to SEO and get their web pages, their content ranking higher?

Ethan: Yeah, so one of the things that is that is very, very interesting to me that came out of the recent Google API leaked documents. Of course, there is a ton of technical depth and arcane stuff. And again, I think the industry at large sort of lionizes people who dive the deepest into all the technical arcana. And that's interesting. I'm glad those folks are out there. I'm glad they're doing what they do. But I think from my perspective, I have the humility in working with complex systems to realize that messing with one little part of a complex system doesn't mean you're just changing that one little part. It has cascading effects, right? I tend to want to zoom out and look for sort of large themes and larger levers that are available to us. And a couple of the things that came out of that where Moz has a long history in the marketplace of creating data products that are helpful to working SEOs, right? One aspect of the SEO world is big data and very big data, right? Moz has one of the best link indexes, you know, on the entire internet. I think we have 45 trillion URLs somewhere in there. Other providers may say, oh, we have 46 trillion URLs. OK, great. The point to me is not the number of URLs in your index. It's are you able to look at that massive set of data and look at the ecosystem that it applies to? and abstract out of that something that is simple and easy to understand and can actually be used by SEOs in their day-to-day work to help guide them in helpful directions. And so one of the examples of that, you know, Moz came out with our metric domain authority a long time ago in 2006. He was in response to a very visible and noticeable fact for anybody who spends any amount of time in a particular industry or a particular keyword space. And you will see over time that there are big, powerful domains in that particular space. And it just seems like the rules are applied to them differently some. They just don't get hit as hard by updates. They seem to have a little bit more latitude in the things that they can do. And so Moz created Domain Authority to point to this invisible thing that we could see in the field. Very promptly, Google, of course, came out and began denouncing it. And in sometimes very, very specific terms, we do not use domain authority. We don't have anything that's like a domain authority signal that we use in ranking in any way, shape or form. And then the Google API documents came out and we can now confirm Google does not use domain authority. Their metric is called site authority. It's like when I look at things like that, to me, that is an example of Moz taking all of this complexity, these trillions of links and abstracting out something that is simple and helpful for working SEOs. Similarly, just about a year ago, we launched a metric called brand authority because now we are seeing another dynamic in the search engine results. And that is that sites with a strong brand seem to be treated very differently than sites that do not have a strong brand. And this is actually something that Google has talked about quite openly for a very long time. One of the quotes that sticks out in my mind, this was back in 2008, Eric Schmidt, who was the CEO of Google at that time, said, brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool. I was like, wow. It's rare that you get really clear, honest communication from a very senior professional in a very large company. And I thought that was just very clear and the honesty of it appealed to me, always stuck in my head. And so now as we're seeing that dynamic coming to life and brands do in fact appear to be being treated differently, we created this brand authority metric And we are now seeing inside the Google API leak documents that Google does in fact care very much how your brand does or doesn't show up as a brand inside search. This is especially seems to be especially related to how they evaluate sites for being impacted or not impacted by big algorithms like Panda. So That is yet another example in that same vein. And of course, as the Moz product continues to evolve, we're looking to use AI to help summarize some of these key features. Again, forget about the absolutely gigantic loads of data that we have to process to get to it. What is actionable for a working SEO when they're looking at a domain in a new field or looking at their client's domain, right? The client just hired them. It's like, hey, do an audit of our website. We're using AI to summarize the primary topics and secondary topics that are most associated with that domain. That is helpful to me as a working SEO professional when I'm looking at a new client's domain, when I'm looking at a competitor's domain. And now we see from the Google API leaks. Google cares very deeply about the topicality of your website to the extent that they have this metric called state radius, where they essentially, this gets very nasty. They create a vector embedding of the primary topic of your site, and then they measure what they call the site radius. So from that central topic that is most associated with your website's content, Every new piece of content that you launch, they literally measure the distance between that core topic and this new thing that you're talking about. So if you have a client, for example, and you know, most of their content is about pet care or whatever it is, and all of a sudden you see them starting to talk about a bunch of cryptocurrency related stuff on their, their editorial calendar, you're now in a position to sit down and say, Hey, let's talk about your content strategy as it relates to your core user base. Here's a very specific reason that you may not want to start wandering off topics so much. And so that is a sort of a summary of the way that we at Monaz are looking at this. It's not about the size of the data itself. It's about simplifying it. It's about extracting the insight and the signal out of it that helps make sense of all the complexity for our customers.

Mike: I love that. And I'm sure customers are going to be very happy. They don't have to understand metrics like site radius, particularly if they're not SEO specialists. I think looking forward, one of the things a lot of people, both SEO specialists, as well as non-specialist marketers like myself, we're all a little worried about generative AI search results and what's happening there. So on the page of search engines, they're trying to give you the answer that really you want to give by routing people to your own page on your website. So how do you see this impacting SEO in the future?

Ethan: Yeah, I mean, that is certainly an extremely hot topic. You know, at the moment, I think that the world is having generative AI shoved down our throats a little bit, because I believe If I look back over the last two years, to me, one of the most important developments in sort of what I've come to call the LLM wars, right, because you have these factions and they're, you know, they're these guys against the other guys and everybody's, everybody's very combative. One of the first shots fired in the LLM wars was back in February of 2003. And that was when Satya Nadella came out in that interview and promised to make Google dance, right? I'm going to make them dance. And that came across to me very weird. It was almost like a, like a schoolyard deer, right? But that sort of set the tone. It let Google know. Bing is going to be all in on this generative AI stuff. They're going to push it as hard as they can. And they're specifically doing it to take share from Google because in Satya's math, every single point of search share they take away from Google is worth a billion dollars to them as a business, right? That was one of the opening shots in the LLM wars. And ever since then, to me, Google has basically been on the back foot. They've had LLM technology for years and years and years. Why didn't they, why didn't they launch it ahead of OpenAI? Well, for perhaps to me, the most understandable reason possible, which is that unleashing large language models in an environment like search creates a heidel wave. of LLM spam that Google is going to have to fight. That is the nature of the technology. Sundar Pichai actually had a quote to that effect. He's like, oh yeah, anytime you have a massive new technology release like AI, it's going to affect the search ecosystem. And this one's a bit different. This one is just very focused on the meat and potatoes of the search industry, which is words on a page. And so to me, everything that has happened in the LLM war since then has basically been Google on their back foot. trying to number one, mitigate the obvious negative effects that LLM driven content would have on the search comments. But then also now that they have been dragged into the war, they must make it look like it was a strategic decision. Right. And so now all Google talks about is AI this, AI that. Oh, it's so wonderful. You know, their last earnings called, you know, Sundar is talking about, Oh, our users love AI overviews and it's better and better and better. That may be true in the aggregate. From my perspective, I don't know. I talked to everyday folks. I'm really curious about their reactions to things like, you know, large language models, every regular person that I've seen that I've shown a large language model to, to kind of like They're like, Oh, so it just makes up a bunch of words. Yeah, pretty much. Like you could do it in clever ways. I can, you know, tell it to make it, you know, uh, you know, made it right as a sonnet or, you know, make it a, you know, whatever. People don't seem very excited about it. Right. I don't think there has been a, you know, a killer app, certainly a consumer facing killer app in the space of LLMs yet. And so Google is going to continue representing that they love generative AI and everybody loves generative AI and they're going to give it to everybody. And I think in the background, you are going to see Google do what they should do as a business, which is focus on the business itself and how this new technology does or doesn't add to that business. So, for example, in, I think it was in May, right after they did sort of the big public release of AI Overviews, one guy was tracking the prevalence of AI Overviews based on the value of the AdWords market associated with that query. And what he found was that after the big AI Overviews public release, The prevalence of AI overviews in keyword markets where the average cost per click was $5 or more went down by 98%. Because of course it did, right? It's going to steal attention. It's going to steal clicks away from the money-making engine of Google. And so they're not going to make, they're not going to make a press release about that. But I think that if you are a careful observer of the search comments, I think you're going to see more and more of that. AI overviews are going to continue to feature, and especially in informational queries, the more you get towards transactional and commercial stuff, I think the less of it you're going to see over time.

Mike: Well, that's probably good news. Hopefully there's less for us to worry about than we all think. Another thing that's changed, I think this is really something that goes back to your description of the East Coast, West Coast differences, is that CMOs and marketing executives have really changed, and particularly the role of the CMOs changed quite dramatically in the last decade. So how do you see it going forward, Ethan?

Ethan: Well, I think the story, especially the chief marketing officer's role over the last 10 years, CMOs have been challenged. And by that, I mean, as of, I think this was maybe five years ago, so this may have changed, but directionally, I believe it's accurate. As of about five years ago, CMOs were the role with the shortest average tenure in the C-suite. Right. They get, they get booted out of the sea sleep for one reason or another, more than other, uh, chief, you know, chief executives do. And, and I believe that the reason for that is very straightforward. It is that marketing leaders are now expected to be revenue leaders back in the day, different rules, right? Different rules, marketing. in some organizations, especially very large organizations was just looked at as a cost center, right? It's like, Oh, we got to go out there. We got to spend the money. And everybody's heard the quote, Oh, we spend, you know, a hundred percent of our marketing budget, 50% of its wasted. Don't know which 50%. Ha ha ha. Well, that leads to the instability that we're seeing in the career path of a lot of CMOs. I have known that the classic tension that I see in large organizations is actually between the CMO and the chief sales officer who start smashing up head to head saying, well, the sales leader will say, hey, you give me that same million dollars you just gave to the CMO. I'm going to buy four Ferraris for our four biggest clients and I'm going to drive another $20 million in sales. What are you going to do? Right. Like they see exaggerated. Right. But you literally have those kinds of conversations in very large organizations. And so there has weirdly been a very, very consistent tension between marketing and sales. And I think that the future is pointing towards much more integration between those roles because in a properly functioning high-performance sales and marketing organization, those two functions fit together like hand in glove. They have to. They have to, right? You have to have good communication across those functions. You have to have, in some cases, service level agreements negotiated between those functions such that when marketing generates their marketing qualified leads, they are sent to a place in the sales, in the sales team where they know to look for them. And there is a specific expectation that those leads will be serviced in somewhere between five minutes and 30 minutes or maybe a day on the outside. But creating those structured partnerships such that that entire machine marketing, which is tasked with generating that sales pipeline, And then sales, which is taking that pipeline and turning it into close one revenue. You need to, you need that entire machine to flow smoothly. And that is the direction that I am seeing more and more organizations go. Marketing leaders are now expected to be revenue leaders.

Mike: You've given us some great insights and been incredibly generous with your time, Ethan. But before we go, we like to ask people a couple of quick questions. So the first one is, what's the best bit of marketing advice you've ever been given?

Ethan: The best bit of marketing advice I've ever been given? It's probably the simplest one. Talk to your customers. Talk to your customers. Like read feedback from your customer service folks, sit down with them, talk with your customer service folks, ask them how real human beings interact, what their problems are, what their pain points are, what their friction is, what they love about the product. But even that is secondhand. Actually set up a customer development process in your company where you are talking with real people on a regular basis. consolidating those insights and pushing them back out into other parts of the organization. There is nothing that is a replacement for literally talking with your customers, understanding how your product does or doesn't deliver value in their lives.

Mike: That's great. I think it's really, really important. The other question we ask our guests is really for the listeners who are embarking on their careers. So what would be your advice if you're talking to someone who maybe just graduated and was thinking of entering marketing as their career?

Ethan: Wow. Well, you know, I say one of the, one of the things that is becoming available now as the, the, you know, the internet, especially in all the tools related to the internet are maturing. Is that it used to be back in the day that in a lot of cases, in order to get valuable professional experience, you had to be part of a company for somebody had to hire you. And she had this weird chicken and the egg thing, right? I certainly had that coming out of college with a sports medicine degree, which is completely illegible to anybody in the corporate world. They couldn't care any less about it. And so trying to get my foot in the door at all, I figured out a way. And that was how I was able to start building those successes and stories that laddered up into my career. That was necessary 25 years ago. Today, You don't need that. You don't need permission. You don't need someone choosing you and saying, yes, we're hiring you for XYZ role to go out there and do marketing. Some of the most interesting and compelling folks are solopreneurs, they're freelancers. They have found a particular part of the world that fascinates them and they develop their marketing skills in order to in essentially in order to service their own natural fascination with a particular thing. That is a wonderful thing that the Internet has made possible that was never possible before. Got a colleague of mine years back who was, he was a talented web developer, but he wanted to, he wanted to do more. He wanted to build his career in marketing. The thing that he really loved doing was he was a music producer. He loved creating beats for hip hop. I was like, what you should do is create a course on how to create beats and then go out there and talk to people in the community and market that course and get your name out there. And that's exactly what he did. And he has a fantastic business today because he learned marketing as a way of connecting with people in an area that he was already passionately interested about. Any person, whether you've gone to college or not gone to college, you have that ability today, thanks to the internet. And that is an absolute game changer for what you can do.

Mike: That's amazing advice, Ethan. Thank you. Thank you again for your time and all your amazing insights. If anyone's listening to this, they'd like to get in contact or find out more about Moz and Stat, what would be the best place for them to go?

Ethan: Oh, sure. Of course. Our websites are the obvious point, Moz.com and GetStat.com. On Twitter, if you would like to connect with me, I'm at Ethan Hayes, that's E-T-H-A-N-H-A-Y-S, and my DMs are open. I'd love to hear from you.

Mike: Thank you, Ethan. That's perfect. And thanks for being a guest on the Marketing B2B Technology Podcast.

Ethan: It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Mike: Thanks so much for listening to Marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes or on your favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.


Navigating the Marketing Automation Landscape: HubSpot's Cashflow Acquisition and SEMrush's Strategic Moves

In this episode of the Marketing Automation Moment podcast, hosts Hannah Wehrly and Mike Maynard dive into recent developments in marketing automation. They begin by discussing HubSpot's acquisition of Cashflow, and how this move supports HubSpot’s strategy to serve small and medium-sized businesses through their Commerce Hub. The episode also covers takeaways from Acton’s holiday webinar, emphasizing key email deliverability practices like volume control and segmentation that apply year-round.

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

About Napier

Napier is a PR-lead, full service marketing agency that specialises in the B2B technology sector. We work closely with our clients to build campaigns, focusing on achieving results that have a significant positive impact on their businesses and which, above all, ensure maximum return on their investment.

About Mike Maynard

Mike is the Managing Director/CEO of Napier, a PR and marketing agency for B2B technology companies. A self-confessed geek who loves talking about technology, he believes that combining the measurement, accountability and innovation that he learnt as an engineer with a passion for communicating ensures Napier delivers great campaigns and tangible return on investment.

About Hannah Wehrly

Hannah is the Head of Business Development and Marketing at Napier and leads on pitching, proposal writing, lead nurturing, email marketing, social media and content creation. Hannah joined the Napier team back in 2017 as a Marketing Specialist after completing her degree in Marketing and Communications, and her role focuses on developing new relationships with potential clients.

Time Stamps

00:00:00 - Introduction
00:01:02 - HubSpot Acquires Cashflow: Implications for SMEs
00:03:49 - SEMrush Acquires Third Door Media: A New Era for Publications
00:07:39 - Acton's Holiday Season Webinar Insights
00:12:41 - Tips for Effective Marketing Automation Demos
00:15:33 - Conclusion and Wrap-Up

Follow Mike and Hannah:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Hannah Wehrly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-wehrly-b0706a107/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing Automation and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast – Marketing B2B Technology: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/marketing-b2b-technology/id1485417724

Transcript: Navigating the Marketing Automation Landscape: HubSpot's Cashflow Acquisition and SEMrush's Strategic Moves

Hannah: Welcome to the Market Automation Moment podcast. I'm Hannah Kelly.

Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard. This is Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.

Hannah: Welcome to the Market Automation Moment podcast. I'm Hannah Wehrly.

Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard.

Hannah: Today we discuss what HubSpot's acquisition of Cashflow means.

Mike: We talk about SEMrush's acquisition of Third Door Media.

Hannah: We share insights from Acton's holiday season webinar.

Mike: And we chat about the best approach to getting a demo of a marketing automation platform.

Hannah: Hi, Mike. Welcome back to another episode of Market Automation Moment. How are you doing?

Mike: I'm doing well. How are you, Hannah?

Hannah: I am good, thank you. I mean, it's a very busy season for us at Napier as we gear up for the trade show season. I'm sure you're feeling the busy season as well.

Mike: Yeah, I mean, there's certainly a lot of work, although I think as people who love marketing automation, the sooner that all that free beer at trade shows can be replaced with more marketing automation campaigns, the better, right?

Hannah: Oh, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Let's dive in because we've got some exciting things going on in the world of market automation to discuss today. To kick us off, I want to have a discussion and I think I'm going to be right in saying that you're going to have some strong views on this one, Mike, but it's the news about HubSpot actually acquiring a company called Cashflow. So Cashflow is basically a subscription billing management service where basically customers can handle their quotes, proposals, and actually sign off on these invoices within one system. I think it's a really interesting move for HubSpot to actually acquire something like this. What do you think?

Mike: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting what people have said in the media about it, because the general view is that Commerce Hub, the bit of HubSpot where you can actually do transactions, really isn't very successful and isn't getting the use it wants. So I think it makes sense that they bought Cashflow as an existing system for payments processing, rather than necessarily more the quoting side, to try and build up that Commerce Hub. I can see why they did it. It certainly makes sense. But, you know, HubSpot doubling down on their small and medium customers, it's clearly not an enterprise payment system.

Hannah: Oh, absolutely. And I think HubSpot's message is perhaps a little bit confused. And we've spoken about this in the past. But to me, this is absolutely a move to we're here to support small, medium businesses, because this type of platform, this type of software isn't actually going to work for enterprise companies.

Mike: Yeah, I agree. I mean, they do have some enterprise customers, but I think it's really driven by those enterprise customers wanting to use a small piece of the software. And if you look at HubSpot's strategy, realistically HubSpot's goal is to build themselves as being this one-stop shop for SMEs. And I think that's the way it's going to go. And maybe that's what we're seeing in the market. You know, a couple of episodes ago, we talked about Salesforce and how Salesforce marketing cloud was being integrated into Salesforce. And I think I was quite controversial in saying that that's a real threat to Marketo. But I think that the, you know, the real large enterprise and those are the two big players. And now we're seeing other players focus around different segments of the market.

Hannah: Oh, absolutely. I think you're spot on Mike and I think it's interesting because this year it feels like everyone's basically slotting into where they want to be so they've tried perhaps in the past to level up against those marketos but actually, could we say that HubSpot has failed and now they're doubling back down on that small, medium businesses?

Mike: Oh, that's a great point, Hannah. And I don't know if I want to say HubSpot has failed or maybe they've been super successful at the SME end and they're just focusing on where they're strong. Could be either.

Hannah: Well, let's leave it there, Mike. And why don't you take us on to discuss some news you shared with me about third door media?

Mike: Yeah, so this is quite interesting for me because I'm actually a contributor to the Martek website. But what's happened is Third Door Media, the own Martek, but also own publications such as Search Engine Land, has been acquired by SEMrush. Now, quite clearly, SEMrush and SEO and also a paid search tool, you know, presumably is primarily interested in Search Engine Land. You know, that's one of the main publications, if not the main publications their customer reads. And now, it's controlled by one of the vendors in the sector. So I think that's going to be interesting to see how they manage that and how they use it. And obviously on one hand, you know, you can argue that they bought it so they can get data and access to people. And on the other hand, it could be so they, you know, just want to put their hand on the scales and tilt the news in the number one publication a little bit towards themselves. So be interesting to see what happens. What do you think?

Hannah: Oh, I find this so interesting, Mike, because to me, it seems that there is this shift that this media, you know, you mentioned Search Engine Land, you know, it's a really successful publication, but are we seeing a shift perhaps to these publications now being owned by businesses rather than actually publishing houses? I'm really intrigued because I see perhaps a future where maybe there is a bit of content that's more biased perhaps to these types of businesses. I think there's some great research and some great insight that they can put into this media, but I'm intrigued to see how it goes because it's definitely a different shift that, you know, we've seen in the past, but it's not the norm, if you like.

Mike: Yeah, but it could be the norm going forward. I mean, we saw in one of our sectors in the electronics industry, Arrow, which is actually a channel partner, so distributor of electronic components, buy up a very large proportion of the electronics publications around the world. Now, I have to be honest, I've read a number of explanations at the time and also subsequently as to what Arrow's strategy was. And I think it's interesting that they all vary. And I think people have tried to rewrite history to justify what happened. But we now have an interesting situation where obviously with Arrow in particular, but I think also with SEMrush, there's a massive benefit at the start. There's data to access. And in Arrow's case, arguably there was the ability to pressurize companies to actually work with them because Arrow controlled the most important media in the sector. But once you've done that. then the value of having that publication actually drops. And okay, there's an ongoing benefit. It's not like it goes to zero, but it's that big boost and then a drop. And I think, and I'm sure Arrow would argue differently, but I think what we've seen to some extent is Arrow losing a little bit of interest in their publication division Aspen core, and it kind of having to stand on its own two feet now. And I just wonder whether that's going to happen with third-door media. So SEMrush is going to be really into it. They're going to put a lot of effort. They're going to try and make best use of the data. They're going to look for opportunities to promote themselves. You know, presumably they'll not be paying the same rates to advertise on the site as their competitors, just to guess. But I wonder how long that excitement's going to last. And it's going to be interesting to see because publications are struggling. We all know publications are struggling, in the trade media particularly. So if we look at what's happening, Maybe ownership by a vendor is the route forward for a lot of these publications, but we've got to have some models where it's worked really well over a longer consistent period.

Hannah: Well, you know, I hate to say this, Mike, but I have to say I agree with you. So I think it's going to be really interesting to see how this new norm works. And as you said, if it will be, you know, not the savior, but the way to give these publications the boost that they need.

Mike: Yeah. And I think also we're going to see potentially some of the smaller publishers snapped up by marketing agencies. You know, who knows, perhaps we ought to start a publication around marketing automation.

Hannah: Oh, you never know what the future holds. Let's move on, Mike, because I want to have a bit of a chat about Apton's webinar. Now, Apton recently ran a webinar about how to stay on the nice list this holiday season. And you know me, I cannot resist a Christmas pun. So I saw it and I was like, we absolutely got to talk about it. But I actually did think it was interesting webinar, if a little bit dramatic. So the whole premise was around, you know, as we ramp up to this holiday season, you need to watch how many emails you are sending. Internet service providers are going to stop your emails going into inboxes. You need to make sure you're delivering value. They make some great points that you should consider all year round because it's not just the Christmas season, that holiday season where you ramp up emails. There's different peaks and flows, you know, throughout the year of when you send your emails and when you need to worry about deliverability. What did you think of the webinar?

Mike: Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with you. And perhaps we should talk a little bit about the webinar. But I mean, the first thing to say is, you know, Internet service providers will be on high alert. I think air forces are on high alert. Internet service providers are not going to be freaking out that much more over Christmas than at any other time. So I agree with you, you know, from a marketing point of view, you've got to look at it and go actually hats off to act on. It was a great way of packaging up information and a great way of selling it. Realistically though, I think actually the smartest people will have attended the webinar. We'll actually take this as being evergreen advice rather than being advice for, you know, just the holiday season.

Hannah: Oh, absolutely, Mike. And you know, there's some really great tips within the webinar itself. They talk about things like volume and cadence. They talk about staying relevant. They talk about using this kind of period as a time for segmentation, which I really love. So, you know, do some A-B testing, find out what works for which type of target audience. But I agree, that's evergreen content. That is what marketers should be doing on a day-to-day basis. But I think the way they've packaged it up to make people pay attention, absolutely give them a round of applause.

Mike: Yeah, I think we can all learn a little bit from Acton's marketing team. One thing I find interesting is obviously consumer marketing peaks. So we see consumer email marketing peak. What do you think that impact is on B2B? Do you think as B2B marketers, we should actually wind back because of the amount of volume of consumer marketing people are receiving? Or should we just ignore it because we're in a different sector?

Hannah: See, my gut feeling is to ignore it because we're in a different sector and this is actually a, not an argument we have, but a debate we have each year, Mike, because we do things like our Christmas advent calendar. We have our monthly newsletters, we send weekly emails out and every time of year we have this conversation where we go, is this too many emails that we are sending to our clients, to our prospects, the people we want to be speaking to? But I've not had a problem yet. We've not seen deliverability go down. We've not seen response rate go down. So I think sometimes it's dangerous to compare B2B to B2C. You know, we've had this chat before, but B2B operates in its own way and I don't think we should do that based on a reflection of B2C. And actually I found that what works in B2B is we don't need to draw back. I'm not saying send 500 emails per day to the same prospect. But I don't think there is that same risk.

Mike: That's really interesting. I think a really good couple of points there. I mean, you're absolutely right. We actually run campaigns around the holiday season. So I think the message is maybe that Christmas or whatever festival you're celebrating at the end of the year, it's not just for consumer marketers. It's also for B2B marketers, which is kind of a positive message. And I think you're right as well that A lot of people now tend to split their personal and business emails. So I'm a little bit older than you. And when I came into the workplace, you know, actually we didn't do it because when I first started work, I didn't have a business email. I only had a personal email and then everything went to the business email when companies started doing it. But now I think they're split. So I completely agree with you that as a B2B marketer, you can actually make use of the holiday season and it is a reason to go forward and you're not going to get swamped because typically it's people's personal email accounts that are getting swamped.

Hannah: Absolutely. And, you know, I think there is always that opportunity in B2B as well. You know, we are labelled as perhaps being a bit conservative, being a bit boring. And so when you do do that campaign, that's just a little bit outside of the box that perhaps uses a pun, you know, that does something different. Actually, it can be really successful in B2B because they're not seeing it all the time in their inboxes.

Mike: Absolutely. And maybe some listeners want to, you know, join in the fun and try out the Napier advent calendar as well this year.

Hannah:

Absolutely. I mean, if you want to be on the Napier Advent Calendar list, just drop me an email at Hannah at napierbtv.com and I'll make sure you're on it.

Mike: Lots of exciting prizes to be won, I believe as well.

Hannah: There absolutely is. Well, Mike, I'm conscious of time, so let's move on to our insightful tip of the week. And I wanted to have a bit of discussion because in the last few podcast episodes, we've really talked about how platforms like Salesforce are running webinars and writing blogs about how you can migrate from Marketo to Salesforce and vice versa. But when you are looking at that multi-automation platform, that is the right fit for you. What do you need to be asking in the type of demos that you have with these vendors? Now, I want to kick us off because I have a few thoughts on this and I think it really depends on your goal. So when you're looking at these demos, when you're looking at the market automation platform that you perhaps want to start working with, you need to look at what is actually the right platform for you. So you should know whether you are a large enterprise or whether you are a small medium business. I wouldn't recommend doing a demo against HubSpot versus Marketo, for example. You know, we talked about HubSpot earlier being more for those small medium. On the other side, you perhaps want to have a look at Marketo versus Salesforce. And so I think when going into these demos, it's really important to just understand what type of platform you're looking for and what type of capabilities, and then that will absolutely help inform what your demo is going to look like.

Mike: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, the interesting thing is, as the market matures, I think there's fewer full featured market automation platforms available to people. You know, if you're enterprise, there's a really good chance you're going to end up with Salesforce or Pardot, as it was called. or Marketo, and that makes sense. If you're smaller, there's a wider range of products being sold to SMEs, but still there's a relatively small number of strong products. We mentioned some of them today. So, you know, we've talked about HubSpot, we've talked about Sharpspring, we've talked about Acton, and I guess Keep or Infusionsoft, it used to be called, would be another one. But realistically, there's not a huge amount of products to choose from, unless you want to go to something smaller niche, but generally then what you're doing is compromising capability, and maybe saving a bit on cost.

Hannah: I think that's some great points, Mike. And I think one of the things to look at as well is, you know, integrations. Those small and niche ones don't integrate with other platforms that you might need to make your kind of MarTech stack the most efficient it can be.

Mike: Absolutely. I mean, maybe that's a discussion for another episode, but I think thinking how your market automation platform fits into your whole MarTech stack is becoming more and more important, particularly as what we're seeing is more and more of these point products that people have in the stack to do, for example, something with social media posting or perhaps something with analyzing data is getting absorbed into the capabilities of the marketing automation platform. So maybe that's something we should talk about next time.

Hannah: Oh, absolutely, Mai. I think, you know, I just want to end, you made such a valid point there is drill down into those speeches as well. So if you want that social media capability, if that's really important to your business, then make sure you're having demos with platforms that can provide that for you. Don't waste your time on these niche ones, you know, or perhaps these huge large enterprises that will do more than you would ever want them to do.

Mike: Great point, Hannah. Completely agree.

Hannah: Well, thanks so much, Mike, for another great conversation.

Mike: Thanks a lot Hannah speak to you next time.

Hannah: Thanks for listening to the marketing automation moment podcast.

Mike: Don't forget to subscribe in your favorite podcast application, and we'll see you next time.


From Grunt Work to Creativity: Automating Marketing Tasks - Lutra AI

Jiquan Ngiam, Co-Founder and CEO of Lutra AI, discusses his career journey Stanford University to eventually founding Lutra. He shares how Lutra helps streamline workflows by assisting with data prospecting, lead enrichment, and automating repetitive tasks. Jiquan also explores the balance between AI and human creativity in marketing, highlights his vision for making Lutra user-friendly for non-technical users, and encourages listeners to explore its potential for automating their workflows.

About Lutra AI

Lutra aims to revolutionise automation and allow users to easily create AI-driven workflows. The platform simplifies complex processes, helping automate tasks and optimise work effortlessly. Whether you're managing data, streamlining operations, or integrating apps, Lutra makes automation accessible to everyone.

Since its launch, Lutra has been empowering businesses to boost productivity and focus on what matters, eliminating the barriers of traditional workflow tools and delivering a seamless automation experience.

About Jiquan Ngiam

Jiquan Niam is the CEO and Co-Founder of Lutra, an innovative automation platform. Before founding Lutra, Jiquan was a key contributor at Google Brain and studied at Stanford University where he achieved a PHD in Computer Science.

Jiquan Niam is a driving force behind AI-driven automation and is passionate about making advanced technology accessible to all.

Time Stamps

[00:00:18] - Jiquan provides some background to his career and why he founded Lutra.

00:02:44] - Overview of Lutra’s Purpose and Functionality

[00:09:36] - Enhancing Marketing Efforts with Timely Data

[00:15:16] - User-Friendly Interface and Accessibility

[00:20:23] - Marketing Strategy: Product-Led Growth Approach

[00:23:27] - The Future of Marketing Roles with AI

[00:26:19] - Advice for Young Marketers: Embrace Technology

[00:28:30]- How to Get Started with Lutra

Quotes

“I felt like education was this new superpower that I could give people.” Jiquan Ngiam, co-founder and CEO of Lutra

"AI will not replace you, but a person who's using AI really well is going to do a lot more than you." Jiquan Ngiam, co-founder and CEO of Lutra

"Help the team understand, investing into understanding this technology and using it... It's going to be potentially very game-changing." Jiquan Ngiam, co-founder and CEO of Lutra

Follow Jiquan:

Jiquan Ngiam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jngiam/

Lutra AI website: https://lutra.ai/

Lutra AI on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lutra-ai/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Jiquan Ngiam at Lutra AI

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Jiquan Ngiam

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today. Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. Today, I'm joined by Jiquan Niam. He is the co-founder and CEO at Lutra AI. Welcome to the podcast, Jiquan.

Jiquan: Thank you, Mike. I'm really happy to be here in a podcast with you. Thanks for inviting me.

Mike: What we'd like to do to start off with is to understand a little bit about you personally. So I don't know if you can tell us a little bit about your career and why you've chosen to found Lutra.

Jiquan: Great, yeah. So my career really started in a deep interest in AI, artificial intelligence technology, all the way back to days in Stanford, actually, when I was working in a PhD program with Andrew Ng as my advisor, looking into deep learning technologies. And this was like 2009, so 15 years ago. So been working on that. And then what I realized back then was, you know, the power of this technology is so amazing. It turns out that I actually took a little detour to try to teach more people about this technology, and ended up starting a startup back then called Coursera. So an ad tech company, where we're trying to democratize education. Spent many years at Coursera, built the first online machine learning classes, And after that, I went on to Google Brain. And this was around 2017-18 when we saw the transformer technology that you're seeing in AI start to take off. And then I was in Google Brain for four and a half years, left and started Lutra last year, where we really saw a momentous shift in the technology and what it could do. And so last year, the AI technology went from not only generating content, generating images, but starting to be able to do a degree of reasoning, planning, and understanding how to work with software, work with code. And to me, that was a really exciting moment because it started to highlight the possibility for AI, for the machines to understand what we want to do and translate it into how software could work. And therefore, we might be able to start delegating more and more to the computer to automate to do the groundwork, the manual stuff that I've seen my own teams do a lot. We can start to give it to the computer in very natural ways for it to take on instead. And so Lutra AI, that's what we are all about. Can we help you get more done? Can we help you automate, streamline your work and processes through this technology that allows you to then interact with the software you use, the APIs you use in the backend and so on?

Mike: So, I mean, that's fascinating. And, you know, it's quite unusual because actually Lutra is not a marketing tool. It's a very general purpose tool. So I know it's used in marketing. We'll come to that in a minute. But can you tell us a little bit about, you know, some of the customers who are using Lutra and the range of things they're using it for?

Jiquan: Yeah, great question in there. So some of the customers on Lutra, this is very general too, so we do see a wide set of use cases. But I think one of the most interesting use cases of Lutra right now is data prospecting, gathering information about your leads, the people that you want to reach out to, and really helping you get that data back into your CRMs, your ecosystems, your databases and spreadsheets. And so maybe I'll give you a few examples of how people have used Lutra. So in one example, normally you have this list, right? And maybe it's a big list of people attending a conference or maybe a big list of companies there that you might be interested in. And for each of these people or companies, you want to go and get a bit more information about them on the internet. You know, what a company is doing, how big it is, who their CMO is, you know, and maybe who the CTO is, right? And then come bring that data back and say, are these people, are these companies qualified leads for me? So what Lutra can do is to say, OK, take that data, go do that internet research, bring it back into your spreadsheets or your HubSpot, and then figure out that data and whether it fits your criteria. And then once it fits your criteria, you can ask Lutra to do more. For example, say, OK, I found a name, Jerry at this company. Seems like a good fit there. Can you, for all the names in this database I have, go and figure out things like when were they last mentioned in the news? Did they have anything posted recently? And I bring that back again and say, Lutra, can you go and figure out this is the right time to reach out to them? So in this case, some of the early customers we have, what they do is that they have exactly those workflows, which is using Lutra to, in real time, get data from the internet to be able to help their prospecting needs, help figuring out intent signals, very custom to their processes, and use that to drive their lead gen efforts in there.

Mike: That's really interesting. I mean, you mentioned something there. You said something about being able to go and get data or put data into HubSpot. I mean, I think people were listening to it and thinking, yeah, I've seen ChatGPT enrich data before. But actually, you're talking about working with data in different systems. So tell us how you do that, because that sounds like it's a bit different from a lot of the other LLMs that we hear about.

Jiquan: So what happens in a lot of LMs that you work with today, the LMs are not really connected into your ecosystem of applications you use. There's still a gap between there. The LMs don't fully understand how to get and push data into those systems. So what we find is that people are often copying and pasting stuff into ChatGPT, trying to get something out of it, and copying and pasting it back. And that's a very slow manual process. It doesn't scale. You can do that, say, if you had a table of 100 entries, you don't do that for every single entry. You're not going to copy and paste 100 times. It's just not scalable. So what we do is that we enable Lutra to natively understand APIs. And APIs, what it means is, it stands for Application Programming Interfaces. And what it means there is, there is a natural way for software to communicate. In software, you talk to APIs, which are these technical boundaries and how system A and B can interact and understand each other. And what Lutra does is it uses AI to then understand the APIs between systems. So this is how I pull a list in HubSpot. This is how I update a custom property in HubSpot. This is how I can go to the internet and get data. And then this is how I can extract data from it. And so you put it all together, what you get is that Lutra, this AI system, is able to then orchestrate across those possible actions and to achieve tasks for you. So here's a very concrete one that we actually had a user do recently, which is they needed to update their contact information in a database with what's going on on the web right now. And this is real estate agents, actually. So what they wanted to do is that they're just an internal database of HubSpot database of 7,000 real estate agents. And what they needed to do was to look each of them up, go to their websites, figure out if their emails and phone numbers have changed. Sometimes they do update or if it's a new realtor in there and then update their contact list in their HubSpot to say, OK, that contact has been updated. This is new, right? And so what Lutra is able to do is to say, I understand how to get a list of people from HubSpot. I understand how to go to the internet and browse and go to page one, page two to find the right information. I know how to get the data out. And number three, I know how to push it back into a custom property in your HubSpot. And so it's understanding all those actions and all those things you can do, and then orchestrating across them to achieve a task for you. And this task could be, interestingly in this particular task, it was a fairly big one. So just like running that process 7,000 times for all those contacts. And it turns out that this process was a process that they ran manually before our solution. And they had people come in for a week and go like, we're going to do all this data updates today. But now the bulk of it is all automated.

Mike: So it's really interesting because it sounds like what Lutra does is a little bit different to some of the AI tools that people in marketing might be familiar with, is you've obviously got access to the public data, the data that the module's been trained on and information on the web. But you've also got access to private data through these APIs. So you can actually access the user's own data and then merge that with public data. Is that really one of the unique things that Lutra does?

Jiquan: Absolutely, absolutely. So I think it's this blend between your private information and also public information. But even within your private information, there's so much we can do. So internally, we have Lutra connected into our own data warehouses and systems. We tell Lutra, like, can you find out in the last two, three days, who are the people that recently subscribed to Lutra? Who's paying for this? Can you find out, you know, in an anonymous fashion? Like, what are you doing? You know, like, tell us a bit more about activities there. And then, you know, can you send reach outs to them? That's very customized on like, thank you for subscribing. Notice this, we'd love to hear more about what you're doing and go from there, right? Now, there's some processes there that, you know, you could do that, a lot of the things manually. But then I think what the platform, what we are building allows you to do is to quickly get from that point of unscalable process, get a machine to do it, and suddenly you're able to scale it, right? And so that's the part in there. And so getting that internal data access really supercharges what the systems can do for you. And I think that's a great point in there.

Mike: Yeah, and to me, one of the interesting things is you can do data enrichment, but not in terms of just add someone's email or contact details. But you talked about going out and looking at information. So could you, for example, for someone we're targeting, tell us if they appear in a news story and add that into the data in, say, HubSpot or whatever CRM you use?

Jiquan: Absolutely. So what Lutra is able to do, I think, what's really cool about this technology is that being a general purpose assistant that way, As long as Lutra understands how to work with the systems you are working with, the possibilities is somewhat up to our imagination on what we can do. And so what happens here is that we have a use case in which one of our customers have tons of accounts that they are looking at, and they want to figure out the best time to reach out to those accounts, right? So right now, I think, you know, outbound is really hard. for outbound sales, because everyone is doing it. It's a bit overloaded. We're all swamped by outbound emails. I get a lot of them myself. But then the ones that are on point, targeted and timely are the ones that work. And so in this particular case, what they wanted to do was to figure out events that are happening to a company. And some of those events might be really relevant for them to reach out. This one happened to be in the biospace. So they were very interested in clinical trial status updates. So did the status of a clinical trial change for a pharma company from phase one to phase two or phase two to phase three? And there's some phases in there in which their businesses and services makes a lot of sense. what they are saying is that so they've all this you know 100 accounts interested in more than 100 actually 100 per rep and there's no way the rep can be keeping up with all of this every day something's on the slip and so they're trying to say hey can Lutra can you every on a weekly basis or a daily basis can you go through all the articles about these companies now use AI to understand if there's a report on that that's of interest to us, a phase change in their clinical trials, or an announcement about an audit matter or something like this. If so, highlight it to the rep, and then they can now reach out in a very timely, targeted fashion. I think that's really powerful because that allows you to bring in the external data with your internal priorities and supercharge your team that way.

Mike: And I think that's really interesting because from a marketing point of view, particularly, I can see what that does is if you're running an account based marketing campaign, you've got a list of target accounts, you can not only make sure you're targeting the right accounts, but you also can target them at the right time, which is something, you know, most marketers really don't have any opportunity to do. But tying it into news, I think is really interesting. So I think there's a sales use, but also a marketing use potentially there. Yes, absolutely. I'm interested, you know, you talk about pulling in this news about clinical trials. I mean, presumably marketers, as well as generating content for emails, they could use it for more general content generation as well. So as an example, we've got another podcast that talks about marketing automation. I mean, presumably Lutro would be able to tell us what's happened in the last two weeks in marketing automation to help drive the agenda for that podcast.

Jiquan: Totally. So maybe taking a step back here, when we think about how we explain Lutra to customers, one thing that I like to do is always to ask them, if you think about your time in the last one, two weeks, what are manual processes? What are things that you've been doing that you feel like a robot, clicking around and getting data and figuring out how to, and figuring out in that process, which part of it is essentially grunt work? Every part of it is the creative part that you come in to shape. really help to form the artifacts that you're working on. And I think this is where, to your question, to your point about Lutra looking into not just figuring out data or content for marketing posts and materials. So maybe an example here is one of the podcast users on Lutra actually uses Lutra to do their research on content that they want to talk about every week on their podcast. And what you can do there is that there's so much going on on the internet, so much going on in the news, so much going on in announcements, on tools these days. So what Nutra could do for you is to say, hey, go look up all the announcements on, say, B2B marketing automation. Go look up all the news about it. What are people saying about it? and then collect that information, summarize it in a format that you would like that would be useful for your marketing purposes, and maybe even prepare a draft blog post in the style of the previous blog post that you've written, or prepare a transcript for a podcast that you might be going to record next week. And so we've seen some people do that, and this is really helpful in that grant work, that manual process of research, trying to figure out what to talk about, can then be automated, a first draft can be produced, and then we come in and we bring our creativity to the process and figuring out what is the right way to take that data and frame it for our audience. That's the step that I don't think AI can do that well because we know our audience, we know the people we're reaching to, we know our accounts, but AI is really good at the go and get lots of data and process it, right? And so this is where I think the two come together really nicely in that if we can give more of that you know, manuals, you know, groundwork, the thing that, you know, you have to process lots of data, read lots of websites to the AI, that would help us then spend a lot more time on figuring out what do our audience, what does the audience want to hear, right? And how can we take that data and bring it to them?

Mike: I love the way you still see the opportunity for creativity, the human creativity. And I think that's a really positive view. I mean, I'm going to have to ask you, because I'm sure a couple of marketers listening to this winced when we mentioned technical terms like API. I mean, how hard is it to use? Is this going to be really tough or is it something where you can literally talk to it as though it's a chatbot?

Jiquan: Yeah, so our goal is to make it as easy to use as talking to it. Our goal is as easy to use as like, you know, you can bring questions to it. You can ask, what can you do? It'll respond. You bring your needs to it. Can you read the web about this? It's like, I can, let me show you how. And then you can say, now can you do x instead and y instead? So very iterative, a way that works with you to get things done. So that's how it goes to get to that level of ease of use that non-technical users can succeed in this technology. And I think this is a very, very important point, because we have seen a lot of other general purpose automation tools. But they're really hard to use, usually. You drag and drop little boxes. You connect up the arrows. You type in lots of configuration. Doesn't work. You have no idea why. And that's pre-AI automation in many ways. And our post-AI agentic automation is the one where the machine should debug itself. If the automation or the process fails, you talk to it and say, that didn't go right. Can you try to fix it and try again? And more often than not, what we see Lutra to do is that you try a different approach. It will look at the errors and try to fix it. And that's really powerful, because then that enables the group of people that can work with this technology to be way bigger than before. And I think that's really exciting for us, because I think going back in time, maybe to my motivations on this thing, detouring a bit on that, one thing that really motivates me individually a lot is the idea that we can give people new superpowers. So the reason why I actually worked on education, MOOCs and Coursera, MOOCs are massive open online courses. Back in the day, I felt like education was this new superpower that I could give people. If you learn a new skill, you learn a new topic, now you can go out and change a job and do something new. And now I think AI has this moment where we can give the ability to accomplish all this really complex, streamlined technical work to more people. And it's a new superpower that they otherwise couldn't have done before. And that really excites me a lot from a personal point of view.

Mike: I love it. I mean, you're just so positive about the opportunities. And I mean, as I understand it as well, Lutra, once you've set up a workflow to do something, you could just tell it to do it on a regular basis. So you don't have to keep going back in, it will automatically run. Presumably, that has some great applications from cleaning data all the way through to generating summaries of news.

Jiquan: Everything, yeah. So I actually don't read the news anymore because Lutra summarizes it for me and sends it to my inbox every morning. So there's been a change in my behavior there. But apart from just news summarization, which is a very basic use case, you can start to get very creative with those things. So for example, what some of my teammates have done is they set up Lutra workflows, automations, to look into forums where people are struggling to automate something. And so we have some Lutra bots that are like, hey, let me go through Reddit or different community forums there and look at what are people struggling with and what are they saying about this automation that's really hard for them. And Lutra looks at them and goes like, hey, do I actually have the integrations to achieve this? And then it flags it to us internally on Slack to say, there's this post here. We think that we can solve their problem. Maybe we should reach out. And that just runs. And then we just sit back and see those messages come in, informing us about some degree of the market, like what people are seeing out there. And that's really powerful because this is really custom. That whole process is really custom. Now, if you were to hire a team or engineer or figure out some way to set that up, that's pretty hard, that whole process. And now productionizing it is even harder. And I think what we do is that we handle two parts of it. Can we create automations about those like this that run automatically? And number two, can we productionize it in a way that runs on a frequent basis for you automatically? And I think that's to your point, that's the second part of it is really interesting. And going into maybe use cases a little beyond marketing, one thing that we have seen as well is people doing this for their own emails. their own management of data that's coming into them, right? So for example, we get lots of emails, we've noticed that some people use Airtable as a CRM, and they like to sync those data pieces up. And what we have seen some people do literally is to get Lutra to read all the emails in the last 24 hours, categorize them, sort them out, and then put it into Airtable, where the CRM is being managed. And that's completely automated in that way. And so that's also interesting things to think about in there where Not only can we use this to produce content, but if there's a lot of inbound or a lot of things coming in, can we also use it as a way to manage that as well?

Mike: I think it's really exciting. We've talked about an awful lot. I'm interested in your approach to marketing Lutra. I mean, I know it's early days, but it seems to me this could be somewhat analogous to Dropbox, where Dropbox basically was used by a lot of individuals to make their lives better, and then kind of got taken up by enterprises when the enterprises realized there were a lot of users. Is that something you see, or do you have another marketing strategy for Lutra?

Jiquan: I think that's certainly a valid approach that we're considering too. I think what's really important for a strategy like when you mentioned individuals using it and then Gantian Enterprise, the product-led approach, is that it needs to be really easy to get onboarded to the platform. The time to value of using this product needs to be instant. I see it right away. Less than five minutes, maybe two minutes, I get something, result from it. And I think that's possible. I think it's very possible that you come in, you try something out, and you start to see real concrete value to yourself in the minutes right now, or maybe less than a minute, too, if possible. And I think what we want to do is then say, OK, now, if we had that, Imagine if Lutra was now connected into your own internal enterprise systems. Not just the internet, not just my Google, not just my workspaces, but your back office solutions into your own data warehouses. Now, if it was so easy for anyone on your team to say, hey, go to the data warehouse, figure out what's going on with this account, pull it out. OK, what else is happening on internet with that account too? OK, let's figure this out. OK, how should we reach out to them? And getting data from different systems. And I think that's really powerful because the number of SaaS software that we're using in enterprises is only going to go up. And it's been going up at this crazy clip where now there's data silos in all these places. And sometimes it's really hard to get data together in the same place. Your calls are in Gong. but they're not really in HubSpot, and you really want them to be synchronized. So our view of this is actually getting to the point of, can we bring Lutra into the enterprise, connected into your own data systems? And I think that's the next level of unlock that happens. And the way I think we'll, maybe to your point, how do we market Lutra? I think one thing about things that are interesting in the AI space today, that's what I'm noticing, is that people want to play with the software. The way to sell AI software right now, I think, is that people want to experiment, see it work, validate that they can do it before they go and say, I want to buy this now, right? Because there's so many possible solutions out there, and there's so much hype and noise in there. And so the way we're thinking about it is, exactly that, which is get people in, get them successful in a personal use case. I think ChatGPT was that too. And then after that, there's a next level up story in that, okay, how can we bring this into the enterprise and make it work? But having that success at an individual level starts to open up your imagination quickly. I think opening up that imagination is going to be a big part in how I think we will start to see AI reinvent how businesses operate.

Mike: That sounds so exciting. I mean, you talk about opening up imagination. One of the things I think that anyone who's in a senior role of VP of Marketing or CMO, they're going to be wondering how their role is going to change as all this automation comes in. What do you see as the impact? Do you see teams being more automated and having fewer people, or do you see there's an opportunity to do more with the people you have because you're freeing up time?

Jiquan: Yeah, no, totally. I think I think the code I like to get to is AI will not replace you, but a person who's using AI really well is going to do a lot more than you, right? So I think what happens here is really thinking about training, which is how can I educate my staff to get really good at using this technology? A lot of it is very nascent, a lot of it's very early, but the more you can get familiar with how you use it quickly, the faster you accelerate your process of adoption. And the teams that adopt it are the teams that are going to be ahead. I'm going to take an analogy to what's on the technical end, because I'm very familiar with the site, and then we can map it to the marketing end. In the engineering space, you might have heard of co-pilots or engineering assistants. Today, my team actually uses AI a lot in their engineering time. most of our software turns out to be written with AI assistance right now. In fact, most of the code is, more than half the code is actually AI generated. It's really good at that. Now, if I had an engineer on my team that was not doing that, they're going to be falling behind. They're going to be like, you know, 3x slower than anyone else on the team. And so the same thing's going to happen in different industries as we figure out how this technology gets more embedded into our workday, our knowledge. And the same thing is going to happen there, which is the people on your team who figure it out are going to be so much more effective than those that don't. And my encouragement to the, you know, if you are a marketing leader or any leader really in this space is help the team understand, investing into understanding this technology and using it. It's going to be potentially very game changing and really figuring that out and accelerating that. Now, I think the effect of it, of what we are doing, Lutra, is I hope that if your day was spent in, like, 50% grant work and 50% productive work, or maybe 30% meetings and 20% productive work, really, right? We can expand that and say that 50% grant work starts to go away, you know, the machine is running, doing something for you, you get coffee, you come back, you go like, great job, keep going. And then that 20% of productive work just massively increases, because suddenly you can do a lot more.

Mike: Yeah, I mean, that sounds so positive. One of the things we always like to ask people, and I think I know the answer to this is, you know, what would be your advice if you are talking to a young person thinking of a career in marketing? I guess it's going to be to learn how to take advantage of the technology.

Jiquan: Totally. I think to a young person, learning marketing and its resources. I think figure out figure out where the technology comes in and is really good at, and figure out where two parts of it, right? As a user of technology, that's certainly very important. How do I use it? But also, what am I bringing into the table that is beyond using technology? What insights am I getting, right? And so increasingly, I think, being really in touch with your customer base, really having good intuitions on their audience and what they're looking for, what words resound with them, right? those are things that the technology doesn't have access to. You know, going out there, having those conversations and developing that intuition, you don't have that, right? That's something that the technology doesn't have the context that you have, that you have gained, you know, working in a place or seeing what's out there. And I think really understanding those pieces, not just like accelerating your work, but bringing that differentiating factor that's beyond technology, right? I think that's a key part of it. So for example, even with us, we've been working with this technology day in and day out, trying to get things to be more efficient, really understanding what users are trying to do is a critical part of it. The AI is never going to tell us to chase down a particular route. It can collate lots of data for us, but then really understanding, hey, our users is really the part of it. And I think for marketing, positioning, figuring out how to explain this, that's the part I think that's really critical in there. And then if you find yourself spending lots of time doing manual groundwork, that's where you're like, you should go figure out technologies that can help you with that.

Mike: Yes. I really like that. I think that's great advice, Naeem. And you're really positive as well that even young people can take advantage of this. And perhaps, you know, it's almost a bigger challenge for the more senior people to get that adoption. So I think it's great. One thing I've got to ask you, you mentioned a little earlier in the podcast that, you know, the most important thing is for people to be able to try the tools so they can use their imagination to see what they can do. So, I mean, if somebody's listened to this and they'd really like to automate some grunt work tasks, how can they do that with Lutra?

Jiquan: So, I think one is like go to lutra.ai. That's where we are. You can find us, you can sign up. We're in a, I'll call it open beta right now. You can play with it and see what it does for you. Reach out to me. You can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter, Axe, and love to chat about your use cases and all. And I think for us, the one thing that we are looking at is understanding the integrations, what people need, how can they get their things done, what's the rough spots in there. Reach out, I'd love to have a conversation with you to really dig in into some of these processes and work streams that we can help with.

Mike: Well, thank you so much, Naim, for your time. I mean, it's been really interesting and I'm looking forward to playing with the tool and trying to get rid of all those nasty manual tasks that we don't like and spending more time on the fun. So thank you so much. I appreciate you being a guest on the podcast.

Jiquan: Thank you, Mike. This is awesome. I'm super glad to be here and I hope what we've built is going to be really useful to all of you guys. Thank you.

Mike: Thanks so much for listening to Marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes or on your favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.


The reality of 3D printing: overhyped or a true game changer? – Forward AM

Mike is joined by Alexander Levitt, Head of Marketing at Forward AM, previously part of BASF's 3D printing division. With 15 years of experience in marketing, Alex shares insights into his career journey, the evolution of 3D printing, and the challenges and opportunities that come with marketing in a niche industry.

He discusses whether 3D printing is overhyped, core marketing and applications for Forward AM, and strategies for marketing across different industries.

About BASF Forward AM

Forward AM provides 3D printing solutions across the entire Additive Manufacturing value chain from consultancy, development and innovative design, through digital simulation and prototype printing, to finishing and exhaustive component testing.

Forward AM traces its origins to BASF 3D Printing Solutions GmbH, which was founded by BASF New Business GmbH in 2017. In 2024, BASF 3D Printing Solutions GmbH was transformed into Forward AM Technologies.

Time Stamps

00:00:34 - Alex's Career Journey

00:00:45 - The Evolution of 3D Printing

00:04:51 - Core Markets for Forward AM

00:08:45 - Balancing Brand Building and Lead Generation

00:10:33 - Challenges of Transitioning from BASF

00:15:24 - Tactical Approaches to Lead Generation

00:22:31 - Future Trends in B2B Marketing

00:24:42 - Final Thoughts and Advice for Marketers

00:27:41 - How to Connect with Alex Levitt

Follow Alexander:

Alexander Levit on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-levit/

Swell AI website: https://forward-am.com/

Swell AI on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/basf-forwardam/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Forward AM website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Forward AM LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Alexander Levitt at Forward AM

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Alexander Levitt

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today.

Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. Today, I'm joined by Alex Levitt. Alex is the head of marketing at Forward AM, previously BASF's 3D printing division. Welcome to the podcast, Alex.

Alexander: Hi, Mike. Pleasure to be here.

Mike: It's great to have you on. So I don't know if you could tell us a little bit about your career, how you got to work for BASF, and then how you actually spun the company out and have formed Forward AM.

Alexander: Yeah, my pleasure. It's a lot of topics. Happy to dive in. So maybe a little bit about my career and how I started. I've been in marketing for roughly 15 years, in the past seven years in leadership positions. building, scaling, ramping up teams into high performance and into business generation. Generally, the way that I see marketing, I see that as a business development function. That was always like the bread and butter, as we call it. First of all, get your pipeline ready, get your KPI straight, and then we take care of basically everything else. Generally, I was in the past six years in 3D printing. Otherwise, I was in software such as identity verification and so on. EdTech and other fields, always niches, always B2B niches. So 3D printing quite resonates with me because it's also a niche of a niche of manufacturing.

Mike: And I mean, that's interesting, because I think when you moved into 3D printing, I think you said about five or six years ago, clearly it was a hot technology. I mean, that hype seems to have died down now. So what's happened? Is it really delivering results and just part of manufacturing, or was it really overhyped?

Alexander: It was overhyped. If we want to be straight honest, 3D printing started, I mean, 3D printing really exploded roughly 12 years ago. There was an IP that expired and suddenly the industry boomed. A lot of companies, a lot of 3D printing manufacturers, a lot of material manufacturers, software, they boomed. Everything got out, but the industry is not big enough. And the industry also promised to be the next industrial revolution. Forget traditional manufacturing, forget the way that you used to work. We're going to revolutionize, disrupt everything. Revolutions are not that easy to create. The fact that you're saying you will revolutionize, the fact that you're saying that you will disrupt, those are very big words, especially in manufacturing. You know, it's the physical world around us. With all the respect to software, there are physical, there are stuff everywhere.

Now, whoever is listening to that is listening on their phone or computer with their headphones or a speaker or whatever. Everything is manufactured. It has been like that for, well, decades in many cases. It's not that easy to take everyone out of their box. And plus, when you go into industrial, when you go to mass production, your commitment is very high. You're playing with very, very large companies and your promise is extremely demanding. If you are not accurate in what you're saying, if you're overpromising, you're not being taken seriously. And that's what happened somewhat with 3D printing. The more mature companies survived. The cool kids from the block, that's really potentially great for B2C, but for B2B, People are less impressed by that and they want to see properties, they want to see tests, they want to see regulation compliance, they want to see repeatability, they want to see accuracy on nanomillimeters. It's very hard to achieve. Very hard. So 3D printing is now, you know, it's beyond the curve. Now it's in the stage of consolidation. It will return, right? Once the consolidation will end and the market will formulate itself, 3D printing will return to be a big hype, also with new technologies and also with new use cases. Also in places that you don't think of, right? In Heidelberg, where our headquarter is, there is a building 3D printed. It's a hall. It's a very big building. I think in Texas, I read this week or last week, they're building a neighbourhood. They're printing a neighbourhood. Printing a neighbourhood is a big deal. And when you print something, it takes you, well, less time and you don't need thousands of units normally. So those are very interesting use cases also for the future.

Mike: So that's fascinating. I mean, I'm interested to know now you've said, you know, it was overhyped. It's not really delivered on expectations, but who's using Forward AM's products to actually 3D print? I mean, what's your core market?

Alexander: We focus on four main industries where we identify very high demand. The whole industrial sector, where the machine builders are happening, where you need the tools. This is a classic industry for 3D printing.

Very related, but not the same as automotive. very demanding on applications, very demanding on requirements. And they know what they're doing. They've been working with 3D printing for a long time, not only in prototyping, but also in, well, in end use, in mass customization. We can discuss use cases later as well.

Medical, there are two main use cases which are extremely interesting. One of them we all know, dental. You can 3D print teeth, you can 3D print molds for teeth. Generally, if you put a part in your body and a tooth is in a very demanding environment, right? you really need to know what you're doing. You cannot, well, the worst case is it's toxic, right? So you really need to comply with a lot of regulation. You need to be really well on top of your chemistry, I guess. And the other one is prosthetics, which is amazing. There is this NGO that we work with. They're called Victoria's Hand. They're Canadians. they are contributing the designs for prints which they optimize to be printed everywhere in the world, mainly in conflict areas. That's an amazing use case as well.

You have consumer goods. Generally, mentioning the customers is a little bit problematic because there are so many NDAs, because those are secret manufacturing processes. I can tell you that some of the leading fashion brands are working with us. I cannot mention them by name. But in places that you just would not expect, they use 3D printing for limited editions. Limited edition can be tens of thousands of units, but we're not talking about millions.

Another industry that we work with a lot is 3D printing. Our business, basically, our vision is that 3D printing needs to be a core element of every manufacturing process, but an element. It cannot replace it. It should not replace it. It's a lot to expect. So what we want to do, we want to optimize where it makes sense. And as part of that vision, we want to push the 3D printing industry forward. And we work a lot with the 3D printing industry. We work with machine builders, just to name a few, HP, Stratasys, EOS, and 80% of the market is working with us. We work with what is called generally a 3D printing service bureau. So think of a giant hangar or like a giant warehouse with 3D printers and manufacturing on demand. People can print one part or can print 10,000 parts. 10,000 would be more interesting for them, of course, but you can also print your one part. Upload the file to their website and they will print it for you. They can also drop ship it for you. So this industry is relatively big and it's very interesting. They have to deal with a lot of different use cases. And of course, they're everywhere. There are those who are also specializing in specific industries, those who are specializing in specific use cases. We work practically with everyone. If you're in 3D printing, the chances are that you work with us or worked with us in the past or will work with us in the future.

Mike: I mean, that's amazing. And I think my first question is, as head of marketing, how do you deal with such a diverse range of audiences? It seems like you've got to cover so many different industries and markets and personas. I mean, how do you approach your marketing strategy?

Alexander: Well, you prioritize. Not all industries are in the same size. Not all industries are on the same adoption. And some industries are easier to reach out to. In dental, you have five to ten large players. You don't need marketing for that. You need business development. Automotive, you need to quite make your cases in marketing. It's also a giant market and it's also growing a lot. Generally, automotive, if you think about how it develops, they need to find new ways of working. They need to find new ways of manufacturing. They need to drive costs down. They have very serious competitions from different parts of the world. So we focus where we can bring most value. Where we can bring most value is by volume and by use cases. In some cases, you don't need 3D printing, and we will tell you. You don't need us. You will waste your time. You will waste your money. In some cases, we can bring enormous value. A very interesting project that we worked on, it was our material, but what was interesting was the development of it, which we also took part. It's a football helmet, which is from the same material, but different consistency. So it can be softer in some places and harder in some places in the same print. football, like American football. Sorry to all European and American listeners. And it saves lives. It saves lives. It saves life quality and so on. And this is only the beginning. So the way that we go back to your question, the way that we go about it is priority and market size and where we can really help. Right. So not all our materials are good for every industry. So we need to really see where we can make the difference. Where can we move the needle? If we can't help, then we shouldn't go there.

Mike: And that's interesting you talk about that. So, I mean, if you look at the different markets, do you have a different approach from market to market in terms of balancing building the brand versus just driving lead generation?

Alexander: It's a good question. Generally speaking, yes. In some markets, we focus a lot more on demand generation. So we do want demand generation, by the way, it's not only lead is also following up. It's the qualification process. It's identifying their need. It's making sure that sales also reach on time. We generally take over the whole lead generation and the continuation basically until the opportunities is created. In some markets, it will not help your lead generation. Lead generation will not be your best driver, let's put it like this. And brand is not necessarily publicity. It's not necessarily design or logos or shiny projects or image videos. Brand is also SEO. SEO, for example, is a very strong tool for both branding and demand generation. So you do have a lot of overlaps where you can combine the two. It really depends on what you focus on. Do you focus on volume or do you focus on clutch, money time, money keywords, let's say. So you're focusing really on the consideration stage. People who already know what they're talking about. It still is large volumes, but you are not talking what is 3D printing or why 3D printing is beneficial, but what in 3D printing is beneficial, how in 3D printing we can support. I see that as almost an overlap between brand and demand generation. And the majority of our effort is going there. If you are not yet aware what 3D printing is, You are very far from business, very far in years.

Mike: And I think it's interesting the way you talk about brand, you know, not just being sort of building that big reputation, but things like SEO, because presumably it's a bit of a challenge moving from being part of BASF, which is a gigantic company to having to, you know, stand as a brand on your own. Is that presenting challenges for you?

Alexander: Yes, of course. It's presenting challenges on a level that it's just a different use case of a company. The brand BSF walks before you. So when you say you're BSF, your doors are open and there is a certain level of expectation. You expect it to work. You expect it to be super reliable. When you lose that brand, you need to prove it. We are in a lucky position that we can prove it. So the doors are not opening that quickly. which is a little bit early to say, right? We didn't have any term. So no client said, hey, you're no longer BSF. You know what? Let me take my business somewhere else. That did not happen. We did expect some kind of a backlash. It did not happen. We do have this tradition. We do have this heritage. So we are able to make those claims of quality, of reliability, of what we promise you is what you will get. We will not overpromise. and we will not under deliver. And this is something that we also need to validate because the expectation now from the market is different, you know, like our customers and generally the market is looking at us. OK, those are new, but we're not new. We come from the same tradition as BSF. We were formed by BSF. We developed with them. We used their experience. They used our experience. Our heritage, our legacy is almost the same as BSF. It's the same people. So when we think of BSF, it's 160 years of excellence of this excellent product. We take that with us. We don't want to rewrite history, and we don't try to do that. We do associate ourselves with BSF. We also do collaborate with BSF. They are close partners. They're very much in the background. It's a different situation, as you mentioned. However, at the moment, there is no damage caused from it. Quite happy about it. This is our challenge. This is our task.

Mike: Yeah, and I think, you know, often when you have a management buyout, I mean, that's an incredible vote of confidence in the company by the managers, the people who really should know the future of the company. So I think often that the management buyout is a really positive way to spin a company off from a much larger company. Because it indicates that, you know, not only do people who understand the market think there's a good future, but also the people driving that business forward are the experts already. I mean, it must help you doing it that way, rather than maybe being acquired by an unrelated company.

Alexander: It's a big plus for us. Also, we didn't want to be acquired by any company. The company was not on the shelf and here by it, no matter who you are. We did want to feel good about ourselves and we wanted to stay true to our vision. We did not want to become a material supplier or solution supplier of a machine building brand, for example, which would limit our market, would limit our offering, and you don't need us for this. So it is a vote of confidence. It's a big risk, a lot of sleepless nights for our CEO, a lot, and we appreciate him for this. And it's also a lot for us to prove. I have to say that It's not a paralyzing situation. It's not like we have to prove everything to everyone. We start from zero. No, we continue doing our thing. We continue communicating our messages and delivering products, delivering everything on time, working on those applications, bringing this value. This is what we're focusing on. It's also a bit of a relief, you know, you don't need to rethink yourself. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. You don't need to, you don't have that identity crisis. You know who you are, you lose those four letters in front of your name, but that's it. You keep the same people, you keep the same processes, you keep the same IPs, you keep everything. It's actually a little bit liberating because BSF, as you said, is a giant company. They have very rigid processes, very strong ones. They're a chemical company. So if you take, for example, let's compare the approach of BSF with another competitor, with a competition, let's say, from China. And let's take a material which is the most basic in the 3D printing world, PLA. In some cases, it's being treated as a chemical. So you have to stand with the regulation. You have to comply with a lot of things. If you're not a chemical company, you don't have to do that because generally speaking, PLA will not be used like a chemical. It's a commodity. It's a consumer product. Well, it's a consumer and can be also in industrial zone. It really depends on how the PLA is built. But you generally can do it a lot faster. You can generally release products a lot faster. You can innovate a lot faster. This is also where we are focusing.

Mike: I mean, that's interesting. It sounds so optimistic for the brand having, you know, moved from being part of this big umbrella brand to having to stand alone. You seem very positive. I'm interested to move to, you know, perhaps some of the more tactical stuff. In terms of driving the lead, you talked about lead generation in some markets. What works for you? What are the tactics that are kind of your go-to tactics that keep driving those new leads and opportunities?

Alexander: There is no replacement for SEO. And you should always look for replacements for SEO, but generally there is no replacement. The user journey, the buyer journey, not the user, the buyer journey. I think it's proven in all the researches, I don't know, that it's not linear. A person doesn't reach out to you in the beginning. I don't want to speak with people when I'm researching. I don't want humans to bother me. I'm reading supplier websites, I'm reading different articles on Google, I'm going to common AI tools like ChatGTP and others, and I'm making my own research, I'm making my own shortlist. The more information I will have there, the more optimized it will be for different channels, the more I will have exposure to your benefits. I will be able to call it very quickly if this is a marketing material, you know, a marketing mumbo jumbo. It's a very easy kind of, not bluff, but it's a very easy topic to call, you know, when you see marketing. So it needs to be honest. It needs to be honest and you need to know what you're talking about. You need to use the right terminology. You need to talk about the right cases. You need to understand what your users are looking for. What kind of questions are they looking for? SEO is definitely a very strong one.

An unpopular channel that works really well, and I'm both sorry and not sorry, is called Calling. It's amazing. People are answering the phone a lot less than in the past. I never answer, but it works. It works in some cases. I mean, you have conversion rates, you have a funnel, of course, and if you do it in a data-driven way, it works. In Europe, considering GDPR, it's much more complicated. In the US, it's a lot, a lot, a lot easier, a lot. Your ability to gain data is amazing.

I want to say that Google advertising or search engine advertising, let's call it search engine advertising, is a very good channel. It really depends on your product. For us in solutions, it works really well because you need to understand more why. But if I want to buy a spool or a bottle of photopolymer, I will not convert into a lead. It's a product. I want to buy it online. Don't call me and tell me, hey, you want to buy this? Yes, I want to buy this. Allow it to buy it simply. So for advertising in search engines, you need a certain infrastructure to make it work. I would like to say webinars, but they don't really work for business. They're amazing tool, really amazing tool to create trust, to create this authority, to discuss those innovative use cases, to bring cases from the US to Europe, to China and vice versa. And there is so much knowledge. We have really quite a lot of knowledge in the company. And it's a marketer's dream on some level. We are working with so many chemists and physicists and so on. And they can talk about those topics in such an engaging way. Then you as a marketer, you have a different challenge. You need to simplify it. You need to bring it down to earth. You need to bring it down to people who are not experts. This is sometimes our Not a challenge, but this is something that we are actively working on.

So the rest, basically, after SEO, after cold calling, events are a good place as well, trade shows. It's also for 3D printing, but also, you know, you need to go to the industries that you're targeting. People will not come to you. They don't care about you. You need to go there. You need to make a case, a relevant case for them. Everything else are components. So you have your big chunks and everything else you have like a little bit here, a little bit here, a little bit here and a little bit here. And you don't look on necessarily on leads. Leads is a trap. I can go now. I can buy leads very easily. Those leads will never convert. They will not even know that I have them. If I want to break the law, of course. It's about opportunities. It's about sales qualified leads. It's about somebody who was verified for Purchase intent. Purchase intent is generally the game that we're looking for. If you don't have purchase intent, we can discuss on a different level. But to gain that purchase intent, to find, to find not to gain, but to find that and also actually to gain it in some cases, what works for us very well are those channels and the rest are, as I said, different components.

Mike: I think that's fascinating the way you talk about how all these different things interrelate. I mean, how do you see it changing? I mean, do you see any major changes in the next five years, either in terms of, you know, B2B marketing or particularly for you as you're in your role as head of marketing?

Alexander: Well, yeah, there are several trends which are social and technological, which are very important, I think. Well, it's a cliche, right? AI is a big deal for productivity. I don't think it's a good end-use product. So you cannot put text in AI and then it will emerge into this super engaging video or text and everything. And you're like, oh, great. Input, output, out. That does not work. Humans are also in five years, in my opinion, will still need to be a big part of the process. You will need to adopt SEO, by the way, to AI. Otherwise, I mean, Google will lose its share. It will still be there, but it will be, you know, like, I don't know if you compare radio in the thirties to radio today, radio is not dead. Print is not dead, but the proportion changed. I don't think that Google will be like print or like radio, but it's definitely something that we need to look at. If we're talking about productivity and talent, I think remote working is a game changer. You have people that are working in countries which are not considered to be high on talent. Of course they have talent. Of course they have super experienced people. Their salaries are different. Their expectations are different. Their work ethics are different. Your ability to move between countries and your ability to hire from local talent according to your needs, I find that to be a game changer. My team is remote. In my previous company, my team was remote. In my previous company, I had roughly 15 people from seven different countries, all in the EU. We did not feel it. We did not feel those different mentalities or cultures or whatever. Everyone had a slightly different flavour or approach, but that was amazing. It was really good. I would love to return to that model anytime. I think those are the main ones.

Mike: That's fascinating, Alex, I'm, you know, I feel like I could ask you so many more questions. And particularly the topic of remote working, I think is one that almost justifies a whole podcast. But I'm very aware of your your limited time. So we'd like to ask people a couple of questions, the same sort of quickfire questions at the end of the interview. So I'm interested, what's the best advice that you've ever been given about marketing?

Alexander: It was not by a marketer, but it was by one of my previous bosses. He was a chief commercial. He said it's always what matters is the story. It's always about the story, not the numbers, not offering. It's about the story. It's finding the right story for the right audience. That's a great. advice that I got and followed because you don't need to tell the whole story to everyone. You need to highlight very specific. You have very short time. To more senior marketers, I would also say that develop your own philosophy, develop your own approach and test it and test it in everything. Even if your boss doesn't let you test it officially, test it unofficially, try to understand different elements. Try to understand how things work, how people react to things, to initiatives, to activities. What did you expect versus What is the reality and why did it happen? Even I would suggest not to have this giant debriefing process with presentations and everything. Just think with yourself and try to implement it in other scenarios, in a different company, in a different setting and be willing to pay for your mistakes and be willing to pay for your sometimes wrong bets.

Don't think that in a modern environment, losing your job is the worst thing that can happen to you. I think losing your integrity or losing your grip over your career, that's a much scarier situation. And I'm not saying be a maverick, but see how your approach shapes by the organization that you work in.

And to young marketers, I would say, Do not chase money and titles. If you're promoted too early, that's a red flag. If you go after money, you will be stuck in a super comfortable place. And then, guess what? You will not be that young anymore. And your skill set will be, well, quite limited because you will be working in one, two companies. And this is not great. It's good to change places. It's good to change approaches. It's good to fail. It's good to also not make the most that you can make financially. That time will come, but when it will come, you will make a lot more. You will, you will be in a much better position. You will be in a much more interesting position. If you're looking for an exciting marketing career, take risks and don't chase money.

Mike: That's awesome. What a great way to end the interview. I'm just interested, if somebody's listening and they'd like to contact you or learn more, what's the best way to get hold of you?

Alexander: Well, I'm happy to connect with everyone who wants. Best way would be LinkedIn. I'm low on social media intentionally. So LinkedIn would be the best way. I am there, Alexander, Levitt, L-E-V-I-T. That's me. Just feel free to reach out, discuss, discuss ideas, discuss philosophies, discuss tactics, strategies, always happy.

Mike: Alex, thank you so much. You've been a fascinating guest. I really appreciate you, you know, talking to me and thank you for being on Marketing to B2B Technology.

Alexander: Thank you so much, Mike. I'm really honoured to be in your show.

Mike: Thanks so much for listening to Marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes or on your favourite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.

 

 


The AI Dilemma: Are We Relying Too Much on Automation in Marketing?

AI is popping up across marketing automation platforms, but is it really the magic solution we hoped for? Join Hannah and Mike as they discuss the latest news from the world of marketing automation, including the latest trends and tools. In this episode, they cover:

  • Gartner's 2024 Magic Quadrant: A look at the latest report on Salesforce automation platforms, including the rankings of major platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot.
  • The Role of AI in Marketing Automation: They explore the hype around AI, its limitations, and how it can be misused if data quality isn't prioritised.
  • Simplicity in Marketing Automation: A discussion on the benefits of choosing simpler marketing automation platforms and how they can better serve small to medium-sized businesses.
  • Spintax for Email Outreach: Learn about Spintax and how it can enhance your email deliverability by creating unique variations of your messages.

Don't forget to subscribe for more episodes!

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

About Napier

Napier is a PR-lead, full service marketing agency that specialises in the B2B technology sector. We work closely with our clients to build campaigns, focusing on achieving results that have a significant positive impact on their businesses and which, above all, ensure maximum return on their investment.

About Mike Maynard

Mike is the Managing Director/CEO of Napier, a PR and marketing agency for B2B technology companies. A self-confessed geek who loves talking about technology, he believes that combining the measurement, accountability and innovation that he learnt as an engineer with a passion for communicating ensures Napier delivers great campaigns and tangible return on investment.

About Hannah Wehrly

Hannah is the Head of Business Development and Marketing at Napier and leads on pitching, proposal writing, lead nurturing, email marketing, social media and content creation. Hannah joined the Napier team back in 2017 as a Marketing Specialist after completing her degree in Marketing and Communications, and her role focuses on developing new relationships with potential clients.

Time Stamps

00:01:30 - Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Salesforce Automation
00:06:30 - The Role of AI in Marketing Automation
00:10:00 - Limitations of AI in Content Creation
00:12:00 - HubSpot's Podcast Transcription Feature
00:14:30 - Simplicity in Marketing Automation Platforms
00:18:00 - Tip of the Week: Understanding Spintax
Follow Mike and Hannah:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Hannah Wehrly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-wehrly-b0706a107/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing Automation and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast – Marketing B2B Technology: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/marketing-b2b-technology/id1485417724

Transcript: Marketing Automation Moment Episode 20 – The AI Dilemma: Are We Relying Too Much on Automation in Marketing?

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Hannah Wherly

Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast. I'm Hannah Kelly.

Hannah: And I'm Mike Maynard. This is Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.

Mike: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast. I'm Hannah Whaley.

Hannah: And I'm Mike Maynard.

Mike: Today, we discuss Gartner's 2024 Magic Quadrant for Salesforce automation platforms.

Hannah: We have a chat about the different uses of AI and market automation.

Mike: We discuss the benefits of simplicity when it comes to market automation platforms.

Hannah: And I get excited about spin taxing emails.

Mike: Hi Mike, welcome back to another episode of the Marketing Automation Moment. How are you doing?

Hannah: Hi Hannah, great to talk to you about market automation again.

Mike: Absolutely, but I think before we get started, congratulations are in order, as I believe you've actually been featured in the top 100 of Marketing Influences by Technology for Marketing and have also been shortlisted for Industry Personality, the Instrumentation Excellence Awards. Congratulations.

Hannah: Oh, you promised you wouldn't mention that, but thank you anyway. I appreciate it.

Mike: Your head would be too big to leave the room by the end of this podcast.

Hannah: Yeah, I think you're trying to get me to work for the rest of the afternoon.

Mike: Right, well, let's kick it off because we've got some exciting things to discuss today. And the first thing I want to talk about is Gartner's Magic Quadrant Report. So, they've released it for Q4 2024, and it focuses on 13 of the most significant, in their terms, Salesforce automation providers in the marketplace. I mean, it's interesting, and I know you have a very strong opinion on this. We'll get to that in a second, Mike. But it's really lists basically where each provider is listed and ranked them on what they call their magic quadrant graph. So they cover them between leaders, challengers, visionaries, and niche players. And, you know, there was a couple of, you know, well-known names in there when I was reading it up. So, Salesforce has been put as top of the leaders category, apparently has climbed even higher than it was the year before and HubSpot and its sales hub solution has actually returned to the niche player category. I think it's interesting, but I know you want to have a chat about this, Mike. What is the point of this report? Is there any point to this report?

Hannah: Well, of course, the cynical people amongst us, and that wouldn't be me, would say that it's all about Gartner making money from reports. And it sometimes feels like these reports, they're interesting, but, you know, you've got a question, you know, for a start, why just look at Salesforce automation separate to marketing automation? I mean, surely you need products that integrate between the two. To me, that's a basic shortfall is that it's so focused on sales, and it therefore gives a slightly skewed version of what you're going to see. So, you know, HubSpot for sure is an important player, particularly in market automation, increasingly in service, and somewhat in Salesforce automation. But I can see why they're put in as a niche player just for Salesforce automation, because that's not really their core strength. And I feel by focusing on one topic, It probably doesn't give you the proper view about what these vendors are trying to do. It seems to be, you know, taking a snapshot of a little part of a company and then trying to imply that's what's happening over the whole company.

Mike: I think that's some really great points, Mike, and, you know, both of us have been really strong in our opinions in the past that when you have a multiple automation platform, you need to have it integrated with both hubs. And, you know, we've spoken about different platforms and how they split out the pricing and actually a marketer just wants everything in one place. So actually you make some great points because when you drill into the detail like that, actually the report and what it provides isn't that helpful.

Hannah: Yeah, and I think also, you know, I don't want to sit here and criticize Gartner because it's easy on these analyst reports to poke holes in it. But the analyst report is really written for enterprise customers. And so are we going to say that HubSpot really is going to start dominating the enterprise with Salesforce automation? Probably not. Probably should be a niche player. It's probably the right place to be. But if you're in a different industry, so if perhaps you're running a small engineering company, perhaps 500 people, got a few people in sales, HubSpot can be way better as a solution than Salesforce. Much easier to deploy, much easier to manage, much more user-friendly. And I think just allocating positions on a grid, it doesn't take into account the context of who's buying. And so you get these reports, and it kind of suggests that all HubSpot is going to be upset. But actually, honestly, HubSpot should be saying, no, we focus on the smaller, medium sized customers. That's where we're great. And honestly, enterprise isn't our focus. You know, if we're doing something that is a perfect fit for the enterprise, it's probably not a great fit for our target audience.

Mike: I think that's some valuable insights, Mike, and it's definitely a different way to look at it for sure.

Hannah: Yeah. I mean, you know, the same thing. You don't want Salesforce and more complex systems to run at Napier. We've got a small marketing and sales team. We want something that's easy to use, very configurable, preferably integrated. And I think you'd agree that, you know, looking at the benefits of different tools, your needs are very different to a lot of our clients who are large global enterprises.

Mike: Oh, absolutely. And I mean, just to let the listeners know, we actually use a small marketing platform called Sharpspring. So it's something I've always viewed is very in the shadow of HubSpot, like perhaps in, you know, five, 10 years, it might be as large as HubSpot, but it's nowhere near that at the moment. But for what we do internally as an agency, I mean, it's perfect for our needs.

Hannah: Absolutely. I mean, different things for different people. And so whilst I get, you know, that people like to see these reports and like to see what analysts rate, ultimately, you've got to make the decision for yourself. And the decision may be that you choose to buy something that isn't a leading product. In fact, you know, sometimes these niche players, which is kind of, you know, almost damning with faint praise kind of label, they might be the best solution for you. So I think you've got to think beyond just the report and think about what you need as a customer.

Mike: Absolutely. But let's move on, Mike, because I know you have some views about using AI and market automation that you wanted to have a discussion about today.

Hannah: Yeah, so we saw this article on the influence of Marketing Hub talking about being what claiming to be the ultimate guide to using AI in marketing automation. I mean, AI is one of those things that, and I hate to go back to Gartner that we've just questioned now, but Gartner famously produced the hype cycle. And it's probably one of the products that most recently has been through this massive hype cycle. And I think basically, you know, we've seen everyone get super enthusiastic. And now we're heading into this trough of disillusionment, where people are realizing that actually AI is not this magic tool that can do everything. It's got limitations. And particularly, if you look at a lot of the industries we work with, where it's very niche specialist, it's very hard to get AI to keep generating fresh content, it becomes very repetitive. So, people are becoming disillusioned. There's still people who are very excited about AI in sales and marketing, and I don't think that's wrong. And you know I always have an opinion, Hannah. I think a lot of the time people are using AI because their data quality is poor.

Mike: I mean, I think that's a really great observation, Mike, and I have to agree. I think AI is almost now being used as a comfort blanket, as what AI is going to give us all the solutions, AI is going to tell us what to do. But if you don't have that data in place in your platform already, AI is not going to deliver what you need. And I mean, you see, you know, we talked about my love for Einstein and the little cartoon for Salesforce. And I think there's some great tools that are helping with data, but I think you're right. There's almost this generalization. So to me, there's two sections. There's data that AI can support with and it can help. It can help you gather that data with tools like Einstein, but there's also these markets that are going down the route of what AI is going to solve everything without actually fixing the problem that they have already.

Hannah: Yeah, and a lot of people are using AI to basically go out look on the web and find information about a company and then customize emails. And that's not necessarily a terrible idea. I mean, I get why people want to do it, they want to make things feel personal. But believe me, I get an awful lot of emails coming through that clearly have been AI customized, and they've been generated by someone who's not looked at our website and thought, so they'll come out randomly with some client that we might have worked with, you know, 10 years ago. And it's like, I'm really excited to see your work with client X. And you say, well, that was a project 10 years ago. And actually, they've now been acquired, and they trade under a different name. So if you've seen that work recently, there's something really wrong. So I think people are kind of relying on that, that AI pulling information. And sometimes it's not great. And actually the people who have the most powerful communications, they have the best emails. They're the people who have really looked into companies and they have something very specific to say that ties that potential customer to what they offer. And they could do that really clearly because they've got the data and they've understood what that company does. And AI today doesn't quite cut it most of the time.

Mike: No, I agree. I mean, we've had an instance internally recently where, as you know, Mike, we have a monthly newsletter. It goes out to all of our database. And we were looking at ways of how can we speed up when we're writing this newsletter and we do this personalized intro. And last month, for the first month, we were like, why don't we use AI to try and write this intro? AI wrote it. We put it onto the newsletter. And all I could think about was, wow, this is so bland. And there was no personality to it. You know, this goes out to our full database. It's a really important lead nurturing tactic for us. And AI is not the way to go for it. We've tried that route. We've tried to save time, but actually we found that spending that little bit extra time is going to be more valuable for us moving forward because AI can just not get that tone that we need to engage people to read our newsletter.

Hannah: Yeah, and I think the other thing that people misunderstand is AI gives you volume, because it's very efficient, it's much more efficient than using humans. But the issue is, if you look at the amount of marketing communications out there, there's a lot of stuff that's in the, you know, I guess the range of meh to okay, and a lot of AI fits in that meh to okay range. doesn't have any impact. It goes out, lots of people see it, it doesn't engage them, it doesn't excite them, it doesn't have anything compelling. And so yes, you can send out, you know, 10, 20, 100,000 emails that are customized by AI. But actually, sometimes you're better off sending out 500 emails that are super targeted at the people who are going to buy and have the reasons why they should buy. So I do think that it's increasingly going to become a vanity metric as to how much you've used AI to customize. And as we know, you know, a lot of vanity metrics, you know, the higher you push them, the worse your campaign. I think sometimes, you know, whilst using AI in itself is not a bad thing, pushing to maximize that benefit from AI actually can lead you to compromise on the quality of the campaign.

Mike: Oh, I fully agree, Mike. I don't think we've ever agreed so much in so little time, but I fully agree. And I want you to hold on to that thought because when we get to our tip of the week at the end of this episode, I want to have a little chat about Spintax and how if we are going to go down this AI route, how you can make it so it's not just this mass, non-personalized, boring outreach. Let's move on because I actually want to talk about Shoka AI again, but let's talk about it in a positive light. And I'm quite passionate about this because we use AI internally to support this and this is podcast. So obviously we're on the podcast right now, but post-podcast, we've got to do editing, we've got to write our show notes, we've got to get a transcript up. And it was really interesting that one of the product updates from HubSpot in August was that they've introduced podcast transcripts generation. So What I really liked about this, and this is what I've always really loved about HubSpot, is HubSpot seem to have these additional little elements, these little diamonds in the dust if you like, that you can do. So they have their SEO function that I've always really loved of HubSpot. And I love that they have this podcast generation actually within the platform and that these transcripts can be built along with messaging, along with things that they can put in their emails and promotion within the platform itself. What did you think about it?

Hannah: Well, this is going to be a boring podcast where you both agree, I think, because I totally agree with you. I think, you know, we talked earlier about HubSpot being really suited to small and medium sized businesses. I'm going to stick my neck out there. HubSpot is not the best podcast transcription tool. It's not going to get you the best clips. It's not going to necessarily generate the best value content, but it's going to do a damn good job. And if you're working in a marketing team of two or three in a small business, that is going to be the solution. Unless podcast is your primary tactic, HubSpot is going to do a job that is going to be really good. And you can focus on your primary activities. At Napier, we use a couple of different tools. We use Swell AI for generating little bits of content from podcasts. We use Opus Clip for generating clips. So I think There are point tools that are better. And maybe this won't last forever. I mean, I'm entirely open to the fact that ultimately, the integrated tools will be every bit as good as the specialist tools, but at the moment, they're not quite there. And larger companies, I think, will spend the money, not least because they will have a podcast person who has the time to investigate tools, and has the ability to really focus on what works best for them. So I think, you know, in the short term, yes, it's brilliant for small companies, it's, you know, I mean, ultimately, for a HubSpot subscriber, it's basically free, it's added in. But you know, for enterprise companies, again, it comes back to that discussion about Gartner, the person buying is the context that really matters. And if you're a big enterprise company, maybe you don't want that integration of something that's probably good enough, but not necessarily best in class.

Mike: I think that's a fantastic point, Mike. And, you know, in the future, I'd like to see these real specialist tools make their way into being integrated directly with the market automation platforms. You know, we've seen that happen with other tools and other sectors. And I think that is probably an avenue that could be realistic in the future. And it's something that everyone would benefit from.

Hannah: Absolutely, for sure. I mean, there was a point when, you know, people had third-party form tools, and you didn't use the integrated form because it wasn't as good in market automation systems. That for all but the most demanding form applications has gone away now, and the form tools that are integrated are brilliant in most of these market automation systems. So I totally agree with you. I think in the long term, integration is only going to get better and better. And presumably some of these point products will get bought and integrated in as well by some of the larger vendors.

Mike: Absolutely, now I want to move on because we have a nice theme going this week and it is focusing on those platforms that are more specialized for the small medium businesses and in our last episode we discussed Marketo and how there were some blogs out basically being like work with me instead you know Marketo isn't the right fit for you Now I came across quite a good blog from Acton. So they had a blog about why is the investment worth it in your market automation platform. And it did focus on the MarTech stack and it did talk about how you can simplify. But what I really liked in the messaging from this is choose the simplified version of the market automation platform. It's so secret that Axon isn't, you know, the most complex. It doesn't have all these different layers that can provide marketers, but it does the job and it does it well. And it goes back to your point of who it's set into, what's the context that this person needs. But I thought that was quite interesting because they're really doubling down on this, like, this is what we do. We're really simple. You need your MarTech stack to be simple. Come and join us. And in a way, I really loved that.

Hannah: I thought it was a great article as well, Hannah. I really enjoyed it. I mean, obviously, it's very self-serving in that they're pitching the simplicity of Acton versus some of the larger, more complex products. But also, you and I have seen with some of our clients, where they've had a more complex product, it really doesn't matter because they aren't able to take advantage of the capabilities. In some cases, it takes much, much longer. I mean, we're talking months, quarters, maybe even over a year. to roll out these products and it does a simpler one. And I think maybe, maybe there's something to it. You know, when you talk about it, perhaps there is going to be a bit of a backlash against marketing technology from some marketers. And there's actually gonna be a push to return to, you know, simpler tools where you use all the features rather than complex tools where perhaps you only use 10% of them.

Mike: Oh, absolutely. And, you know, I can't count the amount of conversations I've had where, you know, our clients or prospects we're speaking to are like, well, I've got HubSpot, for example, and I don't know what it does. All I do is send emails on it. And it's, you know, they're pouring this investment in, you know, monthly and day in and day out. And You know, that blog and this type of message is really going to resonate with those types of people because it's, you know, you're using it for these simple tasks. This is still a type of automation. Take away that cost, come and be our partner instead.

Hannah: Yeah, I mean, I've heard clients say to me, you know, in frustration with their market automation teams, you know, it feels like we're paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a best in class tool. And we could pretty much do it all on Mailchimp. And I don't think anyone means that seriously. But I think the sentiment there, the frustration that these tools are so powerful, but so complex, that they're not necessarily delivering the benefits they're capable of. And maybe some people are much better at going, let's go back, let's simplify, let's take the advantage of reduced costs, because we're going for simpler tools. And let's focus on doing what we do really well, rather than trying to take advantage of all these features, which is going to require a lot of effort training education.

Mike: Absolutely. I think that's spot on, Mike. Now, let's round up. I'm conscious of time, so let's move on to our tip of the week. Now, as I mentioned earlier in the episode, I want to have a talk about Spintax. Now, this is something that you've brought to me quite recently, Mike, is something that we can use internally. So do you want to take the lead and just explain a little bit about what it is and what it does?

Hannah: Yeah, I mean, Spintax, I guess, is a form of artificial intelligence, but it's not really intelligent. So what you do is you generate content, typically emails, and then Spintax will change combinations of words. So you give a combination of words. So you could talk about market automation tools or market automation platforms, for example. And so Spintax will randomize words within the email. And the great thing about this is that if you're sending a large number of emails, particularly if you're sending them to a single company, they're much less likely to get flagged as being bulk emails because the emails themselves are inherently a little bit different. So again, it's a super simple approach. It's just randomizing some text basically. But what it does is it gives you this, um, you know, algorithmic feel of being a unique emails, and that can actually significantly enhance your deliverability. So it's a really neat tool. It's available on a lot of email packages and it's incredibly simple. It's generally set up manually as well. So generally you're providing the options for the, uh, the different words that can be used. So you get absolute control over what happens and you don't end up with, you know, any kind of AI hallucination.

Mike: I love this so much, Mike, and I can see the benefits so clearly. And I think as well, you know, when you're reaching out to these bulk contacts in one company, you know, in our dreams, we like to hope that people compare the emails and read them and knowing that they're not just going to read that exact same email, but it's not too much effort from us internally. I think it's a brilliant, it's a brilliant tool.

Hannah: Yeah, I think it's fun. And I know we'll be playing about with some experiments on how much it impacts deliverability as well. So maybe in a future episode, we can talk about our results from some of our experiments that we're doing.

Mike: Oh, absolutely. Great idea, Mike.

Hannah: Well, Hannah, thank you very much. I really appreciate all the great stories you've brought to this episode. You've done all the hard work this time and brought lots of new ideas. And so thank you for your time. I hope everyone listening subscribes to the podcast and we'll speak to the next time.

Mike: Brilliant. Thanks, Mike.

Hannah: Thanks for listening to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast.

Hannah: Don't forget to subscribe in your favorite podcast application and we'll see you next time.


A Napier Podcast Interview with Cody Schneider at Swell AI

Cody Schneider, Co-Founder and CEO of Swell AI, shares his journey to founding a company that uses AI for content generation. He discusses the evolution of Swell AI, which transforms audio and video content into other formats such as blog posts, and emphasises the importance of using human-generated content when prompting AI to create unique and high-quality outputs.

Cody highlights the importance of building a sustainable marketing strategy, the impact of AI on content creation, and the necessity of reaching audiences through multiple channels. He also offers insights into effective marketing tactics, including the use of podcasts and social media, while encouraging aspiring marketers to embrace technical skills and practical experience in their careers.

About Swell AI

Swell AI is an AI-powered platform designed to streamline content creation for podcasts, helping creators automate the process of generating show notes, transcriptions, and summaries.

By leveraging advanced natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, Swell AI transforms audio into structured, written content, making it easier for podcasters to engage their audience, enhance SEO, and save time.

The platform is particularly useful for podcasters who want to focus on content creation while automating the more tedious aspects of post-production. Swell AI is ideal for independent podcasters, production teams, and agencies looking to scale their podcasting efforts efficiently.

About Cody Schneider

Cody Schneider is an innovative inventor who uses AI to refine digital processes. As the CEO of Draft Horse AI and Swell AI, he’s known for creating tools that streamline content workflows and deliver faster results. With experience in rapidly scaling startups, Cody helps turn organisational challenges into efficient, automated solutions.

Time Stamps

[00:00:41] - Cody's Career Journey

[00:02:38] - The Origin of Swell AI

[00:06:45] - The Value of Human-Generated Content

[00:10:57] - Accessibility of Swell AI for Users

[00:14:28] - Future of AI in Marketing Tasks

[00:20:09] - Cody's Marketing Strategies for Swell AI

[00:25:55] - Best Marketing Advice Received

[00:26:13] - Advice for Aspiring Marketers

[00:29:01] - Conclusion and Contact Information

Quotes

“We realized that podcasts, especially in the B2B world, were this incredible tool to create media on a regular cadence… Podcasts are one of the most effective sales tools that exist currently.” Cody Schneider, Co-Founder and CEO of Swell AI.

Follow Cody:

Cody Schneider on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/codyxschneider/

Swell AI website: https://www.swellai.com/

Swell AI on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/swell-ai/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Cody Schneider at Swell AI

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Cody Schneider

Mike: Cody, thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today.

Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier, today I'm joined by Cody Schneider. Cody is the Co-Founder and CEO of Swell AI, welcome to the podcast, Cody.

Cody: Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here.

Mike: It's great to have you on. Let's start off. We always like to find a little bit about the person before we talk about your company and what you're doing. So tell us a little bit about your career and how you got to found Swell AI.

Cody: Yeah, absolutely. So originally started out in E commerce, somehow ended up at a BD marketing agency, where my role there was doing digital strategy for like fortune 500 companies. These were, like manufacturing companies, things like doors, windows, you know, very unsexy businesses that are multi billion dollar, huge market gap companies. So we were helping them basically transition from physical media into digital media. From there, I ended up, my boss at that company had gone to through Y Combinator and, you know, ended up in the tech world. So he kind of indoctrinated me that there's this whole other world that we could open up. So ended up at this company called Rupa health. Was employee six hired there, helped take Rupa from $20 million valuation to $110 million valuation in about six months. Our whole strategy there we were marketing to practitioners, which are traditionally so think like doctors, anybody in the medical world, traditionally very hard to get in front of, because they are high income individuals, and they're being marketed to do from every angle, whether it's financial advisors or whatever, etc. So we realized really early on we were gonna have to make a media arm of the company that was going to be the only way for us to create a relationship with them and do demand generation. And so ended up spinning up a whole live class, series, podcast series, wrote 1000s of blog posts. If you go and look at their SEO. It's insane over the last two years, but yeah, so that was really kind of what all led up to swell. I realized that, like podcasts, especially in the B2B world, were this incredible tool to create media on a regular cadence that could be basically repurposed and chopped up into any form of content that you could think of, right? So it can turn into clips, it can turn into blog posts, it can turn into newsletters, et cetera. And so that was really the origin of it. We saw what AI was doing, saw that it could be this incredible vehicle for it, and that was kind of the inception of the company. So, yeah.

Mike: And so when you founded it, did you have a technical co founder, or are you a coder?

Cody: Yeah, yeah. So I'm technical, but I'm definitely not at the level of my co founder, Max. He's like, savant level. See how the origin of the company is kind of ridiculous. I was doing consulting for this company. I would spun up a podcast form, you know, same strategy that I'd kind of used over and over agAIn. Realized, hey, you know, we this was July of 2022, we saw that AI was starting to get to the point where I was like, Oh, this is good enough. We could actually use this. And so was on a road trip with my girlfriend. We stayed in my now co founder house. He was just my friend. We had worked at Rupa health together, and that's how we met each other. And was like, Hey, I'm trying to do this. You think it's possible? And at the time he was working with embeddings deeply, he was like, Yeah, within 24 hours, spun up the first version of the product. It was a Google Drive folder that friends could upload, like mp three files to. I sold it to like 10 people. We would download the mp threes from the Google Drive folder, run it on our, like laptops, locally, and then I would, you know, manually, emAIl them the content that we generated for them. But anyway, yeah, so that was kind of the the org of the of the initial product, and how it came to be from a co founder standpoint.

Mike: 

that's really cool. Definitely, minimum viable product there. I think

Cody: So for sure, for sure, we didn't have a website. I just sent out emAIls to friends that I knew that and were using, like webinars and podcasts as a way to grow their businesses, and saying, hey, you know, just send us the recordings. We'll handle the rest.

Mike: So, I mean, the interesting thing is understanding you're not VC funded. You've bootstrapped the company.

Cody: So we're self funded. I own other companies, and so we cash flow this out of them, and then Max had exits and basically just annuities. So he's kind of covered on that end. So yeah, we just wanted to build a profitable company. We'd seen VC land, and there was definitely a venture track we had got approached early on and just leaned into, hey, let's just, you know, build something that's sustAInable. Our bet was, you know, we don't know where any of this is going. Like every it feels like every week something new drops within the AI world on Twitter that changes the entire kind of ecosystem or landscape of this, especially in the space that we're in with content generation. And so for us, it was like, Oh, we could go rAIse but what would that look like from just the defensibility long term? So we're now way more confident with that of like, okay, this is we built this complex, like workflow product, where it's like, you can take. Raw media and turn it into basically any form and have it published to anywhere that you're looking to create. And that's kind of what we're more obsessed with now, is like, what are these AI enabled content generation workflows? But, yeah, so we are self funded, though.

Mike: Oh, that's really cool. Sounds kind of old school. And I love that. I'd like to just investigate a little bit more about what spell AI does. You've mentioned a couple of times, you know, alluded to what it does, but basically what you're doing is you're uploading audio and it's generating written content. Is that correct? Or are you doing more using video? You're generating clips? How does it work?

Cody: Yeah, so we started out just as audio to text generation quickly expanded into basically any media format that you want to provide us. I kind of talk about it as we're content repurposing powered by AI. That's really our core format we're quickly evolving into, like your AI content marketing team, is how I would describe it, but how most people use it currently is, they take a long form piece of content, you know, a video podcast, they upload it into swell. Swell generates clips. It generates blog posts. It generates newsletters. The big kicker within it is that you can build out these templates and these workflows within the platform so that you will basically, once you provided that raw material, that long form piece of content, it automatically will generate that output that you're looking for. And so this is, you know, in contrast to using, like, a chat sheet or any of these other tools, I don't think anybody actually wants to chat with AI, you know, at the end of the day, like it's just a sandbox to figure out, okay, what is the prompt chAIn that gets the output that I'm looking for? And so swell, what we really tried to do is make it into a platform that allows you to create those, you know, templated outputs, and then agAIn, by providing these raw materials, I just generate that from that so.

Mike: And I mean, we talked about this a little bit before the podcast, but I think the really cool thing you're doing is you're actually driving content from something a human created originally, rather than trying to pull all the content out of a large language model. And certAInly for a lot of our listeners, in B2B Tech, that's really inefficient, and being able to use human content seems to be very different. I mean, can you talk a little bit about why that works so well?

Cody: Yeah, absolutely. So when you think about an LLM, right, like it's just trAIned from the general knowledge of the internet. If you spend time on the internet, you know what the general knowledge that average is. It's very average. So if you want to get unique ideas or unique concepts, you have to still talk to thought leaders. Thought Leaders are actually now more valuable than they ever were before. And so podcasts are this incredible way to basically capture that expert knowledge. You take that transcript and then we can transform that into, for example, a blog post. So that whole workflow would look something like, Okay, I invite on, you know, five different hotel marketing experts. I record those conversations, I put it into, you know, a single recording. Drop that into swell. I suddenly have, you know, a transcript of with all this knowledge, but then I can go and say, okay, create a blog post outlined based off of this transcript. Now write a blog post based on that outline, that prompt chAIn, and you're going to see that the quality you get out of that output, especially if you tell the AI, hey, use vocabulary that they use within the transcript, right? So, like it has that tone, style and voice that is similar to what was actually recorded, you're going to be, you know, in that top, whatever, 5% of content in comparison to just having an LLM, like, if you prompted an LLM hotel marketing strategies for 2024 it's gonna do some generic output. But when you create that source file that is unique, from that expert point of view, that's where you can create this differentiation within the content. This is this way to basically create stuff that's different. That's going to create that differentiation is you have to have that expert source material. And there's different ways to do this too. Like we've seen this done with PDFs as an example. So, like, here's five different reports. Okay, now we're going to write based off of these reports. But other examples, like, I have a target keyword phrase, I go and scrape everything that's on page one on google for that target keyword phrase. So I extract all that blog post data, I extract the YouTube videos, anything that's there, I put that into a context window, and then I write a piece of content based on that. You're going to see an output that is 10x better than just prompting the LLM to do that. And so I think to zoom out, what I'm trying to advocate for, for any of the companies that we're working with or talking to, is give the AI almost this like walled garden that they have to work with. And here's your source material that you have to work from. And when you provide that, it context orients them, so that the output is just so much more high quality in comparison to the just a general prompting, prompt output that the AI would provide.

Mike: I mean, that's fascinating. I think you know, the superpower of this is a lot of subject matter experts actually really don't like writing, but they're very happy to talk, and even, you know, in formal interviews, rather than formal podcasts, might be great sources. Do you see people, you know, using all sorts of content as the source material?

Cody: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I've seen it where it's just like fireside. Chats, I've seen, webinars I've seen, and I think that the to your point on the these experts want to talk about this, you know, they don't want to write about this. Podcasts are one of the most effective sales tools that exist currently, so, and I see this especially for early stage companies like I always advocate for them to create a show. And the reason for that is, like, if you just go and reach out to your target, ICP, and you're like, you know, hey name, I want you to come on the show. And it has, we have an emAIl newsletter that it gets sent, sent out to that has 10,000 subs on it. And we also provide clips back to you for your social like, we see a 20% response rate on that outreach right for clients that we work with. So from that, I mean, it's basically sales in disguise. Suddenly you're in relationship with your target customer. The other side of it is when you grow an emAIl newsletter that promotes the podcast, people don't think that podcasts are marketing yet, and so you can just emAIl out these podcasts. It'll land in people's inboxes, they'll open it, and they'll listen to these episodes and spend an hour with you each week, right? I mean, you couldn't pay people to do that, but for some reason, when you have these industry experts on it creates almost this honeypot. It's this trap that's basically, you know, creating this inbound for you. And so agAIn, the byproduct of that is okay. Now I also have clips. Now I also have social posts. Now I also have blog posts. Now I also have newsletters, all of these other knock on effects that are coming from it. But I think that there's just, like, there's so many different ways that this can be used, but from a content standpoint, like from a source material, the ones we're seeing most often, or, like, interview style conversations, you know, traditional podcast. I mean, video podcasts are basically taking over. Looks like YouTube's gonna win, based on all the data that we're seeing, which is really fascinating. The other thing that we're seeing more and more of is webinars as well. So basically, you know, we have clients where they have 500 plus webinars that they've done over the last three years, and they're like, Okay, well, what do we do with this now? And so by taking those webinars, you can, you know, use swell as an example to turn those all into blog posts. I can also prompt swell, hey, list 10 long tAIl keywords related to this webinar. Now write a blog post about each of those long tAIl keywords. I publish that post, I embed that webinar within each of those blog posts, and suddenly I have more basically, views occurring to that to that blog post. We're also seeing people take those webinars, chop them up into segments where it's like, okay, maybe it's an hour long. Let's find five to 10 minute clips that are, you know, insights from that, that whole webinar, we'll turn those into more YouTube content. And what we see is those actually go more viral than the webinar itself, right? Like the webinar will have as an example, like 97 views, but the clip that's from the webinar, where it has like, a hook right at the beginning of the clip that will do, you know, close to 1000 views from the same piece of source content. And so I think, you know, agAIn, these are kind of some of these tactical ways that we're seeing people use the product to effectively do just content marketing and distribution.

Mike: So, yeah, I mean, it just feels that there's so little limitation on what you can do with swell AI. I mean, I think the interesting thing is, in terms of who you're selling this product to, this is not a high end enterprise product, is it? This is something that's very accessible.

Cody: Totally. Yeah. So just early on, we saw that, and we our wedge into the market was podcasters. That was kind of what we saw as the vehicle to get initial traction. And so I would definitely say it's more of like a prosumer type of application, like, we have a free tier, and then it just, it's just usage based, right? So it's, like, depending on how much volume you're doing on a monthly basis. But yeah, I mean, with a lot of these AI tools, like, we can have these approachable, like numbers, right? Because of, like, how these models function and how cost effective it is to basically, like, do this like, so for example, like, our cost is only based off of the upload time of the source file that you put into us. So you basically just, like, pay for the transcription, and then you can make, agAIn, unlimited clips, unlimited text, etc. And the only reason that that's possible is because, like, the cost of all this has gotten so approachable. So in all reality, like, every company is trying to make content right now, like they're just having to. That's the only way that they can create differentiation. And so we're just trying to be that platform that entire marketing team sit on top of, to be able to build this content marketing engine that's powered by AI.

Mike: So that makes sense. I mean, I think perhaps some people listening to this, who've been in marketing for a while, they've seen a lot of platforms come out recently based on generative AI. So I'm really interested what's swell doing that you think is going to make you successful ahead of some of those other competitors?

Cody: Totally. Yeah, what I am most obsessed with right now is, can we automate, really like tasks or job roles that are occurring within the marketing, like organization? So as an example, we're just starting to build this out internally. It's a social media manager agent, AI, right? We're calling her Jenna internally, but basically, imagine I upload a piece of long form content and swell goes and makes clips, and then it gets scheduled out to your social media platforms. Publishes those. It analyzes the data to see whichever the best performers. It goes back to your clips. It then finds more like that from your back catalog, and it creates this growth flywheel. And so that whole thing that I just described is entirely possible now with AI, right? So like this agent that basically is functioning as a social media manager, all you have to do is provide this raw file, these source materials, and then it just goes on and runs right? And so like, hypothetically, you could just have this AI employee that is doing this task or this joB2Be done for your business. And so maybe it's not perfect, right? When it first goes, like, all these go live, and we're just starting to see these kind of slowly come to market, but in the beginning it's probably like, maybe that's 50% as well as what a human would do at the job. I mean, if I can pay 149 a month for that, and also it's like, creating impact in my business. And then we know that all this is going to get better over time. What happens when this gets to scale? And so, you know, that's just in the social media management side. I think this can be done for, like, Google Ads management, and for, you know, Facebook ads management, I think this can be done for like, programmatic SEO, and, you know, basically an SEO specialist, where they're doing keyword research, writing blog posts, looking at the data to see what made signups, going back, writing more content based on that, right? So it's like these growth flywheels basically get created by these employees, these AI employees that you just hire, and they show up in your slack, and they start working, right? So I think that's where I see all this going is. And what I'm excited about is a, you know, from a product standpoint, is, can we make it or just enable companies where it's like, hey, they just plug into this thing, and you just start proliferating content across all the platforms, wherever your target customer is. And so I think that's the long term where I see this. The biggest differentiator that we're finding, though, within the AI space is you're going to have to build your own custom models, right, that are specifically trAIned for whatever the outcomes are. So for example, like clip making, this is one that's like, we're realizing the AI is like, okay, at finding clips. It is not, you know, as capable as a human, but that's because it's trAIned off of all the clips that exist on a platform, right? So if you think, look at it, it's trAIning data. It's trAIned off of just average YouTube shorts or, you know, tiktoks or Instagram reels in contrast. Like, what people actually want is they want the top performers. So if you went you trAIned a model of, hey, here's what good clips look like. Here's the top 1% then what you're going to see is its clip selection ability is going to be way higher when you do that. But to go and trAIn these, like, we got quoted like it was like, 1.2 million, basically, to go and trAIn like a model like that. And so, like, that's something that we're going to do, like, down the road, basically. But what you're going to see is, like, these core models are going to be fine tuned, or companies are going to trAIn their own models, like the they'll use this kind of base layer, which is the LLM, to do their first version of this, and then the next layer will be like, cool. We found this, you know, custom thing that we're trying to do. Now, let's trAIn a model, basically, to facilitate that, that outcome that we're looking for.

Mike: So that's super cool. And also, I mean, fAIrly scary in terms of the amount of investment you need to trAIn these models.

Cody: So it's getting so much cheaper. I want to throw that out there. So like, that cost, like, 18 months ago, that cost was probably, like, closer to nine to 10 million so, like, it is dramatically decreasing, just because we're really starting to understand how to do these more effectively, and then also just the amount of GPU clusters that are avAIlable, like a company that, for example, you can just go hire. They call it like GPU bursts, but it's called SF compute. So it's literally like sfcompute.com but you can go and you can basically just like, I need, you know, 10 h1, hundreds to run for four days strAIght to trAIn this model, and you can just hire out that time, right? And so traditionally, if you wanted to go get that same cluster, you would have to go and, like, get a whole year's worth of, you know, GPU time, which the only people that could afford that are these large corporations, right? So I think it's going to become more and more approachable. There's also really interesting stuff that's happening in the blockchAIn world now where they're basically saying, Hey, we're going to do distributed compute. So you can, like, plug in your GPUs into this cloud, and then anytime that trAIning is happening on your GPUs, you get pAId out in some cryptocurrency or whatever. And so it's this way to do distributed trAIning on these, like GPU clouds, which is also just super fascinating in its own right. Like what happens there when it as that it gets to scale. So I don't know where any of this goes, but agAIn, I think, well, just the pace that we're seeing the cost of this go down is dramatic. So I don't think it's unreasonable to think, like, in a couple of years, you'll be able to trAIn a model for, you know, 100 to 150 grand, and then that's just trAIned on this very specific action that you're trying to create within the product of your application, which is going to create mode. It's going to create defensibility for the company. So

Mike: So that's super cool. And I mean, people who know me will know I'm actually an X engineer. So I love all the technical stuff. I just want to switch tack. Bit Cody now and look at, you know, what you do with swell? AI, I'm interested. You know, you're a B2B marketer effectively. So how do you promote swell AI?

Cody: Yeah, great question. So our, our world, is a little bit different, agAIn, because we kind of have this consumer side, and then also this, you know, larger media organization, like, for example, you have, like, local news channels that use us as a way to, you know, create content from it. So my background is in what would probably be labeled as, like, degenerate growth tactics. So I like, we cold emAIl, like so many people a month, like close to 100,000 we are also, like, doing pAId ads across all channels. We do programmatic SEO to get in brown lead traffic. We just figured out how to build out basically, I'm talking I'm calling it like a tick tock cloud network. So imagine 100 different tick tock accounts that are all posting dAIly. We created virtual machines and then proxy networks for them so that they don't get shadow banned on the platform. And then we post content that's AI generated. So I have AI write scripts, and then we use Hey Gen to have a video avatar read the script, we do a background removal on the video avatar, and then do like, a recording of the product and the background of that. And like, what we see is like, we can get like, 600 to 700 views on those videos, which is crazy, but when you scale that up to, okay, I have 100 accounts doing that, right? That turns into, you know, 3.2 to 3.5 million views a month, right? And so suddenly, like, I mean, we see this like in the in the data, where just more branded searches happen for the platform as time goes on. You know, to zoom out, my whole strategy with all this is like, take every growth lever that exists, like, wherever your target customer is, like, you need to meet them there, and then what you need to do is basically layer on all of these growth strategies onto each other, and that's how you break the laws of physics. When it comes to marketing, like, there's no other way to do it. It's just being like, almost present, wherever, wherever they are, with some type of educational content or media content, or, you know, or even just an offer for them. So that's we really try to go through every strategy that's avAIlable for the growth of this.

Mike: Well, I mean, it sounds like, you know, as well as trying to produce this quality content, you know, it seems like it's a balance between quality and volume. From your point of view, you've got to get the right quality, but if you don't get the volume. I mean, do you think that reach is a problem for a lot of B2B companies, where they they try and be very focused and very precise, and maybe they don't reach everybody.

Cody: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so I think this is Tiktok changed everything, right? So they invented for you page content. So what is for you page content? It's basically content that the platform decides that you'll have interest in that will most likely keep you on platform for a longer period of time. So how do social media companies make money? Right? It's like they're selling your attention. They want to show you whatever content will suck up as much of your time as possible. And so Tiktok was like, really the first one, it doesn't matter where you follow. It doesn't matter, you know, it just figures out what your interests are, and then it shows you videos based off of what your interests are. And so you're seeing that across all platforms now, YouTube, shorts, Instagram reels. Is this even LinkedIn and, you know, Twitter have both added for you pages, right? Like you see more LinkedIn content now from people you have no idea who they are than you did previously. And so with that in mind, then this becomes a numbers game. Like, yeah, good content matters. But also, like, if the platform is deciding, you know what it's going to show and not show to people based off the engagement, like what we're talking about, you know, on LinkedIn as an example, like, say, you're posting once a week, that means you have four at bats to get the right, you know, right content, right boy, you know, at the right time, etc. In contrast, I have a friend that posts five to six videos, like video shorts a day to LinkedIn. He has 7000 followers on his LinkedIn, but he's doing about 2.7 million views across that before that account on a monthly basis, right? And so what you see is like one out of those five videos will go more viral than the rest. And so it's just a numbers game at that point, especially with this for you, page content change. And so I think in the B2B world, thinking about that, okay, how do I create, you know, a bunch of different because we don't really know what's going to work with this for you page, it's really like you're at the will of the algorithm. We have an idea of what our audience will be interested in, but at the end of the day, it's, you know, you're still still roulette. And so I would rather, personally have more bats, you know, than than not. And agAIn, just to use that baseball analogy, like if you hit one time, and your batting averages, you know, points you like, your likelihood that you actually get on base is super low. But in contrast, if I hit 100 times, right, like, I'm gonna get on base 20 times. And so it's the same idea with content now, and really, the for you page is made this change.

Mike: So that's been fascinating. I think, you know, we've covered an awful lot, from swell AI through to how to market, particularly with Tiktok, I really appreciate your time Cody. Just before you go, there's a couple of quick questions we really like to ask people. And the first is, what's the best bit of marketing advice you've ever been given?

Cody: Yeah, the best marketing advice I ever got was Don't even start the thing on. Sits repeatable so often I see, especially, you know, marketers, where they're like, Okay, we're gonna do this. Like, it's like, they think about it as the in the form of, like, oh, we do a campAIgn, right? And in contrast, like, what we should think about this as is, okay. Can we do this indefinitely, into the future, for forever? Like, we're never gonna stop this, this activity, right? And so that needs to be the filter that we're approaching all of this with. It's really funny because, like, campAIgns were actually the origin of them is when, basically, the advertising industry came into existence post World War Two. They just took that over from the military. Like, that's why it's called the campAIgn. Is because you used to go and you would like perform a campAIgn there was, like, a stark and an end in contrast. Now I think it's evolved where it's like, no, this is like, we have to do this thing, and definitely for forever. Can we sustAInably do that in thinking about this time horizon? Can we do this for two years, every week, every month, every day, whatever that ends up being from a cadence standpoint, if the answer is no, don't even start the thing because it won't make impact for your company. So that was the best advice I ever got. It served me super well. And I think, you know, for every other marketer will probably serve them also.

Mike: That's awesome. I mean, the other thing we like to know is, if you were talking to a young person thinking of entering marketing as a career, what advice would you give to them?

Cody: Start a blog, figure out how to get traffic to it. Figure out how to sell something to them. From that traffic. If you can do that, you're in the top 1% of marketers in the world. And all of this information is on YouTube now, right? Like, I mean, I even have a YouTube channel where, like, all I do is just talk about tactical things, right? So you can find every all of this way more than, you know, when I started my career. I mean, when I started my career, like, I'm, I'm probably, you know, built by the internet as well. But the, I mean, it was like masterminds, and you go deep on, like, black hat forms to figure out how to do any of this stuff. And now people just give it away for free. Like, you don't, you don't need to buy courses. You don't need to do this. I think the only ways look at what other people are doing and then try to imitate that, and then you need to be a practitioner. Like, there's not a course that you can take that will teach this. All of this evolved so quickly, like, I mean, this morning right now, you know, I was just troubleshooting cold emAIl, because what we were doing for cold emAIl three days ago, you know, is it working right now? Right? I'm in the weeds like testing new stuff to figure out why, why this is happening. And so the only way that you can learn this is trial by fire. There's no There's no other way to go about it. But I think with that sAId, it's, it's easier than ever, especially with AI. Like, I mean, you can go to complexity AI and be like, I want to learn how to do Google ads. Like, write a curriculum for me based off of what the internet says is the best way. Boom. It does that. And then it's like, okay, list me YouTube videos for each of those items within that curriculum. Cool. It goes in a list of YouTube videos, and you just built out, you know, a top tier educational at that point. Like, you just learn Google ads, right? It's going to take whatever 10 hours of your time, but that's done. And I think that's, I mean, we're seeing this on the programming side as well. Like, it's become more accessible than ever to go and create softwares, especially as a marketer. Like, if you can learn how to, and this is, like, my call to action, everybody that's in, you know, it's, how do you get more technical with this on the marketing side, because if you can figure out how to prompt AI to just write Python scripts for you as a marketer like you suddenly become god tier, right where it's, like, cool. Like, I mean, I just did this a couple days ago. Like, we're scraping toast their website to pull out lead data. This is for a friend's company. And then we would built a like a proxy that is then going it's googling that that company information. So like the name of the company in the address, it's finding the website on their Google Maps. It's putting that into a folder. And then we built, like a workflow hour. It's like, okay, cool. We take that spreadsheet, it goes into Hunter IO, goes into phantom Buster, we find all the emAIls associated with that company, and now they suddenly have leads, right? And so that whole thing, like, I mean, that used to be, I would have to go get engineering talent, and, I mean, all of these, yeah, that's basically just hacked together with prompts, you know, by prompting AI to write me Python scripts, and then also, like, no code tools like Zapier, right? And so just figuring out how to piece those things together, that's the new future, in my opinion.

Mike: So, Oh, that's awesome. Code, it's been amazing. It feels like we've covered so much. If people are interested, they want to find out about swell AI or have questions, and I have to say here that actually, you persuaded us to try swell AI, and we're now a customer, so we're big fans. You know, what's the best place for them to go?

Cody: Yeah. So swell AI. COMM, you can sign up for free. You can just reach out to me at cody@swellAI.com I'm happy to give you some extra credits to play around with the tool as well.

Mike: Thanks so much, Cody. It's been awesome. Thanks so much for being a guest on marketing B2B technology. Thanks so much for listening to Marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode, and if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes or on your favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.

 


The Changing Landscape of Marketing Automation - HubSpot vs. Marketo

Is Marketo falling behind in the marketing automation space? In this episode, Mike and Hannah discuss the rivalry between HubSpot and Marketo, with HubSpot making moves to lure away Marketo users. They talk about the growth in ad tech spending in the US and Europe and discuss how digital channels are now driving nearly half of B2B revenue. They also offer some tips on using marketing automation to improve the effectiveness of webinars.

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

About Napier

Napier is a PR-lead, full service marketing agency that specialises in the B2B technology sector. We work closely with our clients to build campaigns, focusing on achieving results that have a significant positive impact on their businesses and which, above all, ensure maximum return on their investment.

About Mike Maynard

Mike is the Managing Director/CEO of Napier, a PR and marketing agency for B2B technology companies. A self-confessed geek who loves talking about technology, he believes that combining the measurement, accountability and innovation that he learnt as an engineer with a passion for communicating ensures Napier delivers great campaigns and tangible return on investment.

About Hannah Wehrly

Hannah is the Head of Business Development and Marketing at Napier and leads on pitching, proposal writing, lead nurturing, email marketing, social media and content creation. Hannah joined the Napier team back in 2017 as a Marketing Specialist after completing her degree in Marketing and Communications, and her role focuses on developing new relationships with potential clients.

Time Stamps

[01:10.0] – Mike and Hannah discuss the growth in ad tech spend.

[02:33.1] – Is HubSpot Overtaking Marketo? Mike and Hannah discuss.

[07:56.2] – Mike and Hannah talk about a recent survey that suggest more than half of B2B revenue is now driven through digital channels.

[13:06.3] – How can you use marketing automation to support your webinars?

Follow Mike and Hannah:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Hannah Wehrly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-wehrly-b0706a107/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing Automation and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast – Marketing B2B Technology: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/marketing-b2b-technology/id1485417724

Transcript: Marketing Automation Moment Episode 19 – The Changing Landscape of Marketing Automation - HubSpot vs. Marketo

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Hannah Wherly

Hannah: Hannah, welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast, I'm Hannah Kelly

Mike: and I'm Mike Maynard. This is Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.

Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast, I'm Hannah Wherly

Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard,

Hannah: and today we discuss the crazy growth in ad tech spend.

Mike: HubSpot trying to steal away customers from Marketo the growth of online B to B sales, and Hannah tells me how to make best use of contacts that register for webinars.

Hannah: Hi Mike, welcome back to another episode of the market automation. Moment. How you doing?

Mike: I'm not too bad still recovering from the great Napier Rounders tournament. But apart from that, having a really good time,

Hannah: Well, at least we came away Victoria. So that's what counts.

Mike: Well, yes, I mean, in case anyone from Napier's listening our side one anyway, let's, let's get on, let's start talking about market automation, because I think there's been quite a lot happening in the last couple of weeks.

Hannah: Last couple of weeks. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, did you want to talk a little bit about the ad tech study that we've come across?

Mike: Yeah, so you flagged this to me. I thought it was really interesting. If you look at it, ad tech is definitely not going away. The forecast from Juniper research is that from about 27 billion in the current year, it's going to grow to a spend of about 43 and a half billion by 2029 so there's still massive growth in the spending on ad tech.

Hannah: I know when we look at those figures, it's really crazy to see, but what interested me was that the two biggest areas of growth was actually North America, followed by Central and East Europe, although we do know what you'll do in America, you know, splitting out Central and East Europe to make America look bigger. So you know. But for me, that really aligns with what we're seeing in the areas of growth within marketing with us as an agency itself. So it's interesting to see that the kind of ad tech industries also following suit?

Mike: Yeah, absolutely. And I think there may also be some factors going on in the Far East with the fact people use different platforms and take different approaches. You know, in China, for example, WeChat is huge, and you're using much less of the more generic, you know, web based ad tech. So I'm not sure you can really drive a direct comparison between different regions and say one is more advanced than the other, but it's certainly interesting that we're seeing no end to that spending in Europe and the US.

Hannah: Absolutely, absolutely. So let's sort of move on, Mike, because I'm actually really excited to get your viewpoint on this, because I came across a webinar by HubSpot, which was basically focused on how HubSpot marketing, hub is more advanced than Marketo, and how marketers can migrate from Marketo to HubSpot. Now, this is the first time I've ever seen anything so direct so so like, you know, move away from our competitors. I mean, I actually applaud them, because the landing page was the landing page of my dreams. It was beautiful. It had, you know, other pain points, challenges that you get with migration. What do you think about them being so direct?

Mike: I'm going to call it now. I think Marketo is in trouble. You know, HubSpot, for a start, they're not stupid. I'm sure they've used a tool like HubSpot, for example, to find out what people are searching for. And quite clearly, they've seen a trend where people are looking to migrate away from Marketo. We've also seen it as well. You know, I think what's happening with Salesforce is Salesforce are offering their customers marketing cloud a very aggressive price. And frankly, Marketo is looking expensive. I mean, it used to be, and there's a famous line in lad in the UK, for people like in the UK, that a beer was reassuringly expensive, or Marketo used to be reassuringly expensive, and now it's becoming frighteningly expensive. And I think brands have got to the point where they're saying, no, they're not going to pay this Marketo premium. And I think that, you know, other competitors, like Salesforce and HubSpot have seen an opportunity, and they're eating into that market share. So to me, this is a really important point in the world of market automation, because I could see a major change, and I could see, you know, more and more organizations moving away from, you know, frankly, what is one of the premier, if not the premier player in the market? It's both exciting and also a little concerning as well.

Hannah: I mean, I fully agree, and I actually want to take us back to a conversation we had maybe about two months ago on the podcast, and that was when HubSpot actually changed their pricing model, and so they introduced the different seats. And, you know, we said at the time, I wonder if this is actually going to affect anything. Will marketers, you know, find this helpful? And I think you're seeing that, yes they are. And you're so right about the price point of Marketo and, you know, Salesforce and HubSpot, you could arguably say, are maybe broken down a bit more into the licenses of what you can buy into. What you don't want to use, and Marketo maybe needs to relook at their pricing structure and see how they can be similar.

Mike: I totally agree. I mean, you know, this is a message to the guys at Marketo, the world has changed, and your competitors have caught up. And yes, it's true that, you know, if you look back a few years, Marketo was able to scale to far greater levels anyone else and was far more practical. With big data sets. That's no longer the case, and a lot of the competitors are actually selling really good products at a much lower price. And this is going to move the market. And I think we're going to see this change. We're also probably going to see the likes of HubSpot challenged by other cheaper products at the low end of the market. So I don't think HubSpot is going to have it all their own way, but the world is changing, and I think that some of the more established market automation vendors, they could be in trouble unless they recognize this and change their strategies.

Hannah: Oh, absolutely, Mike, that's such a great point. And I for one, are actually quite excited, because I'm excited to see the marketing materials. And I'm not saying they're all going to war, but I think it's going to be interesting to see how the market unfolds.

Mike: You make such a good point there, Hannah, and I think, you know, it's got to the point now where the reasons to change are much bigger than the reasons to stay. I mean, previously, people typically, when they signed up with a market automation platform, they really didn't want to move because of the pain of moving. And don't get me wrong, there's incredible pain in moving from one vendor to another, and we've done it in APO. We've had clients who've done it. It's, it's really hard. But I think you're right. I think that, you know, more and more customers are going to be prepared to change. They're looking for savings. They're looking for products that are benefited to what they want. And we're going to see some, you know, real big moves in the market. It's gonna be exciting to see what happens.

Hannah: Absolutely and you know, I would just add to that, you know, as you said, we migrated. So a few years ago we migrated from HubSpot to sharp spring. And what HubSpot is communicating is exactly the blogs and the landing pages that I wish I had at the time when we were migrating platforms. So it also seems as well as like, this isn't a one off thing. This is a thought through strategy. They know what's happening. They know what marketers are looking for. And if I was using Marketo right now and I came across that webinar, I'd be like, Wow, this is exactly what I'm looking for.

Mike: Yeah, it's gonna be exciting.

Hannah: Well, let's move on, Mike, because I want to talk about a B to B survey. So this was conducted by three Gen to really understand the challenges and opportunities that B to B organizations are facing. Interestingly, it was around 650 B to B professionals that took place across the USA, UK, France and Germany, and I think it revealed some quite interesting stats. So, you know, I'm going to kick us off, and then we could have a little bit of chat. But I think one of the things that I really loved was that they said that digital channels are accounting for nearly half of their total company revenue.

Mike: And I think this is a surprise. I mean, maybe the first thing to say is, you know, the study was conducted, obviously, for a customer. People pay for these things. The customer is a kenio, which is a product information management, a PIM system. So their business is selling to people who sell online. So there's a lot of incentives to get these results. I'm not saying the results have been, you know, skewed, or the audience has been handpicked, but you've got to look at it and say, maybe this is a little bit high. I mean, 50% for B to B seems quite a high number for online sales. Having said that, without doubt, the number is high and it's growing quickly. So you know, whether you think it's it's accurate, or whether you think that, you know, maybe it's a little high and you know, it's 10% high, it really doesn't matter, because in a couple of years, it's going to be right. You be right, and then we'll be overtaking it. So it is really exciting. I think online sales for B to B, they're definitely growing. Maybe in some areas they're never going to be there. I mean, we worked with people who, you know, provide infrastructure to large environments. So for example, in airport infrastructure, that's not going to be an online sale ever. You know, that's a complex sale. But in a lot of other areas of B to B, I think basically customers, they don't want to talk to salespeople. They can get the information from the marketing materials, and they'll go and buy online. So it's a great servant. I love the fact you highlighted it.

Hannah: You made a really great point there, Mike, that people don't want to speak to sales. And this is something that we've seen as a trend. I mean, maybe for the last year and a half, it's been something that we've been speaking about. And you know, the survey said that 52 of these respondents were actually focusing on making their product information more available online, because the marketing materials are so much more important than ever. And I think I have a question for you, actually, because, you know, we've talked about them making it more online, but is this through market automation? Is this through their website? Is this through things like marketplaces, or is it a little bit of everything?

Mike: I mean, it's a really good question. And obviously akinio, who sponsored the survey, is hoping that. Because companies want to put more product information online, they'll go buy PIMS, and they'll hopefully go to Kenya. So I think you know that that is kind of the motivation behind the survey. You've always got to take these surveys with a pinch of salt. Course, having said that, I think for sure, B to B is is lagging consumer in terms of online sales, and while some companies are very good at getting information online, other companies are not so good. And there is a real need from a large number of B to B companies to enable online sales by giving customers sufficient information online to be able to purchase without being being bothered by a salesperson. You know, I used to be a salesperson, so I'm not anti salesperson, but sometimes you're just not needed. You're just getting the way. And so it's really important that companies look at this and think about it and work out, you know, what their e commerce strategy is. And you did mention something I thought was was really interesting. Of the survey, nine out of 10 said that they were going to use marketplaces more in the next two years. You know, this is interesting, because a lot of B to B companies today, they're selling through their own website. It's quite formal channels to move to marketplaces. That's a big change, because to some extent, there's a bit of a lack of control there.

Hannah: I think that's a great point. Mike, can you expand a little bit on why you think there's a lack of control? I'm interested, and I'm interested. I'm sure our listeners are too.

Mike: It's a great question. But obviously, you know, in a marketplace, effectively, you've got a website that's trying to connect buyers and sellers. So whilst you can list your products, you can't really control what else is listed. So you're going to get competitors. You're potentially even going to get counterfeit products on the marketplace. We ran a survey recently for a client. Can't talk too much about it, because the results are coming out soon, but the interesting thing was, was that actually there was identified a problem with counterfeits, and there was also actually very little desire from the buyers to increase their activity on marketplaces. They felt less secure. I think on those marketplaces so interesting. You know, businesses are pushing harder on marketplaces. I'm not surprised. It gives them a much bigger audience. It gives a much bigger reach, rather than using their website. But having said that, maybe the buyers have been burnt, perhaps, you know, it's a little bit less controlled, so I don't know what's going to happen. I think the one thing we can be sure about is that, you know, e commerce in B to B, it's certainly not a fad. It's growing. And I think companies need to understand more and more how to enable transactions online, because that's what their customers want. Don't you agree? Oh,

Hannah: I fully agree, Mike. And I think you made some fantastic points there, because, as you said, the high number are looking at marketplaces, but that shouldn't be the only avenue. And really setting up your website. And then, you know, the following kind of nurturing outside of that for success, for e commerce is absolutely should be a focus. Totally agree. But this is a good segue, actually, Mike, because let's move on to our insightful Tip of the Week. And this week, I want to talk about webinars and how you can use your marketing automation platform to support your webinars. Do you have any initial thoughts?

Mike: Well, I think I should throw this back to you. I mean, you're the one who runs the webinars at Napier and I, surprisingly, for once, have talked way too much of this podcast. So I'd love to hear what you think about, you know, using market automation for webinars, both before and after the event.

Hannah: That's a fantastic question. Mike, and I think the first thing that I'm going to say is that you must be syncing up your webinar platform to your market automation platform. If you are not, you are missing one of the biggest trick in the books, and you can do this directly. So you know, some market automation platforms normally the bigger name, so HubSpot, Marketo, Salesforce, you can sync directly into platforms like webinar geek, for example. Or you might have a smaller market automation platform like sharp spring that won't have integrations, and that's where you really need to use a platform, something like Sapir, where you can build that integration into the platforms. Now at Napier, and we do this for several of our clients as well, send in several emails that sync up into these platforms. Is so vital to raising awareness to your database of your webinar. And I would say you need to be sending a minimum three four ahead of your webinar. But the fantastic thing about making sure that these platforms are synced is really the follow up, because someone might not be in our database. They might sign up directly through webinar geek and then into the contact is created in the demarc automation platform. I can then use that for follow up. We can send emails. We can enroll them into our lead nurturing sequences, and to me, that's one of the biggest benefits, because you narrow down your manual work of making sure that the people who signed up for your webinar are actually being nurtured at the same. Time.

Mike: I think that's great advice. Hannah, I mean, I hear a lot of people getting frustrated because the days of the pandemic were kind of the golden age of the webinar, where lots of people with nothing much else to do were coming to webinars. It was fairly easy to get attendance. Now it's much harder. And I think a lot of our clients are very focused on getting attendance, but they missed the point. Actually, you know, the most important thing is that follow up afterwards. And as you emphasize having a plan or a strategy to use those contacts to nurture them and build them into opportunities and customers, I think that's an excellent insightful tip.

Hannah: Thank you, Mike. And I think, yeah, I would just add to it is, I think people get lost in the quantity of numbers, but really it should be the quality of people that are signing up for your webinars and the people you want to add to your database. So to me, a webinar has always been an avenue for growing your database, and I would rather have 25 really high quality people that we can speak to, rather than 100 people who we're never going to speak to again. And that's one thing I think both our clients and you know, the guys listening to this podcast really keep in mind.

Mike:  Love it, and it's probably the story of digital, isn't it? It's not about the volume, it's about the quality, something we keep talking about.

Hannah: Absolutely well, thanks for another great conversation.

Mike: Thanks Hannah, and hopefully our listeners will subscribe to the podcast and hear us on the next episode in a couple of weeks.

Hannah: Thanks for listening to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast.

Mike: Don't forget to subscribe in your favorite podcast application, and we'll see you next time you.


A Napier Podcast Interview with Suzi McNicholas at Johnson Controls

Suzi McNicholas, Director of Marketing for Residential & Light Commercial HVAC at Johnson Controls, discusses her career in B2B technology marketing. She talks about how marketing in the industrial sector has changed, the challenges of getting stakeholders to understand what marketing really is, and what B2B companies can learn from consumer marketing.

About Johnson Controls

Johnson Controls transforms the environments where people live, work, learn and play. As a global leader in smart, healthy and sustainable buildings, Johnson Controls’ mission is to reimagine the performance of buildings to serve people, places and the planet.

Building on a history of nearly 140 years of innovation, Johnson Controls deliver the blueprint of the future for industries such as healthcare, schools, data centers, airports, stadiums, manufacturing and beyond through OpenBlue, a comprehensive digital offering.

About Suzi McNicholas

Suzi McNicholas is Director of Marketing for Residential & Light Commercial HVAC at Johnson Controls. She leads the marketing team to support new product introductions and integrated marketing campaigns.

She has a 25+ year career in progressive B2B marketing roles including digital marketing campaigns, lead generation, branding, public relations, new product introductions, content creation, events, communications, and budget management.  Prior to joining Johnson Controls, McNicholas built an integrated marketing team at Honeywell in the Industrial Safety Products division.

McNicholas holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Presbyterian College in Clinton, SC and a Post-Graduate degree in English and American Literature from the University of Hull in England.  She currently resides in Charlotte, NC.

Time Stamps

[00:47.5] – Suzi discusses her 25+ year career in marketing.

[05:32.7] – What are the differences to marketing to a channel partner versus an end user?

[08:55.3] – How do you manage short term and long term goals? Suzi discusses.

[13:28.2] – Suzi discusses how audiences reliance on sales is shifting.

[15:31:9] – Suzi talks about what she sees being the biggest changes in marketing over the next five years.

[18:50.8] – Suzi shares some advice to those looking to get into marketing.

[19:58.8] – Suzi’s contact details.

Quotes

“Don’t get emotionally attached to the outcome because your budget’s going to get cut… maybe your campaign isn’t going the way you’d want it to… that’s ok, you’re going to learn from what’s happening… you’re going to spend a whole lot of time frustrated and upset if you’re emotionally attached to these outcomes.” Suzi McNicholas, Director of Marketing for Residential & Light Commercial HVAC at Johnson Controls.

“People aren’t going to buy until they’re ready, and that 70% of the time that they’re spending before reaching out is research.” Suzi McNicholas, Director of Marketing for Residential & Light Commercial HVAC at Johnson Controls.

Follow Suzi:

Suzi McNicholas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzimcnicholas/

Johnson Controls website: https://www.johnsoncontrols.com/

Johnson Controls on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/johnson-controls/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Suzi McNicholas at Johnson Controls

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Suzi McNicholas

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today.

Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier today, I'm joined by Suzi McNicholas. Suzi's the marketing director of Ducted Systems, Residential Light and Commercial at Johnson Controls. Welcome to the podcast, Suzi.

Suzi: Thanks very much for having me.

Mike: It's great to have you on the podcast. What we like to do is get all guests to you know, give us a bit of an introduction and really tell us about themselves. So can you give us a little bit of background about your career and how you've got your current role?

Suzi: Sure. So I've been a B2B marketer for 28 years. The vast majority of them have been in industrial manufacturing.

Mike: What is it you like about industrial manufacturing that's got you to stay there because you've been in some other industries as well.

Suzi: Yeah, I like industrial manufacturing because I find it interesting to try to make things that may not be super exciting, really exciting. And it's also been unchallenging in that if you say the word industrial from a marketing perspective, it can sometimes imply, you know, this sort of old style thinking, you know, sort of like, oh, we have a new product. Let's make a brochure and go to a trade show. And it's very different now. And so bringing these environments into, you know, what you and I would consider modern marketing, is actually a lot of fun for me, and it's a great challenge.

Mike: And so tell us a little bit about this. You know, maybe not so exciting area working at the moment, ducted system. So is that HVAC type equipment?

Suzi: It is, yes, for residential, ultimately, our products go into people's homes and and also some light commercial up to, we call it up to 150 tons, so a variety of buildings might use our rooftop units.

Mike: And, you know, having moved into industrial systems, you mentioned that industrial as a category is seen maybe as being perhaps a little bit behind the times when it comes to marketing. I mean, do you think having experience in other sectors has really helped you move forward when you've moved into industrial.

Suzi: Yes, and in fact, I use consumer examples all the time when I'm educating my stakeholders and others in the business about what marketing really is. That's an ongoing challenge. I think for all marketers. I saw a meme once that said all marketing job descriptions should come with a bullet point that says, must be willing to spend at least 50% of your time explaining what marketing is to non marketers. So it's an ongoing conversation. You know, I'm constantly educating people on what marketing really is.

Mike: I mean, I couldn't agree more. I think it's super important, particularly within the organization, to explain what you're trying to do and what you're trying to achieve. I mean, one of the things you mentioned, and I think some of the listeners on the podcast who are very much B2B would have definitely picked up, was the fact that, you know, a lot of your products get sold to consumers. So I mean, presumably that's through a sales channel. So are you actually doing elements of consumer marketing, or is it really a pure B2B play?

Suzi: Well, we are not targeting the consumer ourselves directly, because we don't have the money or the resources to try to do that. So typically, we're two levels away from the actual consumer. We sell our equipment to distributors, and then the distributors then sell to the installers or dealers or contractors. Those are we use those words interchangeably. What we will do is provide assets that speak to the consumer and give those assets to the contractors so that then they can take that information and use it to market to their audience, which is the consumer, so we're sort of three layers away from the actual homeowner, but that's what we do, to try to empower the contractors to be more effective in their markets.

Mike: That's interesting. I mean, is the product? You know, perhaps the brand is more important to those installers, those contractors, because they're the guy's going to get a call if it breaks down, then maybe it is to consumers who don't feel able to differentiate. Is that a reasonable summary the market, or is it somewhat different?

Suzi: Yeah, that is a reasonable summary in general, and there are always exceptions, but I would say in general, consumers aren't researching the actual brand of the air conditioning unit that you're going to install. The consumer's primary concern is, is my contractor certified? Do they know what they're doing? You know, really, the consumer is just thinking, please make me comfortable in my home, right? That's really all they want. Just make sure it works and that my contractor knows what they're doing, and then I can go back to my contractor if I ever have. Issues or problems. We do get some homeowner inquiries directly on our website, but in in general, those are folks looking for support, not necessarily, you know, looking to speak to a salesperson about the actual unit. They use their contractors for that.

Mike: That makes a lot of sense. And so that's why, you know, in your role, it's very much B2Be but it's marketing to a channel, rather necessary marketing to an end user. Is that really different? You know, trying to persuade a channel partner to take a product rather than an end user? Or do you see it as being very similar?

Suzi: It's different because, particularly with the contractor, they want to know that they can install this product and it's going to work, right? They don't want to be called out to make repairs or change things. They want to sort of set it and forget it, right? So it's important to them that the quality is there, but also the serviceability. So how can they access if there is need for a repair? How easy is it to get into the unit? Things like that. These are the things that we think about when we're engineering the products themselves.

Mike: That makes a lot of sense. But looking at what you do, I mean, you're obviously somebody who's looked at integrated marketers across the whole of marketing, in many of your roles, what do you think the key is to creating campaigns that really work across, you know, multiple channels and multiple tactics?

Suzi: Well, first and foremost, you know, I think the mark of any great marketer is the ability to put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. So the message is critical, and I'm sure that's no surprise to anybody who is listening, from a marketing standpoint, right? The very essence of marketing is to try to create an emotional connection to the person doing the buying, but an integrated marketing campaign, once you get the message down and it's the right message for your target audience, in my mind, includes a mix of tactics, and you have to reach people in multiple ways. And for me, you know where they live is majority online these days, so it has to you have to hit them from every direction that you can. It has to be email, it has to be social, it has to be some digital advertising on the websites that your target audience may spend time on, even in our case, radio ads. If you think about those contractors who are out in their trucks all day long, right? They're they're listening to the radio. Radio works great for us, and to some extent, in person events, to kind of supplement those digital tactics. So I'd say marketing is more complex than it's ever been before. I mean, when I started, marketing was really advertising and nothing more, but that's when the internet was a baby. So to me, it's a mix of tactics. And then the other piece that's so critical is the technology. If you don't have the right tech stack, you can reach your audience, but measuring becomes very, very difficult, so it's important that you've got the right marketing automation platforms, that your website and landing pages have the right technology, so that you can kind of watch the user, you know, click on an ad from social and go to the landing page, and then what do they do next? And so on. So it's a it's the message, it's the mix of tactics, and it's having the right technology.

Mike: In my mind, that's fascinating. I mean, I love the example of, you know, radio advertising reaching your audience really well, because I think a lot of people wouldn't. They normally assume radio advertising is really pure consumer, but you've clearly got a market there that, as you say, is listening to radio a lot.

Suzi: Absolutely and even sometimes billboards, you know, we will provide the the asset, you know, needed the graphics and the design needed if somebody wants to put up a billboard in in their market. So, yeah, you know, every audience is, is different, and some tactics work with some audiences and others, not necessarily, but in our world, it's an interesting mix, for sure.

Mike: And does that mean you're continually experimenting and trying new tactics? I mean someone at some point must have said, Hey, we could try the radio. And I guess there was some pushback there. Is there always experimentation.

Suzi: Absolutely. And in fact, the most recent campaign that we ran was the first time that we actually added radio in, and it worked. And so it's it's great when you introduce these new sort of tactics and find out what works, but also important is what doesn't work. You know, there if a campaign isn't going the way that you want, that's okay, because you're still learning from it. Now you know kind of what not to do. So yes, we're always testing. We're always trying different things. It's important that you do that. And you know, with the way that technology is changing, I'm sure we'll be doing things in the next five years that we haven't even thought of yet.

Mike: That sounds really exciting. I mean, one, one question, you know, as a marketing leader, how do you balance this requirement for, you know, short term returns through lead generation, for example, and then this longer goal of building brand and establishing reputation. I mean, do you have an approach that lets you balance your activities and your budget?

Suzi: That's a great question. You know, all marketers go through this, right? We are to. Day more than ever before, forced to do more with less. And so, yes, it's an interesting balance. You know, leads are very, very important, and generating those leads are very important for us as marketers to be able to justify, you know, the work that we're doing. But we do also pepper in thought leadership and other types of, you know, content creation that we know will live for, you know, a year or more, let's say, on our website or somewhere on the internet that people can access. And those are the activities that I think help build the brand over time. Because when you when you focus on thought leadership, you're positioning yourself as an expert in your field, which we absolutely are, in our industry in particular, but it's a balance, particularly when you're trying to convince those who hold the purse strings to invest in something that may not be seen as direct lead generation, but more of a strategy for the Long Haul.

Mike: I mean, you're obviously not afraid to try things. I mean, you've mentioned radio. Are there any other sort of innovative campaigns you've run recently that have been, you know, particularly successful, or, you know, maybe leverage something new?

Suzi: So what I will say is, you know, we are doing what today, what I think you would define as, you know, standard integrating marketing campaigns. But I have been looking, I look all the time at the competition and see who's doing what out there that's different or new. And I will say that, while it's somewhat controversial, Tiktok is a very interesting marketing platform in my mind. Now, most people think of Tiktok as, you know, the fun dances, or, you know, whatever it may be. That's why I joined, right? Just to watch my kids do cute things. But I have done a little research, and there's a competitor that has a branch in Austria. I won't name them by name, but they they did a campaign over the holidays where they featured cartoon characters interacting with their products. And it was basically like Santa Claus and all the elves were interacting with their products, you know, around the holidays. So it was set with, you know, snow and there's a fireplace and there's a Christmas tree. And it was just an, a real interesting way to promote themselves, you know, in a seasonal type of campaign that people may not necessarily associate with HVAC or comfort, but if you think about it, you know, if you think about Christmas and the fireplace and the tree, you know this is kind of warm, cozy, very comfortable type of feel. So I just thought it was a very interesting way to engage with their target audience, you know, around the holidays in this kind of feel good way.

Mike: I love that. I think that's a great idea. And, you know, I think it's been really interesting, Suzi, because you've talked about a lot of things that I suspect other marketers in between would be quite afraid to try. So, you know, I really hope you've encouraged marketers to try something new, try something different. In terms of talking to you on the podcast, I'd really like to talk a little bit about some of the things that are changing in marketing and some of the trends. And in particular, we're seeing a lot of research that suggests that customers are spending less time talking to salespeople and more time interacting with marketing content with your industry, is that the case are you seeing the same thing? Are your contractors and your distributors spending less time with sales?

Suzi: Yes. And interestingly enough, I just recently saw a statistic that's relevant to this question, from a study in 2023 called the B2B buyer experience report that was published by a company called six cents. The statistic is that 70% of the buyer journey happens before the very first conversation, and it's 83% of the time that the first contact is initiated by the buyer. So what that tells me is people aren't going to buy until they're ready, and that 70% of the time that they're spending before they reach out is research, right? Think about it. As consumers, we behave in the very same way. Let's say you're going to buy a, you know, pick anything, you're going to buy a new camera. You're probably going to spend some time online, you know, researching and and looking at recommendations and referrals and things of that nature, it's exactly the same way in B2B, those, those lines between B2B and B to C are starting to blur a little bit. So, yes, that 70% is all marketing. It's the content that marketers put out on the web. You know, it's the trying to get, you know, our content in front of people on social or digital advertising or email, you know, that kind of thing. So, yes, that initial part is very, very important, because, again, they're 70% of the way through their buyers decision before they ever reach out to a salesperson. Yeah.

Mike: I think that's a great stat. And, you know, I wish a lot of people in charge of allocating budgets would recognize how important marketing was. You know, it's been a big trend, and I think covid has really impacted how much people want to talk with salespeople.

Suzi: Don't you absolutely, totally agree with you?

Mike: I mean, I think looking forward, I'm interested to know. You know, there's a lot of technology out there. Ai probably is the thing people talk about most, or I'm not sure it's the biggest thing. What do you think is going to be the biggest thing changing marketing in the next five years?

Suzi: I do think it's going to be AI, but I don't necessarily think that AI is going to take anybody's jobs away. I think that it will become a wonderful productivity tool for marketers to pull information down and help develop business cases for what it is that we are trying to do. So I see it as a I see it as a positive, even though I will tell you, personally, I'm still kicking the tires, and I'm not exactly sure how it's going to work, but we're looking into some of those platforms now as a company to determine, you know, which is the right one for us to start down this, you know, AI journey, if you will.

Mike: I mean, it is fascinating, and AI certainly is going to be a factor. It's gonna be interesting to see, I think, how it changes. I think we're all looking to try and wear that out at the moment. I mean, with this amount of change, how do you think the role of marketing leaders, and maybe your role particularly, is going to move over the you know, next few years?

Suzi: Well, I'm coming, I'm going to come back to my education piece. Because if you and I as marketers are kind of looking at this like not exactly sure how this is all going to play out, then I can assure you that anybody outside of marketing doesn't know. So it's going to be again that continuing education helping you know our stakeholders and leadership understand the benefits of it and how we will apply it. And there are some concerns around security when it comes to AI, you know, and making sure that whatever we upload that might be proprietary company information, you know, how does all of that work? These are some of the things that we are trying to work out now. So as a marketer, how this is going to impact me and my role is going to be twofold. It's going to be, you know, continuing that education and just adding one more topic to the level of marketing education that we have to give but also, how exactly are we going to use it? How will AI be kind of a helper or an assistant to me, these are the questions that I don't necessarily have answers to, but those are the two things that pop into my mind when you ask that question.

Mike: That's fascinating. I mean, it's been really interesting talking to you, and I'm aware you're very busy. So before you go, there's a couple of standard questions we'd like to ask everyone. So one of the things I'd like to say, you've given us lots of advice. But Suzi, what's the best marketing advice you've ever been given?

Suzi: Don't get emotionally attached to the outcome, because that you know your budget's going to get cut, right? And that's frustrating, right? And maybe your campaign isn't going the way that you want it to. And like I mentioned earlier, that's okay, too. You're going to learn from what's happening. And even with things like budget cuts, you know, it gets frustrating, and a project that you really want to do gets, you know, put on the back burner because of budget cuts, you're going to spend a whole lot of time frustrated and upset if you're emotionally attached to these outcomes. So in my mind, it's you got to roll with it. Things are changing all the time. Disappointments happen, so try to stay as objective as possible and do your job to the best of your ability.

Mike: I love it. That's great. The other question I want to ask you is, if you were talking to a young person about to embark on a career in marketing, what advice would you give them?

Suzi: The first thing I would say is, go for it. I love what I do. I think marketing is a fantastic career, and you have to be able to balance your sort of right part of your brain and your left part of your brain. So it gives you an opportunity to be really creative, which is the fun stuff, but then you also have to be able to look at the numbers and start to put that together in a way that can continually educate and convince your stakeholders that what you're doing works and that you are positively impacting revenue. So it's a balance between the creative side and the analytical side. So if you think you can do that, jump on in the water's warm.

Mike: That's awesome and a really positive way to end. I love that. I've really enjoyed our conversation, Suzi, I think particularly, I've loved the way you've talked about some very different tactics and had the courage to try those, and also talked about the importance of educating people about what you're trying to do in marketing, it's been really enjoyable getting to know you. So thank you very much. If people have any questions, you know what's the easiest way for them to contact you?

Suzi: Well, you can find me on. LinkedIn, it's Suzi, S, U, Z, I, and the last name is Mick, Nicholas, and that's m, c, and then the name Nicholas, N, I, C, H, O, L, A, S, and you'll find me. I'm currently employed at Johnson Controls, but we did just get sold. My business unit just got sold to Bosch, so we're in a transition period, but I'll be with Johnson Controls here for the next 10 to 12 months.

Mike: I think sounds like there's a whole new set of challenges for you to face over the next couple of years. I wish you the very best for that. Maybe we should have you on once you've made that transition to talk about it, that could be a great discussion. Suzi, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Suzi: Thank you delighted to be here, and thanks again for your time. I appreciate it.

Mike: Thanks so much for listening to marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode, and if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes or on your favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.


A Napier Podcast Interview with John Harrison - Schaffner

John Harrison, UK Managing Director and Global VP of Marketing at Schaffner, a global company specialising in providing solutions for EMC and power quality, joins the latest episode of the Marketing B2B Technology podcast.

In the episode, John discusses the challenges and benefits of balancing two job roles and emphasises the importance of aligning sales and marketing to strengthen the brand and drive sales. He believes in leading with a forward thinking approach, understanding customer needs, and staying ahead of industry trends, particularly in the niche area of EMC.

About Schaffner

Schaffner plays a vital role in building a sustainable future in the new era of electrification. Headquartered in Switzerland and with subsidiaries around the world, Schaffner is a global leader in electromagnetic solutions that ensure the efficient and reliable operation of electronic systems. The Schaffner Group are experts in EMC filter solutions, harmonic filters, electromagnetic components and electromagnetic solutions. Our passionate and knowledgeable employees empower our customers to develop reliable electronic devices and systems that meet compliance standards and deliver increased energy efficiency.

This is how we deliver…

MORE POWER TO YOU.

About John Harrison

John Harrison joined Schaffner in April 2022.  He is the UK MD and Global VP Marketing.  He has spent 25 years in the electronics industry primarily within the connector space for Molex.  John has extensive international experience having lived and worked across Europe and the US, covering a range of markets from Industrial to transportation.  His most recent experience prior to Schaffner was within the IOT space for Ramtech heading up their Global Marketing and Sales activities. John is passionate about EV and increasing speed of adoption across the globe.

Time Stamps

[00:43:0] – John provides some background to his career.

[03:30.8] – John discusses how he manages the demands of both the UK Managing Director role and Global VP of Marketing role.

[05:04:7] – John shares his views on whether he thinks marketing and sales should be closer together or not.

[06:05:2] – John talks about what he’s looking for from marketing to make the role of MD more successful.

[13:38:9] – John shares his approach of trying to get salespeople, marketing people and engineers working more closely.

[19:31:0] – John talks about how he sees his role changing with technology over the next five years.

[20:49:1] – John shares some advice to those looking to get into marketing.

Quotes

“Marketing and sales need to be closer together. The ultimate aim for both is to drive more customers and value for the brand. We need to focus on the customer’s needs, whether it’s through direct interaction or brand messaging.” John Harrison, UK Managing Director and Global VP of Marketing at Schaffner.

“From a sales perspective, it’s not just about leads. It’s about ensuring the brand is seen as a partner and thought leader, especially in specialised areas like EMC.” John Harrison, UK Managing Director and Global VP of Marketing at Schaffner.

“It’s crucial to put yourself in the customer’s shoes. If a piece of marketing material doesn’t resonate with the customer, it’s not effective. Marketing should be about creating content that truly addresses the customer’s needs.” John Harrison, UK Managing Director and Global VP of Marketing at Schaffner

Follow John:

John Harrison on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-harrison-3552ba14/

Schaffner website: https://www.schaffner.com/

Schaffner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/schaffner-gruppe/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with John Harrison - Schaffner

Speakers: Mike Maynard, John Harrison

Mike: Thanks for listening to marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing.

Today, welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. Today I'm joined by John Harrison. John is the UK Managing Director and the global VP of Marketing for Schaffner. Welcome to podcast, John.

John: Thanks, Mike. It's great to be here.

Mike: It's great to have you on. And as always, you know, what we'd like to do is let you tell us a bit about your career and how you've got into the role that you're currently holding?

John: Yeah, well, it's a little bit of a long story, really, mate. I spent, you know, sort of early part of my career in sales at a connected company called Molex. I'm sure many of your listeners will be well aware of covering a number of customers across the UK. And you know, as we've been through the various sales cycles, you move from customer to customer or Market to Market, and so it's given me a really good, broad overview of what's happening in the marketplace, where the technologies are moving. And after, you know, around 10 years or so in those sorts of roles, I moved at the Netherlands for my first overseas role, where I was had my first sort of glimpses into marketing, more Industry Marketing, as opposed to corporate and brand marketing. And that was a military area, really quite a short term assignment before I moved up to Sweden, where I moved into more sales management and general management. Now there was really my first opportunity to run international teams, and that was something that I really enjoyed, being able to travel having a multicultural team. And it was really those, I guess, first couple of years, or first three, four years in those roles that really pointed me in the direction I wanted to sort of continue in my career. So I moved back to the UK to take on a larger European role at Molex, and before then going over to the US for a role within the industrial space. So that was a really interesting time of of not just my life, but my family's life, moving over there again, experiencing something different. And I think that's really the key to an interesting career. And to sort of build your experience is to try different things. Certainly not everything's going to go to plan, but it gives you the opportunity to try something different. I then moved back to Europe and left the industry briefly to work in a construction wireless company, and that's where I moved into a sales and marketing director role, and again, that gave me sort of the first insights into marketing agencies. We started to talk to them about, how could we promote our products, how could we build our brand across the industry? And that gave me really good experience in working with agencies, particularly in trying to find the right agency. I think that, you know, that's key, and that's been really good for our work with Napier. And next I moved to Schaffner, where I am now in my UK MD role, and I've taken on the global VP role.

Mike: So that's interesting. I mean, obviously, from an outsider, it sounds a bit like they had two jobs, and they gave them both to you, rather than necessarily having a single job that combined UK Managing Director and global VP. I mean, how do you manage to balance demands those two really quite different roles?

John: Yeah, well, interestingly, the original role I applied for was the UK MD role and chatter had been through a big rebranding exercise. Just as I started, I saw there was a huge opportunity for us to do more with the brand, and I'd sort of given some ideas and made my sort of voice heard. And the CEO at the time said, yeah, that's all that's that's great, John. So if you want to do something, then you go and do it. So the role for the VP role came sort of by accident, really, and it's something that I've, you know, I've really enjoyed, but to balance the two roles, it's really about priority. Of course, I have customers in my UK role, and I need to focus on those. First of all, they're paying the bills, but the VP of marketing role gives me an opportunity to really look a little bit more longer term. I'm also fortunate that I have a really good team in both areas that enables me to sort of have the time to focus on on both. And whereas they're doing the day to day activities. We also work, obviously, with our various partners and agencies, that enables me to have the time to think about what we're doing on a more strategic basis.

Mike: And presumably, if you do a good job in that VP of marketing role, it's actually going to make that UK MD role easier, because it will drive more sales.

John: Yes, exactly, and it gives me an opportunity to really see whether the things that we're doing in the marketing side are actually having an impact on the sales side.

Mike: I mean, that's interesting, because people talk a lot about this, this separation between marketing and sales. Is it your belief that marketing sales should be closer together, or do you think it's better running them separately?

John: I think that. To be closer together. And you know, if you think about what the ultimate aim for both activities, it's about customers. Maybe you know they're talking to customers in little different way. But ultimately, we need to drive, you know, more customers, more value for shasner and for any brand that in that matter, towards us. And that's about saying the right things, understanding the value that we bring, understanding problems, understanding the solutions, and whether that's in front of the customer, over a desk or over a design, or whether it's electronically, or thinking about the brand as a whole, the customer has to be the focus of all of that activity.

Mike: That's interesting, because I wonder what in your sales role, your more sales focused role, as MD, you're expecting from marketing? I mean, is it the classic, we want good leads? Is it we want the market to be interested in the products and be aware of them? I mean, what are you looking for from marketing to make that MD role more successful?

John: Well, the easy answer to that is, is leads. Everybody wants good leads. But that's not quite as simple as it seems. And often, if you put too much focus on lead activity, you can really potentially damage the brand. And over the long term, you know, if you're not putting out good, good assets, good content, then the leads won't come. So it's a careful balance. What I really want, as my UK MD hat on, is for customers to see the brand as a partner, as a thought leader, someone who really understands, in our case, EMC. So if our customers are thinking anything to do with EMC, we come to someone who knows about it, and that Schaffner, then I've done a good job with my other hat on my my VP of marketing hat. I mean,

Mike: it sounds like to summarize it, you want to be seen as a leader. You want people to to have you at the top of their list when they're thinking about a supplier for in schaffner's case, EMC,

John: yes, definitely. And if you think about EMC, it's quite a narrow field within electronics, and there aren't that many people who really understand EMC. So you know, our job is to really understand EMC to the highest level of detail and allow our customers to focus on what they do well, which is creating innovative new products and solutions for their customers. When it comes to EMC, we want them to say, I'm not so sure about EMC, let's go to Schaffner. They know what they're doing. We've seen the white papers. We've seen the articles. We know they understand EMC, let's bring them in to start to talk to them about solutions for our products and our solutions.

Mike: I love that. I think that's a really clear vision for marketing. So on the other side, you know, when you see problems, what do you think from a sales point of view, marketers tend to get wrong.

John: Sometimes it can sort of be over exaggerating. You know, where your expertise is. I think we need to be really, really careful. And we're lucky in some respects, because we're quite narrow in terms of our, you know, our market reach and the technology that we focus on. But if you're a larger organization, the challenge for me is, how do you, how do you really cover all of that without becoming just too sort of broad, then you lose that level of knowledge that you're trying to portray to the customer? I think that's one of the key, the key challenges. And I think the other one is around, around leads. You know, trying to focus too much on on leads, because, of course, that's what sales always wants. That's what I always want with my UK MD hat. But that's not always possible depending on the assets and the you know what you're working towards.

Mike: That's interesting. One of the things you know, we've seen with some other clients is people are talking about this research that they're showing. In general, customers are spending more time engaging with marketing materials and less time talking to sales. They talk to sales people later in that sales process. I mean, is that something you've seen at shafner, where people are relying more on content and less on talking to salespeople? And then how do you change that balance between marketing and sales to accommodate it?

John: Well, I think we've definitely seen that. I think we've spoken in the past. Mike, it's moved on in my early days. And as a salesperson, I was, I don't know like to use the font of all knowledge, but I had information. So customers would call me for information, for drawings, for specs, all of that is available now. So for salespeople, they don't have that advantage that that I had 20 years ago that people needed me. So I think from a marketing perspective, now, the challenge is to get people to view that content, and that's drawing people into the right places, whether that's through white papers or articles to pull them towards shafter.com in our state, or whether it's getting them to go to our distributors pages to look for parts, to understand what we're providing. So I think that's a different way of talking to customers now than we did 1520, years ago, even 10 years ago to that matter.

Mike: I mean, that's fascinating. I remember, you know, and some people know that I actually started engineer, then moved into sales. At one point, we had a line of displays, and there were literally less than 100 data books. For the whole of the UK, and working in technical sales, it was easy to get a meeting if someone's interested in the product, because that was the only way they're going to get the data to design it in. So I totally agree with you. I think, I think things have changed. It's interesting. You say it's now not a case of scarcity of data. There's there's just so much information out there. Getting attention is important. I mean, one of the things we see some clients doing is trying to apply, you know, perhaps more tactics associated with consumer marketing rather than B2B marketing. Do you see that happening and trying to get engagement that way with some products?

John: Yes, I think so. And that's definitely, definitely evolved when you think of B to C, it's as the name suggested the consumer, and as B2B, we're really now trying to think about the consumer within the within the B within the business. And so it's about, you know, for us, trying to build up and profiles or personas within those businesses so that we can start to talk them in the right way, just as you see in the B to C arena, where is very much a much more targeted approach, and that's you know what we're doing. So a good example would be, when we're looking at content that we're developing, we're going to do that for a design engineer, or maybe we're doing it for a for a purchasing manager. And those two things may be very different, clearly, if we're talking to a design engineer or a compliance engineer, but the level of technical content needs to be higher, whereas, from a procurement perspective, we're talking to a persona there, then maybe we look at, perhaps more, some of the commercial aspects about service support. You know how easy it is to get the parts, for example. So I think, you know, we're being much more focused and considerate around how we target those personas, just as the consumer companies do an excellent job, and we in the in the B2B space, need to really think about that. Now, that's really interesting.

Mike: It sounds like you're saying that it's not necessarily a case of just stealing ideas from the consumer sector, it's much more about rather than thinking you're talking to a business in the marketing, realizing that your marketing should be talking to a person. Is that, is that what you're saying?

John: Yes, yeah, exactly. But you know, behind every business, it's about people. And if you're in procurement, then the way that you're measured, rewarded, satisfied, is very different to someone who is within the engineering disciplines. So if you don't get that content right, you could get it very wrong. And perhaps back to your one of your earlier questions around, what can marketing get wrong is if you speak to that person in the wrong way, you could really damage that relationship, potentially, by giving them something that they certainly don't want, but also wasting a lot of time. And so we're really careful about the type of content that we put out there, where we're pushing it, and making sure that we, you know, we put ourselves in our audience's shoes, really, and provide them with something that brings real value to them.

Mike: That's great. I think that's excellent advice to anyone thinking about building campaigns, is think about the people you're talking to a little bit earlier. You talked about the need to get marketing and sales closer together, and you've also talked about the challenge of creating this highly technical content, which clearly is an engineering input. So do you have a way or an approach of trying to get these three groups, very different groups of salespeople, marketing people and engineers together and working, you know more closely

John: well, we don't really have a formal approach. It's almost, you could say it's almost like start of a joke, actually, isn't it that you've got sales people, technical people and marketers, you know, together in a room, and what happens? But for me, it's, it's about communication and and making sure that we understand what each of those stakeholders is is looking for. You know, clearly our more technical team are looking to provide high quality content. Our salespeople are looking for leads and for development of the brand. So how do we pull that together? So? So what we do within Schaffner and I've done in in other businesses, is before we start to talk about what we're going to do, we pull everyone together and to make sure we're all on the same page. So we're getting that feedback. It's also as we go through the process, communicating what's what's happening, so that sales aren't surprised that a content is going out, or where that content is being sent, and for our technical teams that they're involved, and that if we get questions and feedback from that content, that they're ready and able to answer that. So we try and provide the right people to the right point within those campaigns, but they all need to be talking together. I'm sure there are more formal ways of doing that, but within a business like ours, we go back to a much more simple route, which is that we just need to communicate and do that well, such a great solution for so many problems.

Mike: Just get people to talk together. I think that's a great solution. I mean, I guess as well. You know, we talked about the three groups that are marketing, sales and engineering, but there's almost like a fourth person coming in now, which is AI. What do you see the impact of AI being at the moment? And. Do you think it's going to just keep going and eating different functions, or do you think there's some pitfalls we need to be worried about?

John: Well, I think think about the positives are, you know, we talked about all of this data that's available. The ability of AI to be able to go through that data and pick out the best parts of that data and give you access to all of that data is huge. It's incredible that that's possible, and no human is able to do that on their own. That, you know, the concern, or the the challenge is it, it could become quite one dimensional. And then, potentially, if everyone has the same data and they're using the same AI algorithms, you essentially come up the same thing. So potentially, from a competitive standpoint, you know, we could all be talking roughly the same thing without a real difference in tone. And I think that's the key. And when I think back to what we're doing at Schaffner, we talked earlier about our leadership in EMC, that comes down to the people. So we want that to be more than one dimensional. We want it to be real people who really understand the subject in in depth, and it's about the nuances. And we also need that, not just from our technical people, also from our marketeers, so that when we create that content, it is a far more nuanced approach. You know, we've had conversations might before about AI and could AI, you know, write an article? Of course, it can, but it doesn't have that nuanced approach. And can become a little say me, and that's, you know, that's not good enough. It might be good enough for some, but it's not good enough for us, and we want to make sure that we're really stepping forward, that we're leading those conversations. And for me, AI, isn't that level yet, and maybe never will do, because there is that nuanced approach from from journalists or from our technical people that we need to get out there to our customers.

Mike: It's really interesting. I mean, one of the themes I've heard from you through this interview, John, is that it seems like you have this really clear vision that you have to be seen as the leader in the market, and that's where you'll be successful by having that leadership, not by seeing as being seen as being good, but by being seen as being seen as being the best and the most innovative and the most thoughtful, is that a fair reflection of your vision?

John: Yes, yeah. And that comes down to very much how, you know, Schaffner has been built up over the years, and that has been to be the leader in EMC. And I think if you talk to most EMC say, experts or EMC engineers, Schaffner is extremely well known. And if is there as the leader. So, you know, we take that very seriously. So we're, we're always working to try and find out what's what's coming next, and we've, we've done that over the last number of years, particularly when we look at campaigns, you know, looking at what's happening in the market, where are regulations going? And that's a different conversation around what products do we have? It's about where the regulations going and how does that impact our customers and our market. And that's really where we can add value as we move forward.

Mike: That's very insightful, and I've certainly seen it working with Schaffner, where we've had conversations about topics. And the question has obviously from us as agency, been what does this mean to customers today? And the answer quite often is, well, really today doesn't mean very much, but if customers aren't thinking about it, then it's going to be a big problem tomorrow. I love that, that forward thinking approach you've taken,

John: yeah, and I think that that's absolutely key. There's, you know, there's lots of people making similar products to us, but what they don't have is that real, in depth understanding of EMC, not working on the committees, understanding where those regulations are going because those regulations, you know, may seem a little way off, but they'll soon come up. And design cycles are quite long in in our industry, particularly in industrial and it needs to be right. So, you know, the question we ask ourselves is, how can we help our customers navigate through those regulations? Be that sort of level of expertise to help them, support them through that. We may not know all the answers all of the time, but we can start that conversation. We can start to work through that, and that's what we do with our key customers, and how we start to get that information out of the market. Also provides a lot of really good feedback, you know, our customers hearing about this, and in many cases, they're not. And then we can start to tailor the content to support the questions that we get back from customers.

Mike: That's fascinating, and it's certainly been a, I think, a great approach for Schaffner, talking about looking towards the future. I'm interested. How do you see the role of CMOs and VPs of marketing, and perhaps even your role changing with technology over the next five years?

John: Well, I think it's going back to our AI discussion, actually, that sort of cmo VP market, to anyone in marketing for that matter, it's going to be about understanding more about the technology. What does that bring us, in terms of the benefits, but also not falling into those pitfalls where you just take everything into into an AI bot and it create everything for you, because that's not the answer. So I think it's about understanding that technology and working with people that understand the technology so that you can use it for the benefit of what you want to achieve. You know, we know that it can take huge amounts of data and collate that and give you access to the answers within in that data, it doesn't mean everything. Has to be done that way. And you know, the challenge for for us, and I think for everyone in marketing, is, where does it fit? It's not about replacing everybody, you know, with a with an AI tool. It's about using it in the best way so that that valuable skills of marketeers can be focused on in the areas where they bring the most value.

Mike: I think that's that's a really positive view for marketing in general and the opportunities there. I mean, one of the questions we always like to ask guests is about people starting in marketing, and what would be your advice to someone who's just starting a career in marketing?

John: I guess good luck would be the first, the first thing. But ultimately, for me, I think it's about, you know, starting to get a broader, broad understanding of what marketing is, and putting yourselves in in the customer's shoe. Because when, when you start to sort of look in the mirror a little bit and and start to think about what you're creating, what you're doing, and why you're doing it, and the value that the customer will have, I think then you'll become a better marketeer. There's plenty of opportunities to create really fancy content, but if you're if your customer, you know your consumer is not interested in that, doesn't matter how good it is, you know they're not going to engage with that. So I think it's really sitting down and talking to customers about what they want. So you can then develop that content. And I think the opportunities in marketing are huge, and there's also that ability to be a little bit more creative than some roles and and for me, marketing should be exciting. It shouldn't be just all about process. Of course, we need good processes, but if you can't, if there isn't a little bit of edge or a little bit of excitement, then marketing's not really working. I think, you know, within the within the company, you want at least one department to be really enthusiastic about what's going on in the business, you know, really banging the drum. And that's what I see marketing, you know, should be doing that's not just external that's internal marketing, getting everyone on the same page, enthused about what we're doing as an organization, and having a bit of excitement. So I think, I think it's a great career path for anyone. I think it also leads into other areas, potentially, if you're good at marketing, then there's a likelihood that you've got good communication skills. So that lends itself to, you know, to management and many other areas, you know, within business, so, and, of course, sales itself. So I think a great opportunity for anyone and marketing is only going one way. I think I think up, even though we talk about AI that's just one element of it that's great.

Mike: And obviously, potentially the opportunity to end up with two job titles in one?

John: Yes, you know, two, two job titles and just one salary.

Mike: That's the last question I've got for you. You know, you've obviously had a long career in marketing. You've worked with with a lot of different people. I'm interested to know, from your point of view, what's the best piece of marketing advice that's ever been given to you?

John: Well, I think I sort of mentioned it earlier, and that's about putting yourself in your customers shoes. When you sit, you know, in your home office or the office and you see a piece of material coming through, and if your immediate reaction is I'm going to delete that, that's where you need to be. Thinking as a marketeer, can I get someone to open that that email? How can I get someone to click on that page, on the website, or that news story? That's what you need to be thinking about. And it doesn't matter how good it looks, but it needs to be right for the audience. And we talked about personas, we talked about knowing who your customers are, and if your customers are all technical, then you need to create more technical content. There's no point. It being very, sort of fluffy, I suppose, commercially based. And the same is true the other way. So I think, I think that's really key, perhaps for any you know, you go back to the last question about someone starting out in marketing, you know, I'd recommend anyone who's starting out in marketing is to get out and talk to their own customers. What are they interested in? Because if you understand that you've got a better chance that what you're doing is going to hit the mark, and that's absolutely key for me,

Mike: John, this has been a fascinating interview. I feel like I could ask you another 100 questions here. It's been been really enjoyable. But I'd just like to say, you know, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and with your knowledge, and thanks for being a guest on the podcast. No thanks, Mike.

John: It's always good to talk

Mike: Thanks so much for listening to Marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode, and if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes or on your favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.


A Napier Podcast Interview with Thomas Lewis – Semiconductor Marketing Leader

Thomas Lewis, an experienced semiconductor marketing leader explores the challenges of building integrated marketing campaigns in technical industries and shares his advice on building strong working relationships with engineers.

Thomas also explores the industry's current focus on sustainability and the potential pitfalls of greenwashing, what B2B and B2C marketers can learn from each other, and offers his insights on the changing role of CMOs.

About Thomas Lewis

Thomas Lewis is a seasoned marketing leader with over 28 years working in the semiconductor industry. He has a unique background which has afforded him first-hand experience in sales, business unit leadership, and marketing. Thomas believes in the power of data-directed marketing with a proven track record to support his “ALL IN” approach to creating, developing, and sustaining highly successful campaigns and teams.

His background includes impactful roles at Texas Instruments and Analog Devices and career opportunities such as launching a global pricing process, living abroad as an expatriate, leading engineering teams and directing multi-channel marketing campaigns.

 

Time Stamps

[00:45:2] – Thomas discusses his career in the semiconductor industry and why he chose that specialism.

[02:50:3] – How can not being an engineer actually be a benefit in technical roles?

[04:41:0] – Advice for building better integrated campaigns.

[09:22:8] – How can data break down silos between different teams?

[15:02:3] – Does B2B marketing lag behind B2C? How can we fix this?

[18:56:9] – The dangers of greenwashing.

[22:43.3] – The changing role of the CMO

[27:13.6] – Thomas shares some marketing advice.

[31:35.6] - Andrus's contact details.

Quotes

“Keep an open mind, ask more questions than you make statements. That's great advice for dealing with engineers.” Mike Maynard, Managing Director at Napier

“Data can really be used to drive our marketing decisions. It's not just gut feel of what could work. You can do something, you can measure it and you can adapt to the situation.” Thomas Lewis, Semiconductor Marketing Leader

“So, I do believe that adjectives have become the enemy of a really good marketer in the B2B space. To get precise in what you’re talking about has become incredibly important.” Thomas Lewis, Semiconductor Marketing Leader

Follow Thomas:

Thomas Lewis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-lewis-nhpoe/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Thomas Lewis – Semiconductor Marketing Leader

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Thomas Lewis

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today.

Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. I'm Mike Maynard, and today I'm joined by Thomas Lewis. Thomas is a semiconductor marketing professional, who's been in the industry for about 28 years. Welcome to the podcast. Thomas.

Thomas: Thank you for having me, Mike.

Mike: It's great to have you on. So what we'd like to do on the podcast is to let you really describe your background, give us a bio of what you've done. So do you want to tell me a little bit about your career? Sure.

Thomas: Every time someone introduces me or mentions 28 plus years, I always smile because it really truly has gone by in a blink. It's been a really wonderful experience, filled with so many different roles and nuances. I spent 26 years at Texas Instruments, and had the luxury of enjoying different roles that cover all four P's of marketing. And then the last few years I spent with analog devices and an integrated marketing role.

Mike: So you obviously like the semiconductor industry? I mean, what is it about semiconductors that you know, has made you stick there for your career?

Thomas: That's a really good question. The first thing I would say is coming out of school, I researched what different industries I wanted to potentially look at. Different than a lot of my colleagues, I didn't look at roles. I looked at companies and industries. I was very fortunate, I picked a hot one, I got lucky. And during that time, what I've come to appreciate about the industry. It's a little cliche, Mike, but I've learned to love working with engineers. There's a very famous cartoon strip that most people know Dilbert. And it depicts that tension between engineers, and sales, and marketing. Typically, marketing is poked fun at a lot in this industry. For good reason. Engineers love data. And I've always had a love for data myself. So I guess in one sentence, what I love about the industry so much is how data centric, it actually is. And that just appeals to who I am as a person. And I just have always really enjoyed working with engineers.

Mike: And that's interesting, because you're not actually an engineer yourself. Are you, Thomas?

Thomas: I am not. No.

Mike: Yeah, I find that amazing. We talked to a lot of people on the podcast, who are marketing professionals in engineering industries. And it does seem to be that not being an engineer can sometimes be an advantage. I mean, do you find that? Or do you find this real challenge understanding the technology,

Thomas: In certain ways, it can be an advantage, and in certain ways, it could be a disadvantage, and it really depends on the role. And honestly hope and you are helping your own mind is, so in my experience, being different, has been a benefit. It has really helped me to come into a room, one of the jokes on a team I worked at at TI was, well, if Thomas understands it, and can repeat it back, we know we've explained it well. Just to say that they had to really boil it down to something very simple for me without a W degree to get. And it really allowed us I believe, to make really good marketing collateral, because we we never assumed anything because I was in the room, it was always make sure we really explained the values, the benefits translated into into equipment benefits. And that's always been a good thing for us to your the second part of your question. It can be unless you ask a lot of questions. So I've also learned that you don't want to get into a data fight with an engineer, you're likely going to lose. Instead, go in slow, patient, ask a lot of questions, take breaks and say, Hey, let me get back to you. I understand you want to see the data of the return on this potential marketing investment? I need some time. So yes, as long as you keep an open mind and ask more questions than you make statements, you're probably going to be alright. If I keep an open mind, ask more questions, then he makes statements.

Mike: So that's great advice, I think for dealing with engineers. Moving towards your roles, I mean, your most recent role at analog was running integrated marketing. I'm really interested because a lot of companies struggle to integrate campaigns. Why do you think that is? Why do you think it's so difficult to build these integrated campaigns?

Thomas: I think there's probably about 20 different ways I can answer your question. There are a lot of challenges. I think first and foremost. How you organize I have come to appreciate is very important. Trying to have the owner of the budget and the owner of deciding what you do. Be together, I think that's really important. And with that said, you have to take your time and be very patient to get everyone on the same starting block on. Okay, we're going to do this campaign, what will success look like defining and getting everyone to agree that the purpose of doing this campaign is x, number of contacts, y number of impressions, z amount of backlog, whatever those things are that you want as a company, and being really patient and establishing alignment on that before you start running. And on top of all of that, I think, again, back to how you organize, do you have this integrated marketing function outside of the business units? Or does each business unit who typically owes the profit and loss do they have this role. And that's a really critical decision. There's pros and cons to each. If you don't have the two aligned, though, the issue quickly becomes, while you're asking me to pay for something that I don't fully control, right, that's the rub at the end of the day. And so when you find yourself in that situation, it's really difficult, because everyone's kind of jockeying for the relatively low percentage of budget and low percentage of chances of being selected for one of these major corporate campaigns. So taking the time to get everyone as close to as aligned as you can, I think is the key up front says

Mike: Interesting. So it sounds like what you're saying is, it's much more a matter of culture than it is of structure and process.

Thomas: Yes, I mean, the process, I don't want to brush over that when you said the word process, you've got my attention, because that is really important. These integrated campaigns, as you know, could be incredibly complex. If you're really using all the different channels at your disposal, the timing of when you do this, compared to that and having, having that customer journey thought out before you start have it all, while the corticospinal is integrated, having an all managed well, that the processes are incredibly important. As soon as you said that, I'd have to say it's 60%, the former and 40% process, because if you don't have a good process, then it falls apart as well.

Mike: Great point, I love that. I mean, when you're building integrated campaigns as well, you tend to generate a lot more data than single channel campaigns. So do you have an approach to, you know, really building an understanding the data that you can then use to either optimize or analyze those campaigns.

Thomas: I think the really successful companies that running integrated marketing campaigns, or really even more simplistic product launches, is access to that data. And it's been surprising to me in my career. So I finished up at Notre Dame just to back up a little bit, I finished with my MBA at Notre Dame concentration and database marketing. And when I came into TI, I fully expected a row. I mean, it's an engineering company, right? I just expected there to be data at my fingertips and dashboards and things that do exist today, but didn't exist that and seeing that develop over time and get more and more robust and seeing companies invest in that. I like to say to any body I'm talking to my fields, are not saying question, what data do you have? What things do you learn, these are linked my friends and colleagues in different industries, and maybe same industry different company, because I really liked to see how the data capture and analysis is evolving over time, and to make sure that I'm not losing touch on some new way of looking at things? And to answer your question, I do believe it always comes back to did you define upfront what success looks like and create your, your dashboard, whatever you want to call it upfront and say this is the data we're going to track. This is the source. We know we believe in the source. We've done our homework, we're sure that this data is accurate. And it is measuring what we want. So I hope I answered your question. Their data gets me excited to ramble sometimes.

Mike: I think you did I love the discussion about making data available. I mean, do you think the emergence of having a lot more data actually is one of the ways that marketers can break down silos between different channels and maybe even between marketing and sales?

Thomas: Those listening can't see how hard I was shaking my head, Mike, but it's honestly the number one way to connect the three teams that can get siloed engineering, sales and marketing. And it's been interesting to me to see sometimes how people will fight really hard to not share their data. and it goes both ways. I've seen salespeople be like no way you're not getting access to, you know, who my top customers might be, or where my pipeline might already sit. And you'll also see the marketers be like, No, I'm not gonna let you see how many new contacts we got at this trade show. It's an interesting and I, for life of me, I don't understand where it really comes from, we're all wearing the same badge of the company we're working for. But there's this natural inclination to be siloed, to protect your own data. And when they merge, that's when magic happens. Because it allows you to follow the customer journey from the beginning to the end, they didn't even know we existed as a company. And now they're buying product, what was their journey? And can we replicate that over and over and over again. And the only way that's possible, is if everyone's open to sharing all of their data to one another. And to your point, it results in putting the all those people in a room and giving them something to really focus and talk about, like, look at that. That's interesting. That's

Mike: 

fascinating. And you talked about, you know, being able to see that entire customer journey. I think one of the things a lot of marketers in B2B struggle with is, you know, balancing the need to generate leads, short term new business, versus building a strong brand. And particularly when data comes in, it's much easier to measure the bottom of the funnel activities, and it is in terms of the brand building. So how do you balance those two things when you're running campaigns?

Thomas: One of the things that is really starting to, I believe, take off and be looked at to this brand question, and it is a really good one is measuring your net promoter score your NPS. And there's a colleague of mine, that analog, I'll give him a free shout out Peter busy, he's, he's a leader in his field. And he really opened my eyes to the ability to actually measure, I guess I sought to put it in air quotes to measure your brand effectiveness in the way that you are actually going about it right is this the simplest question is, would you promote our solutions to a colleague at a different company? Now who work at Company A, would you tell some a company B, you should really go work with analog, they're great. That's the best kind of marketing there is. Right? That's a genuine customer to customer promotion. And it's a it's incredibly valuable. So it's starting to change, we're starting to as at least inside of semiconductor, I believe some industries have been doing this for a while. And so semiconductor is a little bit late to this game. But starting to capture that is as good a proxy, I believe, as we can grab on, what is our our brand equity, what is our brand ROI? So it's starting to change? But it's still a good question. And it's always a balance, you have to have an easy brand. It's identifiable at a corporate level, you need to say Texas Instruments and whatever 10 words come to mind. And at the same point, you've got to sell widget. 12378, you know, so it is this constant balance and fight. Because if you don't have one, you really can't do the other they it's a handshake.

Mike: Yeah, I think yes. Is a an interesting scoring. One of the big problems is is MPs varies quite widely from industry to industry. So how did you deal with, you know, setting a target for MPs? Or did you look more at the trend of whether it was improving or getting worse?

Thomas: Yeah, it's more than directionally correct. And the real nuggets, though, Mike, the real nuggets are down in the comments. They're really deep into the survey where an engineer at your customer will open up and say, this was the moment where I decided that, you know, I'm gonna go with you, or do you really helped. And then, of course, the opposite. This is the moment I decided to walk away and go somewhere different. That's where you really get, you know, the juicy bits, by the way, they can bring sales back to the table, because sometimes it will be comments about, you know, application support or something that sales directly controls or influences. And so that can get them back to the table as well.

Mike: I think I've seen right, I mean, I don't know if you know, we actually run NPS scores twice a year and APIA with our clients. We're currently running our, our survey at the moment, I always find it some of the most stressful times of the year because you almost take those people who wouldn't recommend you very personally. But you know, it's a really valuable metric. And I agree that it's not just the number you get and the trend. It's absolutely also the comments. Yeah. I'm interested, do you see trends in consumer that you've adopted or you think should be adopted in B2B? I mean, how do you feel B2B is doing his generally felt, perhaps unfairly that B2B lags? and humor in terms of innovation, there

Thomas: is that perception. And you know what, there is a little bit of truth to it, we have to step back and look at it and say there is some truth to it. I've seen in my experience, I don't want to emerge as the wrong expression, because there's certainly things you do in a B2C setting more often, or in some cases still only, whereas in B2B, you wouldn't and vice versa. However, I do see more of emerging more of a looking across the aisle, if you will, and saying, Okay, what are they doing over there? In our industry, the company that really started this right and got everyone to really start to analyze it more deeply was Intel. You know, their, their campaign and the way they went about things and using B2C concepts to create their brand image while complementing it with that, you know, end of funnel backlog acquisition. I mean, it was revolutionary, and no one had ever thought of it. And I think that opened everyone's eyes to not just the obvious things that we all can talk about when it comes to Intel, but the subtle techniques, and just, like I said, looking across the aisle, and I think the consumer side, did the reverse, they had the same thoughts like, Whoa, no, why can't we use some of these tactics that the FBI is using effectively and steal them? borrow them? adopt them? So I do see a merging of techniques today? Yeah.

Mike: Do you think also, sometimes, I mean, B2B gets a bad press, because a lot of B2B marketers are talking about their lead generation, the things that drive the money. Whereas if you look at consumer, you know, we all get to see the flashy TV adverts, we don't necessarily get to see the direct mail campaign that really sells the automobile or whatever else has been promoted.

Thomas: I think you're hitting on what's really behind this natural division that happened. And our reluctance to move, which is, marketers that go into B2C are typically the expression that comes to mind is the pure marketer, that the creative, the person that can come up with a great jingle or a great visual, or something like that. Whereas in B2B, it's more of the data nerds, like myself, I'm guilty of that. So a Berlin day is starting to happen. The B2C types are like, wow, like, yeah, okay, data can really be used to drive our marketing decisions. It's not just gut feel of what would work, you can do something, you can measure it, and you can adapt to the situation. And I think the opposite is happening in B2B, which is we're really good at this data stop. But of course, what our website as an example, looks like visually is very important. You can just look at the semiconductor industry, evolution of the web pages over time, they used to be so data rich that it was almost like the internet was a data sheet, it was to the point of being ridiculously funny. And today, you've got appealing visuals, the use of whitespace, you have all these things you've been in B2C has always existed. So I think there was a natural tendency for the data folks to head the B2B path and the quote, unquote, create creative types that had the B2C route. And we're now seeing, we need the diversity of both to really reach top performance.

Mike: That's an amazing summary. Thomas, I think it's a really good point that, you know, generally speaking, the geeks tend to gravitate towards B2B and the creatives go to B to C. One of the things that, that we're seeing at the moment, which I think is, you know, pretty consistent across both B2B and B2C is the importance of sustainability. I mean, how do you see that impacting B2B? And and particularly, you know, do you see some of the legislation coming in and really forcing the hand of some of these B2B companies to be much more proactive about their sustainability credentials?

Thomas: This is one of the top I mean, certainly in the top 10, maybe top five topics in the industry, and I'm glad you brought it up. It's obviously really important for our planet, everyone agrees on that. And any manufacturing industry needs to answer the question of what impact are you having on the environment. And this all speaks to at the end of the day, your your brand image no one wants to work with. So thinking about our customers, the second be in the B2B. No one wants to be working with someone that's seen as impacting the environment negatively that's or any other negative activity. It's it's kind of like in the B2C world, when maybe you have a celebrity do something naughty in his private life, and they drop him instantly, right? You just don't want to be associated with someone who's doing something that gets gets judged that way. So this sustainability question. I think it's table stakes to not be seen as bad. Everyone is doing that fairly well, making sure that they're showing at least the perception of a genuine concern for what's going on. And some companies have really embraced this and are truly making it part of their their DNA. I think the term is greenwashing. It's not just talking about it, it's fundamentally changing the way you say things, it's almost the only analogy I can think of that I've recently run into as well myself, is if you're in the medical field, and you're marketing, you have to be incredibly careful in what you say every word choice can get you in legal trouble. And I think that starting to happen in the sustainability world here, you crashing legislation coming in and saying, if you're going to make these claims, you have to really be able to back them up. And the best companies are taking that mentality, and extending it across everything. I love it when I walk into a room and an engineer will say something like, this is the most efficient solution we've ever had. And they're expecting me as the marketer to like, love that sentence. And I hate it. My typical response is I'll say something like, you know, I know I'm a marketer, but I really hate adjectives. Can we really talk about the actual performance and how you measured it? And how are how are you saying it's more efficient. So I do believe that adjectives have become the enemy of a really good marketer in the B2B space. And to get really precise, in what you're talking about has become incredibly important, documenting it and being able to prove your claims has become not quite the medical field realm yet, but it's leaning that way.

Mike:  think is really interesting. I mean, even worse, you see a lot of press releases, still in B2B that have relative comparisons with nothing to compare against. So you know, the new product is more efficient, more cost effective, but more efficient, more cost effective than what?

Thomas: That's right. And that goes to the whole conversation explaining in that press release, or at least providing a link from it. Because sometimes it can get to really go into the details. A lot of people be like, Whoa, this is too much for this particular medium, but including in the press release to learn more here. And then that's where you wouldn't really explain how did you measure this? What were the operating conditions? And what are you comparing it to you directly?

Mike: I have a great point. I'd like to switch gears a bit now Thomas and look a bit towards the future. So the role of you know marketing executives, marketing directors, CMOs, you know, seems to be changing the number of channels is changing. How do you see that role evolving over the next five years?

Thomas: Mike, of my 28 years of experience in this industry, and in this career path has taught me one thing, it's I'm really bad at predicting the future. But I'll try to answer your question this way. I think the trends we're seeing towards the use of data, the need to be accurate in what you say. It leads to credibility in what you say. But one of the things that would be in the Dilbert cartoons all the time, right is making fun of marketers who would make these outrageous claims. And I think the world has pushed back on that. I also think that's has been the enemy of sales, marketing. And the business units that come together, is this belief that marketing people live in outer space and make these outrageous claims and the closer we get, and the more we push towards all of those things are important. So to your question, I believe, in today's world, if you want to be an upper level executive, so director, certainly CMO, you need to embrace the need to be able to analyze data, you can no longer be just a creative, you're gonna have the most creative mind ever create the most amazing images and things like that. But to lead a team, you need to attach what you're doing to the goals of the company, and that it just requires data. So I think the number one change that's happening is your upper executives becoming more and more comfortable in opening up a tableau worksheet and digging into it and saying, Okay, this is what we need to do as a team in providing direction, as opposed to counting on the team, the subordinates to do that. There needs to be a willingness at the upper levels to dig into the data and own it and drive it. That's where you see the most success. That's where I've seen the most success is where the that's the embrace of the upper leaders.

Mike: I love that. And I think that's really interesting when you have, you know, a lot of people pushing these rather simplistic management dashboards, because actually, what you're saying is engaging with the data and understanding it really matters rather than just seeing whether the number is red or green.

Thomas: Correct in real time. And so, if you take snapshots like quarterly, which is very common, right, so cool. quarterly, we're going to look at this. The issue with that is sometimes I mean, so using the Six Sigma philosophy, right? If all you do is look at the summary data quarterly, you could miss a really golden nugget that was a quote unquote outlier. That happened in the month of February on the 14th. Right? You've just missed it, because you're only looking at it. Before a big management review before the big quarterly business reviews, and engaging with the data is a very different life. It's every day pulling up a dashboard, and looking at what happened yesterday. Is there anything in here that I can take and adjust my campaign and do? And again, that's what the best companies do? Is this constant attention to it? And it's like a muscle. Some folks say, does it take a lot of time, it well, in the beginning to set it up? It sure does. But once it's often running, I would come in every day, and pull up my dash, we'll call it a dashboard. But again, it was interactive, I could jump around and change different selections and look at different things. But I was been 20 minutes, roughly, looking at the data, it invariably I would find something and be like, wow, wow, I didn't expect that. Or yes, that's exactly what I expected. Either one, and then go to the team, talk about it and adjust what we're doing just slightly, you know, engineers like to talk about big innovation, or the small little innovations, everything marketing needs to have that same kind of approach. You know, one of the hot topics you and I were discussing before this call is AI. That's a major point of innovation right now, in the marketing world. But little innovations happen when you're living in the data every day. It never shows up as this big, huge difference. But it's that nice, directly Correct. Wow, our Bounce Rate got lower. How'd that happen? Well, we saw one little outlier that we would not have seen if we weren't living in the data.

Mike: That's amazing advice. I think that's emphasizes how important data is. I really appreciate you being so generous with your time, Thomas, before we finish, there's a couple of questions, we always like to ask everyone. So you've given us some amazing marketing advice. But I'm interested to know, what's the best marketing advice you've ever been given?

Thomas: When I was thinking about this podcast today, and you were nice enough to share some of the questions you might ask when I saw this one, I immediately smiled and I thought of, and I will definitely give a shout out. This is my very first boss in the semiconductor industry. He really shaped me in terms of who I am as a marketer and a person, his name is Mike Hastings. And he called me in and we were talking about something that had happened. And I said, well, that's just the perception. Mike is coming out of the marketers mouth, right? Mike looks me right in the eye. It says Thomas, perception is reality. And that person's mind. Perception is reality. And so that was the best piece of advice I ever got. Because it really was talking about empathy, the ability to empathize with someone because their perception is their reality, and you've got to meet them where they are. And if they think that I think this conversation Mike and I were having was about the effectiveness of doing a press release. And even though we were arguing for this particular purpose, the press release wasn't good. It wasn't the right channel to use, the person we were arguing with discussing with believed that that was the only way to get it done. And that was his reality in that moment. And we had to work to change his perception of a press release in order to just get off the dime, if you will. So that's the best advice I ever received. Perception is reality for that person.

Mike: I absolutely love it. That's fantastic advice. I'm sure I'll use that as well. The other question, you know, we're always interested to know is if you're talking to someone who's at the start of their career started a marketing career. What advice would you give them?

Thomas: If I could change your question just a little bit, I would take out the words marketing, career, meaning, or marketing, excuse me, anyone starting their career, I would give the same advice. It's one of my favorite expressions. I like uses. It's an acronym. And it's all in I like to say, and a lot of people say, are you all in? And this was recent. It was about a year ago that someone said that to me. What does that mean? When we say we're all in like, everyone thinks they know what that means? And they kind of like instinctively go, oh, yeah, I'm all in. I'm bought in, I get it. And what does it really mean? For me, it means the A stands for accountability. You have to be accountable as a team and an individual, for what you've done and how effective it was. Without that. Nothing can really get started. The second is loyalty. And it's both ways. It's between people. I've also heard expressions like, well, this is corporate America, and this is how things happen. For me, I'm corporate America, you are, you know, like all of us collectively. We are what makes up the culture of the place we're working. And so having loyalty to one another to the process. Last is of the first word is love, which, again, in business setting sounds a little strange, but it just means passion, interest, a genuine concern for the team doing well. And then N stands for inclusivity. Everyone talks about diversity they typically talk about in a very traditional sense, diversity of thought, is really what we're all after. And having multiple people in your team coming from different cultures, different experiences, and having a mind to receiving that is super important. So I would say anyone starting their career, those are the four factors you want to look for in an employer? Will they hold you accountable and hold themselves accountable? Do you think you can be loyal to them? And they'll be loyal to you? Do you think you're gonna love it? Do you think you're really gonna wake up every day and have that? Whatever it may be? 20% of us wake up and go, I can't wait. Can't wait to get in look at that marketing dashboard. And will they be inclusive? Will they give you a voice? Will they hear your voice? And will you hear there's because when all of that comes together, those the teams that I've been on where magic happens? You've exceed anything you ever thought that team could do. Those are the four building blocks, I believe,

Mike: What an amazing way to end an interview. I think that that's really great advice, and certainly useful for anyone starting any career. Thomas, I so appreciate your time and your insights. If people are listening, and I'd like to get in contact with you. What's the best way to get ahold of you?

Thomas: You can reach out to me on my LinkedIn profile. That's probably the best way to go about it. And I believe it's in H P. Oe is my username, I think but just look for Thomas Lewis, and analog devices or Texas Instruments. I should pop up.

Mike: Amazing. Thomas, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast. I really appreciate it.

Thomas: Thank you, Mike. It was a pleasure.

Thanks so much for listening to Marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes, or on your favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at Napier B2B dot com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.


Google’s U-Turn, HubSpot’s Dip, and Smart Marketing Tactics

Mike and Hannah discuss the latest developments in marketing automation, starting with Google’s reversal of its cookie policy changes and what this could mean for advertisers and data privacy. They discuss the recent drop in HubSpot’s shares following reports that Alphabet may be backing away from a potential acquisition. They also review key takeaways from a Marketo webinar on lead nurturing strategies and explore how marketers can use marketing automation tools for A/B testing to optimize campaigns and drive better results.

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

About Napier

Napier is a PR-lead, full service marketing agency that specialises in the B2B technology sector. We work closely with our clients to build campaigns, focusing on achieving results that have a significant positive impact on their businesses and which, above all, ensure maximum return on their investment.

About Mike Maynard

Mike is the Managing Director/CEO of Napier, a PR and marketing agency for B2B technology companies. A self-confessed geek who loves talking about technology, he believes that combining the measurement, accountability and innovation that he learnt as an engineer with a passion for communicating ensures Napier delivers great campaigns and tangible return on investment.

About Hannah Wehrly

Hannah is the Head of Business Development and Marketing at Napier and leads on pitching, proposal writing, lead nurturing, email marketing, social media and content creation. Hannah joined the Napier team back in 2017 as a Marketing Specialist after completing her degree in Marketing and Communications, and her role focuses on developing new relationships with potential clients.

 Time Stamps

[00:54.2] – Mike and Hannah discuss Google’s recent U-turn on cookie updates.

[04:38.9] – Alphabet backs out of HubSpot acquisition. What does this mean for the company?

[07:56.2] – Mike and Hannah talk about a recent Marketo webinar on lead generation strategies.

[13:13.1] – Insightful tip of the week: using marketing automation tools for A/B testing

Follow Mike and Hannah:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Hannah Wehrly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-wehrly-b0706a107/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing Automation and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast – Marketing B2B Technology: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/marketing-b2b-technology/id1485417724

Transcript: Marketing Automation Moment Episode 18 – Google’s U-Turn, HubSpot’s Dip, and Smart Marketing Tactics

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Hannah Wherly

Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast, I'm Hannah Kelly and

Mike: I'm Mike Maynard. This is an Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.

Hannah: Welcome to Marketing Automation Moment podcast, I'm Hannah wherly and I'm Mike Maynard. Today we talk about Google backtracking on cookie changes.

Mike: HubSpot shares falling as alphabet loses interest in acquiring them.

Hannah: A webinar from Marketo on lead nurturing strategies,

Mike: and Hannah explains to me how marketing automation tools can be used to do AB testing. Hi

Hannah: Mike, welcome back to another episode of our Marketing Automation Podcast. How you doing?

Mike: It's great to be back. Hannah, I've been away for a couple of weeks in the States, as you know, and it's nice to be back in the UK.

Hannah: Well, it's nice to have you back. So there has been a bit of news while you've been away, so I think you're going to find this one really interesting. But Google has actually just announced that they're going to backtrack on their proposed cookie changes. So they were actually proposing, you know, this has been going on for months and months, that they were going to stop cookies on the Chrome browser. Ultimately, it looks like this is not going to go ahead. There doesn't seem to be a clear path of what they're gonna do instead. But, I mean, it's a really interesting move and quite unexpected, don't you think,

Mike: well, actually, I'm gonna disagree with you. Hannah, I think it's probably not unexpected. So this whole third party cookie depreciation, as people call it, so trying to get rid of third party cookies. I mean, it's been going on for years, you know, and it started off with the EU demanding we get those really, really annoying cookie pop ups on everybody's web page. And then Google started looking at different approaches, and, you know, they famously created flock as a way to target similar audiences. And then got told by the EU that actually that was also against GDPR. So I think, you know, this is something where we've been wandering around trying to find a solution. I mean, interestingly, when the EU first actually demanded these annoying cookie pop ups, they actually said that the intention was to remove them at some point in the future, with future legislation and have all the control in the browser, so people choosing the browser, whether they want the cookies or not. I guess that's ultimately what Google's doing, despite the fact that, you know, privacy regulators are all throwing their toys out the pram. Actually, probably, I think that's where we are with cookies. Is Google's giving all the control to, you know, within Chrome, and maybe that's what everybody wanted at the start. It's just that nobody really could admit it.

Hannah: Thanks, Mike, that's a really interesting perspective. So what do you think is going to happen then?

Mike: Well, I mean, I suspect Google will be allowed to do this. I'm sure this is going to happen, and probably the other browsers will follow suit in a similar way. I mean, Google is trying to control tracking, so they have something called privacy sandbox, which is quite controversial, which is an API to allow storing of data about users without using cookies. And I think if people honestly thought about this, actually the best solution is a bit of education, so that everyone understands how to turn off third party cookies in their browser, and also removal of these really annoying cookie pop ups, which are wasting everybody's time. And I think that really is the best solution, that pretty much is what was intended at the start, I think, with people being concerned about privacy, that will result in a lot of people rejecting third party cookies, and that will eventually depreciate them. And I think, you know, we are seeing, albeit a very, very slow death. I think we'll see the eventual death of third party cookies. People will move away from that because, in general, it's just not a great way to target audiences.

Hannah: Yeah, I fully agree, Mike. And I mean, I'm one of those people that now just says no to all cookies that come up on websites, because they just annoy the hell out of me. So it's definitely something that we will see, and I think it'll be interesting. You know, marketers have already been looking at different ways to gather the data that third party cookies provide. So first party intent data, second intent data. So I think there's already solutions out there, so it'd be definitely something to watch.

Mike: Definitely. I mean, I think a lot of people have freaked out about cookies. Actually, they're not necessarily that bad a thing. If you get sent adverts about things that interest you, surely that's better than things you really don't care about.

Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's move on, Mike, because another bit of interesting news that's been released is that HubSpot shares have actually plunged, and this is due because we spoke about it maybe a couple of months ago in our podcast that alphabet, which is owned by Google, was looking to acquire and. By HubSpot. And I remember at the time Mike, we discussed it, and we were like, This is a bit of a strange deal, but it looks like they have actually pulled out of their investment. And I mean, it's interesting to see. You know, we know how the world works, HubSpot shares have dropped. But does this really matter? Like, this deal, to me, personally, didn't make sense in the first place? Yeah.

Mike: I mean, I think it doesn't matter. I think you're absolutely right there. I mean, if you actually looked at what happened back in, I think, October, November time the rumor started, the stock price went up. Everyone was speculating on an acquisition. Now that it appears that that's not going to go ahead, whether or not it was super serious, I don't know, but it certainly seems that, you know, Google is not going to buy HubSpot. The stock's basically gone back to where it was. And the only people who've lost out, I guess, are the people who tried to speculate on an acquisition and make some, you know, make a quick buck. So I don't think it's a problem. I think HubSpot obviously has a very good future. That's clearly something, you know, a company that's going to be successful in the CRM and marketing automation sector. They don't need Google. It may have, you know, resulted in a higher valuation, but at the end of the day, they don't need Google, and they shouldn't worry. I mean, what do you think?

Hannah: Yeah, I fully agree. I mean, I actually read that it looks like HubSpot is growing faster than Google at the moment, and you're completely right. And to me, that just says everything that we need to know. They don't need Google to grow. You know, they've been independent. And I actually read up the Boston locals are relieved. You know, the investors don't actually want someone to buy HubSpot just because of the financial, you know, benefits that it brings to the Boston area,

Mike: yeah, and there's clearly a risk, you know, with company headquarters potentially being moved closer to Google, that might have impacted that Boston technology sector. I mean, I don't know what you think. You know, maybe some people might have cut their losses, left to HubSpot and started new companies. I mean, it could have sparked some innovation. But I think at the moment, you know, HubSpot is an important tech company in that Boston ecosystem, so I definitely agree with you that's an important factor, absolutely.

Hannah: And we spend, you know, our time talking about market automation here and the world and the different things and the news. But this really drives home for me how important this sector, in this industry is, because you look at Google, you view them as this giant tech company, but actually, HubSpot is in the same league.

Mike: Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, HubSpot, obviously, practically, is much, much smaller, and Google is driving a lot of profit. But I think, you know, HubSpot, there is an important player in the market, and I think that's what you mean, is really, it's not just a few big guys now driving marketing technology. There's a lot of technology from companies like HubSpot. And those companies, as you said earlier, very insightful, are growing quicker than the big guys, so they will come and challenge them.

Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. Now let's move away from HubSpot, because I actually want to talk about Marketo now, Marketo is really interesting because it has a lot of resources available to its users. And I was actually going through their site recently. And I mean, there's webinars, there's a community, there's forums, it's really great. But one that I came across that really caught my eye was a webinar they've held recently on lead nurturing strategies. And I mean, it's clear as day that it's a plug for their engagement program type, and I've personally never used it. Mike, so if you have any views on that, we'll come back to that in a minute. That'd be great to hear. But it was interesting because they spoke about five different nurture strategy flows, but it seems to be very top of the funnel, and it's very simplistic look. I mean, you saw the same webinar, Mike, what did you think

Mike: I agree with you? I mean, firstly, you know, Marketo is, is a great product. I mean, I'm a bit of a fan of Marketo, and their engagement programs are really neat because they let you split nurturing between different segments really easily. So it's kind of a neat way to build programs when you've got new leads coming in, and you can segment them simply on, say, job function or something like that. So I can understand why they've done a campaign around this. I think in a way, it's a bit disappointing, because hopefully most people, particularly people who spent the money on Marketo, they're doing lead nurturing anyway. And I really felt that like you, you know, it was rather simplistic. I mean, you know, they talk about a welcome nurture flow, so if you get a new prospect or new customer, you nurture them. Sounds a bit obvious. And then talked about splitting by interest, by placing the life cycle by persona and by vertical markets. And all of them are valid. But actually, I think most marketers that they're thinking to a deeper level, they're really thinking about how they can make these things work. And I don't think you know necessarily, there anyone listening to it, going, Oh, wow, I could send different personas, different information for you.

Hannah: Well, see, I have to disagree, Mike, because I think. Sometimes US marketers need to just be reminded of the most simple things. I fully agree that there is more complex workflows and complex nurturing strategies. So it was very you know, it's a new customer. What about Lux customers? You know? What about existing customers and sending them discounts? But I think sometimes you know, you have to be reminded that you have this big system. How do you use it? Well, this is how you can get started. And I think really, it was a webinar aimed to perhaps those marketers that haven't thought everything through. You know, we've come across clients before where we're like, Well, you could just be doing this. You could just be running two workflows so you separate the personas and it's different messaging, and they're like, oh my god, that makes so much sense. So although I do agree, I think sometimes you just need to be reminded of those simple instructions, those simple tips to be most effective.

Mike: Yeah, as always, Hannah, you're right. You know, I think we can overestimate how much is actually being done in the field by marketers, and sometimes as an agency, maybe we're, you know, looking at quite thoughtful, quite comprehensive campaigns. And perhaps there's a lot of companies that are doing things in house. They're not building such effective campaigns. And maybe, and I hate to say this, but maybe I was a little skewed, because we watched the replay, and on the replay, there's a summary that I've got to be honest, it feels like it was written by AI, because it's so superficial, it almost put me off the webinar, rather than encouraged me to watch it. I don't know what you think about the summary and the key points and whether actually, perhaps using AI. And I don't know if they did or not, but you know, if they did, whether that was a good move,

Hannah: I think I am actually gonna have to agree with you on this one. Mike, it does scream, very simple. I think they've done themselves a disservice, because you look at it and you think, Okay, this is really obvious. This is everything I know they've not actually shown the value of what they actually talk about in the webinar. So I do fully agree. And I think, you know, it's a prime example of, you know, AI isn't the answer to everything. You still need to put in that human effort. Because, as you said, you know, if we weren't such big fans of Marketo, we could have looked at that summary and been like, Okay, I know everything that you're talking about here, but actually, in the webinar, they talk about some really good points.

Mike: Yeah, I sometimes think with with AI, and I know we're getting off the topic of it, but sometimes, because AI is fundamentally predicting the most likely next word. That's pretty much how AI works. On a very crude level, everyone's going to write in now and tell me I shouldn't claim to have been an engineer, because I'm simplifying it, but fundamentally, it's a statistical process. It makes content sometimes, you know, read as though it's been well written, but actually what it's saying is is a little lightweight. You know, I'm going to, you know, coin a new word here. I think it's the blandification of content by using AI. I mean, everything comes out quite bland and quite boring. We're impressed at the quality of the writing, but actually, the quality of the thought behind the writing sometimes isn't there.

Hannah: Yeah, I think you've summed that up perfectly, mate. Now just looking at time, let's move on to our insightful Tip of the Week. Now this week, I want to talk about AB testing. So this is something people use a lot on digital campaigns, you know, within their ads, but I think marketers can forget that it can actually be used within Mark automation platforms as well. So you know, one of the things that we do at Napier is we AB test different subject lines. We AB test different call to actions, things like images, and the difference it makes, I think, is so underestimated. I mean, recently, you know, we do webinars quite frequently. We do them back once a month, and I've been sending out these webinars. And you know, our our attendees have been declining slightly. I've changed up the subject lines. I've done a couple of AB testing. And what do you know? We've increased the registrations for our next webinar that's happening on the 21st of August. So I think it's something that's really simple, but something that's really overlooked, and it actually doesn't take that much time at all. Well,

Mike: I love the way you've taken the credit for all the new registrations and not given me anything for the content we're presenting. I've got to agree with you. I mean, you're absolutely right. I think it, it's very easy, particularly in B to B, where you tend to have a lot of, you know, fairly evergreen things, and then a few one off campaigns, it's easy to forget that actually you should always be testing. We were running webinars. The webinars were frankly, going quite well. You know, we had good attendance, lots of engagement, that people who attended stayed. So, you know, clearly we were selling the webinars in an honest way. But you're right, you know, there was a very slight drift. In the number of attendees across time. And I think the fact that you were able to pick that up and start AB testing to improve things, it's a really sensible thing to do. I mean, you don't have to AB test everything. You know that that is definitely not the right approach, because you'll end up spending a lot of time doing things that are going to generate minimal benefit. But I think where you identify opportunities to improve, absolutely, I think, you know, marketing automation is often underrated in terms of AB testing. I mean, some companies, I subscribe to emails, and you'll see them AB testing headlines, particularly if you've got a couple of email addresses, subscribe to the same newsletter. But other companies, you know, clearly, everybody gets the same thing. So I absolutely agree. I mean, from your point of view, you know, what do you find most useful? Is it landing pages? Is it testing subject lines? Where do you find marketing automation tools giving you the biggest benefit?

Hannah: I would say, personally, I think it makes the most difference of subject lines. I think landing pages can be harder to tell, especially if you're targeted like we are. You don't necessarily get the data to really confirm which landing page works best. So I think for me, it's more in those, not smaller things, but not, you know, the large projects. It is the subject lines. It's perhaps changing up the call to actions. It's, you know, inputting images into some emails, not putting images into other emails, is really where I see the difference. I think if you're working with large sums of data, you know, and you're doing a broad outreach, then AB testing things like landing pages can be really, really helpful. But I do think it's dependent on what your goal is.

Mike: It's fascinating. I think you've made a just a fantastic point over the fact that in a lot of you know, very targeted B to B communications, we're dealing with small audiences, so getting statistically significant results is really hard. I mean, absolutely right. I'm interested though. Do you think one of the reasons that subject lines work so well is because as marketers, we're more prepared to do something very different on a subject line, rather than do something completely different on a landing page.

Hannah: Oh, that is a fantastic question, Mike. And the answer is absolutely yes. I think especially in our sector, in the B to B technology sector, we are limited with, perhaps we go too conservative. So when we build land in pages, we're not as daring, we're maybe not as fun, but with subject lines, you can do things that are a bit more fun, that maybe make people smile a little bit, pay attention a bit more. So absolutely, I think we perhaps have more freedom, whether that's right or wrong with things like emails and subject lines than we do of landing pages.

Mike: Yeah. And I guess also, you have the issue that changing a subject line takes a lot less time than completely redesigning a landing page, absolutely.

Hannah: I mean, it's one thing versus how many things do you change on a landing page? Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time again today, Mike. It's been a fantastic conversation.

Mike: It's been great. Thanks very much, Hannah, and I look forward to talking to you on the next episode of The Marketing Automation Moment

Hannah: Thanks for listening to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast.

Mike: Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast application, and we'll see you next time you.


Leadtail - How a PR-Led B2B Marketing Agency is Generating Leads For Their Clients

Mike recently appeared on the Leadtail podcast, where he talked about PR as a strategy, lead generation, and the benefits of content repurposing. He highlighted how Napier’s approach stands out from other agency marketers, and offers his insights on separating business and marketing metrics, avoiding the pitfalls of over-targeting, and amplifying the impact of a single piece of content.

Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN-t01WdNZs


A Napier Podcast Interview with Masha Petrova - Nullspace

Masha Petrova, CEO of Nullspace, a simulation software company joins the latest episode of the Marketing B2B Technology podcast to share her journey from aspiring astronaut to engineering expert and marketing leader.

She delves into the importance of effective marketing when targeting technical audiences and discusses the challenges of mergers and acquisitions in the engineering software industry. The conversation also explores current engineering tools, the role of AI in accelerating technological advancements, and the need for efficient simulation software.

About Nullspace

Nullspace is a deep tech software company that develops products and solutions for RF and quantum computing applications across defense, aerospace, and automotive industries.

About Masha Petrova

Dr. Petrova is an experienced executive with a passion for leading multi-disciplinary global teams toward successful results by focusing on operations and creating a unified vision. After receiving her PhD in aerospace engineering, Dr. Petrova spent 15+ years in the engineering simulation and design software industry, including holding global marketing executive roles at Ansys, Altium, LLC, and MSC Software (during acquisition by Hexagon MI) as well as 3 simulation software start-ups all acquired by Ansys, Inc. in the last 10 years.

Time Stamps

[00:46:2] – Masha provides some background to her career and what led her to become CEO of Nullspace.

[01:50.2] - Masha discusses EDA and simulation tools.

[03:22:0] – Masha explains the impact of industry consolidation and acquisitions on marketers and CMOs.

[09:42:2] – Masha talks about how to balance the demands of wanting to get leads and drive sales quickly with the longer term goal of building a strong brand.

[18:34:9] – Masha discusses how she deals with the issue of sustainability and how she conveys Nullspace’s commitment to sustainability when talking to engineers

[24:52:3] – Masha gives her best advice to those entering a career in marketing.

[26:24:1] – Masha’s contact details.

Quotes

“Because of AI, there is a lot of acceleration in technology itself that's happening… but the tools that the engineers use are still kind of stuck in the past. These are still conservative tools that's been tested and validated for over 40, 30 years. So, it's like using a hammer to build a car or something like that.” - Masha Petrova, CEO of Nullspace.

"Measuring brand effectiveness is really hard. It's not like lead generation, where you can track from inception to a sales deal. With brand, it's much subtler, so we tracked our spend versus views, comments, and social media engagement to demonstrate interest in our content." - Masha Petrova, CEO of Nullspace.

Follow Masha:

Masha Petrova on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mashavpetrova/

Nullspace website: https://www.nullspaceinc.com/

Nullspace on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nullspace-inc/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Masha Petrova - Nullspace

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Masha Petrova

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today. Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. I'm Mike Maynard and today I'm joined by Masha Petrova. Masha is the CEO of Nullspace. Welcome to the podcast, Masha.

Masha: Hi, Mike. So excited to be here.

Mike: It's great to have you on. So, what we like to do at the start is always get someone to talk a little bit about their career, and how they've got to where they are. So, can you tell me a little bit about your background, what you did, and what led you to become CEO Nullspace.

Masha: Sure. So, I am an engineer by background, my undergraduate was in mechanical engineering, and then I went ahead to get a PhD in aerospace engineering, I was going to be an astronaut, and then decided that I, I don't like risk that much. And Earth is a pretty exciting place to be. So, I got my PhD in Engineering and was a real engineer for about a year at a software startup. And then salespeople realized at that company that I was too extroverted to sit in front of a computer and kind of suck me into customer conversations. And I love that so much and fell in the world of sales and marketing and became head of marketing, but always in a very deeply technical engineering space.

Mike: I used to be an engineer as well. I think I got moved into sales and marketing, because I wasn't very good at engineering.

Masha: That's not true. You're probably too extroverted as well.

Mike: So, your background, you've been through a number of different companies, one of the areas I think you've been focused on has been, you know, electronic design tools. EDA, is that correct?

Masha: That's been one of the areas. Yeah, so my focus, where I've headed up marketing was a span of engineering software. And that's been EDA was one of the areas but also simulation of a wide variety type of application. So, engineering simulation, and now I actually head up a company called Nullspace, that develops stimulation software for electrical engineers as well. So engineers, developing antennas, radars, various RF devices, they need to test those devices, right as they're designing them to make sure the device is performing properly, your phone, spearing with the antenna on your whatever it is your ATV, your vehicle, your smartwatch, and so on properly, in order to do that, engineers test those RF devices and computer through simulation by doing an electromagnetic simulation or running electromagnetic simulation with tools like tools from an old space.

Mike: That’s fascinating, because, you know, you're obviously selling to a very technical audience, I think something similar to a lot of our listeners.

Masha: Yes, very highly tech. I mean, it's highly technical as you can get PhD, you know, electrical engineers and RF engineers. Yes.

Mike: Before we really delve into what you do at Nullspace, and how you approach marketing to these engineers, one of the things I know about the simulation and EDA industry is there's been a lot of consolidation or acquisition. And I think you've been through quite a few acquisitions, both for being on the acquiring side and also being acquired. How do you feel that impacts marketers and CMOS?

Masha: Yeah, that's very true. And I'm happy to talk about that. One note, just an interesting industry shift that I have been watching, I've been in the space of engineering software for the last 20 years or so. And we really haven't seen that much acquisition has been pretty conservative, slow-moving space, for the most part. You're an engineer, it's very exciting. If you're not you don't know what these companies are probably never heard of them. The ones that develop engineering tools and engineering software, but they are these kinds of companies. And this kind of software is key to developing any new technology, whether it's a car or plane train, any kind of technology, device, computer, smartwatch, smart tick, whatever it is, right, like anything you think of in terms of technologies, some engineer somewhere designed it. And to design it, they needed engineering tools. They didn't do it with the sketch paper, maybe initially, but at some point, they transferred it to a computer, and then needed to design and simulate that thing that they're designing in a computer. So, there's this whole space of companies that develop engineering tools that have been pretty, pretty conservative, non eventful, very slow growing, but kind of trucking along. And in ALEKS, the last six months or so there. You right, there has been quite a consolidation and m&a activity in the space of engineering tools, because we're seeing because of AI, there is a lot of solar acceleration in technology itself. That's happening overall, right? Again, any kind of technologies that you could think of from a plane to a satellite to a spaceship to a smartwatch to, you know, AI chip itself. All of that is being accelerated, but the tools that the engineer’s users still kind of stuck in it. Ask these are so conservative tools that has been tested and validated for over, you know, 40 30 years. So, it's like using a hammer to build a car or something like that. And so there has been a lot of acquisition activity, because the industry leaders are realizing like, hey, these engineering tools are super important, and technology is being accelerated. And so, more and more engineers will need more and more of these tools. So, this one, though, I wanted to make, like this m&a activity has been pretty new to our engineering tool space. And then as far as your question of kind of my thoughts or observations on being in an acquisition, so I have been through a total, I want to say six acquisitions, where being the I was the head of marketing, either VP or CMO on the small company side that being acquired, as well as being the head of marketing and a large company side and acquiring small company, having to assimilate all the marketing and all everything that goes through that. And if you've ever run marketing, whether you're just ran a marketing department, or ran the whole entire marketing team, and either been acquired or had to assimilate, like the Borg, that from Star Trek, the acquiring company, you know that that could be quite a bit of a headache, because you're dealing with? How do you kind of like, put the brands together properly? Are you just erasing the small brand? Because that happens quite often. And you're racing it as fast as possible? I've been through that kind of acquisition. Or are you sort of leaving the company alone and leaving the brand alone and it making it seem like, you know, things are going to run as is? And there's so much kind of thinking that has to go behind everything from the PowerPoint slides? And how do we present the branding there, right to training the sales team and giving the right talk tracks to kind of talking to both marketing teams and making sure they're working together. And a lot of times there's tension, because a lot of times a smaller company that's being acquired, they might have been around for a decade, and they might have had their own CMO or VP of marketing role kind of was the god of marketing in that company for a while. And now all of a sudden, they're almost irrelevant. That happens as well. How do you navigate that? So that's, there's a lot of really interesting topics that we can dive into on that side.

Mike: It’s interesting, I mean, the first thing is that this question of whether you keep the brand when you're acquiring or whether you basically assimilate into the acquirer’s brand. I mean, it seems like there's a difficult balance there, particularly, as you mentioned, that engineers can be quite conservative in what they buy when it comes to tools. And perhaps they want a brand they've known for 10 years, rather than wanting everything being, you know, merged into one, what's your view on that?

Masha: Yes, and that's been my experience in the space, for the most part, usually, that direction will come from the CEO, right, the CEO will kind of have an idea of what they want to do in terms of how closely do we want the brand to be sort of assimilated into the large, large brand. The idea right, in the engineering space, the tendency is to kind of leave the brand alone for a few years, and then just kind of slowly piece by piece. I mean, it takes a lot of times years, you know, five years or more to really kind of assimilate the technology in after the acquisition. And probably this time when I've seen a brand get, sort of, I don't want to say erased, because it sounds mean, but you know, minimize, should we say and not focused on as much is at a startup that was acquired that I was running, I was head of marketing, and the startup was acquired. And it wasn't around for very long, so the brand wasn't well known. And the branding was confusing, the naming of the tools was confusing. Also, when you're acquiring something from another country, like I remember, there was a company that I was a CMO at a larger company, we acquired a Japanese company, and one of the products was called pickles. It is a software product for engineers called pickles. You know, it's probably very cute in Japanese language, you know, or in that culture, which just didn't quite work. So, you know, we had to get rid of that pretty quickly, like within days. And then the other example that I was talking about where that was a smaller company that's being acquired. And it's just not a lot, there wasn't a lot of brand recognition. And it was easier to just kind of get the technology and fold it into the larger brand that's been around for a while.

Mike: It’s interesting. I mean, we've talked a lot about brand. And I think, you know, some people perceive that technical audiences by, you know, purely on features, but I think brand is super important. So, as a CMO, when you're marketing to engineers, how do you balance the demands of wanting to get leads and drive sales really quickly, with that longer term goal of building a strong brand?

Masha: That's a million-dollar question, right? I think for me, because I was an engineer myself for a while. I know that engineers being very conservative, they can smell BS very quickly. And so for me, my philosophy is build a brand that is built on trust as much as possible with engineers, which means you stick to facts as much as you possibly can, you know, you don't break that trust within with engineers as much as you possibly can, which means you can't move as fast can be as flashy as consumer space, for example, because consumers are much more forgiving much more, they'll take all kinds of BS, no offense to consumers. But if you compare, you know, engineers to just your main, middle of the road consumer, they'll forgive a lot more if you don't have all the facts straight, whereas engineers don't. And so, for me, it was always very important to have trust as the underlying side of things. So I will always push back because you always have that push for more leads, more leads, right sales always needs more leads, and getting stuff out there getting marketing campaigns out there, getting whatever webinars out there to just get more leads, I would always push back on that and try and make sure as much as possible, we're going back to like, will this break the trust of our customers or our engineers, as I think it's super important with technical audiences, and you just have to be really aware of that, especially if you're coming from consumer space and just know that the tolerance for intolerance for Bs and the tolerance for things that are not facts, is much lower in the space?

Mike: I think that's very true. I really like that point Masha. It's all about building trust and trust is built through basically being direct and being honest. I mean, do you think there are any elements of you know, consumer campaigns, you see, that can be used effectively to market for engineers? Or do you think you really have to take a fresh approach when you go to market such as specialist audience?

Masha: Oh, no, for sure. So, I would always look for innovation and marketing, I look to consumer space, for sure. Because there's really not much innovation in the enterprise space on the marketing side. Lots of innovation on the technical side, right. But marketing definitely lags as you probably know. So absolutely. consumer space is the kind of go to for, for inspiration for marketing. So, one of the things I've done, which was really interesting that I've adopted was, for example, product placement. So, product placement that's done quite frequently. And consumer marketing, and influencer marketing as well as engineering, software space are very technical enterprise space, at least a few years ago, that wasn't done at all. And so, I was at a company where I was very lucky. It was heading up brands, I was VP of brand marketing. And I did a project where we did many documentaries, where with our customers with engineers, where we kind of did many movies, we hired award winning filmmaker to do this, right. So, these were not testimonials. They were truly mini documentaries on our customers that were really interesting. And they took off like crazy, like, we got so much truck traction, I was a YouTube channel, that YouTube channel just blew up. Because they were really like really interesting informational, sometimes funny pieces of art, essentially right in many movies. But what we did there because it was not, we didn't do blatant testimonials, right? Like, the customers weren't supposed to talk about using our software. But we would have product placement, like we would have our software had a very distinct user interface. So, we would have our software with a distinct user interface. And like on a large computer, behind, you know, the engineer talking, we would do things like ship a bunch of branded mugs, T shirts, swag to the company before we went to film, right, and they would be holding a mug was the company's name, as they're talking about their own thing, not mentioning our company, by the name at all. So doing product placement was really cool. And that was a really cool way to kind of adopt a consumer marketing technique into our space that worked really, really well. I still don't see a lot of enterprise people doing that. Well, because I think engineers are very literal by nature. And so, for them, it's hard to understand how do you just how do you like, fit in a bunch of money on the marketing campaign, but don't actually talk about our product.

Mike: That's, I mean, that's very true. I love the concept. But as an engineer, I feel I have to ask, you know, how do you take the data you get from like the YouTube views, and understand whether those videos which can be, you know, placed your product in, but don't overtly sell a product? How do you understand whether they actually generate return? I mean, what's the data you use to analyze that?

Masha: Yeah, and that's hard. That's another issue with measuring brand effect effectiveness, right. And I've at my time, I read write a bunch of books and watched a bunch of videos on how do you measure brand effectiveness? And the answer is that it's really hard and there isn't a clear way of measuring it. And that's why the default a lot of times is lead generation. Because you can measure that very easily. You can track a lead all the way from inception all the way down to sales deal, right? If you have your sales operation set up properly, but with brand when you're doing a brand campaign like that, when you're doing things like product placement, or much subtler, subtler ways of marketing, it's much harder. And so, you know, all we had to rely on was we started a YouTube channel from scratch. And we had that company at the time had a huge A channel that was well established that was, I think, over a decade old, that had a certain number of views on it. So, we started a separate YouTube channel just for these movies for these documentaries that we were doing. And we just tracked our spend, right, which was the budget versus the number of views, comments, engagement, for sure. Social media engagement, and how much people were talking about these videos. And engagement was through the roof. Like, it wasn't even comparable to anything else I've seen in this engineering software space. And so, you know, that made it obvious. And just tracking, again, like views, likes, shares, things like that, that we can at least demonstrate that look, people are interested in this content, which means that the logo of our company is being placed in front of their eyes, right, like, our UI is being placed in front of their eyes. But, you know, there's a lot of internal marketing that I had to do explaining to the executive teams that, listen, branding doesn't work the same way as lead generation, you're not going to put out a brand campaign, and within a few months, all of a sudden, you have a ton more sales, it takes time, it takes persistence, it takes consistency, you know, people need to see something, whatever it is five, seven times before it actually starts to stick. And so yeah, that was a lot of internal education. And it's just, I don't have a clear solution for you for how do you measure brand effectiveness?

Mike: I think that's very true. I think a lot of us struggle with measuring brand effectiveness. And realistically some of the approaches that people use, particularly consumer a completely impractical in B2B. So, things like, you know, awareness and perception studies can often cost more than the actual campaign themselves, because it's so difficult to do it. So, I totally agree with it's very hard to measure brand.

Masha: Yeah. And you know, what's interesting now, as you're, as you're talking, kind of comparing contrasting my education, my engineering education, right, and engineering training, and my marketing sort of education by experience was marketing or 20 years, right, I educated myself, engineering is so much more rigorous. And there is such specific things that you need, like you either know what the equation looks like, or you don't you either solve the problem the right way, and you get the right answer or you don't in marketing, It's so fluffy, a lot of times, and I almost wish, like, and maybe this does exist, but I haven't seen it, there was a very rigorous marketing program specifically for enterprise marketing, that that has some of the structure of the engineering, oh, how do you properly measure brand? How long does it typically take to build broader brand effectiveness because that data exists, but it's kind of all over the place, you have to dig for it. And consumer marketing, I think, is very different from enterprise level marketing, especially in technical fields. And that's why it's easy for somebody to come in and say, oh, I've done marketing, like, how hard could that be? And kind of jump in and mess a bunch of things up. But you can't do that with an engineer. Like there's certain things that you either have a degree or you don't have a degree?

Mike: Yeah, I think I was very through I mean, engineering is very black and white marketing is definitely shades of gray.

Masha: Exactly.

Mike: I'd like to switch back a bit, Masha, and ask you something that, you know, I think lots of people care about, which is sustainability. And in your sector, I mean, you're obviously producing a tool that is pretty computer intensive, probably, you know, has a fairly significant energy demand to run it. How do you deal with the issue of sustainability? And how do you convey your company's commitment to sustainability? When you're talking to engineers? How important is it?

Masha: That's a great question. I mean, ideally, if we're talking about ideal sustainability, we wouldn't have things like engineering, we wouldn't have technology, and we'd all live in the woods peacefully with major, right, that's ideal scenario, if we're talking about sustainability, specifically, our tool because it's, again, fully in the computer. And yes, it's computer intensive, however, because we're modern solvers. So, our tools for engineers, especially for Engineering Simulation, have been developed 30 plus years ago, and kind of remained pretty much unchanged. Without that the kernel itself, the solver itself has remained unchanged for the most part. And so those solvers meaning the core of that engineering simulation engine, has been developed for prior computing architecture for all computing architecture, and has not been modernized. And so, it does take a lot of computing resources, and they can't solve really large problems. Our solver is more modern, and it has been developed for current parallel computing architecture. So, it's much more efficient as far as computing resources are concerned. So, number one, we could solve much larger problems, much more sophisticated problems, you know, next generation type of simulations. But we also are more up more conservative by nature with our software because of how it has been written. It has been written for modern computing architecture, and so it's much more efficient with the computing resources.

Mike: That's interesting, is something your engineering audience really care about? Or are they really focused on your ability to solve those bigger, more complex problems?

Masha: Not really. I mean, this these tools are a must, I don't know, for probably the most simple example is like trying to build a house without a hammer. Like these tools are the hammer of engineers, engineering simulation tools are a must. They at this point, you can't really design new technologies, whatever it may be, from any of your gym equipment that when you go to the gym and see that has electronics in it, to get into your car, to your smartwatch to your computer, like anything, at this point requires engineering simulation tools. And so, because they're a must, engineers are gonna have them, right. And because they're not like some sort of new social media craze, you know, or some sort of new CRM system or something like that. There are very solid, you know, hard to develop tools, there's only a few of them. So, it's not like engineers have a whole lot of choice. So as far as sustainability, it's kind of like, you got what you got. And there's we don't really get many questions. And again, probably, engineering software tools are the most conservative, the simulation tools are the most conservative as compared to, you know, your alternative, if you didn't use the engineering simulation tools would be to design whatever technology you're designing, to build the whole thing, test it. So physically build it, right. So, it's a part of a car, it's a whole part of a car that you are buying the parts from, you're shipping them from somewhere, you putting them together, assembling them, you measuring them, that is a lot less sustainable than simulating the whole thing in the computer.

Mike: And that makes a lot of sense. So, you know, I think it's great. You've obviously got some sustainability credentials. But I think we often see with a lot of engineering audiences, sustainability isn't always that top priority, particularly when it comes to developing products. I really appreciate all you've talked about Marsha, it's been really interesting, before we end the interview, there's a couple of general questions we always like to ask our interviewees and, and, you know, really build up knowledge on, you know, things like marketing advice. So, I'm interested to know what's the best piece of marketing advice you've ever received.

Masha: I think one of the areas that I had to learn the most in has been on the art directing side of things. So, I worked with a few really good art directors, because I was lucky enough to actually lead the brand, right. And so I actually would build an in house agency and a few of the companies that I worked at as a CMO or head of marketing, they would actually build an internal agency, because I felt it was a lot easier to control, you could move a lot faster, you know, and I had always had specific creative vision that I wanted carried out, as opposed to hiring an outside marketing agency. For brands, specifically, probably the biggest thing I learned is how important the detail is, when it comes to branding, specifically, you know, the little curlicue on a letter and a font could all of a sudden create a completely different mood on your you know, Banner, or an advertising campaign or something else, just from like, where the letter is slanted to the left or to the right, or you know, how curly little edges of the letters are the color, and being the ability to create a mood board first. So I would say this is one of the biggest things is working with an art director, when you're trying to sell to executives in your company, let's say you're a CMO and you're trying to sell an idea or campaign or get more budget for executives in your company, getting buy in on sort of the mood board and storytelling piece first before you actually create a campaign makes such a difference. Because all of a sudden, they're allowed to voice their opinion about how I like the color yellow, and you know, I like whatever certain name for this product, and you kind of flush that out. And a good sort of art director and a good, you know, storyteller will be able to work through all those issues with the executive team and tell them you know why yellow does not work in this case or whatnot. And then the executives feel like they have a buy in, right, like it's a campaign, it wasn't just shoved on their lap, and you haven't spent a whole bunch of time actually creating a full-on campaign, you just kind of playing around with you know, putting together a story for a particular campaign. And you can change it and you haven't dumped a bunch of time in it. And so, I'd say that's one of the biggest learning experiences and things I recommend is putting together sort of a mood board for whatever your brand campaign is, get the buy in from your executive team at that stage, and then work from that.

Mike: love that. That's such good advice. The other question we asked it's advice from you. If you were talking to someone who was just entering a career in marketing, what would you tell them what would be your advice to them?

Masha: Well, okay, so there is a lot of people who think they want to do marketing. So I would say if you're going into marketing, don't do it just because The default and you don't know what else to do, like have a passion for it, you know really feel like you are very creative and you love to create and you love to work with colors and fonts and stories, and you truly love it, and then go into it and then explore it and be rigorous about it. Or if you think you want to go into enterprise marketing, because let's face it, a lot of times, that's where the money is, I recommend getting a technical degree first. And you know, either minoring in marketing or kind of studying it on your own because you can study marketing on your own. All the marketers are gonna hate me for this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. You can study marketing on your own, but you can get you know, you can study physics on your own, but for the most part, like no one's gonna take you seriously as a physicist, you kind of need a physics degree or you need an engineering degree. Or if you're going into FinTech, right enterprise market or you're interested in a FinTech area, get a finance degree and minor in marketing, or starting to study marketing on your own or study art on your own. For example, because you really need an artistic eye for that or study, study storytelling or on your own. That would be my advice.

Mike: I love it. That’s great advice. And as a, you know, a recovering engineer, I really appreciate it as well. Marsha, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate all your insights. If somebody's listening, and they'd like to find out more or contact you what's the best way to learn more about you know, either no space, or get hold of you.

Masha: So, on LinkedIn, I am Masha V Petrova. And if you want to learn about null space if we do have some engineers listening, it's Nullspaceinc.com.

Mike: That's awesome, Masha, thank you so much for your time.

Masha: Thank you so much, Mike. It's a pleasure.

Mike: Thanks so much for listening to marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes, or on your favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at NapierB2B.com, or contact me directly on LinkedIn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


A Napier Podcast Interview with Xenia Muntean - Planable

Xenia Muntean, Co-Founder and CEO of Planable, a content collaboration platform, shares some great tips for repurposing content on social media to extend its lifetime, ensuring it remains evergreen and continues to engage audiences after its initial release.

She also discusses the challenges of achieving executive buy-in, how to navigate internal approval processes, and explores the potential impact of AI on social media marketing teams.

About Planable

Planable is the content collaboration platform that makes marketing teamwork a breeze. It’s the spot where you can create, plan, review, approve, and analyse all your marketing content for social media, blogs, newsletters, press releases. Experience a faster, smoother workflow that helps your team work together like never before.

Started in 2016, Planable is trusted by over 5000 marketing teams behind iconic brands such as Hyundai, Christian Louboutin, Royal Canin, KFC, and SMEG.

About Xenia Muntean

Xenia is the CEO and Co-Founder of Planable, a content review and marketing collaboration platform used by over 10,000 creators behind iconic brands such as Hyundai, Christian Louboutin, Viber, and United Nations. Prior to launching Planable, at 20 years old she built a digital marketing agency and led social for clients such as Coca-Cola.

Xenia Muntean is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Techstars alumna, and Webby Awards judge. She’s also a frequent speaker, startup mentor, and avid runner.

Time Stamps

[00:50:6] – Xenia provides some background to her career and why she founded planable.

[02:06.6] - Xenia discusses the benefits of being based in Europe versus the United States.

[04:33:1] – What does Plannable do? Xenia explains what makes the platform so loved amongst users.

[09:53:6] – Xenia offers some tips on achieving executive buy-in.

[12:03:0] – How to reuse content to extend its lifetime.

[15:18:7] – What role can AI play in content generation?

[21:45:2] – Xenia’s contact details.

Quotes

“When you build a software as a service product, it's all about the people… building a team that you can resonate with and have less cultural barriers with I think is really important.” Xenia Muntean, Co-Founder and CEO at Planable.

“I think for content it's all about the distribution, right? So, it's really important to have really good, really meaningful content, but also to not forget about the second part. How do you get the most out of that content?” Xenia Muntean, Co-Founder and CEO at Planable.

Follow Xenia:

Xenia Muntean on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xeniamuntean/

Planable website: https://planable.io/

Planable on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/planable/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Xenia Muntean - Planable

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Xenia Muntean

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today.

Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology for podcasts from Napier. I'm Mike Maynard and today I'm joined by Xenia Muntean is the co-founder and CEO of a Martech company called Planable. Welcome to the podcast Xenia.

Xenia: Thank you so much for having me here.

Mike: So it's great to have you on the podcast to start off with, we always like to have people give a little bit of a background as to how their careers developed, and how they've ended up in their current roles. So I don't know if you can just explain, you know, what your career journey was, please?

Xenia: Absolutely, my 90% of my career journey is in Planable. So that's, that's where, you know, I built, I built my entire background professionally. But before Planable, I did have a Social Media Marketing Agency. So I was building a lot of content for brands such as Coca Cola, and some other brands locally back in my home country. And I was doing a lot of, you know, besides social, I was doing websites and branding and everything, you know, everything, digital marketing, everything, you know, was wearing a lot of path. And I've started building that agency whilst I was still in university. And then I can discover this problem that we're currently solving at Planable, and specifically, the back and forth that happens behind digital and social media campaigns. And I've jumped on board on, you know, solving this, this problem and building bannable. And that's what I've been doing for the past eight, nine years, almost. So yeah, so as I mentioned, my entire career has been here, invested in Planable.

Mike: That's great to hear. And it's one of those sort of, you know, nine year overnight successes, I guess.

Xenia: Exactly, yes.

Mike: So one of the things you mentioned Sr, which I always find interesting is, you're based in Europe, you're running a company that I guess primarily serves American customers, and is also incorporated America. So what do you see as the benefits of being in Europe versus moving across to the States.

Xenia: I think, considering the type of customers that we have, that are very digitally savvy ones that have a very thorough buying process, and the entire product, which is very, very easy to use, and also very easy for users to onboard, it's a self service process, through our website over zoom. So there's no point in actually having people on the ground, we do visit our customers, our top customers from time to time for you know, to establish a relationship and for customer success. But other than that, it's all an advantage, considering obviously, you know, the costs of building something, when you build a software as a service product, it's all about the people. And obviously, Eastern Europe is a little bit more affordable than North America. So it's all a big advantage to us. And also culturally, you know, building a team that you can resonate with and have less cultural barriers, I think is really important, especially when the team is quite small, you know, under 100 people, it's really important to have that sync and have that cultural fit.

Mike: I love it. I think that's really fascinating to try and build a stronger culture within the business by bringing people together who have a similar background. But that's a really interesting point. And I think a challenge for a lot of people who try and build international businesses.

Xenia: Yeah, something else that is also very dear to us is our in person culture, which I know is very anti the current trend. But it again, because we're such a small team, we're still a start up in terms of how we think and in terms of how we move, again, you know, having a distributed team or having food on the ground and in North America, that will be really hard for us to incorporate in the current very bonded very in person type of culture that we have.

Mike: That makes a lot of sense. Moving on. I mean, let's let's look at panel itself and the product. Can you give me you know, a little bit more of a description as to what you were trying to solve when you built pluggable?

Xenia: Sure. So when I started building Planable, together with my co founders, I was working on my agency at that point in time and they were working in other digital marketing agencies. And we all kind of stumbled individually into this problem of how do you present work to clients in a really neat and elegant way? And how do you put the work that you're creating for your clients in the best light at that point? In time, and still, now in the present, I don't think PowerPoints or spreadsheets or Google Docs are the best way to present moving graphics, you know, very beautiful content that you're creating for clients, and the entire bank Bonga. And the entire back and forth of that happens over email when you have to discuss that content is also not very efficient. So those are the problems that we stumbled upon, on our own through through the work that we were doing in our agencies. And we did a bit of customer discovery. And we realized that, hey, this is not a problem that we just ourselves are struggling with. But seems like it's, you know, a larger problem not just in agencies, but also in larger companies in house and not just in Eastern Europe, but all across the world. You know, people collaborate on social media posts, in PowerPoints and spreadsheets, they send it back and forth over email, they discuss it there. And you know, a lot of mistakes can happen, a lot of things can fall through the cracks, when you don't have a very smooth process. That's what Planable does. It's one single space where you can bring everyone who needs to be involved in the process of discussing content for social, from the actual people who are creating good copywriters, and designers and social media managers, but also everybody else who is involved and has a word to say in what that content should look like. Other teams, right? So product teams, may be employer, the Vaca, C teams, HR departments, stakeholders, the leadership, everybody who who has a say in that content or has specific knowledge to inform and build that content, can basically bring everyone on the same page, prototype that content, iterate on it together, discuss it, and then you know, obviously, schedule it, and Cloneable is going to take care of the publishing as well. But it's really that workflow and that back and forth process that we really shine at.

Mike: And I mean, there's obviously quite a lot of products out there who do something vaguely similar in terms of presenting content for people to review. You know, you said you really shine a showcase in that content. Can you dig a little bit deeper and unpack you know, exactly why Planable is loved by your users? Yeah.

Xenia: Yeah. So how visual the product is, I think one of the first things that our users see when they discover the product is that oh, wow, you know, it's really visual, and it looks so good. The interface is so clean Lake, it's really easy to use. So the interface and the usability are probably the things that people you know, love a lot about the product. And I think that's really, really important considering that it is a product where you showcase the work and where everybody looks at the work, looks at the content discusses it collaborates around that. So it's really important to put it in the best light and basically yes to, to do good by that content. And the way we do that is by allowing you to see how the posts are actually going to look like once they're live. Right. So imPlanable, when you create content, when you create social media posts for your campaign, you can actually see a live markup, a preview of how that content is going to look like on any social media network, right. So if you're creating content for LinkedIn, you're gonna see posts as though they're on LinkedIn already. Right? So for Instagram, the same, you can see the grid on Instagram where everything is going to look together, once the entire campaign is live, you can see the stories and the tech talks and all the posts for every social media platform. Pinterest has the same, you know, native format as a pin. So all of them are kind of destination aware. And you are able to experience it as though it's live, which is really great for you as a creator. Because you're working in a more delightful way you can actually see how your work is going to look like. But it's also very good for everyone who is involved in the process in terms of approving that content, right? It's very often social media managers work with people who are not very social media savvy, all kinds of stakeholders that don't know how a specific format of posts is actually going to look like. So you're taking that friction out of the equation. And people can see the content, no miscommunications, no question, they just get how they're going to look like. And it's all a matter of, let's change this, or let's improve that part to make the entire process of collaborating and approving contents moves.

Mike: So that's interesting. I was going to ask you about mistakes that people make. And it sounds like one of the big ones is assuming the audience internally who's got to review and approve the posts, actually understands the social media network. You know, we've got a primarily B2B audience. We probably have a bigger problem with executives not understanding social media, that maybe even consumer people do.

Xenia: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's really important to be able to gather feedback from state encoders in a way that is very easy to them, right. So when you need people to get involved in that process, you really need to make it super easy for them to give you feedback. And I know that from my own experience working with clients, if they need to log in into some tool and learn how that tool works, it's just not going to happen. They're gonna call you, they're gonna email you, they're gonna give you feedback and some other ways that is more convenient and easier for them. So you need to remove all those barriers to entry when it comes to feedback, right. So you need a tool that is very, very simple to use, where they see everything in a familiar way, right. So if you work with executives on content for LinkedIn, they need to log in. And it needs to look as though it's actually on LinkedIn. So it makes it super, super easy for them to be able to give feedback and also give feedback in a granular way. Right? So we take feedback to the next level asides plan and ball, kind of like how Google Docs does it rides on in Google Docs, you can give feedback as annotations, right? So you can give feedback on specific words, like the specific words and give feedback, or even do suggestions where you can delete an entire part and rewrite it yourself. So it makes that feedback more specific. And it brings more clarity in that process. And that's exactly what Planable does, as well, so that there are no mistakes or miscommunications around what needed to be changed, or to what part of the social media post were you referring to? Right. So it's crystal clear.

Mike: That's super important. I've seen a lot of feedback that's coming in, that's a little bit vague. And then the changes that are made are not quite right. And it ends up wasting time for everybody, you know, whether it's two people within a brand or an agency in a brand, I love that idea of making the feedback, crystal clear. Just moving on now. So one of the things I think a lot of people are looking at is to be able to reuse their content. So maybe that's across different social platforms, or maybe that's generating multiple posts around the same topic. I mean, what's your view on content reuse? And how does Planable you know, help you create a workflow that's more efficient?

Xenia: I think for content, it's all about the distribution, right? So it's really important to make really good, really meaningful content, but also to not forget about the second part, how do you get the most out of that content very often. And I see that inside our team as well, very often, we produce really, really good content, and that we launch it once we promote it once and then it kind of you know, sits somewhere and collects dust to basically, so you need to get as much out of that content as possible. And one way Planable helps with that is by bringing other formats of content inside your calendar. Right? Though very typically, when you look at social media management platforms out there, it's only focused on social. So we are more focused on the content. And we're helping you bring newsletters and articles and any other format of content that you can think of into your calendar into your editorial calendar. So you can see it alongside your content. So you can, you know, say that, okay, this, this article can collaborate on it. And then you can you know, trust format, we have a very, very solid integration with open AI and site findable, so you can take an article, and then you can rewrite it and make it into you know, multiple posts that you can use it on LinkedIn, or you know, on any other channel that works best for your audience. So this is really, really helpful in terms of getting the most out of the content piece. But also, we do have an evergreen functionality, right, where, if you have a post that you know, has performed very, very well, maybe you can reuse it and reschedule at you know, every couple of months, so that you can get you know more out of it. And again, customize it, personalize it a little bit so that it's not always you know, the same single pose, but maybe the concept is the same. And then you tweak it, again, with AI. So you can make things you know, very efficient. And you can get that post on an evergreen schedule. So you can recycle and use that content and in more ways than just one initial launch and then forgetting about it.

Mike: I love and am I right? I mean Planable also has the analytics built in so you can understand which of those posts should be evergreen. Exactly,

Xenia: Exactly, yes. So you look at the performance, we have a snapshot. So we don't go extraordinary in depth, you can get a lot of data from the platforms themselves, when we give you a snapshot, a real time snapshot of how your page is performing, but also how individual posts are performing. So you can look at what success looks like on your page and what content is successful and gain insights either about producing more content in that direction. Or directly as you mentioned, Mike just taking you know one post and rewriting it, tweaking it and putting it on evergreen schedule. That's

Mike: perfect. And it sounds like it shortcuts a lot of time because you've got everything in one platform, which I think is great. And you mentioned earlier ai ai and the use of AI to rewrite repurpose existing content? I mean, how do you see AI impacting a tool like Planable? In the future? Are you going to have more AI actual origination of posts and images? Or do you think that still needs a human to be creative and write the first draft,

Xenia: you absolutely absolutely needs like you're meant to be creative AI is a copilot, it's a tool that helps you either sometimes maybe with inspiration, but also in other times, it helps you make your work a little bit more efficient, but it's obviously not gonna replace social media managers, I can see that you still need the human touch, you still need that authenticity, someone to understand the brand and to come up with the concepts and the strategies and the creative ideas. And then yes, you can use AI to polish it, you can use AI to rewrite some pieces. But definitely, I can't see, at least not at the moment, to replace this entire profession, the way we have aI inside Planable is integrated into the creation process. So as I mentioned already, can help you rewrite things, it can help you make it punchy, or short or longer, whatever you need, or you can even give it images and it's going to create captions out of those images, which you can then you know, Polish and you know, work with them 40% of creators inside Planable use AI and 75% of what they're getting from the AI is actually being used live in production. So it has, you know, a great acceptance rate when it comes to the the output. So I think you know, it's a really great tool, but it's definitely not something that is going to replace the work, you still need genuine connection with your audience and a genuine understanding of your brand and your audience.

Mike: I think that's great. The really understanding the brand and connecting with the audiences is really good advice. I mean, do you have any other advice for people who are generating social media posts, and I'm thinking particularly of agencies like Napier, that might be generating social media posts for our clients? How can we do a better job?

Xenia: That's the big question. And that's a big one, I think it needs to be very much in collaboration with the client, and you need to be very, very close to the business as an agency, right? You need to really understand what the businesses objectives are, kind of what they're after what the goals are, but also you knew really in depth understanding of the products and the services. And yeah, you really need to be very integrated into into that business. And it sounds like a no brainer, but I think that is where you need to get started. And then all kinds of ideas and problems and solutions appear once you're very, very close to the business. And in a strong collaboration with a client. I know a lot of agencies are kind of against this entire approval process. And you know, ideally, they just do the work and not have the client involved in the collaboration that you know, they've been hired for that. But there is a very big added value to having the client involved in the process. They know so much about the business, they know so much about the brand, that they're building the product. And I think, you know, if you establish a really strong, really candid relationship with your clients, you can get more out of the content and the services that you're providing for them.

Mike: Absolutely. I think that's great advice. And I know, you know, I've heard people complaining about the client being involved and the classic brand police complaint. What you said about honesty is absolutely right on if if you're really candidate, and you've talked to a client, I think you can then overcome. And to be honest, from agency's point of view, I think it's generally feeling the client is being too cautious, which is then going to impact the results. But I think an agency can be candid, that's great advice. I love that. So I really appreciate your time Xenia, it's been really interesting. Before we finish, there's a couple of questions, we always like to ask people. And the first one is what's the best piece of marketing advice you've ever been given?

Xenia: I had a very good conversation around positioning. And positioning is really important to us, because we're in a very, very crowded market, you know, B2B technology, but also marketing technology. I don't know if you've seen those marketing technology maps, but they're gigantic. So it's really important to understand who your ideal customer is, who is actually getting the most value out of your product and your service, who loves you the most basically, and think about your positioning around that. And I think we should have thought about how we position our brand earlier. I wish we did that earlier. But I think this advice and this, you know, conversation that I had the wrong positioning with someone that was really, really good and I'm happy we finally did it and you know, it clarified a lot of things internally as well.

Mike: think that's great. That's really important. I think quite a stir theatric bit of advice as well. The other question we'd like to ask people is around marketers entering the industry. So if you were talking to someone who maybe is just finishing a university degree about to enter marketing as a career, what advice would you give them to help them be successful?

Xenia: I try as many things as possible in the marketing space, I started as a generalist. So I think, you know, if you try a lot of things, you get the occasion to do that, to get the opportunity to actually wear a lot of hats in the marketing space. I think that's great. I think you expose yourself to a lot of things and you can understand what are the things that interests you the most, what are the things that you're good at, you know, by getting that really broad exposure to all of the things marketing, you can find? What are the directions that maybe you want to specialize in? Or maybe you want to be, you know, continue as a generalist that, you know, path, a swab. But I hear that a lot of you know, people, especially early in their career, you know, complain a lot about like, Oh, you didn't, you can see a lot of memes on Tik Tok, as well about all of the hats that you wear as a marketer. And I think that's great, especially early in your career, I think that kind of exposure, you get to learn a lot from it. And it's really, really good opportunity. If you want to specialize later on, obviously, you know, you can go into that path. But I think that early exposure, teaches you a lot about the different mixes and parts that are, you know, the world of marketing.

Mike: Thank you. I think that's awesome advice for anyone starting a career in marketing. So thank you very much. I mean, Sr, I really appreciate your time all the insights you've shared, if somebody's listening to podcasts, they want to find out more about Planable on maybe, you know, ask you some questions about what you've said, What's the best way to do that.

Xenia: So the best way to do that is either to reach out on LinkedIn, and let me know that you've heard me in this podcast and absolutely connect with me, I'd be more than happy to talk. And also, if you want to learn more about Planable, you can just go to our website Planable.io. We have a free plan. You can test the product on your own for a month, you can see you know if it's a problem that you have, and if this solution that we're building is something that works for you. But yeah, reach out on LinkedIn. And you know, just go to our website if you want to check us out.

Mike: Thanks so much. I really appreciate your time. And thank you for being a guest on marketing B2B technology.

Xenia: Thank you so much for having me here.

Mike: Thanks so much for listening to marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes, or on your favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at Napier B2B dot com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.


Is your data safe? HubSpot's Hack Creates Concerns

HubSpot’s recent data hack raises serious questions about the safety and security of our data. Mike and Hannah discuss the implications of this data breach and explore what it could mean for both marketers and businesses.

They also talk about the latest updates from Salesforce’s Summer 24 release, share their insights on effective strategies for lead conversion, and discuss the considerations marketers should keep in mind when deciding between marketing automation platforms and dedicated social media scheduling platforms.

Catch up with Napier’s latest on-demand webinar “Segmentation Secrets: 9 Ways to Target the Right Audience”: https://napier-partnership-limited.webinargeek.com/segmentation-secrets-9-ways-to-target-the-right-audience

Acton Webinar “Crafting A Modern Love Lead Story: Strategies for Effective Lead to Pipeline Conversion”: https://success.act-on.com/acton/fs/blocks/showLandingPage/a/9883/p/p-0c7b/t/page/fm/0

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

About Napier

Napier is a PR-lead, full service marketing agency that specialises in the B2B technology sector. We work closely with our clients to build campaigns, focusing on achieving results that have a significant positive impact on their businesses and which, above all, ensure maximum return on their investment.

About Mike Maynard

Mike is the Managing Director/CEO of Napier, a PR and marketing agency for B2B technology companies. A self-confessed geek who loves talking about technology, he believes that combining the measurement, accountability and innovation that he learnt as an engineer with a passion for communicating ensures Napier delivers great campaigns and tangible return on investment.

About Hannah Wehrly

Hannah is the Head of Business Development and Marketing at Napier and leads on pitching, proposal writing, lead nurturing, email marketing, social media and content creation. Hannah joined the Napier team back in 2017 as a Marketing Specialist after completing her degree in Marketing and Communications, and her role focuses on developing new relationships with potential clients.

 Time Stamps

[00:53.4] – Mike and Hannah discuss the recent HubSpot hack and what this could mean for marketers.

[04:34.6] – Hannah talks about Salesforce’s Summer 24 releases, including the Einstein AI tool and their new large language model.

[10:17.6] – Mike and Hannah talk about a recent Acton webinar and strategies for lead conversion.

[13:13.1] – Insightful tip of the week: should marketers use their marketing automation for social media scheduling and analytics?

Follow Mike and Hannah:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Hannah Wehrly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-wehrly-b0706a107/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing Automation and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast – Marketing B2B Technology: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/marketing-b2b-technology/id1485417724

Transcript: Marketing Automation Moment Episode 17 – Is your data safe? HubSpot's Hack Creates Concerns

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Hannah Wherly

Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment Podcast. I'm Hannah Kelly.

Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard. This is Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.

Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment Podcast. I'm Hannah Wehrly

Mike: and I’m Mike Maynard

Hannah: and today we talk about the HubSpot data hack.

Mike: I moan about the name of a new Salesforce feature,

Hannah:  we discuss act on the modern lead story webinar.

Mike: And finally, Hannah comes up with some great advice about using marketing automation platforms to post on social media.

Hannah:  Hi, Mike, welcome back to another episode of the market automation moment podcast. How you doing? It's been a while since we chatted.

Mike: It's great to chat to you again. I mean, obviously, we're a little quieter with the podcast during the summer when this is happening. But I think actually, we got some interesting news this week.

Hannah: We absolutely do, Mike. And I'm going to dive straight in because we had an interesting bit of news come from HubSpot. And that's that someone has attempted to hack their data. Now this is major because a big part of my automation platform is that your data is safe. You know everything sits on there. Should we as marketers be worried that our data isn't as safe as they claim it to be?

Mike: Well, I think we should be worried. And I'm not sure if you're aware. This is not the first time HubSpot has been hacked a couple of years ago, there was a hack that targeted cryptocurrency clients of HubSpot. Oh, I wasn't aware of that. So I think we should be concerned. And there's a couple of reasons of concern. I mean, I think it's fair to say that in terms of IT security, someone like a HubSpot is probably better than most of us marketers. But the problem is, is there's so many people who can then get access into the data and particularly with HubSpot, because they have a very interactive approach to their customers. And they're very supportive. They quite often have multiple internal HubSpot people with access to data. So I think that's got to be a bit of a concern. Hopefully, they're going to be much more secure than any of us marketers would be, but in reality, they're a much bigger target as well, because you gain access to multiple accounts.

Hannah: I think that's such a stark reminder, Mike about how vulnerable our data is. And I have to say, as well as a little bit disappointed, because I actually read the news first on TechCrunch. And they actually stated that until TechCrunch reached out to them. They hadn't actually addressed that this was going on in HubSpot, you know, externally. And it's a bit disappointing. Because if this is happening, then you also want to be aware.

Mike: I think absolutely. I mean, there were rumors on Twitter, I think prior to the TechCrunch article, let's be generous. And let's hope that actually what was happening was HubSpot was really focused on working with the companies that were affected, and trying to mitigate any effects before they spent time talking about it publicly. But I agree. I mean, I think openness is really important. You know, and it's gonna worry, I think anyone who's using the cloud, when we hear these stories, it does bring home the vulnerabilities.

Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, has this changed your opinion on the cloud? Mike, do you use it?

Mike: Well, I don't think it has. And I think, you know, it's frustrating. It's annoying, you know, the vendors should be the gold standard in terms of security. But the reality is, is that, you know, if we were all running our own market automation platforms and our own servers, we'd almost certainly be less good at security. So I think we've got to accept it's a risk, I think we've got to be aware of it and concerned. But equally, you know, I think cloud still offers the best and probably the most secure solution for almost anybody in the industry. So for us marketers, I don't think we should be changing our behavior. But obviously, you know, we should be looking. And hopefully HubSpot now is going to introduce things that are going to stop them being hacked in the future. And I think that's a really important thing for them to learn lessons. Absolutely.

Hannah: And hopefully, they'll share something externally soon. But you know, perhaps inside internally and with their customers, they've really worked on how they're going to make sure it doesn't happen again. So we're definitely given the benefit the doubt, but I think it's definitely a bit of a wake up call at the same time.

Mike: It is and you know, you always wonder whether there's been other hacks and other vendors We've not heard about. So, you know, this transparency, I think is really important. So everyone knows what's happening. And hopefully, what we're seeing is one unlucky isolated incident, rather than something that's going to be a trend.

Hannah: Definitely. Well, I want to move on to something a bit more positive now and that's Salesforce because Salesforce have actually just announced their summer 24 releases. So they've announced a lot we won't go through every feature, but there's a few that are, you know, have gone live in June. There's some going live in July, some going live in August, but there's a couple that really stood out to me. I mean, one is ramping up on AI. I mean, this is no surprise. We've talked about my love for Einstein, the Thor, we've talked about it many times. This is the the one feature that they really push in. But what I really liked about it is that they've announced the release of large language models. And this is going to allow them to show the marketing team topics that are being brought up with the sales. So it's helping that alignment is helping these marketing emails actually match what the sales teams are talking about. And I loved that as a feature. I think that's going to be so helpful. Moving forward, what do you think?

Mike: I think it's something that a lot of sales teams have really wanted is, you know, being able to look over a large sales team and see what people are talking about. I think that the question is going to be, how easy is it to actually take that information, and use it to make your marketing more effective. I think, for example, if you look across most sales teams, at some point, there'll be issues about price. And you know, lots and lots of customers will talk about price, we know that we don't need a large language model to troll masses of emails to find that out. So it's going to be the little nifty things, the things you don't expect, where I think it really going to add the value. But you know, be interesting to see people who use it, and how effective it is in terms of bridging the gap between, frankly, a marketing team that doesn't really know what the customers are talking about. And the customers may be, you know, whilst AI is a great solution, perhaps another solution is to help the marketing team understand the customers better. Absolutely,

Hannah: Mike, and I think it offers opportunities. You know, you talked about pricing there. And that's maybe an obvious one. But I think it gives marketers the chance to look at that and say, okay, look, pricing is really common at this stage of the funnel at this stage of the funnel, we need to put an offer in, we need to give some discount, we need to help you close this sale. And I think that will be interesting to help marketers maybe think of things they hadn't thought about before. Because if they don't know it's a challenge for the sales team, then they haven't been helping them. But having that data, I mean, I'm always biased. I'm a marketer. I'm like, give all the information. But I can just see maybe some solutions and some ideas market has been a bit more creative with having this data available to them.

Mike: I think you said something incredibly smart by hand. Because, you know, I was saying everybody knows that at some point, price becomes an issue. I think what you're telling me is that quite often we don't know exactly what stage of the customer journey, the customer thinks about price, those large language models can potentially start predicting, when customers are likely to raise price and let you address it before the customer even starts talking about it. That's that's absolutely a brilliant point. And I love that.

Hannah: I'm excited to see where it goes. I mean, another feature I want to talk about, and we won't focus on the name too much, Mike, because I know you're not a fan. But it is the waterfall segments. And this is also really great, you know, we're talking about offers. And the waterfall segment really allows automations to be built that will provide one offer to the right customer at the right time. Now, I think it's an interesting concept. But what are your views on it?

Mike: Well, I don't like the name. But that's a different issue. I think, you know, one of the interesting things that Salesforce is doing is it's saying if you've got multiple offers, it'll guarantee that each contact only gets one. I mean, I can see the benefits of that. But equally when you're looking at you thinking maybe people haven't segmented their database really well, if there's big overlaps between different segments, what's going on there, it seems like something that's fairly easy in terms of technology to build, I wonder whether marketers should be in a position where they need all of that technology being built.

Hannah: That is a fantastic point, Mike. And I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't do a plug for our own webinar right now. But if you're listening, we have actually just done a webinar on nine ways to submit your data. So if this is something that you're struggling with, we'll put it in the show notes. And please check it out. Because Mike actually covered some fantastic points of, of ways to segment your data and be more effective. And to go back to your point, Mike, I think that's so valued, because why is it needed? And how are they not segmenting your data? And maybe it's something that we need to have a little bit of a look into.

Mike: Salesforce will probably argue it's making life easier for the marketer. And that's true, you know, it's making it simpler, but it kind of feels a bit like it's papering over the cracks of a poorly segmented database, rather than necessarily really being a feature that we should all be wanting to use.

Hannah: Yeah, and arguably, as well, you know, we've discussed dynamic emails in the past and you know, we've used dynamic email for clients to already personalized offers. So Could also be argued if it's actually offering anything new that wasn't available already.

Mike: Exactly, I think I think it's all to be seen, it's obviously, you know, only being piloted at the moment. And I'm sure we're not only seeing Salesforce, but also in other marketing automation platforms going forward as well.

Hannah: Absolutely. Moving on, Mike, I want to switch gears and I want to talk about an axon webinar. Now, I love to this webinar and the way they marketed it. And I love a cliche, and I'm always a little bit cheesy. And they marked it as the modern not love story, but the modern lead story. And it's all about getting an effective strategy in place for lead conversion. So you go from lead conversion to your pipeline. And they basically walk through a six stage step of how you could do that. What I quite liked about it is, you know, this seems to be a topic of the podcast today is that it was very sales focused. So it's very more, not the core marketing, but how marketing can help sales to go. And they talked about a couple of cool things. But they talked about, you know, there's a marketing qualified lead, but they don't actually look at that they're looking at goals for each stage. And that's something that we do as well, you know, everyone has a customer journey. And I think getting KPIs for each stage of this customer journey is something that's maybe overlooked. What do you think?

Mike: Well, you sent this to me, and I'd have to say, I think you've found a really useful, interesting webinar. I think what the webinar does by splitting it into the steps other than giving a framework and we all like a good six step or four step processes, as we have at Napier, it definitely helps things. But what they're trying to do is they're actually trying to avoid a really a direct linear path. And they're trying to say there's different stages. And I particularly liked when they talked about, you know, things like engage when they talk about surrounding your contacts, with content from all sorts of different channels. And to me, I think what they've done is they've really tried to say, it's not three emails, and it's done, which is that you know, the classic kind of marketing automation, email, step by step process, it's much more complicated that you can break it up into these simple categories. I really enjoyed it. I agree. And I think their focus on, you know, business outcomes, so things that move the needle in terms of sales, rather than, you know, a blind focus on an artificial metric like MQL. Again, as you say, they made really great points around that.

Hannah: I think, you know, just building on that, Mike, one of the things they said was speaking to the sales team, so actually having conversations and getting feedback that way, have it in a conversation, rather than just doing it based on the system. And I think often when we have this technology in front of us, we forget sometimes the most basic human conversations that will go a long way to making a difference. Absolutely.

Mike: Although the one thing with the webinar, I did think was they qualified for cheese's slide of the year with their slide for the marketing sales handoff, but we'll leave that for people to go and have a look at. And I'm sure the link will be in the show notes.

Hannah: Absolutely. We're coming up to the end of our time for the podcast. And I want to end on our insightful Tip of the Week. Now, this isn't something that we've talked about before. But Mark automation platforms have different capabilities. And some of them not all of them, but most of them have the capability to track post and do analytics of your social media posts. Now, my question is, should people should marketers be using his mouth animation platforms for the social media capabilities? Or should they be sticking with the tools that they're perhaps using already? So platforms like amplify are, you know, we use amplifier and APR, or perhaps something like HootSuite? I really think it depends on the monitor automation capabilities of what you can do. But what do you think?

Mike: So I think you've got a really great question there. And as you know, I've written a few blogs recently for martec.org, talking about the difficulty of sharing data between platforms. So to me, you know, one of the biggest challenges is where do you need the data you're going to generate. So if you need that in your marketing automation platform to trigger further campaigns, then using the marketing automation platform, probably is the right thing to do, because you're gathering data you're gonna use. In reality, though, a lot of people when they're running social, they're not gathering data necessarily that they use in marketing automation. And then maybe the answer is, you know, perhaps, and amplify is a better platform, because it will give you much more detailed analytics, and it will help you really build your social presence. So you've got two things there, you know, are you going to move outside of social with the next step of the campaign and pull data from that social campaign? Or is it really all about focusing on building your social presence? Now I'm sure a lot of people are sat there and probably you Hana thinking, well, we want to do both. And of course, we do really want to do both. But at the end of the day, you've got to pick one. And I think the thing that drives the selection should as much be the data, as it should be the feature the package, what do you think?

Hannah: I think that's such a good point, Mike. And I would argue as well, that it comes down to how big you want your Mar tech stack to be, you know, marketers can fall into the trap that they have all these different platforms. And so my advice would be is check out what your mark automation platform can do. See what analytics you can pull, find out if it is the right fit for you. If it isn't, if it not gonna provide what you need to present to the board, what you want to track to know that you're being successful, then look at platforms outside of the market automation. But the ideal scenario really, for me personally, my point of view is that you want it all in one place. And so if you can do that you can save money where you don't have to invest in another platform, then do but I think it will be on a case by case basis.

Mike: I think that's really insightful, Hannah. And you know, as everyone who listens to the podcast regularly knows, you're the one who does all the work here. And he really are the experts. So I think that's great advice.

Hannah: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for another chat night. It's been great.

Mike: It's been great to talk to you and thank you for all your insights, Hannah.

Hannah: Thanks for listening to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast.

Mike: Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast application. And we'll see you next time.


A Napier Podcast Interview with Andrus Purde - Outfunnel

Andrus Purde, Co-Founder and CEO of Outfunnel, an integration platform, discusses the importance of sharing data between marketing and sales teams and the challenges businesses face when their tools don't communicate effectively.

About Outfunnel

Outfunnel is an integration platform that makes it easy to connect sales and marketing tools, keep customer data in sync across the MarTech stack, and record all marketing engagement in the CRM.

About Andrus Purde

Andrus Purde is Co-Founder, CEO and ‘recovering marketer’ at Outfunnel. Andrus founded the integration platform in 2017 following a career in marketing, including positions at Pipedrive and Skype.

 

Time Stamps

[00:01:0] - Andrus introduces himself and talks about his marketing career before starting Outfunnel.

[00:03:2] - Andrus discusses Estonia as a great place for startups and the benefits of being based there.

[00:06:0] - Importance of Two-Way Data Sync: Andrus explains the significance of syncing data both ways between CRM and marketing tools.

[00:10:3] - Andrus talks about the popular integrations and connections made using Outfunnel.

[00:14:0] - Andrus discusses the strategies used to promote Outfunnel.

[00:18:3] - Andrus shares the best marketing advice he has received.

[00:21:4] - Andrus's contact details.

Quotes

“Some companies operate years, or forever, with data in isolation… marketers and salespeople who are doing the work... they shouldn't worry about how the tools have been sourced in their company. They should just have access to the data.” Andrus Purde, Co-Founder and CEO at Outfunnel

Follow Andrus:

Andrus Purde on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andruspurde/

Outfunnel website: https://outfunnel.com/

Outfunnel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/outfunnel/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Andrus Purde - Outfunnel

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Andrus Purde

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today.

Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. I'm Mike Maynard and today I'm talking to Andrus Purde. Andrus is the Co-Founder and CEO of Outfunnel. Welcome to the podcast.

Andrus: Hey Mike, thank you for having me. I think as to my title, I think I can also call myself a recovering marketer. I've been in marketing all my life before co-founding and leading Outfunnel, and I think it's something I will never get out of whether I want to or not.

Mike: That's an interesting position, recovering marketer. I mean, maybe just to start off, you could give us a little bit of background about your marketing career and what you did before you started Outfunnel.

Andrus: So I was in non-tech, traditional marketing before in my early career. I worked at the newspaper, fast food and consumer goods consulting. And then at some point I realized I'm doing the same job over and over again until the baby grass is greener on this other side, which is technology, which had started to take off already. And so I joined Sky pretty early and then worked in product marketing at Sky here in Tallinn, where I'm from, and also in London. Then got involved with a more unknown startup called Pipetribe back when they were getting started and spent seven years there as a first marketer and then first head of marketing. And then co-founded Aftelet and I've been working on it for more than six years now.

Mike: That's fantastic. And I'll talk about out front in a second. But you mentioned you're based in Estonia. You know, how's that as a place to base a startup? Is it a great place with a good startup scene? Or do you wish you'd gone to Silicon Valley?

Andrus: It's a great place for building a company because the weather is usually so bad that you're inclined to stay indoors and work on your startup. Also, I think the startup scene here, the technology scene here is pretty good now. 15 years ago, I would have had to move to either Valley or maybe Boston or London, or depending on what the company was doing. But right now, I think you can, especially after COVID and all this remote thing, you can work everywhere. And the startup scene, both in terms of A company started and tech talent and investments in Estonia is very good. I think we are probably the best or the top of the list in Europe, if not the world.

Mike: That's fantastic and it's very positive to hear that in Europe there are these startup hubs that are really growing and developing and clearly Estonia is one of them.

Andrus: Yeah, it's all related to the weather.

Mike: I think by that logic, the British should also be amazing at startups as well, because we've not had great weather.

Andrus: I think the British summers can be pretty long and pretty warm. So if you ever want to complain about the weather, come up north, come to Estonia, and let's check out our winters.

Mike: I'll definitely do that at some point. It's one of the countries I've wanted to visit and never been to. So I will definitely come and see you.

Anyway, Andrus, going back to Outfunnel, you know, you're working with Pipedrive. I think if anyone's in a small business, in a marketing or sales function, they'd absolutely know Pipedrive. Maybe some of our enterprise listeners might not be so familiar. But you're working there, and then you decided that you wanted to go and start Outfunnel. So what drove you to want to create Outfunnel, and what problem was it solving?

Andrus: So I think two answers to that. First answer is boredom. So I had been a tech marketer for quite a while, and I had this itch of perhaps wanting to try something on my own, to break out of this marketer job title and be an entrepreneur. And second is that working with Pipetribe customers, and I think a good marketer has to work closely with customers. I noticed that the companies, small businesses were loving the sales software that we were offering, but they were finding it hard to connect marketing tools and the workflows to Pipetribe. And then my wish to try something else, and then the need which I saw exist in the market emerged into a project first like a research project and then a small minimal viable product and then a company around it.

Mike: That's fantastic and I don't think that it's users of pipe drive that are alone in the problem of syncing marketing and sales data. I mean why do you think it's such a problem to get that data together?

Andrus: Because they usually exist in different tools, at least for many non-enterprise customers, even maybe for enterprise customers if you look at the size of the data-syncing market. Usually driving revenue happens in collaboration between the sales team and the marketing team. And sometimes there's a chief revenue officer who's leading it, but oftentimes there's a sales leader, the marketing leader, and they want to do what's best for their team because that's the best thing usually for the company. And they pick their stack, their tools. And if a sales director or sales VP picks something like HubSpot as their CRM and the marketing VP pick something like ImageImp as their main tool, then these tools don't talk to each other natively. There are some integrations, some of them even pretty good ones offered by the vendors themselves, but it's very hard to get the tools to work in order for the teams to be able to work together. So there's usually some one-way data syncs available, but if you want the tools to sync up two-way, you need to look for a specialist integration. Building it on your own as a custom integration or using one of the integration platforms out from the list is just one of the options.

Mike: And that's interesting, you talk about this important difference between a one-way sync and a two-way sync. So in your experience, what do you get from syncing both ways, so to and from the CRM, as opposed to just sending data to the CRM?

Andrus: That depends really on the type of company and how their sales and marketing operations have been set up. Some companies operate years or forever with data in isolation. So the marketing team doesn't have access to the same data the sales team has. Or only one person maybe in the marketing team has access to the sales data and vice versa. So even thinking one way is a step forward and it helps sales and marketing teams work together better. Marketers and salespeople who are doing the work, they shouldn't worry about how the tools have been sourced in their company. They should just have access to the data. They need to do their job. They shouldn't do manual work. And also the leads on the receiving end shouldn't be receiving messages from a company that are completely irrelevant to what they have purchased or been interested in before.

Mike: I'm interested because, you know, you've talked specifically about marketing and sales data. Outfunnel, I guess, is continually developing and it's already starting to add data from other sources, so obviously form, fill data, but also you've even got some ad integration with Facebook. Is that something you see Outfunnel growing into, more of an integration across all sorts of marketing and sales tools?

Andrus: Definitely, I mean, because I think one of the benefits of using a big platform such as HubSpot, who offers both the CRM and marketing automation tool, and also a website CMS tool with forms. One of the major benefits is that all the data is synced up. Salespeople know where a lead has come from, which campaign or source to have they engaged with emails, what emails have they engaged with, et cetera. So clearly there's good reasons to have all the data synced up in one place. But then the slight, or actually not too slight, downside is that it can cost an arm and a leg. So using a major platform such as HubSpot or Salesforce can cost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, euros, pounds per month. So as a smart or small business, you want to maybe look for the same benefits, at a lower budget. So using best of breed and nifty tools, and then suiting them up with either custom integrations or something without funding, I think is a great alternative to using one of the major all-in-one platforms.

Mike: That's interesting. It's a great point around value as well as what you talked about earlier with maybe sales and marketing want different tools. I'm interested, you know, you've got all these integrations, you know, what are the most popular integrations? What are the biggest, you know, connections that you tend to make or your customers tend to make using Outfunnel?

Andrus: So, I think maybe due to my own background and we have some other team members that are Vija alumni. We have a lot of Pipetribe customers as our customers. And then our popular integrations are then connections between Pipetribe and MageImp or Pipetribe and Xavio or Pipetribe and Brevo, formerly Sendinblue. So we're just linking up CRM and the marketing automation tool so that nobody needs to do manual contacting, import, exporting. And so the email engagement can be linked back to the CRM for the marketing automation tool to offer salespeople more context. So I think these are some of our popular integrations and also similar integrations with HubSpot as the CRM. So I think that, yeah, our bread and butter is linking a CRM and the marketing automation tool. And I would think the second category is just other revenue generating related apps. So calendars among our popular integrations. If you want your Calendly meetings to arrive in your CRM instantly and with all the submitted data coming to the right fields and with the marketing source also attached to the lead, then we can do that for our customers.

Mike: That's fascinating. I mean, another thing I'd like to understand, you can sync things like history together. There's a lot of tools that can just bring the basic fields across. But syncing history where you have multiple items for contact is much more difficult. It's something that's hard to do, for example, in Zapier. How important is that to get that record of what people have done across from one system to another? Or is it more just making sure that you've got the same email address, the same spelling of the first name and things like that?

Andrus: Second, it depends. I think for some use cases, it's perfectly fine to use something like Zapier. So if you need to submit form submissions from website to CRM, then Zapier can be just fine. But then there's cases where you'd want to do whole segment-based syncing. So I want to sync maybe customers and leads as a list from the CRM to the marketing tool. And maybe there's a list of secondary leads or other types of leads that I want to sync from the marketing tool to the CRM. Some of them are new, some of them have some history. And then trigger-based syncing is not enough and you'll want to use a specialist. solution for that. You could use Outfunnel, you could build it your own, there's other tools like Outfunnel that help you. Usually I think if there's a database in CRM and another database in marketing automation tool, you want this synced in a way which is not trigger-based but more holistic and it would include more historical data.

Mike: That makes sense, that makes a lot of sense to give a richer picture. I'm interested as well on the platform. So Outfunnel, we've talked a lot about syncing. You also offer other features in Outfunnel. So for example, visitor tracking on websites. Can you talk a little bit about why you've chosen to do that in Outfunnel, why that makes sense rather than maybe using a marketing platform that would have that built in?

Andrus: We built it because not all marketing tools have it. So HubSpot had it, and then HubSpot users who use the whole suite don't need ours or anybody else's. But if you're a PipeServe user, for example, or a copy user who uses MailChimp as a marketing automation tool, then MailChimp doesn't have a website visitor tracking feature. And yet, understanding what leads to on your website and which lead has visited which page is hugely important in understanding how warm a lead is or how self-reliant they are. So we think we picked it because customers were asking for it. And as soon as all the marketing platforms or CRMs have added their own, we're happy to drop ours because our bread and butter is in taking data between There's the marketing tools, but in order to offer a holistic solution for a company that you have your CRM data and your email data and your website data and your ads data in one place, then we need to either offer our own website visitor tracking feature or integrate with the tool which offers it.

Mike: That makes a lot of sense. I totally understand that. I'm just changing a little bit in terms of focus here. I'm interested to know how you promote Outfunnel. What works for you? What do you find the best tactics? And marketers are always, I think, interested in knowing what works for other people in other companies.

Andrus: One thing which I think is both a plus and a hindrance is that we tend to, our purchase of decision for something like Outfunnel tends to be very close to purchase decision of a CRM. And then if somebody stops using a CRM, they will also probably stop using something like Outfunnel. So then the communities that CRM companies have built around them are our biggest source of leads. And we just need to be present there, we need to make sure that we have good reviews there. We need to make sure that we are active in the communities which are online and sometimes offline. So that is by far our major source of lead. So we are present on Pytron Marketplace, HubSpot Marketplace, Copper Community and Salesforce we are not that active with yet, but we are definitely be more active with Salesforce in the future as our integration gets more advanced. The other important way for us finding customers and for customers finding us is we're just findable. I think there's a category of products which people are not aware of. There you really need to be active in media advertising or social media or PR, but we belong in a category which people tend to know. So if they want to take Pipedrive and MainChimp, they start Googling it. And we just need to be findable. which means that our content at SEO Cave needs to be somewhat strong. We need to buy some ads through the rated keywords. And then we just need to make sure that sites that come up when you search for something like connecting HubSpot and ActiveCampaign feature us, which is a combination of SEO content, some review management, and then working with platforms like AppJarra and whatever sites come up with online searches.

Mike: That's great. And it's really interesting how you're focusing all your SEO around solving problems, you know, you're not optimizing for your brands. In fact, you're optimizing for the brands or the vendors that you're you're gluing together.

Andrus: Exactly. And then sometimes A PyTorch user may just want to know, how do I get more value out of the CRM that we picked? And then they search for PyTorch integrations or PyTorch tips or PyTorch hacks. And then these are also keywords where we want to be present. This is not our large source of lead, but it's important enough to warrant some attention and some work from us.

Mike: That absolutely makes sense. I'm interested actually now, we've talked a lot about Outfunnel, and you integrate with all sorts of products, from MailChimp up to Salesforce. So who do you think you're really designed for? Is it designed for a particular size company or people with particular problems? Where do you think you fit in the market? And the question everybody's wondering as well is, what does it look like in terms of pricing for the products?

Andrus: So I think we are targeting larger, there's a term which I don't love, but I use it a lot nevertheless. So SMBs, so small and medium businesses. So we're targeted at SMBs. Some are solopreneurs, so about 1% each. Some are very large companies, but I think our sweet spot is 10 to 200 people in the company. And then the company would need to have a marketing function or team and a sales function team. If a company only has a sales team, let's say, I don't know, if you're selling to government, you don't really do much marketing. You don't need your marketing and sales data to be joined, then there's less relevance for us. If you work in e-commerce, you're mostly doing advertising, there's no sales team. There's no need for something called funder. There's no need to unite your data. But yeah, I think companies where The sales team, marketing team, which are medium-sized, and then where sales and marketing need to work together, that's where usually there's a bigger data integration need. And then these companies tend to want to sync up their sales and marketing data.

Mike: Perfect. That's really clear, and I'm sure really helpful for listeners to work out, you know, where you sit in the market. I really appreciate your time, Andrus. I'd just like to ask, there's a couple of questions we like to ask everybody who guests on the podcast. And the first thing is to know, what's the best bit of marketing advice you've ever been given?

Andrus: That's a very good question. And I thought about it hard, but then the best advice I've given depends on where I've been in my career and what stage the company has been. So there's no, I think there's no universal advice in marketing other than talk to your customers. Everything else depends on the stage of your company. the budget of your company and then how your customers buy. So I would say talk to customers. They will tell you how they want to buy, which I think is a good guideline for how you should market.

Mike: That's awesome. That's actually incredibly good advice. I love that. And the other question we always ask is about people starting off in marketing. So you said it's important to understand where you are in your career for the best advice. Well, what about someone who's, you know, maybe just left university is going into their first marketing job? What advice would you give them?

Andrus: I would advise them to not look for advice, but just try it out. So try different marketing roles, try to see where, like, does marketing suit them overall? And if it does, then try to get experience. And then I think the good thing nowadays is it's easy to get, like, bite-sized jobs, work via freelancing platforms or work on a contract basis. Try to work in B2B, B2C, different areas and see where you connect, where your skills and strengths really shine. And then go all in if you find something where your skills make sense.

Mike: Awesome. That's really good advice. I think really strong advice for anyone starting their career. Just to summarize, is there anything you feel we've missed or how would you like us to remember Outfunnel and what it can do for customers?

Andrus: A good place to start is that do your sales and marketing teams need to work together? If they do, is the data joined together already? If they're not, starting from data is usually a good place to start because it's relatively easy and relatively inexpensive. So if the data is not joined, I would stop there. But if the data is already joined, and if the sales and market teams are working off the same data, then you would need to look into areas such as communication or collaboration or joint goals, which are harder to manage. They take longer to solve, but great next things to do after data has been joined up.

Mike: That's fantastic. I think that's a really good summary. Thank you so much for your time on the podcast, Andrus. Just one question. If people have something they want to ask you or they'd like to find out more information about the product, what's the best place to go either to get a hold of you or to learn more about Outfunnel?

Andrus: I am active on LinkedIn. So Outfunnel is easy to find on LinkedIn and my name may be a bit complex to pronounce in English. A-N-D-R-U-S-P-U-R-D-E. But yeah, I'm usually easy to get hold of there. And I'd love to answer any questions relating to B2B marketing or connecting sales and marketing data.

Mike: That's awesome. That's very kind. Thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast, Andrus. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Mike. Thanks so much for listening to Marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes or on your favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.


A Napier Podcast Interview with Mark Donnigan - Virtual CMO

In this episode of Marketing B2B Technology, Mike chats with Mark Donnigan, a virtual CMO who works with tech companies. Mark shares insights into his career journey, discusses his approach to building long-term client relationships, and emphasises the importance of understanding the market and customers.

Mark also shares his advice on marketing tactics, highlights the value of focusing on go-to-market strategy, and talks about the importance of getting into the field to understand customers.

About Mark Donnigan

Mark Donnigan designs and executes marketing programs and go-to-market strategies to establish and grow markets for disruptive startup companies. As a transformative B2B marketing and business leader, Mark understands what’s required to succeed in today’s winner-takes-all market.

Well-versed in SaaS, software licensing, enterprise technology, and platform business models, Mark helps companies build efficient marketing teams that routinely outperform larger marketing departments.

Time Stamps

[00:44.0] - Mark shares his career journey and explains his role as Virtual CMO.

[12:57.0] - The benefits of hiring a Virtual CMO versus full-time CMO.

[14:45.0] - Mark talks about his approach to building marketing plans.

[18:42.0] - Overrated marketing channels and tactics

[23:26.0] - Challenges with fixed KPIs in marketing

[24:37.0] - Mark offers some marketing advice

[25:52.0] - Mark's contact details

Quotes

“Get into the field. Know the market. Know the customers. Know how they think. Know what they care about. Know how they make decisions.” Mark Donnigan, Virtual CMO.

Follow Mark:

Mark Donnigan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markdonnigan/

Growth Stage Marketing website: https://growthstage.marketing/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Mark Donnigan - Virtual CMO

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Mark Donnigan

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today.

Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. Today, I'm joined by Mark Donnigan. Mark is a virtual CMO who works with tech companies. Welcome to the podcast, Mark.

Mark: Yeah, well, thanks for having me. Really looking forward to the conversation. Well, it's great.

Mike: So Mark, firstly, we like to understand a bit about people's background. So can you tell me a little bit about your career and how you got to the point of working with all these different tech companies?

Mark: That's right, yeah. Well, I like to say my career is like all of ours, right? It was absolutely perfectly orchestrated. I had everything planned, knew exactly where I would be at each juncture. Obviously, that's a joke. Yeah, so I am technical by nature. I do consider myself a technologist, but really I'm a marketer. I'm a creative. I play music. And, you know, so I kind of have this left brain, you know, this right brain thing going on, which, which I guess serves well in marketing, you know, the data side and then the art side of it. But I started my career, I actually did go to music school after dropping out of a computer science program. Long story about how that was, but that's for another show. But yeah, I went to music school and I realized, oh no, not everybody is a rich rock star. And so I found my way into sales and started building my sales career. Along the way, I very quickly discovered the power of marketing as an accelerator to sales and revenue. Initially, I would say it was sort of just out of necessity that I began to really become a student of marketing. Again, I wanted to make my numbers, and as I was growing in my sales career and managing teams, I wanted my teams to make their numbers. You know, I took a very fervent interest in how marketing works and eventually took on formal responsibility for marketing, but always running sales, you know, it's always in a revenue context. My career really pivoted more into the marketing realm, I guess you would say, when I started getting involved in startups and started doing a lot more around strategy, more business development, you know, looking out at markets, how are we going to build markets? What markets should we go after? where there are opportunities, you know, market inflections, all those things that you do, you know, when you're growing, especially a startup, a technology startup that just sent me increasingly down the path of looking at marketing. really my full-time focus and so I've been living in the marketing world full-time you know or really I guess you could say in a dedicated way for oh a dozen years or more and been working in technology and technology sales for 25 years.

Mike: I love that enthusiasm around, you know, helping companies scale. I mean, what is it that really excites you about that? Is it the fact you can have a big impact in a very short time or you can see massive growth? What's really cool about that?

Mark: Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I actually introduce myself when people, most of the time I do anyway, when people say, hey, so what do you do? You know, I say I build companies. I actually say that before I say something like, oh, I'm a virtual CMO or I work with startups and help them in the areas of marketing. I usually say I build companies because really at the end of the day, that is what we all should be doing, right? But I believe that that is the ultimate mission of marketing, you know, really. And that may seem like a completely obvious statement. And yet I think we've all seen too many examples where, you know, marketing is a little closer to the arts and crafts department or the keeper of the brand. Important things, you know, look creative absolutely matters. And yes, brand absolutely matters. But, you know, when you're building a company, especially today and especially in the tech world, there's a lot to that, you know, there's a lot to it. So yeah, I really enjoy the elements of building, creating something that, that, that is new and that's, you know, fresh and different. That's, uh, that's what I love.

Mike: And one of the things that interests me is probably most of the people who listen to this podcast, they're probably employed in a large enterprise rather than a smaller company. I'm sure they're interested to know what it's like to be a virtual CMO. What kind of engagements do you have? How much time per week do you work on each client? Are you working on multiple projects at the same time? Tell us a little bit about the role.

Mark: Sure. So nowadays, the fractional executive role, so whether that's a virtual CFO, virtual CMO, virtual, you know, the whole C-suite is being virtualized, it seems. It does mean different things, and some of it is really based on how the individual chooses to work. So the way that I choose to work is I don't do projects. So that is one model. You know, one model is to drop in as a virtual executive and maybe you're kickstarting building a team. Maybe the CEO or the founder feels, hey, you know, I really could use kind of a confidant for six months while I'm trying to kind of understand, maybe they're not a marketing person, they don't understand marketing, so they want someone to walk alongside them. That's fine. That's not how I work. So what I do is I come into environments, into organizations where I can add value. That involves obviously bringing my marketing toolkit with me, you know, meaning, you know, all my experience. But it generally also means going into markets that I know very, very well. So very commonly, I actually come in as a subject matter expert in that industry. For example, one industry that I primarily work in is video technology, video streaming. You know, if you think, I think all of us probably have a Netflix subscription. So any service like Netflix that is streaming high quality video, there's a whole set of technologies that come together behind the scenes to make that happen. That's a market that I know very, very well. I just came from the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas. And I actually spoke on a couple panels and moderated an executive session. And so I'm out there not as a CMO. I'm actually out there as a subject matter expert presenting and speaking to the industry. So that sets me apart in how I work. And it also is an incredible differentiation when, you know, when there's a lot of very, very talented marketing folks out there, marketing leaders, some who probably have way more experience and can bring even more than I could. But generally the fact that I know the market in a way that maybe another you know, marketing leader does not, is why companies want to work with me and why they do work with me. So, I typically engage for multiple years in my clients, typically two to, you know, I have an engagement coming up on four years and it's, you know, it's not showing any signs of ending. The working relationship is really, you know, well fit. So, works well for the client, if it works well for me, then we keep going.

Mike: That sounds good that you're really looking to build that long-term relationship.

Mark: It's the only way to do it, I've found, at least I feel.

Mike: No, absolutely, completely agree. I mean, I think I'm interested, you know, why people would call you in rather than maybe hire a full-time CMO. Is there a certain stage in a company's development or have they hit a particular problem? I mean, what's normally the trigger?

Mark: Yeah, very good question. So, uh, it can be at a couple different points. First of all, I don't engage with real early stage companies. So if you think about it as funding rounds, um, I'm almost never working with, in fact, I'm trying to think. Actually, I have had one client that was seed, seed funded, meaning that, you know, that I actually helped them a little bit. but they actually were not a real long-term engagement. So typically they're at series A to series B. They're doing somewhere between five to ten million dollars of revenue. They are at a stage of what you might say is product market fit. They're in a scale up. And so they call me for a couple reasons. One is, is that they finally have the resources to be able to build a marketing function beyond, you know, maybe a founder and a founder and a freelancer or a founder, a freelancer and a first marketing hire, you know, in other words, everybody starts, you know, pretty, pretty simple. It's, it's pretty much, you look around and you say, what do we have? You know, and if there's somebody who took a few courses of marketing in the, in the startup, they're usually congratulations. You're now our director of marketing, you know, in a lot of startups, that's the way it works. But the challenge is, is that that's one way to get started. You get a website built and you can, you know, go to a few trade shows and you can kind of get something started, but it's not a way to build a real. engine, you know, you just, you just need typically more experience. And so they'll call me in for that. Uh, in some cases, maybe there was a failed high profile hire. Many, many startups fall into the trap of, they look at either who the leader in their, in their particular space is, or maybe somebody who's, you know, who's, um, one step removed. You know, and a common one that gets, you know, that gets bantered around is if we could just get someone out of HubSpot, if we could just hire someone from the HubSpot marketing team, we're going to crush it. That's what we need. So they go tell their, you know, their recruiter or their third party recruiter, or they start scouring LinkedIn, looking for an end to get somebody who's, you know, looking for that next promotion at HubSpot, you know, to recruit them away. The problem is, is that those marketing hires almost always fail. They certainly don't succeed in the way that most people plan them to, not because it's the individual's fault. but because there was a complete mismatch between what that company needs, the stage of the company, and the HubSpot, for example. It's just a complete mismatch. And so I get called because sometimes, you know, the founder is scratching their head because they're saying, but we love this person. They were an incredible fit for the culture. You know, they were smart. Look, they were at HubSpot for seven years, you know, and, you know, they were a senior member on the growth marketing team. and you know or fill in the blank right there's always some rationalization that says you know we can't figure out why they failed but the net result is is that we haven't gotten any leads and they've been here 18 months and you know we're not really happy with what they're doing so what's wrong you know help us out Then I come in and, of course, the very first thing I do is I tell them, no, actually, it's not the person's fault. And if you fired them, you know, that's a little bit sad because you mishired. They were not bad. In fact, they were very good. You just mishired completely wrong person, you know. So the next person coming out of HubSpot is going to fail to go get someone from Salesforce. They're going to fail because that's not the stage you need. And then people begin to ask, well, what's the stage and how do I know and, you know, help us here. So I get engaged and we start building a function.

Mike: Yeah. And I totally agree with that. I think sometimes previous success can be a real disadvantage if you're moving from one situation to a different situation, because you, you try and do what worked with you in the past, but the reality is the world's moved on and the company working for is different. Absolutely agree.

Mark: And it is complicated. I was listening to some folks on an interview show last week, and they were observing what we know to be true, is that The problem is, is that if you're bringing your playbook, and they were talking about in the context of like CMOs, it's well known that CMOs churn faster than any other chair in the C-suite. And so they're having a discussion about why that is and then what CMOs should do. Like, you know, and one of the big takeaways was that stop bringing your playbook. By very definition, the playbook that worked, even if it is a similar phase, similar scale, same industry, they're two different companies. By very definition, there is going to be a different set of tactics. You know, there's going to be a different set of plays that need to be executed in company A versus company B. And too many senior leaders come in with kind of their playbook. And how many times do we hear, well, this is how we did it. Well, you should run from somebody who says that. That's what I've learned anyway.

Mike: Absolutely. I agree. And I'm interested now, Mark, when someone calls you in, how do you go about prioritizing and building a marketing plan? What's your process to start from the ground?

Mark: Yeah, good question, because like, well, wait a second, if you're a virtual CMO, you work with all these companies, don't you bring a playbook? Of course, there is a set of established, I like to think of more as like frameworks, because the way that I think of a playbook versus a framework is a little bit different. A playbook is a set of tasks or activities that you basically don't deviate from. you might deviate slightly but basically you have step one then you do step two then you do step three maybe step four can be split to an a and a b path but basically it follows right that's a playbook and you know those of us that played sports like you don't deviate from the play you know the play is the play a framework is different though because a framework is a way of thinking that you apply on some prescribed challenge or some objective. And that way of thinking comes with tactics that you execute, of course. You know, like email marketing and email newsletters and the email channel is absolutely a tactic that you need to deploy. But saying that we always wrote our newsletter in this manner, we always use this voice, we always sent it on Tuesdays exactly at 3.34 p.m. Eastern, you know, as a play may or may not be the right thing to do. But executing well on the email marketing channel, of course. It would be probably fairly unusual to say, oh no, we don't need to do email. And so I think of it as frameworks and that's how I approach it. And I really default to first principles at the end of the day, Mike. I have just found that marketing is problem solving in a lot of cases. And if we approach from a first principles, then we start by, are we producing the value that the enterprise needs us to be producing? And the value, it might be direct translation into leads. I mean, obviously, it's revenue, right? But it could be leads. There can be other ways that, based on the context, the business model, et cetera. But that all comes back to first principles, right? So if we say, wow, marketing is not keeping the sales team fed, well, let's look at what is our sales engine? How does that engine work? Do we even have the right sales engine that we're deploying against the market? And in so many cases, we don't. And so marketing is viewed as failing, or marketing is the whipping post. And in reality, we need to go back to the go-to-market, which is why I almost always am involved in go-to-market strategy and go-to-market leadership, almost always. And 9 out of 10 of the companies that I work with I'm anywhere from, you know, involved to an influencer to even very closely working with the founders, the founding team, the executive management to look at and to make decisions around go to market, because marketing is not divorced from the go to market plan.

Mike: Now, absolutely. And I think you're absolutely right that kind of, you know, trying this cookie cutter approach doesn't work. Yeah. But having said that, I'm going to have to ask you, what do you think is maybe an overrated channel, overrated marketing tactic in B2B? Is there something you feel that actually people are trying that really you've not seen working?

Mark: OK, I would have said events, but people have woken up to events. But before the pandemic, you know, I'll even say that some people should be very thankful to the pandemic because it saved them from making many, many more years of incredibly costly and just wasteful expenditures in events. I worked with one company that for two of the major trade shows, they were spending in the $400,000, $450,000, $500,000 a year. And by the way, this was after cutting back from like $700,000, $800,000, $900,000 in a single event. Single event. This wasn't their whole events budget. This was one event. And here's the here's the amazing thing, Mike. I mean, this just just blew my mind. You know, mind blown is that they did not have data on even one deal that had been furthered in the pipeline as a result of their last event they went to. And yet, and yet the marketing manager who was over events was absolutely insistent would have died on the sword that if we don't go with at least the same presence or even increase our presence, the industry is going to think we're dead. But that's one channel. The second channel, which is, again, this one though, people are still flushing money down the drain, Google AdWords, Google Ads. If you are buying Google Ads, I have to challenge you, they are incredibly hard to defend. Incredibly hard to defend. Go into your Salesforce instance and map, map your leads. Look at your CAC payback period. I just haven't seen an example yet where somebody can prove that there is ROI. I mean, you're just not going to get there. So I would say Google AdWords, um, you know, or just Google in general, stop it. Just stop it. It's, it's an absolute waste, absolute waste.

Mike: I think that's interesting. And we've seen campaigns that really haven't been very good. And I think one of my biggest frustrations is where you're spending money on Google ads and you're top of the organic search results because all you're bidding on is your own brand terms. So I think, you know, it's a difficult problem because attribution in Google ads is relatively easy, particularly if you've got online sales, but showing it's incremental revenue rather than revenue you've got already is very hard.

Mark: Yeah, now just, you know, for anybody who's like, well, hang on, you know, like, does that mean all paid is dead? No, not all paid is dead. So this is channel specific and it depends on what your intent is. So, for example, too many B2B marketers are running effectively direct response ads. Nobody wants to get a demo ad. The ironic thing is if we think about our own behavior, and you know, we all work for companies, right? So you think about your own behavior, you need to buy something for your business. Are you really clicking on get a demo? And then is that actually how you made that last purchase decision? Like, if we're really honest, the answer is no, we're not clicking on it. And even if we did, it probably was because it was for a product that somebody had already told us about. So then you're like, okay, fine. I did click on the ad. I did actually legit attend a demo, but I would have just gone to the website and signed up or I would, you know, like I would have found it. So it's not like I was just stumbling along, but using paid to promote content. in ways that I might normally not get that organic reach. Now that is, sometimes it's hard to do. And depending on the niche that you're in or the market that you're in, I'm not suggesting that you can just buy traffic, you know, to your white paper. Also, you have to have content people care about, right? And it has to be meaningful. But that is an application where paid traffic can be very useful. But if it's effectively direct response, you know, give me your, um, you know, your email address to download my white paper, get a demo, you know, kind of your very typical transactional direct response kind of mechanism. I'm just finding, at least I found in the markets that I'm working in, um, doesn't work.

Mike: And I think, you know, one of the problems is, is that marketers get measured on certain KPIs. And the KPI quite often from sales is, well, we need demos, because when we demo something, we sell it. And the answer is, yeah, through the normal sales process that works. But if you try and game the system, just get as many demo requests as possible, the quality is very different. And I think That is a challenge, particularly for marketers in the enterprise environment, where they have fixed KPIs. To some extent, to progress in your career, you have to optimize for the KPI rather than optimize for marketing success.

Mark: So it's true. The sad thing though, is, is that it keeps that marketer stuck doing the things that are working increasingly less. And it doesn't give them the knowledge and the experience to grow in the tactics and the strategies and the, that are actually going to allow them to go into another company and do something meaningful.

Mike: And that's, I think, an interesting challenge and some really good advice for people thinking about looking for a new role. I'd like to finish on something positive. So what's the best bit of marketing advice you've ever been given?

Mark: Get into the field. Know the market. Know the customers. Know how they think. Know what they care about. Know how they make decisions. And all of this is like, well, yeah, of course, of course we have our personas, you know, we've gone out and done our studies like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you have. And chances are somebody doing that work did go out, maybe did exhaustive interviews, you know, maybe traveled, maybe shadowed the sales team, you know? So of course, somebody in your company did that, but was it you? How well do you really know like how that customer thinks? How are they making decisions? Yes, they're telling you one thing, but what are they actually doing, you know, quote, behind closed doors? I'll tell you this right here is the number one turbocharger, the supercharger to a career, to a marketing career.

Mike: I love it. That's amazing advice. And I really appreciate, you know, all the insights you've given us today, Mark. It's been fantastic. I mean, if somebody is listening, they'd like to contact you, you know, maybe they've got a question. Maybe they are looking for a virtual CMO to scale their company. How could people get a hold of you?

Mark: Yeah. So my website is growthstage.marketing. And I I've got just a ton of resources up there, you know, for marketers who might be wanting just some more. I mean, there's no shortage of, of wonderful resources out on the internet, but, uh, I am, I am proud of some of the things that I've written and put up there. So, um, growthstage.marketing and then LinkedIn, just Mark Donnigan. You will find me.

Mike: That's awesome. Mark, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast and sharing all your knowledge.

Thanks so much for listening to Marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes or on your favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.


A Napier Podcast Interview with Molly Bruckman - Mutiny

Molly Bruckman, Head of Growth Marketing at Mutiny, a website personalisation platform, shares some top tips on how marketers can effectively leverage personalisation to enhance engagement and drive results. She also explains the potential pitfalls of over-personalisation and how it can negatively impact marketing efforts.

About Mutiny

Most Marketing teams can’t play a meaningful role in breaking through to target accounts because the 1:1 marketing strategies that work don’t scale, and what scales doesn’t work. Mutiny helps B2B companies generate pipeline and revenue from their target accounts through AI-powered personalised experiences, 1:1 microsites, and account intelligence. Backed by Sequoia Capital, YCombinator, and CMOs from leading tech companies, Mutiny is rewriting the Go-To-Market playbook.

About Molly

Molly Bruckman is a customer-obsessed marketing and CX leader. With 10+ years of experience building personalization, CRO and ABM teams and programs, Molly thrives on developing creative solutions that propel marketers to new heights. Her journey spans diverse landscapes, from nimble B2B startups to dynamic B2C enterprises, orchestrating growth programs across various channels such as web, email, community and events - always with an eye for innovative strategies.

Time Stamps

[00:44.9] – Molly discusses her career journey from mathematician to marketer

[05:44.4] – Molly explains what Mutiny does.

[06:32.0] – Molly discusses the best data points to base personalisation on.

[12:03.5] – Molly explains how over-personalising can impact marketing efforts.

[17:41.0] – Who can benefit from Mutiny?

[18:55.1] – How does Mutiny effectively promote itself?

[29:19.1] – Molly shares the advice she would give to someone starting their career.

[27:41.7] – Molly's contact details

Quotes

“Marketing strategies that work don’t scale and the tactics that scale don’t work." Molly Bruckman, Head of Growth Marketing at Mutiny.

Follow Molly:

Molly Bruckman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollybruckman/

Mutiny website: https://www.mutinyhq.com/

Mutiny on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mutinyhq/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Molly Bruckman - Mutiny

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Molly Bruckman

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today.

Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from my Napier. Today, I'm joined by Molly Bruckman. Molly is the Head of Growth Marketing at Mutiny. Welcome to the podcast. Molly.

Molly: Thank you so much for having me my.

Mike: Well, it's great to have you on. And you know what we'd like to do first of all, is get a bit of background about people and understand how you got into Mutiny. Well, so can you use give a bit of a description about what you've done in your career and how you've ended up at Mutiny.

Molly: Yeah, absolutely. So actually, I found my way to marketing through math, which is a little unconventional, but always kind of had a love for math growing up, like the numbers, the quantitative, like how all systems work together. And then I also like, have this creative side, I've always had a creative side. So I was in the drama club growing up, I was a figure skater. And I've like, always sort of just liked to create. And so I after, like, graduating with a math degree, I joined a experimentation company where I was an analyst. So I was like, learning how to test and create new experiences and analyse the results and look at web data. And so it sort of like blended those two worlds for me. And fast forward a little bit, ended up at Mutiny, because basically have the same skill set. So I was the first second hire at Mutiny. And basically, our vos Ally was looking for somebody who had both sides, like the left brain, the right brain, somebody who could do the quantitative side, but who also had customer experience. And I'd been working as a consultant. So I had the customer experience in the programme building aspects. And then also new web, and conversion rate optimization personalization, really, really well. And so yeah, I decided to take a really big leap, join, fly across the country, I was in DC at the time, I moved to San Francisco, and and join a startup as basically like the second employee of the company, to build out our CX team, but actually like how we engage with our customers, how we help them. And back in the early days, we didn't have product yet. So it was a lot of sort of r&d and figuring out what our customers need. And then working with our product team to build that. They grew up our CX team. And then I moved into our marketing org to actually like, do even more creative work. So start to build some education and content and activation programmes with customer base. And now I'm sort of blending the two together at leading our customer experience team and continuing that kind of education advocacy evangelism path that I was building in the marketing. org.

Mike: That's awesome. And I love people who find their way into marketing from more technical disciplines. I mean, I used to be an engineer when I started my career, so, uh, I totally get the attraction of marketing.

Molly: Yeah. I think the blend of like, just understanding how different pieces work, but then having expression over how you communicate, that just really brings a lot to the table. And just depending on what you're marketing, sometimes the technical side really, really helps you. I'm marketing to marketers, so I don't need to be that technical anymore.

Mike: I love it. And also, you're actually not based in San Francisco anymore, you're based in Germany. So tell me a little bit about your trip to Europe and, um, you know, how you find working in Germany.

Molly: Yeah, I didn't spend enough time to come up with a creative backstory there. So I guess I'll tell you the truth. Actually, I can tell it dramatically, there was this wild global pandemic event. It was insane. You've never seen anything like it. But yeah, we were at the time, we were eight people at Mutiny working out of basically an apartment in the mission. And we were growing really, really quickly, we were going to outgrow that space, nobody could go into the office anymore. And so we all you know, went to a work from home model. And San Francisco, sorry If anyone loves San Francisco, but it just deteriorated as I was there. And so I was happy to get out. I was happy that we were like moving to a remote model. We started hiring people anywhere in the world. And my husband got an opportunity in Europe, he chose to come to Munich, which is why we're here today. But he's he travels all over Europe and we both actually travel a lot. So really take advantage of the like, work from anywhere kind of mentality.

Mike: Amazing. We've kind of hinted at what Mutiny might do. But could you just briefly give an explanation of what Mutiny does and how it helps marketers.

Molly: Yeah, absolutely. So I think where we're at today in kind of the marketing world is that marketers can't really play a meaningful role in breaking into target accounts because the one on one marketing strategies that work don't scale and the strategies that scale don't work, where they're sort of left in a world where they can choose 10 accounts that get this one to one really special, bespoke treatment. And then everyone else sort of has to just like, maybe get some scale treatment. And so Mutiny actually helps B2B companies generate pipeline and revenue from their target accounts with AI powered personalised experiences, one to one microsites and account intelligence. So really, really helping our customers actually scale that one to one activity to many, many, many more target accounts.

Mike: So what you're doing is you're taking some existing content, maybe enhancing that with some data from perhaps the most relational CRM system, and then producing something that's purely customised to that visitor on the website. Is that Is that a good summary?

Molly: Exactly, yeah. So we, we integrate with first and third party data sources like your CRM, like you mentioned, marketing automation, on the third party side platforms like sixth sense, clear bed that can tell you who anonymous visitors on your website are and help you customise those experiences. And then I don't know if I don't know what category this is in, but like, many owned data sources, as well for like, which sets up pages people are looking at and starting to build an intelligence layer on what interests people have on the site.

Mike: That's great. There's a lot of integrations there. , what do you find are the most valuable attributes to personalize on then? What, what's the data that people pull in and it really makes a big difference to their results?

Molly: Yeah, it depends on the business, I think, you know, where I'd start, if I were advising a new customer or somebody to build a programme is start with how your sales team is segmented. So probably they're segmented by region, maybe they're segmented by vertical or industry. Usually, that's for a specific reason, right? That's to keep the account intelligence and learnings that you're getting across the industry consistent and make sure that those reps get better and better and better at selling into that market. And so if you can map your ABM strategy or your personalization strategy in a similar way, where you can kind of apply marketing tactics to those same segments, tends to be really effective. As more of a broad like generic rule, I would say industry personalization always performs really well. And again, depends on your business. If you have, you know, a lot of reference customers already in a certain industry or not, you're gonna do better. But industry personalization does really well, company size, personalization. Also, you know, the way you speak to a startup versus the way you speak to a large enterprise is completely different. You're going to talk about different sets of use cases, you're going to use different language, you're going to talk about different value prop so so that one definitely matters a lot too. And then buying stage, I would say is another like critical way to be personalising. So when somebody needs to sort of be solution informed, like you need to teach them about the problem you solve. And as they move through the funnel, you need to start changing your messaging to how you solve the problem, and why you and not your competitor. So you can get really custom based on, you know, how far somebody is in their buying journey with you.

Mike: That's great. I mean, there's a lot of things you can do there. So maybe you could dig just a little bit deeper and explain, you know, how people might achieve that personalisation, what they might change on the website, or what, you know, kind of experience a visitor might get that makes it feel like the website is really personalised for them.

Molly: Yeah, definitely. And this, this depends on the channel of distribution. So somebody comes into your website, let's say clear bed or six cents matches their IP address to accompany and then you know, which company they're coming from. If you change your headline to, Hey, meet me good to see you're there. Like that is way too much for like somebody who just came to your website on the first time they're on your website, they're gonna be like, very creeped out and confused and concerned. So don't do that. There's definitely like a right and a wrong there. But where you find the sweet spot is basically using all of the data you have as intent signals to help you adjust the message to get closer to what they might be looking for, though, maybe you look at Mutiny, and you say, Okay, this is a smaller tech company in the mahr tech space, they are probably working on scaling right now. So we want to give them a message about how we can help them grow faster. And then we see a headline that says, grow faster with blah, blah, blah solution, whatever it is, versus like a large enterprise comes and maybe you're trying to replace another solution, or maybe you are, you know, you need bigger access controls for large teams like you can change that message and those value props depending on who's there without being over the top. So I think like headline messages like text on a site, especially obviously content above the fold, like that's always going to be what matters the most. And then CTA is so CTA is that match should kind of buying stage stage of funnel you know, don't ask somebody to take a demo when they don't know who you are yet, tell them learn more and like Teach, you know, send them to a video where they can learn more. So you can kind of map your CTA your asks per your, your visitors based on where they are in your binary funnel. And then social proof, I think is the other really big thing. So mapping your social proof to companies that are similar to the company that's visiting your site, whether that is by industry or by company size, showing the right set of logos in your logo bar showing the right case studies showing the right like competitor takeouts and things like that can really, really help that whole experience just jive with the person that's looking at it versus be like over the top built for you. Now, if you're talking about microsites, that's a different story, because that is built for you. And so that's where you get to be over the top. These are kind of one to one pages, usually used in ABM programmes that you send or your your BDR SDR team sends out in email sequences, and they're saying, Hey, I built this overview for you. And so at this point, now you have all the freedom in the world to like, use their name, use their title, go way over the top with personalization to say like, Hey, Mike, I built this page for you. Here's three things I think you're struggling with, here's how we help. Here's some case studies and playbooks they picked out for you, and a link to like book a meeting with me my Calendly link is at the bottom if you want to chat. So these ones you can get really, really personal. But it depends on how you're distributing that page and how people are getting to the page if it's organic, or if you're kind of bringing them in.

Mike: So that's fascinating. You said something there that I think maybe a lot of people don't think about.  The level of personalization depends upon the context. So what someone's expecting, if they just come organically to the website, then over personalizing can actually be a bad thing. You know, is that something you actually see reducing performance, where people over personalize and it feels, as you say, a bit creepy?

Molly: I mean, it depends on your industry. So if you are like selling to engineers, and security people and type people, you can't do that, right, they're gonna be really creeped out. They're gonna be very concerned, they're gonna be you know, they care a lot about privacy. So you have to think about who you're marketing to. Now I'm, I work at Mutiny, I sell a personalization software, I can call you by name, because I'm selling the product that shows you that I can do it. So it's like a little, you know, it all depends on the context at the end of the day. So I think in general, like different industries value different things. And actually, I've even seen a security customer of ours tried personalising using the company name on the inbound experience, and it didn't perform well. And they changed the audience to only tech companies. And then it performed really well. So I think also, like tech companies tend to kind of value the more creative, personalised experiences and things like that versus like, education, health care, they don't want to see their information on the page.

Mike: that's fascinating. I think it's an extra layer that maybe people don't think about when it comes to personalizing content. So great advice, Molly.  Um, just moving on, you know, in terms of how Mutiny works, understand it. I mean, you as a marketer really have to select what gets personalized. So you might say, well, this is the headline that's going to change.Is that how it works? And in that case,  Does it take a significant amount of time to actually get up to speed and work out how to use Mutiny and what to choose to personalize?

Molly: Yeah, that is, for the most part, how it works today, although AI, obviously, is an area that we along with everyone else is investing quite heavily in and continuing to build in. And so one thing that is like very clear to us, and our strategy is, we need to allow marketers to be in the driving seat here. So we're not going to be like a black box platform where you just say like, click headline change, and AI does all the work and it changes all of these things, and you have no control over the message or what actually goes out there. So we're always going to leave the end decision up to the marketer where the marketer can, you know, AI can maybe suggest a lot of things and you can approve and say yes and no to certain things. But it should be your copilot and your helper and not just like, oh, cross my fingers and hope they do on brand or don't tell a lie about our product features or anything like that. So yeah, I think like technology will continue to is best there for new customers that to your question on like, does it take a lot of time to learn these things? We actually pair all of our customers with a Mutiny in house growth strategist. And that is a team that I grew and I built and I felt very, very passionately about but I have not hired CSMs I have hired marketers, and so everybody is here to actually be an extension of our customer team and make sure that they are implemented. think best practices and steer them away from, you know, using the company name on the in the headline like we wouldn't recommend and you know the sort of some of these best practices that we've seen, our team is here to help guide and give ideas and share best practices and things like that. And as we continue to grow and develop more and more of that gets absorbed into the product experience as well.

Mike: That's great. And the other thing I really liked about Mutiny when I looked at it was, it's not driven from a marketer's opinion. It's very much driven from data. So I've got to ask, you know, How often do optimizations work and how often do the marketers have to go back to the drawing board and, you know, maybe tweak what they're optimizing to get best performance?

Molly: Yeah. And I told you, I have a conversion rate optimization background. So I was running. Before I joined Mutiny, I was running experimentation programmes and a B tests for large large enterprises, like a gap and Oppenheimer funds and big big brands. And they'd be pretty happy with a 1%, lift, 3% lift like pretty Thrall lifts. And in general, I'd say like one in four, or one in five tests would win. So you have like a 25% ish when, right? The cool thing about personalization, so on the CRM side, it is very life. What if we change the headline to this, what if we change the button to get started, it's sort of like random ideas that you are trying to find a better solution for the average person, but the average person doesn't exist, right? Like, there is somebody who is like 10 feet tall, and somebody who's two feet tall, and to say that your average person is four feet tall, which you know, the math doesn't work out there. But you get what I'm saying. Like, you can just take the average of any given person, it's really about how different segments are behaving. And so the difference with personalization is, you're actually segmenting your audience, you have a specific person that you're building for not an average person, and you know a lot more about them, or you can do more research about them. And so you're actually crafting an experience for a specific person rather than some broad idea of the average visitor on your site. And so they actually win more like three and four times. And the lifts are more like 30% to 50%, even like 100% Plus left, so you're much, much bigger gains. And you're winning a lot more often.

Mike: With all this testing and with the ability to, to really scale up the personalization, I mean, does this mean Mutiny is really an enterprise product? You need a decent amount of web traffic to really benefit from it.

Molly: So I think this again, comes down to how you're going to use the product. So if you want to identify who's coming into your website, segment those audiences and then deliver personalization. Yeah, the trade off there is yes, while you win more often, you get big lifts, you get big lifts for smaller segments. So although those smaller segments are your ICP, so it's a good trade off. At the end of the day, you are cutting down your audience size. And so for inbound website, personalization, you should have I would say like 10,000 monthly visitors, at least on your site in order for those segments actually be meaningful volume for you. But for outbound personalization, like these microsites I was talking about that's only constrained on how many emails your team can send, right, like your BDR team, your SDR team can send and so there's no kind of traffic requirement for that use case. You just have to have a muscle around outbound email.

Mike: Interesting, so lots of flexibility. But it's been great talking about Mutiny Molly. I’m also interested  in how you promote the product yourself. I mean, you're responsible for growing the business to a large extent. So one of the most effective tactics you find to get marketers engaged and interested in Mutiny.

Molly: Yeah, so this is the fun part about marketing to marketers where, you know, you get to use your own product, talk about your own product, to sell your own product. And so I think I have something cheeky on my LinkedIn, like, I use Mutiny on Mutiny to grow Mutiny, or I'm a marketer, selling the market, just selling a marketing technology to marketers and talking about marketing or, you know, something that is just very confusing. But I think, yeah, we get that benefit of using our own product in a lot of our programmes. And so we really think about how do we bring more people to our website so that we can tailor that experience and show them the product in action when they come to our website. And then we have a really, really big microsite strategy. And actually, our microsite product was built out of our own early days when we didn't have website traffic we had, I think, like 2000 people coming to our website every month. And so we needed a way to talk about ourselves to market ourselves. So we built our own microsite product in order to help us get in front of the right people because we're targeting B2B marketers and CMOS You know, marketing leaders like we have a very defined ICP and audience, if we can build a page that demonstrates the product to them and show them, we're always going to do really, really well. So our own ABM programme brings in 60% of our pipeline and Mutiny. So it's really, really effective for us even to this day. Now we've grown our website traffic quite a bit too. So we can use both use cases and Mutiny. But in the early days, it was really on the microsite side, outside of using a Mutiny, like customer stories. And creative campaigns, I think are two really important levers for us. So putting the customer at the centre of everything we're talking about, making them the heroes showing, you know, marketers always want to learn from marketers. So making our customers look like heroes telling their stories, getting those out there, it helps our customers continue to activate and it helps our customers like brand build and further their personal careers. And then it also helps the market and everyone on our team kind of grow from there too. So actually did launched an ABM MBA programme, which is a fun play on words, but it features some of our customers that features non customers too. So just ABM errs, who are doing really, really good work and dives into the programmes that they're building and developing. So that one's really fun. And then creative campaigns. This is like a passion child. For me I love like big creative campaigns. In the fall, we ran a survivor programme was was spelled with AI in the middle sister of AI vert. And it was all about kind of educating around AI teaching workers how to use AI in their workflows. And it was gamified. So there was a big game platform, there was a $10,000 prize at the end, we had a lot of partners involved. So really, really just fun creative through like running games and different types of activation than just like a boring webinar programme.

Mike: I love that. I love that you're, you're so obviously having fun with some of your campaigns as well. That's brilliant.

Molly: I think that's the one thing like anyone looks at mutinies brand. They're like those guys have a lot of fun over there, huh?

Mike: It's awesome. I mean, you did mention the survivor, the AI campaign. Um, I, I'm interested, you know, how do you personally use AI in your marketing or do you use AI in your marketing?

Molly: Oh, yeah. I mean, I always have at least one probably many chat up T tabs open for real things and for fun things. And for life things like sometimes I'll just be like, Hey, here's the ingredients I have in my fridge and in my cupboard what can I make? I was thinking of soup is there what if I added ginger to it? Is that good or bad? It'll like make me recipe do I have Mutiny are like logo and mascot is a raccoon. And on social media, we have you know, with mid journey and things that have popped up, we've got like an AI version of the raccoon that's looks a little different than our logo, but he's pretty consistent. And whatever setting we need to put him in, his name's at chew. And I made an issue custom GPT builder so I trained it on all of our like brand approved to choose so that I can just say like, like we launched a Mean Girls campaign to go back to having fun with marketing. We, we didn't Mean Girls theme campaign, and I made all of these versions of it chew in like the classic mean girls to us, like, you know, at the cafeteria and things like that. So that one's super fun. And then for work, like with a BM MBA programme, for example, my process for getting to very high quality episodes is I do a prep session with the speaker. And we sort of like pre plan, what our agenda is going to look like and shape the story together because I don't want to just come in and like ask the same leaders all of the questions, same questions, I want to kind of dig in and tell a unique story with everyone. So we find that angle. And then I have a chat GBT process where I basically like turn that into the agenda for how we're going to speak together. I turned that into the copy that I need for the landing page. I turn that into the speaker notes and everything I'm going to need at the end of the day, so I have all of that processing kind of work through a workflow there. And outside of chat, GBT, our team also uses copy AI, which after the ABM MBA episode is recorded and published, we will put that through a copy AI workflow to come up with several different blog posts, newsletter posts, social posts, where we can like chop that up. And then on top of that, it's all of the AI that's just built into the tools that we're already using like Riverside and you know, production tools and things like that.

Mike: That's a lot of AI actually. That's interesting to hear how proactively you're using AI for everything from image generation through to written content and, and uh, podcasts. So, fascinating you're so bought into it.

Molly: Yes. And, and actually, uh, Stu on my team, he's our head of content. he sets a goal for himself to try a new AI tool every single week. So he's always testing something new and, and actually like replacing workflows. Like he's using copy AI now, but he was using something else previously. And just, you know, he won't settle, he'll keep going until he finds something that really, really works and has the right quality of output for us.

Mike: So that's amazing. I mean, trying a new AI every week. That's a real commitment to learning and testing new technology. this has been really interesting money. I'm sure I could talk for a lot longer, particularly about AI. But there's a couple of standard questions we'd like everyone to answer just to see what people think. So the first thing I'd really like to know is, what's the best bit of marketing advice you've ever been given?

Molly: I would say actually, not just marketing advice like generic advice, but simplify, very true for marketing too. But simplify, you get one ask you get one CTA, you have to prioritise what is that one is going to be. And if you get a good result, you can have another Ask you can have another CTA. And that's true for marketing funnels, marketing, language and messaging. But also, when you're working with customers, or communicating really with anyone, right is, you know, don't give people a laundry list of asks and things you need from them, simplify it to that one thing, and you're going to be much, much more likely to get a good result.

Mike: That's, I mean, that's great advice, I think, in a lot of areas. So I love that. We have another question we'd like to know is, what advice would you give, but particularly to one person who's just embarking on a marketing career?

Molly: Yeah, I think from a student perspective, I don't know if I would recommend like, go and get a degree in marketing, I think it is just the landscape is changing so rapidly that I don't think that is necessarily like, how you can set yourself up to like, become an online marketer, like the textbook background isn't necessarily going to help you as much as like, on the job experience. What I would say is probably really helpful is psychology or behavioural economics, or, you know, more kind of education time spent on how people think how people understand and process information, how they behave. And then you can learn the specifics of the marketing to whatever role industry tech stack, the company that you're in, is using, but if you have the foundation of understanding how humans operate, and how humans think you will, you'll be able to learn the tools and apply different strategies that are current. I mean, now it's like every six months, were like so rapidly developing and changing that, that I think you just need to stay on top of the market.

Mike: that's great advice, and I think it's important to remember that, you know, even people who have done the degree,  their, uh, knowledge, their information very rapidly ages. I mean, I actually qualified as an engineer, and we had exactly the same problem all those years ago, that, you know, by the time you finish your degree, what you'd learnt, it was already becoming out of date.

Molly: And I think that, that's absolutely the case in marketing.Yeah, for sure. And that's kind of cool to see. Right. Like, think people know it in the tech field that like, C++ isn't really the future anymore. But But yeah, I mean, marketing is moving really, really quickly to I'm sure all of business, every role kind of has that that vibe as well.

Mike: Absolutely. Molly, it's been fascinating talking to you and thank you so much for all the insight you've given. I mean, if somebody wants to learn more about Mutiny or maybe even ask you some questions, what would be the best way to find out more and perhaps get in touch?

Molly: Yeah, LinkedIn, feel free to follow me connect message me. I'd love to meet you, people. Awesome.

Mike: Molly, thank you so much again for your time. I really appreciate it. Thanks for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.

Molly: Thank you so much for having me.

Mike: Thanks so much for listening to Marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes, or on your favourite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at Napier B2B dot com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.

 


Quality or Quantity – Which is the Best Approach?

Lead nurturing is a key strategy within B2B marketing, and understanding your buying committee is essential to success. Mike and Hannah discuss how to use intent data to build paths through the buying journey for different personas, how to deal with data integration issues across platforms, and whether quality or quantity is the best approach to email marketing.

They also offer a sneak peek at our upcoming webinar “GDPR: What the Hell is Legitimate Interest?” and explore how GDPR can impact marketing automation and the opportunities marketers may be missing.

Register for the webinar on Monday 20th May, at 4:30pm BST, or watch on demand: https://napier-partnership-limited.webinargeek.com/gdpr-what-the-hell-is-legitimate-interest

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

About Napier

Napier is a PR-lead, full service marketing agency that specialises in the B2B technology sector. We work closely with our clients to build campaigns, focusing on achieving results that have a significant positive impact on their businesses and which, above all, ensure maximum return on their investment.

About Mike Maynard

Mike is the Managing Director/CEO of Napier, a PR and marketing agency for B2B technology companies. A self-confessed geek who loves talking about technology, he believes that combining the measurement, accountability and innovation that he learnt as an engineer with a passion for communicating ensures Napier delivers great campaigns and tangible return on investment.

About Hannah Wehrly

Hannah is the Head of Business Development and Marketing at Napier and leads on pitching, proposal writing, lead nurturing, email marketing, social media and content creation. Hannah joined the Napier team back in 2017 as a Marketing Specialist after completing her degree in Marketing and Communications, and her role focuses on developing new relationships with potential clients.

Time Stamps

[00:59.9] – Mike and Hannah discuss lead nurturing and the buying committee.

[05:44.4] – Is the MarTech stack too large? How can marketer integrate data across platforms.

[10:56.0] – What is the impact of GDPR on marketing automation?

[15:05.2] – Top tips on ensuring high deliverability of emails.

Quotes:

“When people build lead nurturing and when people are building these workflows, they need to make sure that they are appealing to these different people in the buying committee.” Hannah Wherly, Head of Business Development at Napier.

 Follow Mike and Hannah:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Hannah Wehrly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-wehrly-b0706a107/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing Automation and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast – Marketing B2B Technology: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/marketing-b2b-technology/id1485417724

Transcript: Marketing Automation Moment Episode 16 – Quality or Quantity – which is the best approach?

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Hannah Wherly

Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment Podcast. I'm Hannah Kelly.

Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard. This is Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.

Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment Podcast. I'm Hannah Whaley.

Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard.

Hannah: And today we talk about Acton’s lead nurturing webinar,

Mike: we discuss our GDPR webinar,

Hannah: we discussed the best approach of quantity versus quality when it comes to email marketing,

Mike: and our insightful Tip of the Week talks about deliverability of emails.

Hannah: Well, hi, Mike, welcome back to another episode of marked automation moment. Now, I believe we're very excited because I think a certain Ipswich Town, one football at the weekend, but I actually don't want to spend too much time on that let us move on to marketing automation.

Mike: I'd love to talk about Ipswich Town, but unfortunately, we only have a short time on the podcast. So I think you're probably right, we should talk about marketing automation.

Hannah: I like to save the listeners, Mike, you know, well, let's get started. So I want to kick off with act on so act on actually recently hosted a webinar called get proactive of lead nurturing. So already, it's a bit of marketing fluff. But it was quite interesting, because we've not actually spoken about lead nurturing a whole lot on this podcast. And one real key thing that really stood out to me in this webinar was that people should focus on building out the buyer committee. Now this is something that we see all the time and Max Napier amongst our clients is that we're not targeting one person, that is not the way it is anymore. We are targeting a buyer committee of people that are decision makers. And I think it's really interesting, because when people build lead nurturing, when people are building these workflows, they need to make sure that they are appealing to these different people in the buying committee. So you know, you could have the marketing manager, but you could also have the procurement specialist, I mean, it's interesting to think about the different things that we could do to target them. And one thing that this webinar really focused on was using intent data to build that path through the buyer journey. What do you think about intent data?

Mike: So firstly, I'm super excited to talk about the buying committee, or as we tend to say, in the UK, the decision making unit, it's my favourite thing, I think about b2b, the fact that we're not marketing to a single person, but actually, it's a complicated decision with lots of people and lots of opinions involved. So I really think that that's important, and probably way more important in some ways than intent data. intent data is something you hear a lot of people talking about, certainly a lot of startups trying to sell. But quite often, it's very hard to find intent data, either, because the purchase is something that is going to be confidential. Alternatively, it's something where actually, people aren't really out active on the internet talking about it, it's seen as, you know, perhaps more of a day to day thing, you know, for example, engineers are continually buying analogue silicon chips. So to, you know, find intent data and companies that buy analogue silicon chips is almost impossible, because it's a day to day thing. So I think intent data is, is hard to find for, you know, a surprising number of b2b companies.

Hannah: I do agree my Can I have maybe a difficult question for you there? Because if you say intent data, is it maybe that solution? How do people target that buyer committee in these type of b2b companies?

Mike: