Digital Superheroes: How Agari Makes a Bold Mission Real

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Digital Superheroes: How Agari Makes a Bold Mission Real

What do you need to make a big splash? A big ship, one would assume, is a terrific place to start. So that’s exactly what Agari used to launch their new brand, the purpose of which is written loudly and proudly on the walls of their headquarters: “Agari protects digital communications to ensure humanity prevails over evil.” That’s a pretty bold way of explaining that your company is an advanced cybersecurity firm for email. But a bold mission statement is exactly what companies need to grow. At Agari, this statement is deeply woven into the community fabric, from the board members down to rank-and-file employees.

On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Armen Najarian, CMO, discusses how they made the mission real, and how having that meaningful guidance of saving and protecting the world of digital communications, helped drive brand, product development, company growth, and more.

For full interview: http://bit.ly/2YW1Vco

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How to Mine an Asteroid

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How to Mine an Asteroid

You might think the first step to asteroid mining is get a rocket ship. Usually you would be right. But on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Sean Regan, Head of Product Marketing at Atlassian, is taking a different approach. To Sean, mining an asteroid speaks more to the idea that a portion of your marketing, or overall company strategy, has to seek out untapped, sometimes hard-to-reach areas, otherwise you’ll just be chipping away at coal in the same mines as everyone else, looking for small, incremental bumps in value. As Sean says about marketing, “if you’re not nervous about it—even a little bit—there’s a pretty good chance it doesn’t matter.”

At Atlassian, a software developer aimed at improving collaborative productivity for companies, Sean keeps asteroid mining front-and-center when formulating marketing strategies. On today’s episode, join in as he and Drew talk about how to bring emotion and creativity to science-driven marketing, how product development and marketing is contributing to Atlassian’s 100M monthly active user goals, how to get customers to become brand evangelists, and more.

For whole article: http://bit.ly/2Q0pFrV

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Brand Tracking and B2B Demand Gen with Gusto

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Brand Tracking and B2B Demand Gen with Gusto

Payroll tends to be a purely transactional moment between employer and employee, but Gusto is working to shift that to being a “life moment,” potentially one of delight (as receiving a paycheck should be!). Effectively reaching their audience while balancing internal alignment, a hefty tech stack, and their mission statement—to create a world where work empowers a better life—can be something of a juggling act. Tolithia Kornweibel, head of marketing, and her team at Gusto, are up to the task.

On today’s RTU, Drew and Tolithia talk about how to effectively build a demand engine, how to demonstrate value internally to gain support, and how to keep track of your brand through a balance of qualitative and quantitative assessment, all while staying true to a brand mission. Tune in! For more insights B2B Demand Generation, check out our special report, here

For the whole article: http://bit.ly/2IfuPiJ

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Don’t Charge It, Brex It

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Don’t Charge It, Brex It

Silicon Valley is home to thousands of B2B startups—and one of the the newest B2B  unicorns. Brex offers a corporate credit card more built around the ever-changing needs of a startup, and they’ve been valued at over $1 billion. One of the secrets? Champagne and chocolate.

Brex’s overall success has tied heavily into their bold marketing, and on this episode of RTU, Chief Sales Officer Sam Blond, and CFO/CMO Michael Tannenbaum, discuss it in detail. From identifying your targets, to orchestrating outdoor campaigns, to in-depth attribution models, Brex has been firing on all cylinders. Listen in to learn more.

What You’ll Learn

How Brex found its current market

Brex is located in Silicon Valley, where there are thousands of B2B startups. Brex’s founders stumbled upon the painfulness of managing corporate credit cards when they could not get a credit card for one of their own new businesses. Their experience demonstrated a business opportunity and a marketplace in the niche of corporate cards for startups. Typically, founders of startups have to personally guarantee a corporate card. Even with millions of dollars in the bank, these businesses would have 20k-30k spending limits placed on them that were nowhere high enough to support the spending of a company. Brex instead uses a business’s bank accounts and bank activity to determine the spending limits on corporate cards. Michael and Sam point out that startups move and grow too quickly to have spending limits determined on a yearly basis, so Brex is constantly evaluating what a business needs and what limits will be. Their business model has resonated especially with tech startups and B2B businesses in Silicon Valley.

For the whole article: http://bit.ly/2D1VN9w

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The Keys to Effective, Purpose-Driven Marketing

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The Keys to Effective, Purpose-Driven Marketing

A true, purpose-driven brand doesn’t happen overnight. What it really takes is a goal, specific actions, and at times, a bit of sacrifice. For Bank of the West, their mission meant, in the short-term, potentially leaving money on the table in the name of responsible investment of customers’ money, and transparency as to what that money was doing. That initial cost was worth it, as the long-term benefits, like new customers, talent attraction, and differentiation, outweighed any money lost. Now, when high-profile job candidates ask, “Why should I join you? How are you helping the world?” Bank of the West has a great an answer—they’re one of very few banks that has restrictive financing policies on things like coal, fracking, and arctic drilling.

On this episode of RTU, learn how CMO Ben Stuart and his team helped shape this relatively small financial institution to become a competitive, purpose-driven company with marketing that doesn’t feel like an uninvited guest. The discussion touches on crafting a tight strategy, gaining internal buy-in, data analytics, the keys to differentiation, and more on how to craft brilliant marketing.

For the whole article: http://bit.ly/2PkB4m1

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Chatbots: Keep It Human With Your Bots

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Keep It Human With Your Bots

Call an Uber, order from Amazon, book a hotel… You can do all of these things instantly—even at 4 AM. People today want commodities quickly and with round the clock access. Believe it or not, your B2B buyers are also people, and they probably want the same. Now, most businesses can’t man their websites 24/7 (unless you’re shelling out for night shift employees or lots of coffee)—this is where the chatbot comes. But there’s an art to the bot—they shouldn’t replace humans, but should help facilitate conversations with customers. Proper use can result in tremendous boost to lead generation, and can radically speed up a company’s growth.

Dave Gerhardt, author of Conversational Marketing and VP of Marketing at Drift, joined RTU for a chat bot chat, and really digs into the value, and ideal usage, of these automated critters. Beyond that, Dave touches on a few broader subjects, including how marketing efforts need to be rooted in empathy and humanity. After all, you’ll always be marketing to people.

Hear why businesses big and small can benefit from chatbots—listen in!

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What You’ll Learn

Conversational marketing: why you should nix your lead form

When Drift nixed its own lead form, they did so to teach the market about conversational marketing! Drift needed to practice what it preached. Drift utilizes bots to capture leads. Instead of a form submission, there is a conversation with a potential customer. Dave shares that a form is binary while a chatbot allows a conversation to occur. Today’s technology is so good that from a single email address, your company can get ample information. Because of this, companies should feel free to focus on the conversation.

For the whole article: http://bit.ly/2U8k33i

Timeline

    • [2:40] Get to know Dave, and why he was first attracted to Drift
    • [6:15] Information from his book, Conversational Marketing
    • [11:11] Is there every information on a website worth gating?
    • [14:03] Why chatbots
    • [20:20] Embedding a calendar-like function to a chatbot
    • [25:20] The point of moving from a chatbot to livechat
    • [28:16] Why speed matters!
    • [31:37] The importance of empathy in sales conversations
    • [35:40] Using chatbots for customer service and post sales
  • [39:35] CQL’s and why they will save the world

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    • Connect with Dave Gerhardt on LinkedIn

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