Author: Melissa Caffrey

Keeping Employees Front and Center

Posted on by Melissa Caffrey

Why should B2B organizations make employee engagement a high priority? According to Forbes, highly engaged teams are 21% more profitable. Employees that feel supported by their companies stay longer, perform better, and are less likely to get burnt out. They become cheerleaders for your brand, attracting other great talent and generating buzz that is nearly impossible to replicate any other way.

In this episode, CMO Caroline Tien-Spalding of Aptology, CMO Jeff Perkins of ParkMobile, and Tanika Vital-Pringle, the founder of Brand Rebirth, discuss just how to develop employee-first cultures that will be able to withstand tough times, drive empathy, and enable employee loyalty. This profound and practical conversation is undoubtedly a lesson in the power of empathy—don’t miss it!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • The lasting value of an employee-first culture
  • How CMOs can engender brand love
  • How to create inclusive spaces for employees to thrive

Perfecting B2B Marketing Metrics

Posted on by Melissa Caffrey

The perfect B2B marketing metrics dashboard doesn’t exist. Well, not in the way that you’d think. Every organization is at a different growth stage, has different opinions in the C-Suite, and has different strategic priorities, so it only makes sense that there’s no one-size-fits-all measurement standard out there. Savvy CMOs know this—and they also know that not everything marketing contributes can be measured—but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done.

In this episode, we explore which metrics matter to the CMOs at three B2B organizations: Rebecca Stone of Cisco Meraki, Chandar Pattabhiram of Coupa, and Katie Risch of Centro. This insightful discussion is about how to demonstrate the value of marketing to the C-Suite, to your organization, and to the world at large. Tune in to learn about the best “brand-quisition” metrics, the state of attribution modeling today, why employer brand metrics are really important (even if no one thinks so), and more.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Which marketing metrics B2B marketers should focus on
  • The state of attribution modeling
  • How to build the perfect metrics dashboard

Banking on a Co-Branded Solution

Posted on by Melissa Caffrey

In recent years, a significant percentage of consumers—from 72-76%, based on various studies—would rather bank with a local institution than a megabank. So why don’t they? According to CMO Keith Brannan, it’s because local banks marketing budgets don’t stand a chance against the punching power of their larger counterparts.

That’s where Kasasa comes in, helping community banks and credit unions earn their rightful share of the market through a co-branded solution. Tune in to this fascinating episode to hear how the FinTech and marketing services brand makes buying easy for its resource-constrained customers, proof for why brands need to keep marketing in a downturn, how to use data to cross-sell and upsell a limited customer pool, and more.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • How the Kasasa brand has evolved
  • How Kasasa makes buying easy for its customers
  • Why you need to keep marketing during a downturn

Oh FUD, Say Goodbye to Fear-Based Marketing

Posted on by Melissa Caffrey

FUD, you ever heard of it? No, not Elmer Fudd, the Looney Toon set on hunting that wascally wabbit Bugs. We’re talking about FUD, the acronym for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, a marketing tactic that focuses on the dangers customers face if they don’t adopt a product. In the B2B cybersecurity world, FUD-based marketing is quite popular, and while it’s effective in many cases, the negative approach can have unintended consequences on company culture and brand perception.

Enter Dan Lowden of HUMAN, Kevin Sellers of Ping Identity, and Armen Najarian of RSA, three B2B CMOs in the cybersecurity world set on throwing FUD out the door and selling instead through values-based marketing. Tune in to this fascinating episode to learn how these brands have found ingenious ways to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive market, why B2B brand values are essential to success, and more.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Why B2B brands should leave FUD-based marketing behind
  • More effective alternatives to FUD
  • The true business value of values-based marketing

Forrester CMO on Practicing What You Preach

Posted on by Melissa Caffrey

If you’re a B2B marketer and you’ve never heard of Forrester, you’re probably not a B2B marketer. The world-renowned research and advisory firm has firmly established itself as one of the most influential of its kind, and in this episode, CMO Shirley Macbeth fills us in on how Forrester maintains its high status via ever-evolving brand strategy and dedicated brand activation.

Having joined Forrester right when the world shut down in March 2020, Shirley dove headfirst into bringing Forrester’s Bold at Work message to life and consolidating the recently acquired SiriusDecisions without losing its loyal customer base. Not only that, Forrester’s marketing team drank its own champagne, using data to increase marketing spend and narrow down its list of key target personas from 20 to 5 (as well as its product set from hundreds to a handful). This is an awesome B2B brand story—check it out!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • How Forrester activated its new brand promise
  • Why Forrester narrowed its target personas and product set
  • Behind Forrester’s acquisition of SiriusDecisions

Structuring the Ideal B2B Marketing Department

Posted on by Melissa Caffrey

B2B success starts with carefully considered organizational design. Whether strategically allocating budget and staff across multiple marketing functions or managing a growing MarTech stack, organizational design is no easy task. In this episode, CMOs Kathie Johnson of Talkdesk, Anna Griffin of Smartsheet, and Melanie Marcus of Surescripts discuss how they’ve structured their marketing teams for today and tomorrow, aligning to C-Suite expectations and adapting to both predictable and unexpected change.

Be sure to tune in to learn how the right B2B marketing structure can align Sales and Marketing teams, grow revenue, and transform marketing into an integral part of a B2B brand (and why DE&I should be a priority for building marketing teams). Check it out!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • How 3 B2B CMOs structure their marketing organizations
  • How to optimize staffing resources to align Sales and Marketing
  • Why DE&I should be a priority for leaders