Category: Show Notes

How Monster’s CMO is Revitalizing the Brand

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One of the more refreshing trends in marketing is the grand “mea culpa” in which a brand apologizes for past shortcomings and offers a renewed commitment to quality/integrity. Wells Fargo’s recent “re-established in 2018” campaign is one striking example. Another comes from Domino’s a few years back when they admitted their pizza was poor and relaunched with a better tasting product. This approach takes guts but really resonates especially when the pledge to be ‘better” comes with demonstrable actions. Which brings us to this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite in which Jonathan Beamer, CMO of Monster, admits that the online jobs site had “coasted” for a while and explains how they are renewing their commitment to job-seeker success.

What is so interesting in this case is that though Monster had coasted after dominating the job search market for most of the dot-com era, the brand still enjoyed high awareness and what Beamer calls “latent favorability.” Having this strong baseline to build from, Beamer expected that the combination of product improvements and increased advertising would help revitalize the brand. And though Beamer describes Monster’s revitalization as “a work in progress,” the brand is already seeing increases in site traffic and customer activity. Not coincidentally, Monster is back on TV providing further proof that this medium is far from dead as digital pundits declared 10 years ago!

Listen here for inspiration on how you might revitalize your brand. 

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What You’ll Learn

There’s great power behind a brand that people are familiar with and trust

There’s one core truth behind Monster that has allowed their brand to survive across decades, and that is that people are always searching for fulfilling work. Since 1999 Monster has connected people and job opportunities, and Jonathan explains that it’s paying attention to small details that makes Monster stand out from the masses.

He explains the powerful concept of “latent favorability,” when people remember your brand fondly even after having not used the company’s services for a period of time. Monster has values attached to the brand that goes beyond the product it provides, and that’s where the company’s power lies.

These 4 tips will help you refresh a stagnant brand

Jonathan’s marketing team at Monster has been faced with the challenge of refreshing a company message that has existed for nearly 20 years. In his conversation with Drew, Jonathan explains 4 main tips that have helped guide his team through the process of refreshing a stagnant brand. Here they are.

  1. Be the voice of the customer (in Monster’s case, understanding both an employee on the hunt for a new job and a recruiter looking for top talent)
  2. Have a close partnership with the product/service development team
  3. Understand the simple decisions made throughout a customer’s purchase journey
  4. Be consistent with the tools you choose to use

Learn how to track brand awareness for greater marketing success

Having data on your brand, its level of awareness within your target market, and your digital followers is essential, but you have to know how to aggregate and analyze that data. Jonathan explains that you should not get hung up on the questions to ask when conducting brand awareness surveys or sending out evaluation tools. At the end of the day, the tools you use to track brand awareness matter less than the overall feedback it provides to you and your team. Jonathan also recommends that you also utilize your historical data and keep the big picture in mind when doing brand tracking. For even more insights on how to track brand awareness effectively, be sure to listen.

Timeline

  • [0:28] Drew introduces Jonathan to the Renegade Thinkers Unite show
  • [3:38] Jonathan’s Renegade Rapid Fire segment
  • [17:06] The importance of factfullness in the world around you
  • [19:50] What Jonathan’s excited about as the CMO of Monster
  • [24:07] This is what happened when Monster stopped investing in marketing
  • [30:14] Fixing fundamental aspects of the Monster brand
  • [35:37] Keep these ideas in mind when doing brand tracking
  • [40:51] There’s a strong bond between quality products and justifying marketing efforts
  • [43:32] Content is huge in Monster’s marketing strategy
  • [48:15] Jonathan’s top 3 pieces of advice for new CMOs

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Advice for CMOs in Their First 100 Days

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Joining a company as the new chief marketing officer can be an intimidating affair. There are new team members to meet, historical strategies to digest, and an overwhelming pressure to make an impact early in your tenure. With the rest of the C-Suite reminding you of the needs to generate demand and to calculate ROI on every expenditure, it is easy to find yourself being pulled in multiple directions and forced into “ready, fire, aim” mode. Luckily, Paige O’Neill is here to help on this special episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

As the new CMO of Sitecore, an integrated CMS, and e-commerce solution, Paige is an expert at handling new roles in marketing departments, having been through the process on multiple occasions. Dubbing herself as the chief marketing “synthesizer,” Paige has a knack for synthesizing all the information that is thrown her way and gaining a quick understanding of the company’s goals and priorities. Having worked as a CMO for large companies as well as start-ups she continues to add to her extensive toolkit, taking away something new from each experience. Listen carefully as Paige details the critical steps every new CMO should take to ensure they too get off to a successful start.

Click here to listen and learn how to navigate your first 100 days.

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What You’ll Learn

Don’t be afraid to ask big questions during your first 30 days

When Paige stepped into her new role as CMO, she understood the importance of asking the right questions within the first 30 days. Recognizing the key stakeholders within the company is one of the biggest objectives you should have as a new chief marketing officer.

You also have to “become a synthesizer” of all of the information being thrown your way. Understanding the company’s current priorities, current team roles, and workflow processes are all important to understand soon after joining the company. The sooner you ask these big questions and understand the answers, the faster you’ll be able to start actually marketing and leading your team.

Here’s how to approach your new marketing team

Being hired as a new CMO means being paired with a brand new team of marketing employees. Or, you’ll be tasked with hiring your own new team. Paige outlines a few key questions that can help you navigate this complex process:

  • What are the strategic goals of the company?
  • How is the marketing team going to contribute to that growth?
  • What’s holding the company back from the current objectives?
  • What vacancies and gaps are there in the current team?

She encourages new CMOs to “be your own best case scenario” and to not let distractions get in the way of securing a great team. If you take the time to build solid relationships with your coworkers early on, the rest of your first 100 days will go much smoother.

Consider Paige’s best advice for your first 100 days as a new Chief Marketing Officer

During your first 100 days as a new CMO, Paige explains that you will have to embrace and lean into the difficult conversations. On this episode, she shares a list of things that are important to work on during the first 3 months in a new role:

  • Build key relationships
  • Learn the business
  • Shore up the team and prioritize hiring
  • Figure out the quick wins that buy you time for longer-term projects
  • Prioritization goal alignment
  • Articulate a vision
  • Be mindful of how you’re spending your time – don’t be afraid to say no

By keeping these areas in mind as you work in a new company, your first 100 days as a new chief marketing officer are sure to be successful.

Timeline

  • [0:28] Paige is here to help CMOs understand steps to take in their first 100 days
  • [2:54] Paige’s Renegade Rapid Fire segment
  • [13:33] Don’t be afraid to ask big questions in your first 30 days
  • [17:55] How do you ensure your observations are true?
  • [19:40] How long should you take to make your first sets of decisions?
  • [25:37] Here’s how Paige approaches a new marketing team
  • [34:09] This advice is key for the first 100 days in a new CMO role

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Simplicity + Side Hustle = CMO Success

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Let’s face it – simple is hard, especially in B2B marketing. It’s so easy to get caught up in flashy features, complicated jargon, and complex campaign strategies that we forget what marketing is all about – making buying easier. Faced with this challenge of persuading people, many CMOs are struggling to keep things simple. Margaret Molloy is not one of those CMOs.

As the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Siegel+Gale, Margaret has mastered the art of persuading people with simple, but powerful messaging. She points her success to two key foundations: having permission to fail and the effectiveness of fact-based storytelling. The lessons she has to share are not only coming from her experience at Siegel+Gale, but also from what she learned by exploring her own passion project, the #WearingIrish initiative.

In this episode, Drew and Margaret talk about how to keep things simple in B2B marketing and explain the four main traits of successful CMOs. Margaret describes her experience with her passion project, the #WearingIrish initiative, and how CMOs could be growing and learning from their own side hustle.

Margaret is a bundle of B2B wisdom, click here to listen to her story.

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What You’ll Learn

Marketing Made Simple: The 2 Foundations You Need to Know

B2B marketing is all about making a buying decision easier for a customer. Even though there are thousands of experts and opinions in the industry, Drew and Margaret both believe in the idea of simple marketing – a Renegade approach to marketing that makes everything approachable and easy to understand.

Simple marketing focuses on encouraging and persuading people to act, but a CMO cannot pursue this path without these 2 foundations: internal company support and a solid fact base. Without these tools to lean on, a CMO is more likely to get distracted and lose sight of the true company goal. Artful, courageous simple marketing follows after these foundations have been laid.

Successful CMOs exhibit these 4 behaviors that lead to better simple marketing campaigns

Great CMOs are fundamentally simplifiers. They’re always working towards boiling down ideas into easy-to-digest pieces of information. Margaret explains that throughout her career as a marketer and creator, the best CMOs consistently exhibit these 4 behaviors.

  1. They’re purpose-driven
  2. They’re fact-based, but they have an imagination
  3. They are bold and brave in prioritization (they say no often)
  4. They execute on company and brand promises

These behaviors allow a CMO to focus on what truly matters in their marketing campaign.

Margaret uses her passion project #WearingIrish to help her role as a CMO – and you can too

Margaret’s native country is Ireland and even while working as a top CMO she knew she wanted to bring global exposure to Irish creators. That’s why she created the #WearingIrish initiative. She is telling the untold story of Irish fashion design and learning skills that are transferable to her CMO role as well.

Margaret explains that this passion project has given her an opportunity to have an “experimentation lab” that is separate from the risks and responsibilities associated with Siegel+Gale. It also allowed her to develop a higher sense of empathy for other companies and her CMO clients. No matter where your personal interests may lie, the stories shared on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite show that they can always be used to benefit your company and your own professional work.

Timeline

  • [0:30] Margaret Molloy, CMO, and creator is featured on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite
  • [2:07] Margaret’s Renegade Rapid Fire segment
  • [11:35] The story behind Margaret’s #WearingIrish passion project
  • [19:04] Tying together your personal brand with your company’s brand and mission
  • [22:20] These are the top 4 behaviors of successful CMOs
  • [32:00] Actionable steps make simple marketing tangible

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Why a Digital Brand Relies on Outdoor for Growth

Posted on by Drew Neisser

One of the most memorable Simpsons’ moments has to be Homer’s excitement for “new billboard day.” His car screeches to a halt on the highway, causes a major traffic jam, and he sticks his head out the window to take in the first new billboard: A romantic message, accompanied by decorative swirls and a picture of a man presenting a thrilled woman with a gift, reads: “This year, give her… English Muffins”. Homer squints, reads, and responds enthusiastically: “Whatever you say, Mr. Billboard!”

First and foremost, it’s a great laugh. Beyond that, however, it points to the widely-held notion that audiences are always out there and will be receptive to brands that deliver a strong, meaningful promise. In the non-animated world, that means going further than english muffins or Krusty’s Clown College, where Homer ends up.

In past 18 months, Pelosi and Zoom put forward the simple but powerful message “Meet Happy” to build awareness of their online meeting platform. Then they shared it with the world, but not just through ads on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. They invested heavily in billboards and transit ads across major US and European markets. The results? Weekly web traffic has grown 1600% since Janine joined Zoom. From the Spring of 2017 through Spring of 2018, the company has seen 100% year over year revenue growth and 135% year over year user base growth. That Simpsons gag was released in 1995, but Janine’s team is proving that billboards and outdoor advertising can still be powerful, as long as the message is right.

In this episode, Drew and Janine talk about effective, honest messaging and how to broadcast it to the world. Janine talks through Zoom’s success, its challenges, and her high-level thoughts on the role a CMO should play, especially in being an advocate for their team.

Click here to listen now.

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What You’ll Learn

Zoom’s latest brand awareness campaign is “Meet Happy,” and it works wonders without digital marketing

With an ever-increasing number of companies using Zoom to meet virtually, Janine and her team realized that meetings were a critical piece of modern business. They sought out to create a brand awareness campaign that would generate demand in a unique way. That’s why they stayed away from typical digital marketing strategies such as Facebook ads. Instead, they put outdoor marketing pieces across the world on buses, billboards, taxis, etc. Now, Zoom hosts over 39 billion annualized meeting minutes and provides services for 58% of the Fortune 500, over 75% of the 2017 Forbes Cloud 100, and over 96% of the top 200 US universities.

The “Meet Happy” campaign speaks to so many prospects because it encourages a positive emotion and interaction with a product. Delivering happiness and great meeting experiences are what Zoom does best, and it shows.

Generating demand is one thing, delivering on a promise is another. Zoom succeeds at both!

The “Meet Happy” campaign simply generates demand. It doesn’t capture that demand and turn it into leads and sales. For capturing the demand, Janine still relies on digital tools. By using this form of promise-based marketing, Janine creates positive connections with prospects even before they visit Zoom’s website. Their team follows through on that promise by always focusing on perfecting their product and having exceptional customer service.

Internally, the 1,300+ employee Zoom team keeps “be happy” as a company culture pillar. It focuses everyone around a central mindset and has bonded the team together as they grew.

Janine shares her main ideas for successful marketing, company culture, and innovation

At Zoom, having a supportive CEO is one of the biggest ingredients in their “secret sauce” of success. Janine explains that without the support and encouragement of top company leaders, organizing successful campaigns is difficult.

Are you interested in achieving the same amount of success as Zoom? Janine encourages all marketers to keep marketing practical, keep it simple, and stay focused. Don’t chase after all the tools on the market and don’t overthink your messaging. Simply know your brand, believe in your product, and trust your intuition.

Timeline

  • [1:15] How Janine’s work has increased Zoom’s marketing success in just 3 years
  • [2:35] Janine’s Renegade Rapid Fire segment
  • [11:49] How Zoom’s “Meet Happy” brand awareness campaign works wonders for capturing demand
  • [20:07] The “secret sauce” behind Janine’s marketing strategy at Zoom
  • [23:34] Delivering on the promise of the “Meet Happy” campaign
  • [26:45] Learn from the challenges Zoom’s marketing team has faced

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You Need to Blow Up Your Approach to B2B Marketing

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Brent Adamson has a bone to pick with marketers: the way many of them define their industry is miles off the mark. In fact, Brent may want to abandon the term ‘marketing’ altogether, because too often the notion of separate marketing and sales departments breeds a lack of coordination. If your marketing and sales teams are not in perfect lockstep, you can count on your business suffering. If you disagree, maybe he can sway you in part 2 of his interview.

In today’s conclusion to the interview, Brent and Drew get at to the heart of how a marketing team needs to operate to be successful, and it involves a lot more than handing leads off to sales like a relay-race baton. Brent will talk the listener through seven tools that can help make speed up the process of connecting a customer with a product. Then, Drew and Brent talk through the buyer enablement journey, and why breaking down walls between sales and marketing will enable the teams make it as easy as possible for the customer to buy. In the end, that’s goal number one.

This episode is chock full of wisdom to help you shed some outdated notions of marketing and sales, click here to listen!

What You’ll Learn

Marketing and sales collaboration is the wave of the future – here’s why

Brent wants every marketer to understand that the role of every B2B business is to make buying easier for the customer. This is achieved through a high level of marketing and sales collaboration. Gone are the days where marketers can simply hand off a prospect to the sales department and hope for the best. If a company knits together the two departments, they will have a competitive advantage over every other business in the industry.

Where do buyers look for information validation?

During the purchase journey, a buyer is always seeking for validation on the information they receive. After speaking with a sales representative, there are 3 main places where they will look for validation:

  1. The company’s website
  2. SEO organic searches
  3. A third-party analyst/thought leader

That’s why it’s so important for companies to be unified in the way they deliver information and lay out why their solution is the best available. If a buyer receives mixed information, they’re less like to choose your solution.

The 7 main tools that enhance buyer enablement

A B2B company with linked marketing and sales departments can work together to create tools that help a customer make easier buying decisions. There are 7 main categories of tools that can be explored.

  1. Calculators
  2. Simulators
  3. Recommenders
  4. Benchmarks
  5. Connectors
  6. Advisors
  7. Diagnostics

These tools ultimately allow the customer to choose the best solution to their problem. Brent explains that there is a “huge commercial benefit” to providing tools that make a customer’s life easier, and companies can see increased loyalty from customers after they use these tools.

Timeline

  • [1:40] Marketing has a new role – make it easier for the customer to buy
  • [4:24] Buyer enablement takes the form of these 7 tools
  • [10:14] You can’t fit these ideas into legacy structures for companies and brands
  • [14:20] This is the #1 place customers look for information validation
  • [23:34] Why you should be excited about the upcoming Gartner conference

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