Going Beyond Marketing Through Social Media and Listening to Customer Voice

As the CMO of Hootsuite, Penny Wilson has some fantastic insights into the social media listening industry and why identifying the customer voice of your company is essential. Not only is customer voice important for executing exceptional customer service but it can also be used as a tool to effectively communicate with executive boards and chief financial officers.

Drew Neisser asks Penny about her journey towards Hootsuite and the top questions on why listening to your customers is critical. The idea of going “beyond marketing” is explored and Penny’s understanding of this concept is unparalleled.

You can’t afford to miss their discussion on upcoming social media trends that could help your company grow by leaps and bounds. The top challenges faced by CMOs are also discussed in this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

It’s sure to be an educational and inspirational episode that you don’t want to miss.

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What You’ll Learn

[1:07] Drew introduces the guest for this episode, CMO of Hootsuite, Penny Wilson
[4:40] How social media is helping companies go “beyond marketing”
[5:57] Penny’s part in a new leadership team at Hootsuite
[7:53] Unpacking the voice of the customer
[13:02] Finding insights for your company through listening to the customer voice
[19:43] Hootsuite’s challenge of breaking out of their original market
[23:32] Drew asks Penny about the main challenges for CMOs
[24:25] How can CMOs provide CFOs with the tools they need to understand the importance of marketing?
[27:00] Social media opportunities that are often overlooked by companies
[29:33] How AI can revolutionize the social media tools companies are using

Customer voice is a tool that reaches beyond just marketing

By taking the time to understand your company’s customers and the preferences and expectations they have, you can capture their collective voice. While this voice has obvious benefits in product/service development it can also allow you to examine their entire journey with your company. Listening to the voice of your customers allows you to build a culture that encourages the customer to direct the company and lets the customer lead. Devoted listening creates loyal customers which leads to valuable insights. The listening process should be built into every level of your company, with employees being empowered to become representatives of your company. For more information on how identifying your customer voice can be an asset to your company don’t miss this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

The greatest challenge faced by CMOs and how Hootsuite has conquered it

Penny’s career in marketing has allowed her to understand some of the greatest challenges faced by CMOs today. One of the most prevalent issues is the constant need for CMOs to get approval from top-level company leaders for their social listening and marketing campaigns. This challenge requires CMOs to tie marketing to a tangible outcome – a challenge that can be solved by using hypothesis-driven tools and metrics. Dive into this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite to discover how Penny and her team at Hootsuite are enabling companies to create more effective marketing campaigns by offering information on the returns on investment for marketing campaigns.

The most overlooked opportunities that exist through social media listening

Penny explains to Drew that the best marketers should be paying attention to the fact that not every customer or employee is 100% comfortable with social media yet. Educational training components can be built into the company culture or customer interface to allow those with less experience to catch up with the current trends and techniques. She also explains that while artificial intelligence is definitely making an appearance in the social listening spheres, it’s not going to overpower the human element of marketing and customer interaction. No matter how your company goes about social listening to uncover the voice of your customers, keep in mind Penny’s best acronym for marketing – SCALE – social, customer-centered, authentic, listen and learn, and engage. You and your company will benefit from listening to this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, so be sure to listen.

Connect With Penny Wilson:

Hootsuite Leadership Team webpage featuring Penny
Connect with Penny on LinkedIn
Follow Penny on Twitter
Follow Penny on Facebook

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Drew

Meet the Guest

Penny Wilson boasts an impressive resume. Before joining Hootsuite as CMO in 2015, she enjoyed success as the CMO for Juniper Networks and, before that, Macromedia Inc. She has also held executive positions at Alias/Wavefront and Merrill Lynch. She’s enjoyed success in all facets of marketing, from overseeing the establishment of global brands to navigating marketing strategies through multi-billion dollar acquisitions.

Her passions include neurological studies and mental fitness, and she founded Nognz, a neuro-based learning company that combines proven brain exercises with relevant learning content customized for a company or consumer’s specific needs.

She holds a BSc in Computer Science & Business from the University of Guelph.

Quotes from Penny Wilson

What I'm trying to do is build a culture that allows the customer to direct us, versus us trying to direct the customer.
I've always been a proponent of letting the customer lead. Marketing is no longer on send; we need to be on receive mode.
Marketing is becoming a driving force across the whole organization. It's less siloed. It really is an integrating function.
Listening to the customer and responding to the customer is really everyone's job. We live in this real-time world and customers expect an immediate response. It's so important to any business.
Marketers are challenged more and more to make sure that they can demonstrate the return on their investment.