Tag: B2B

Simplicity + Side Hustle = CMO Success

Posted on by admin

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.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – or Podsearch

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

Connect With Margaret:

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Drew

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.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – or Podsearch

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

Connect With Janine:

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Drew

You Need to Blow Up Your Approach to B2B Marketing

Posted on by admin

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

Connect With Brent:

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Drew

Putting the B2B Buyer First and Understanding Their Purchase Journey, Part 1

Posted on by admin

A customer’s purchase journey is never an easy process to document and collect data on. Thankfully, Brent Adamson is interviewed on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. As Principal Executive Advisor at Gartner (formerly CEB), Brent works to help B2B companies explain to customers why their solution is the best available.

Throughout part 1 of this conversation, Brent and Drew discuss why putting the customer first should be at the heart of any B2B organization. They also explain the 6 non-linear steps in any purchase journey, and Brent shares his #1 tip for any B2B supplier.

Click here to learn what you need to know about B2B marketing.

What You’ll Learn

Putting the buyer first is the #1 step to create a better purchase journey

B2B companies should be focusing on understanding how buying happens. Learning how your ideal customer views the buying process will give you direction when bridging the gap between marketing and sales departments. Brent explains that unfortunately, few brands in the B2B space are doing this well. To learn how to put the buyer first and reorganize your brand’s purchase journey model, be sure to listen.

The 6 main steps in any B2B purchase journey – they’re not linear!

Contrary to what many professionals believe, a purchase journey within B2B industries isn’t linear. And closing a deal isn’t about progression, it’s about completion. Brent outlines the 6 main steps that must be completed before any buying decision is made.

  1. Problem identification
  2. Solution exploration
  3. Requirements building
  4. Supplier selection
  5. Consensus creation (always happening)
  6. Validation of information (always happening)

These steps are far from being linear, especially when multiple decision-makers are involved. Of all the B2B buyers surveyed by Brent and his team at Gartner, 90% reported having to revisit one of the top 4 steps multiple times throughout their purchase journey.

Marketers should be doing THIS, before anything else, to help buyers choose their solution

Given these 6 steps, what is the ideal job of a B2B marketer? Brent believes it’s simple: marketers need to make buying easier. The first step in doing so is ensuring that problem-solving information is available through multiple channels. The answers given to a buyer over the phone from a sales rep should be consistent with information available online and via social media.

Actively solving a customer’s problems, before they even recognize a problem, is the key to making B2B buying easier. By understanding a buyer’s problems, offering them the best solution, and supporting them through their purchase journey, you’re well on your way to closing more deals in your industry.

Timeline

  • [0:30] Brent’s Renegade Rapid Fire segment, and his unique definition of marketing
  • [7:30] The importance of putting the customer first
  • [12:11] Brent explains the traditional customer purchase journey model
  • [17:42] The 6 main steps to a buying process – they’re NOT linear
  • [25:40] B2B buying is incredibly complex, and it’s through a multi-channel approach
  • [33:27] Here are your need-to-know takeaways from part 1 of this conversation with Brent

Connect With Brent:

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Drew

Marketing to Audiences 50+ and Future Marketing Trends, Live from PSFK Part 2

Posted on by admin

On part 2 of this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite recorded live from the PSFK conference, Drew speaks with two guests about how marketers can relate to audiences over 50 and the importance of that audience in today’s society. They also discuss the value of looking ahead in marketing and the future marketing trends to keep in mind.

David Stewart, CEO/founder of Ageist, explains the disconnect between 50+ audiences and younger marketing teams. He shares insights that will change the way you approach marketing to older generations.

Dr. Devon Powers shares her knowledge on future marketing trends and how brands need to be thinking about their future interactions with customers.

Learn important B2B marketing trends and click here to listen.

What You’ll Learn

Marketers are missing the mark for audiences 50+ — here’s the solution

“Too many marketers are obsessed with the millennial generation,” explains David on this episode. Few brands understand what older consumers are looking for and they’re missing out on capturing their brand loyalty. He wants listeners to understand that people over 50 often feel invisible in the market, and if your company recognizes the value they add to society, you’ll be well on your way to capturing their dollars.

Focusing on values and aspirations is key for marketing to all ages

Campaigns focused on values and aspirations are two marketing trends that are always successful. No matter the age of your audience, these types of campaigns speak to every consumer. If you appreciate a consumer’s accomplishments and explain how your company can help them succeed even more, you’ll earn customers for life.

Here’s how you can identify future marketing trends

Devon explains that always evaluating your physical and online environments is key to understanding future marketing trends in your industry. Marketers need to be thinking about how their consumers identify themselves and interact with others. Those patterns and trends will dictate how they interact with your brand. If you’re always challenging your assumptions, you’ll be on your way to understanding where marketing trends are headed in the future.

Timeline

  • [1:18] Part 2 of the podcast recorded live at the PSFK conference
  • [1:55] Most marketers are missing the mark for consumers over 50
  • [8:10] How can you communicate effectively with the 50+ demographic?
  • [16:26] Dr. Devon Powers, researcher and professor, on future marketing trends
  • [23:57] Devon explains why challenging your marketing assumptions is key
  • [28:19] Here are your main takeaways from this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite

Connect With David Stewart:

Connect With Devon Powers:

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Drew

Discover the Funny, Creative Culture Behind the Success at Big Ass Fans

Posted on by Drew Neisser

It’s easy for B2B marketing to skew factual and dry, and it often forgets that on the receiving end of messaging and marketing, there are actual humans with senses of humor and personalities. Alex Reed, Global Marketing Director for Big Ass Fans, knows this well, and has used it to craft funny, innovative B2B marketing and branding that connects with his audience on an emotional level.

In this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Alex and Drew discuss the importance of using humor in marketing, share inventive ways to connect with customers, and examine why being relatable, funny, and approachable is extremely important, even if you’re an industrial-size fan manufacturing company.

 

 

This conversation is loaded with helpful insights into creative marketing, click here to listen now!

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – or Podsearch

What You’ll Learn

Customer Listening Drove Big Ass Fans to Get Creative

Alex shared a story of how the name went from the lackluster “HVLS Fan Company” to “Big Ass Fans”. There was no big secret to the company’s a-ha moment, they simply listened to customers who would call and ask “are you the guys that sell those big-ass fans?”. It was an early lesson for the company: pay attention to what your customers are saying and adjust to fit what they’re looking for can have massive payoffs. Alex also stresses that, in making these creative decisions, it’s important to run everything by his team; if he’s making a joke, it can’t be too uptight otherwise it won’t be funny, and it can’t be too crass otherwise it’ll be poorly received.

How Big Ass Fans Connects with Customers

Humor and creativity need to be ingrained in the company culture; a funny company name can only take a brand so far. “Big Ass Fans” can get a prospect’s attention, but there’s plenty more hard work that goes into landing a sale. Alex Reed and the marketing team committed to taking traditional outreach efforts and twisting them to deliver messages in a way that sets them apart. Rather than physical mailers, they produced a quarterly magazine that avoids being a catalogue and focuses on human interest pieces related to company employees or industries they service. The company used this to build up the ‘Big Ass Fan Club’ from the subscriptions, and now have a robust infrastructure for maintaining positive relationships with the customer base.

The Primary Goal for All Marketers

In reflecting on the lessons he’s learned as CMO of Big Ass Fans as a brand, Alex’s first piece of advice was that a marketer’s number one job is to stand out. Big Ass Fans delivers humor, and shares their company culture with the world, but Alex notes that there are plenty of ways to connect with your audience emotionally, you just have to find them. For more in-depth discussions surrounding marketing and Big Ass Fans, listen to the full episode.

Timeline 

  • [1:17] Drew ponders the use of humor in B2B marketing and introduces Alex as his guest for this episode
  • [4:00] Why Alex uses humor in his communication strategy
  • [8:08] Big Ass Fan’s innovative way of connecting with their customers
  • [15:20] The Big Ass ways of acquiring customers
  • [20:16] Using traditional media in nontraditional ways to connect with customers
  • [27:36] The role humor plays in acquiring customers and hiring top talent
  • [30:32] Alex shares his best lessons for marketing

Connect With Alex:

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Drew