Tag: Renegade Thinkers Unite

How to Reach Your Zone of Focus and the Top Marketing Trends for 2018

Posted on by Drew Neisser

For the 60th episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Drew Neisser interviews Peter Shankman – author, serial entrepreneur, and a world-renowned speaker on social economics. He is a top-tier expert on customer service, social media, public relations, and advertising – all while spreading the idea that incredible things can happen when creativity, determination, and ADHD meet.

Drew asks him about best advice for entrepreneurs and how to work in your zone of focus on this engaging and entertaining episode. You’ll discover Peter’s ritual suggestions and what’s on the horizon for marketers in 2018.

You don’t want to miss Peter’s insights into the top marketing mistakes to avoid. He also uncovers why social media relates so strongly to marketing and the foundational beliefs behind storytelling and public relations.

Drew and Peter’s conversation will leave you wanting more, so be sure to listen (click here to listen now).

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What You’ll Learn

  • [0:50] Drew introduces the guest for the 60th Renegade Thinkers Unite episode, Peter Shankman
  • [4:00] How Peter was able to write a book in 31 hours after finding his zone of focus
  • [6:24] Ritual suggestions for marketers in 2018
  • [12:00] New ideas on the horizon for marketers
  • [13:00] The importance of public relations in B2B marketing
  • [15:14] Public relations and marketing mistakes to avoid in the new year
  • [19:00] How do we measure public relations?
  • [22:28] Social media and how it relates to marketing
  • [25:18] Why Twitter is becoming less valuable in a B2B marketing situation
  • [28:35] Best use of social media as a brand within the marketing mix
  • [30:14] Rapid fire questions with Peter Shankman

Why finding and working in your zone of focus is critical for ultimate success

When Peter had two weeks to finish (and start) a book he had committed to writing, he did what works best for his brain. He booked a roundtrip flight to Tokyo and wrote all ten chapters of the book over 31 hours. While this type of work schedule may not be ideal for everyone, Drew and Peter discuss the importance of finding what works for you and focusing solely on tactics within that zone. As conversations about resolutions become increasingly more abundant, Peter counters that line of thinking by explaining that “resolutions fail, but rituals succeed.” To learn more about Peter’s story and to learn from his successes don’t miss this stellar episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

The top marketing trends to look for in 2018

2018 is sure to be a cornerstone year for individuals and businesses alike. Peter talks with Drew about why listening is of utmost importance in the marketing realm, but why it has to go beyond listening for a break in conversation so you can share your thoughts. They also discuss why conversations across the world are moving away from distrust and into an age of wanting to believe in the truth again. Understanding hot topic ideas such as blockchain, cryptocurrency, and why Twitter’s heyday may be ending are all covered on this episode, so be sure to take the time to listen.

Public relations in B2B marketing and why having an audience is a privilege – not a right

As B2B marketers it’s key to understand how public relations relates to your company. Public relations helps people to believe the information they’re consuming, which is key for audience engagement. The audience your company targets deserves high-quality content delivered on a timely basis, and Peter explains that companies should never take their audiences for granted. Connecting what you have to what the industry needs, and conveying it in a thoughtful, concise manner, is a key PR strategy in B2B marketing. You can’t afford to miss the rest of Peter’s insights that will help you start off 2018 with a burst of productivity, so don’t miss this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

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Incorporating Listening into Social Marketing for Increased Customer Connections

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On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Drew Neisser asks CMO of NetBase Solutions, Paige Leidig, the top questions surrounding social listening and analytics. With over 80% of tweets mentioning brands and the social media analytics industry being a $2.7 billion operation, it’s critical to know how listening can increase your customer connections.

Drew and Paige dive into social listening to give you and your business the best chance to hone your target market and utilize the best marketing channels possible. You’ll also discover how artificial intelligence in the form of Natural Language Processing can revolutionize your metadata processing.

The toughest challenges and biggest surprises encountered in social marketing are covered in this episode. You also don’t want to miss Paige’s top tips for CMOs in 2018.

This conversation is sure to provide critical social listening insights, so be sure to listen (click here to listen now).

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What You’ll Learn

  • [1:40] Drew introduces this episode’s guest – Paige Leidig, CMO of NetBase Solutions
  • [3:00] What is social listening and social analytics?
  • [8:15] Paige shares a great example of social listening information used in revolutionary ways
  • [10:12] The main three marketing channels most brands utilize
  • [12:13] What is the state of the art technique for social listening?
  • [15:36] How can you differentiate your competitive advantage via social listening?
  • [16:59] Natural language processing (NLP) – Artificial intelligence to moderate meta social media data
  • [20:52] Top areas marketers miss while listening to customers
  • [23:49] Paige shares additional example stories on why social listening is critical
  • [28:19] How changing your message for your target market can increase sales and customer engagement
  • [33:35] Why customer stories are of utmost importance in B2B marketing
  • [36:33] Paige’s tips for CMOs moving forward into 2018
  • [38:00] Common surprises encountered when entering into social listening

The practical benefits of incorporating listening into your social marketing strategies

The premise behind social listening is aggregating all public data that’s published on millions of social media platforms and analyzing it to provide key insights into your industry. There are multitudes of practical benefits to social listening, including having the availability to quickly change marketing techniques if the listening offers new feedback on how the market is reacting to a campaign. It enables your company to create content that adds value to the market and encourages high-level digital connections with your customers. Microsoft and Apple are only two examples of top-tier companies utilizing social listening in their marketing strategies and their successes are demonstrated across the board. To hear their full stories be sure to give this episode a listen.

The top three channels used in marketing and how new technology can improve the data analysis process

Paige walks Drew through the main three channels that brands utilize on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. The company’s own channel is the most obvious, followed by partnered content channels. But the most valuable channel is through earned content – where people are talking about your brand/content and the signature characteristics that they find interesting and applicable. The best insights come from this channel alone. In order to analyze all of the data that comes through the earned channel, companies should utilize a new form of artificial intelligence called Natural Language Processing or NLP. It automatically sifts through millions of posts, images, and videos to determine the main themes and sentiments of the messages. This data is analyzed across dozens of languages in real time and offers critically important insights into your social marketing strategies. You don’t want to miss this conversation, so be sure to listen to the full audio.

Top social listening tips for CMOs and how to avoid the biggest mistake in marketing analysis

If social listening is done correctly, your company has the opportunity to see huge progress made in your marketing campaigns. As 2018 approaches, Paige encourages other CMOs to be spending 80% of the marketing budget on digital marketing and to move beyond demographic marketing into psychographic marketing. He shares with Drew the biggest mistake to avoid in social listening, which is using false metrics derived from your own channel to drive marketing campaigns. There’s a whole world of opportunity that exists in your earned channel, you just have to be infinitely curious about your customers. You can’t afford to miss these applicable lessons from Drew and Paige so be sure to listen to this engaging episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

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Brand Building For Company Differentiation and Workplace Fulfillment

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Drew’s guest on this episode, Juliette Rizkallah, has an MBA from Harvard University and over 20 years of marketing and cybersecurity experience. As the CMO for SailPoint, she has linked the idea of identity management to cybersecurity and built a brand that is synonymous with excellence.

In this conversation, she and Drew offer your company the best tactics for brand building, how to differentiate your company from competitors, and why branding is important for employee buy-in and workplace fulfillment. Juliette believes that going beyond “FUD – fear, uncertainty, and doubt factor” marketing leads to customer empowerment and a solid foundation for your company to stand on for many years to come.

On this insightful episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Drew and Juliette tackle some of the biggest challenges for new CMOs and discuss how to handle one of the biggest obstacles in any workplace – ensuring top executives buy into a marketing initiative.

Juliette has some exciting ideas to share with you, so be sure to listen (click here to listen now).

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What You’ll Learn

  • [1:22] Drew introduces the guest for this episode, Juliette Rizkallah, CMO of Sailpoint
  • [2:30] How marketing influenced SailPoint’s recent growth in sales
  • [5:26] The human element of data breaches
  • [6:47] Juliette discusses the mission and strategy of SailPoint
  • [8:05] How do customers emotionally buy into SailPoint?
  • [11:46] What is branding?
  • [13:20] How Juliette is helping SailPoint cut through the competition through branding
  • [18:23] One great effort that Juliette did with SailPoint to differentiate the company
  • [20:54] How to handle a competitor copying your branding efforts, and what that means for your company
  • [27:02] Slow branding is better than fast branding = builds a better foundation
  • [30:00] The biggest challenge as a new CMO who is building a new program
  • [33:00] Advice for fellow marketing professionals
  • [35:33] Drew’s summary of the episode  

How SailPoint built a brand that ultimately increased sales and moved away from FUD tactics

When Juliette joined SailPoint two years ago, their existing branding efforts were not linking the impact of identity management to cybersecurity. She led the efforts that brought SailPoint back to their mission and core values, which “gives enterprises the power to grow, expand and innovate, securely and confidently via innovation, integrity, impact, and individuals.” SailPoint moved away from relying on FUD techniques to incite fear in their customers and demonstrated to them the “power of identity.” Juliette explains that by empowering your IT team and taking away the minutia of cybersecurity work, they are better equipped to focus on company growth – which leads to great fulfillment. These combined efforts led to an exponential growth in sales, increased customer satisfaction, and improved company culture and morale. You can learn how to make these benefits come to fruition at your company if you listen to Juliette’s full story on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

So a competitor copies your branding efforts? What’s next?

After the intense branding process, SailPoint was faced with a large competitor copying their efforts – unfortunately, a common problem in B2B environments. Drew and Juliette discuss the emotional discovery and how SailPoint turned a potential conflict into a reflective exercise. She explains that while the competitor copied SailPoint’s tagline, they could not capture what made SailPoint an exceptional and unique company. Simply changing color schemes and logos does not bring about real change, and clinging to that mindset got Juliette’s team and SailPoint through the challenge. She encourages other CMOs to accept the issue, move past it, and know that those who go through the long process of building a brand will ultimately find more success than those who simply copy the work of others.

Slow branding is better than fast branding, and why a firm foundation is critical to company success and workplace fulfillment

Throughout this episode, a common theme of Drew and Juliette’s conversation is that “slow branding is better than fast branding.” When she began the process of building a brand at SailPoint it was ten months later before real internal and external change was recognized. “We decided to do it well rather than fast,” Juliette explains, and she recognizes that this mindset can be challenging with sales teams, marketing qualified leads, and executive boards looming. This process can excite employees and refresh the ideas behind why the company exists and why employees have dedicated time to its efforts. You can implement her same problem-solving techniques at your company and build a branding platform that you can use for many years to come. Be sure to listen to this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite to take advantage of Juliette and Drew’s CMO experience and learn why effective branding can differentiate your unique company from the rest.

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Improving Customer Satisfaction Through Enhanced Marketing Techniques

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With more than 15 years of healthcare marketing experience, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Binary Fountain, Aaron Clifford, talks with Drew in this episode about the importance of understanding what your customers are saying about your brand. As you listen to this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, you’ll discover the top strategies you can implement during your first 6 months on the job as a CMO for a new company.

Drew not only asks why customer experience should matter to company administrators, he and Aaron talk about the top marketing lessons current CMOs need to know in order to succeed. Critical topics such as reviewing past marketing attempts and accomplishments and the importance of owning a problem are all covered on this episode.

You’ll enjoy this conversation and you can’t afford to miss Aaron’s insights, so be sure to listen.

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What You’ll Learn

  • [0:32] Drew introduces his guest, Aaron Clifford, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Binary Fountain
  • [1:25] The story behind the name and purpose of Binary Fountain, and how Aaron came to be with the company after 15 years of healthcare marketing experience
  • [7:00] Top tips for the first six months as a CMO at a new company
  • [12:17] Why customer experience should matter to company administrators
  • [13:21] How do you market a service to large companies?
  • [19:00] Suggestions from Aaron to make webinars more impactful
  • [21:51] Secret to making online events work – market the heck out of them
  • [27:17] Trick to using RFPs for internal company success and to increase functionality on digital marketing platforms.
  • [29:58] How did Aaron have the confidence to take on such a large risk at a new company?
  • [32:38] Top marketing lessons from Aaron for other CMOs

How Aaron Clifford tackled the issue of listening to conversations to enhance customer experiences

The name Binary Fountain evolved from a simple brainstorming session with company developers. Since that initial discussion, Binary Fountain has become synonymous with creating exceptional customer experiences through enhanced marketing and conversational strategies. What began as a felt need – How do you sift through enormous amounts of healthcare-related customer feedback? – has morphed into a world-class operation that seeks to “leverage patient feedback to impact revenue and operations.” During his first six months in his role as CMO Aaron went on a “listening tour” and simply asked why employees were working with Binary Fountain. What he found will surprise you. Be sure to listen to this engaging episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite to discover what he found.

Why should customer experience matter to company administrators?

Customer experience is a huge part of brand management. Aaron explains that “You are not what you say you are – you are what others say you are. That’s your brand!” By ensuring that every interaction with every customer is exceptional, you are not only creating brand loyalty but also enabling your company to do better in its overall operations. If your marketing tactics such as utilizing social media platforms and having creative website interfaces create an atmosphere of support and engagement, your customers’ satisfaction will improve dramatically. For more insights on why customer experiences should matter at a company’s highest levels don’t miss this episode.

Tired of lackluster online events? Check out these industry secrets for stellar webinar sessions

Drew and Aaron discuss how you can make webinars more impactful on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. Here is an example: Live webinars allow you to connect with your customers in a tremendous way but they are of no use to your company if they aren’t marketed correctly. Enhancing the marketing strategies for your webinars will allow you to increase your registrants for the event and increased registrants will combat the level of attrition that comes with the territory of webinars. And if you partner with industry leaders for the webinar, your company now has a bullet-proof way to disperse information and connect with customers. Don’t miss this helpful, webinar-focused part of the conversation on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite with Drew Neisser.

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