Tag: Sales

Buying is Broken — Here’s What We Can Do

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Buying is Broken — Here’s What We Can Do

Nothing like a live audience to keep you on your toes! Third-time guest Brent Adamson, Distinguished Vice President, Gartner, joins Drew for a live conversation in front of an elite collection of B2B CMOs to chat about smarketing—and no, that’s not a typo. Brent dives into why sales and marketing—“smarketing”— must work together and fully align to connect with customers.

Beyond that, Brent explains why buying is broken, the pitfalls of working with a large buyer committee, and why companies need to make customers reevaluate themselves rather than products. Don’t miss that and more on this week’s Renegade Thinkers Unite!

You’ll enjoy this episode, so be sure to listen!

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What You’ll Learn

Smarketing: sales and marketing collaboration

Marketing has long been coupled with the digital while sales has been dominantly in person. In this mindset, marketing is early on in the process of working with a customer while sales is later. However, Brent suggests that this linear view on sales and marketing does not have to be, and in fact, may not even be the best. He introduces the term – smarketing: the combination of sales and marketing. He suggests a workaround on the functional divide of sales and marketing. When looking at how buying happens, you are looking for information needed by the client, so the solution is to put this information together for clients and deliver them through multiple channels with sales and marketing supporting this.

Why buying is broken, and how to put B2B sales back together!

For B2B sales, there used to be approximately 5.4 people involved in the buying process. Over the past number of years, this number of people involved has jumped up to 9-10. The more people involved, the more difficult buying has become. There are more opinions and prerogatives, so this slows the process of B2B sales down. Brent shares that in studies done, it is not optimal to personalized message for each of these 10 stakeholders. Instead, to market to all of these buying persons, you must find a common denominator. Creating content around this common ground can help buyers reach a decision. Be sure to listen to hear Brent share an example of this!

Commercial insight tools

Brent further explains 3 commercial insight tools that can be used to help motivate buyers:

  1. Connector: A connector is a set of information or tools to identify who needs to be involved
  2. Advisor: An advisor is a buying guide or a set of steps to be followed
  3. Diagnostic: A diagnostic is a framework that is created for a segment of customers that allows them to diagnose their performance to help identify where they are on a continuum of performance (where they are and where they want to be!)

Timeline

  • [2:13] What is new with Brent Adamson
  • [3:34] Prepping for a recession as a CFO or CMO
  • [8:16] Smarketing! Sales and marketing working together
  • [12:04] Buying is broken – why and how to help as a marketer
  • [22:55] A good example of commercial insight
  • [28:00] Audience questions: Connie O’Brien and Denise Broady
  • [40:56] Commercial insight tools: connector, advisor, and diagnostic

Connect With Brent Adamson:

  • Brent Adamson’s Bio on Gartner’s Conference Website
  • Connect with Brent Adamson on LinkedIn
  • Follow Brent Adamson on Twitter

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Drew

Here’s How to Make Your Marketing Metrics Work For You

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Top 10 Global CMO for companies worth over two hundred and fifty million, top 15 CMO on Twitter by Social Media Marketing Magazine, and top 50 most influential people in sales lead management – just some of the accolades that CMO Brian Kardon has earned over decades of cutting through in marketing. Now, as the CMO of Fuze, a cloud-based communications business, he is continuing to cut through by using his vast knowledge of sales and marketing metrics. On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, you’ll learn how to build a seamless demand gen engine, and how to focus on the metrics the matter. Brian and Drew also discuss how you can understand your clients’ perceptions of your brand, and how AI is going to influence the way people create marketing initiatives.

Brian’s insights are ones not to be missed – you’ll walk away with a deeper understanding of marketing metrics and so much more.

Click here to listen to the full story.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – or Podsearch

What You’ll Learn

How do you know when your marketing is working?

Understanding how your marketing is benefiting your business is often the top priority for both CMOs and CEOs. By using the best marketing metrics for your type of business, you can stay focused on those that matter – a avoid becoming distracted by those that don’t. Brian explains the 3 main metrics he always looks for when evaluating the success of marketing efforts:

  1. Net new pipeline contributions
  2. Total marketing-influenced leads
  3. Total number of closed bookings

These 3 metrics combine to give you data that’s actually worth examining. Learning what marketing metrics work best for you and your company is a process, but it is 100% worth the investment of time and energy.

Handling the micro-marketing metrics is just as important as the big-picture metrics

Understanding the value of both micro and macro-marketing metrics will allow you close sales at both ends of your customer spectrum. Whether you’re examining data on a $1 million contract or securing a $12,000 sale, your marketing metrics are invaluable. For example, a micro-metric will allow you to see how much time a visitor is spending on certain segments of your website, while a macro-metric goes into greater depth on what types of content a specific type of client is looking at and downloading. Brian encourages other CMOs to not forget about either one when creating a roadmap for future marketing efforts.

Use these 2 metrics to help understand your clients’ perception of your brand

There are 2 main questions Brian uses to help him understand his clients’ perceptions of his brand. They are:

  1. The net promoter score of the brand’s product(s)
  2. The level of customer satisfaction with the sales and marketing process

When conducted by third-party companies, these two marketing metrics shed new light on your entire pipeline process and buying experience. For the full explanation behind these metrics, don’t miss this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

Timeline

  • [0:30] Here’s why you need to be paying attention to Brian and his team at Fuze
  • [13:37] How do you know when your marketing is working?
  • [27:14] Handling micro-measurements vs. measurements that help close a sale
  • [36:19] Understanding your customer’s perceptions of your brand
  • [39:19] Use THESE metrics when presenting to the CEO and board
  • [42:43] Lifetime value, customer acquisition costs, and customer retention
  • [48:26] Using artificial intelligence in customer acquisition and marketing metrics

Connect With Brian:

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Drew

How Dropbox is Channeling Global Creative Energy Through a Bold Rebranding Effort

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Few companies have mastered the art of channeling creative energy through a focused rebranding effort better than Dropbox. On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Drew interviews CMO of Dropbox Carolyn Feinstein. Their shared love of creative energy and authentic storytelling makes for a podcast episode you don’t want to miss.

Carolyn discusses her passion for connecting deeply with consumers through stories as well as why Dropbox chose to “fix something that wasn’t broken” all on this episode. Be sure to listen to discover how Carolyn’s team shifted the market’s perspective about the well-loved company and its offerings.

With over half a billion worldwide users, Dropbox is among the best for workflow technology companies. Their ability to roll out massive internal changes while simultaneously conveying the right story to loyal consumers is encouraging.

Hear all about the challenges tackled, lessons learned, and joyful successes on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. Click here to listen now.

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How did Dropbox approach such a massive project? By following these three main ideas

Carolyn’s team is passionate about storytelling. She explains to Drew on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite that connecting people to one another through quality products and touching stories is the best way to begin a rebranding project. After realizing that Dropbox wanted to reinvent itself, Carolyn followed three main ideas that dictated their path: the art of storytelling, achieving buy-in from internal audiences, and listening to the voice of loyal customers. To hear how she skillfully knit these steps together into one successful mission be sure to listen to this episode.

Rebranding should not be incremental – bold actions conquer fear and allow your company to make huge strides forward

Dropbox’s biggest success throughout the rebranding process was persuading every member on the team that bold actions were the way to achieve ultimate success. Drew is also a huge proponent of the idea that incremental steps don’t move companies forward. Carolyn knew she needed to snap people to attention and have them understand that Dropbox is more than cloud storage. While there will always be some concerns about restructuring a brand’s identity, moving forward with confidence is the ultimate way to launch your company into the next chapter of success. You’ll surely learn from this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite so be sure to give it your full attention.

The crisis of modern work is “death by distraction” – hear how Dropbox is channeling the world’s creative energy and allowing people to work to their full potential

The modern workplace is plagued with notifications, emails, and deadlines. Carolyn and her team at Dropbox recognized this issue and wanted to solve it. Their solution? Streamlined services and products geared at freeing teams from monotonous and time-consuming tasks so they can unleash their creative energy. The goal? Global teams working on a united platform to create projects that will change the world. That’s why Dropbox continues to be a leader in workplace technology and creative storytelling. This interview is one you don’t want to miss.

What You’ll Learn

  • [0:30] Drew asks the question, “if it’s not broken, should you break it anyway?”
  • [2:00] Carolyn’s go-to story to share with marketers
  • [6:16] The biggest moment for Carolyn when she was with Electronic Arts
  • [11:03] The massive rebranding project Carolyn helped Dropbox navigate
  • [14:27] Shifting the consumers’ perspective of Dropbox
  • [16:57] How Dropbox handled the fear of changing a well-loved brand
  • [21:40] The internal rollout of Dropbox’s rebranding project
  • [23:57] Dropbox is becoming an eponym and approaching the level of Google or FedEx
  • [26:00] The art of a living, dynamic workspace product
  • [28:15] Distraction = death in the modern workplace, and how Dropbox is unleashing global creative energy
  • [31:08] The biggest lessons learned throughout this bold rebranding mission and the 3 main measures used to measure a storytelling effort
  • [35:06] Drew summarizes this inspiring episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite

Connect With Carolyn:

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Drew

Using a Refined Marketing Technology Stack as a Revenue Generator

Posted on by Drew Neisser

When Drew recently asked a crowd of CMOs how much revenue marketing should directly generate, most said 5-15%. However, Eric Eden, expert CMO of Receipt Bank, claimed that marketing should be a company’s main revenue generator, bringing in 80% of all sales.

This uncommon point of view is explained and detailed on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. Eric and Drew talk through the first two main steps of how to turn your marketing efforts into a revenue machine. They discuss the importance of having a solid foundation marketing technology stack, all of the details behind why evidence-based marketing is the norm, and how to secure a substantial marketing budget for your team. You can listen to part 2 of this interview here. 

You’ll learn a lot from part one of this conversation, so give it your full attention. Click here to listen.

Why a CRM is a foundational basis needed for any successful marketing or revenue-generating campaign

Eric explains on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite that without a functional and clean customer relationship management technology piece, your marketing will never turn into a revenue generator. He continues by saying that, “If you don’t have a good marketing technology stack that enables your demand generation engine, everything falls apart.” A solid CRM piece allows you to track leads, understand what is encouraging or hindering contract success, improves integration between marketing and sales teams, and is necessary when putting together a budget proposal. If a CMO is looking at upgrading a single piece of their marketing strategy, having a bombproof CRM platform needs to be at the top of the list. To hear why CRM technology is so critical, and to understand why Eric is so adamant about this piece of technology, be sure to give this episode a listen.

The importance of understanding evidence-based marketing to secure a substantial budget

Gone are the days where the phrase, “it’s complicated, just trust me!” can be successful in budget meetings with company executives. In order to secure the funds marketing teams need, CMOs need to understand how to articulate their marketing in in terms of data and evidence of success. The burden of proof lies with the CMO to persuade others why marketing as a revenue generator can work for the company. You have to determine how to frame things in such a way that makes people comfortable with spending dollars on marketing, build a common language that all teams and levels of employees understand, and prevent any misconceptions. Once you have set the stage and brought people over to your side of the budget debate, you can then begin to determine what percentage of the budget should be spent on each potential customer, and the ROI that would come from each prospective contract. This framing turns marketing into an investment, not a cost, and is the key to massive success. To hear Drew and Eric’s conversation surrounding evidence-based marketing and how it can ultimately be used to generate revenue, don’t miss this episode.

Transform your ordinary marketing campaigns into a massive revenue generator through automation

After a functional CRM piece, the next step to generate revenue is marketing automation –  the second most popular piece of a technology stack. Eric urges listeners of this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite to understand that automation cannot and does not happen overnight, or even within 90 days. A truly successful marketing automation plan can take upwards of 6 months to design and implement. But the time investment is 100% worth it. By hiring talented sales people and allowing them to actually sell your company, without getting bogged down by monotonous tasks, you are ultimately generating more revenue for the company. Automation allows more integration between the marketing and sales teams and setting the correct timeline expectations upfront will prevent mishaps later on down the line. Drew and Eric have a great conversation about marketing automation and the connections it has to revenue generation on this episode, CMOs in every industry need to hear it.

What You’ll Learn

  • [0:29] Drew introduces his guest for this episode, Eric Eden
  • [3:05] How to lay the foundation for marketing to become a revenue generator
  • [6:00] Why the burden of proof for success lies with the marketer
  • [8:27] What exactly is evidence-based marketing, and how do you define your strategy?
  • [13:57] Eric walks through his process for securing a substantial marketing budget
  • [22:02] The essentials for your company’s tech stack and additional layers to consider
  • [28:22] What’s the next step after creating a solid CRM piece?
  • [33:39] Why isn’t it more common to combine the first two layers of your marketing stack?

Connect With Eric:

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Drew