Tag: tech

How DocuSign’s CMO Developed a Marketing Vision

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Developing a marketing vision through company-wide orchestration will allow you create more value while streamlining work. In today’s accelerated world, both customers and businesses want to spend less time on logistics and more time actually making a difference in their markets. DocuSign is one of the top businesses doing just that – allowing work to happen faster for over 200 million users across 188 countries.

On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Drew interviews Scott Olrich, the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer for DocuSign. They discuss exactly what orchestration means in terms of B2B marketing environments, how to sell a marketing vision, and why courageous decision making should be a part of any CMO job description.

Scott is behind some of the biggest changes at DocuSign, rated as the 22nd best place to work in 2018 by Glassdoor. He shares his expertise with Drew in this interview and explains why ultimate orchestration will set you apart from your competitors in an exciting new way.

To hear why marketing visions are so important, be sure to catch this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. Click here to listen.

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What orchestration means within a company and why it’s critical

When Scott started the orchestration process at DocuSign, the company was focused solely on making digital signatures easier. Now they are moving towards streamlining multiple components of doing business in a digital world. In any company environment, you have to understand where your organization’s broader category of business is going to go. Rather than focusing solely on the “now,” teams have to be able to see where the entire market is going in the future and set up systems to accommodate that forward growth. That’s where orchestration comes in. Essentially, orchestration occurs when a company’s marketing visions, products, sales teams, and senior leadership all subscribe to a new macro way of thinking about the company. This drives long-term success because as Scott explains, “People want to buy into the future! They just have to be given a reason to do so.”

The importance of not pushing the envelope too far 

The first step of orchestration is to develop a new marketing vision for your company. This clear vision and narrative of what you think the company should be will drive your products, marketing strategies, and internal educational components. A vision should teach and challenge people to think differently about the bigger picture issue, but you have to be able to back up this vision with real-world examples that people can understand. Orchestration does so much more than just improve response rates for one marketing campaign, it has the power to rework your entire business if you allow it. The biggest danger with orchestration? You want to avoid a disconnect between your product and the vision you’re trying to sell. If your marketing teams and product teams are not on the same page, customers will recognize this and be wary of your company. To hear Scott explain this challenge in full detail, be sure to listen to this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

Why courageous decision making should be a large part of any CMO job description

As the Chief Strategy Officer and CMO, Scott has been charged with taking an already successful company and making it even better. On this episode, Drew asks Scott how he has the courage to take risky decisions and how he combats the idea of “if it’s not broken, why fix it?” Once you establish a clear marketing vision you have to subscribe to it 100%, go out and win over the rest of the company, and then sell it to your customers. There’s actually a formula for this type of courageous decision-making, and Scott fully explains each step in this interview with Drew. Your company and your career will greatly benefit from hearing his story, so don’t miss this episode.

What You’ll Learn

  • [1:10] Drew introduces his guest for this episode, Scott Olrich, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer for DocuSign
  • [4:25] DocuSign’s current place in transactional happiness and what it means to be an orchestrated company
  • [11:54] What exactly does orchestration mean within a company?
  • [15:05] The importance of not pushing the envelope too far when it comes to selling a vision
  • [19:25] How Scott views the idea of a company narrative and how it can be used to sell your marketing vision
  • [24:29] Scott shares how he’s incorporating courageous decision-making into his current position at DocuSign
  • [28:59] Where DocuSign is headed in the future
  • [36:25] Drew’s summary of the episode, and why orchestration will set you apart from your competitors

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Resources & People Mentioned

How Looker is Enhancing Marketing Data Analytics Through Organization and Face-to-Face Communication

Posted on by Drew Neisser

The sheer amount of data any company collects can quickly become overwhelming if it’s not managed efficiently. As a CMO you have to have control of the data and understand how it flows throughout your organization. That’s why companies like Looker exist – to help you make sense of the data and use it to your advantage.

In this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Looker’s CMO, Jen Grant, talks with Drew about why her unique background allows her to understand the art and science behind connecting everyone to your company’s brand message. She also shares why it’s important to simplify your company’s core message down to just a few phrases.

Not only does Jen explain why actual face-to-face interaction is even more critical in today’s B2B marketing environment, she also discusses how Looker is achieving just that. You also don’t want to miss her best advice for CMOs.

Jen conveys the heart of marketing in such an intriguing way in this episode – you don’t want to miss it. (Click here to listen now).

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – or Podsearch

Why data organization is so important and the art and science of connecting people to your company’s true message

Without a user-friendly and complete data analytics system, critical insights that could be derived from your company’s data go undiscovered. Companies such as Looker provide an easily understood way of compiling individual data silos into one platform that can be shared across multiple employee teams. Once your data is organized in an effective manner, you can then use this data to enhance your company’s ability to spread your brand message. Data that is easily accessed and understood becomes a tool for creative storytelling that elicits an emotional response from your target market – ultimately creating more success for your company.

How Looker is bringing actual human interaction into B2B marketing, and why your company should be doing the same

Jen explains to Drew in this episode that Looker really wants to push face-to-face marketing because of the human connections that come from that process. But she warns that these in-person events cannot just be a drawn-out sales pitch. It has to be about creating genuine connections with people in your industry and regions, which then opens the door for future sales. These events are also an incredible resource for first-person stories that can be shared with your team and customers. In our technology-driven world, actual human interaction events can set your company apart from the rest, and you’d be surprised at just how effective they can be. Be sure to listen to this episode so you don’t miss out on Jen’s engaging story behind Looker’s journey in face-to-face B2B marketing.

The top two “do’s” and one critical “don’t” in data analytics

Because of Jen’s long history in marketing, and her unique background in theatre and English, she has a unique set of advice for CMOs. She suggests that companies get all of their data centralized so that every team can see the whole picture – not just snippets of information. She also is a huge proponent of as many people as possible looking at your company’s data, because you never know where your next great campaign idea might come from. Finally, she doesn’t want CMOs to forget the innate nature of marketing. While technology, reports, and team meetings are all critical pieces of the data analytics process, she encourages CMOs to remember their gut intuition when it comes to taking a leap of marketing faith. Her insights are sure to be useful to your company in 2018, so be sure to listen to this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

What You’ll Learn

  • [2:20] Drew introduces his guest for this episode, Jen Grant, CMO of Looker
  • [2:43] Jen shares her unique background story and how she got started in marketing
  • [4:25] The key lessons Jen learned while working with Google
  • [10:17] Looker’s purpose and story simplified into just a few words
  • [13:17] How Looker’s technology allows data to be seen and enacted upon for their customers
  • [17:16] What Looker’s data processing system looks like
  • [20:00] Where Looker falls within the “stack” of data systems
  • [22:21] Jen shares Looker success story case studies
  • [26:56] The marketing efforts Jen has completed to combat Looker’s awareness challenge, outside of the data industry
  • [34:31] Balancing tailored regional needs to overall company brand messages
  • [37:54] The toughest lesson Jen has learned in the marketing world
  • [39:30] Jen offers her “two do’s and a don’t” for data analytics

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Connect with Drew

Preparing for the 2018 CES

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If you’ve ever attended Consumer Electronics Show (CES) then you know it is a beast of a show with more than 4,000 exhibiting companies and covering the 2.6 million square feet of exhibit space is next to impossible especially as you are fighting through crowds of 170,000+. It might sound too overwhelming but having attended regularly since 1988 and as a marketer hoping to spot trends, I can assure you it is always worth the trouble. Inevitably, I leave CES with some new ideas, at least one new friend and a dousing of Vegas silliness.

With the 2018 CES right around the corner (Jan 8-11, 2018), I thought it would be helpful and interesting to record a special episode with the legendary tech guru Shelly Palmer.  I first met Shelly back in 2010 (when I wrote about him as the prototypical personal brand on FastCompany.com) and have spotted his ubiquitous signs at CES ever since. [Blatant unpaid plug — if you are new to CES, have a limited time frame or just want to make sure you don’t miss the big trends while you’re in Vegas, then you’d be wise to sign up for a tour of the show by Shelly and his team at The Palmer Group.]  As for my earlier point about Shelly being interesting to talk to, he didn’t disappoint!

In the podcast, we discuss why he’s excited about this year’s show and why expects to see more evolutionary products than revolutionary ones. We dive into hot topics like drones, cars, VR and AI among others. You’ll also hear Shelly school me on why I’m wrong to call Alexa (Amazon voice activation system) dumb just because she can’t infer the request Dear Evan Hansen from Evan Hansen when a Google search does that handily!  The tech challenge aside, I still think she has some cognitive development work ahead of her!  You can listen to the special episode here.

Here are a few other highlights from the interview:

Drew: What should marketers be paying attention to at this year’s CES?

Shelly: This year at CES, we’re going to have a really good look at integrations between the natural language understanding tools and the physical world. I’m pretty sure you’re going to see a lot of augmented reality because that is the toolset that is most flexible. You need great programming skills but it also yields amazing benefits – everything from a doctor looking into an incubator and seeing a heads-up display of all of the vital signs of the patient to gameplay and 100% of everything in the middle. You’ll see a lot of augmented reality. Drones and machine learning. Drones are now self-flying for the most part and there’s a bunch of companies who have taken to creating machines that not only fly themselves but with either high definition or 4k cameras in them and in some cases 8k cameras in them. And in some cases infrared cameras in them. They’re doing materials processing in the air. They can look at an insurance company like Travelers, who are the number one user of drones in the United States, and put a drone up in the air to look at the exterior damage. They can understand what happened to your roof in the air and file and process your claim without having someone go out to your house. When you think about a hurricane like we’ve had and the ability to quickly process and quickly get people the help they need who are insured, you’ll see a lot of that at CES. A lot of drone companies showing off their ability to have not only self-flying drones, but drones that can carry bigger payloads, can take better cameras with them, and fly in inclement weather or in adverse conditions that you wouldn’t have seen before. The drone story is going to be pretty big.

Drew: What else is going to be big?

Shelly: The cars are going to be out in force – driver assistance of every kind. Autonomy is coming. There’s never a lack of cool cars at CES. It’s more fun than the auto show because for us who are all semi-geeks about the technology, they come and they put their tech foot forward as opposed to their design foot forward or this guy with 500 horsepower or whatever. You’re going to see great TVs, but we haven’t had a year with a bad TV in 20 years. Let me tell you about the TVs. I can tell you I haven’t seen them yet. Let me tell exactly what I’m going to say when I get to stand in front of any TV; it’s bigger. It’s thinner. It’s got a brighter picture, higher dynamic range, wider color gamut, bigger screen, thinner. That’s sort of the joke at CES. It used to be a TV show. Now the TVs just get better.

Drew: Is there anything new that’s coming to CES?  

Shelly: What you will see this year that you haven’t seen so much before is how well integrated the home is becoming. Honestly, it is Alexa’s voice services and all of NLP systems that have caused this. Because if you think about it, when you walk in the house you have to open an app, tap a couple of buttons, open another app, and press a couple more buttons. It’s like, “Oh come on, stop it! I’ll just turn the light switch on.” But now you walk in and you say, “Alexa, lights on. Alexa, daytime scene.” Whatever you want. And boom, the house is set. The value proposition for consumers is so great. Everybody’s jumping on that. Look for integrations in ways you’ve never seen them.