On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Joe Sawyer, CMO at Mirakl. Joe began his career as one of the first e-commerce analysts and witnessed the dot-com boom, then became a CMO of an e-commerce company, bringing his journey full circle. I was eager to hear how his experience as an analyst has informed his current approach, and what he thinks most CMOs misunderstand about the role of analysts. We discuss when to use an analyst and when to use your company’s own internal knowledge, and the importance of focus for a robust marketing strategy. 

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Key takeaways from this episode:

• Don’t see your relationship with analysts as transactional. Joe believes that CMOs and MarTech executives fundamentally misunderstand the role of analysts. Analysts like to engage and ask big questions about the ‘whys’ of your company, and you need to prove to them that your company or tech is the next big disruptor in the market. If you understand they are your partners, they can help you shape your organization’s story. 
• Externalize the internal. Joe believes vendors need to remember that they have a lot of value internally, which they can ultimately transform into external assets. Creating assets that are independently valuable is a key lead-generating tool, and empowering internal thought leaders with the tools they need to create these assets is something that Joe believes is often overlooked. Sometimes you don’t need an analyst paper—you have all the tools you need already. 
• Don’t create a category, redefine one. Joe believes that instead of creating a new category, organizations need to redefine a static, existing one. The way forward for many vendors is to disrupt how a category is perceived, while redefining the needs and expectations of the space. 

Learn more about Mirakl here: https://www.mirakl.com

Learn more about Joe here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-sawyer-a4255