Marketing Strategies That Led to Billion Dollar Acquisitions with Tom Butta, former CMO of SignalFx

Tom Butta, Former CMO of SignalFx (acquired by Spunk for $1.05B), discusses the demand-gen mindset that leads to high-dollar acquisitions. On this episode of Demand Gen Visionaries, Tom explains the importance of focusing on marketing fundamentals to see big results, how putting your customers above all will lead to retention and more pipeline, and keeping a company-wide eye to make sure your demand gen leads to more sales. 

Key Takeaways

• There are three essential elements of demand gen: pipeline creation, revenue metrics, and, often overlooked, customer retention.
• Customers should be treated as family. They should never find out about a big announcement when the rest of the world does. They should be notified about it before.
• The most fundamental requirement of demand gen is perspective. Know where marketing is having an impact and make sure customers can find your website.
• When you spend money on marketing tactics, you need to make sure you’re seeing a return on your investment.
• Own your content creation. You need to have content that the company can stand behind without question. Quality always starts from within and it needs to be amplified.
• It’s important to have data to back up your actions. Let your metrics guide your company's strategy, not emotion.

Quotes

• “Demand gen is a function within a function. It's part of a team, but it does not live on its own. It’s reliant upon really good content. It's reliant upon the ability to act appropriately and quickly on opportunities that it creates.”
• “The validation that you get from customers is just immeasurable.”
• “Understand that your home is the place that most people will go to and you need that to be your website. You need to be able to ensure that when they get there, they have the best possible experience, but you also need to be sure that they actually can find you.”
• “You go after the new logos exclusively, and you forget that you can actually have great influence over, building relationships with your existing customers. Those customers are our franchise. They give reason for us to exist.”
• “My belief (for content) is, it always has to start from within. In terms of turning something over, we did a couple of case studies with external consultants and writers, but for the most part we wrote everything ourselves.”

Sponsor

Demand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.