The Exit Five CMO Podcast (Hosted by Dave Gerhardt)

How to Be Great at Marketing Without Being a Subject Matter Expert with Kevin White, Head of Marketing at Common Room

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Sep 29, 2025

Kevin White, Head of Marketing at Common Room, shares his journey from leading growth marketing at Segment to optimizing customer intelligence. He discusses how to excel in marketing without being a subject matter expert by leveraging customer insights and internal experts. The conversation dives into the transformative power of signal-based marketing in the buyer’s journey and effective B2B influencer strategies. Kevin also emphasizes the importance of authenticity in content creation and the value of data-driven decision-making for achieving marketing success.

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ADVICE

Use Customers As Your Shortcut

Talk with customers and use their answers to shape positioning and messaging.
Ask product-market-fit questions and paste customer language into headlines and website copy.

ADVICE

Run A Fast Internal Listening Tour

Do a short internal listening tour and build relationships with product and other SMEs inside the company.
Elevate internal experts as public-facing voices to fill knowledge gaps without hiring externally.

ANECDOTE

Hire Real Practitioners To Write

Guillaume hired former developers as content writers and matched pay to get authentic technical content.
That investment built credibility with developer audiences who would spot inauthentic content.

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#286 Growth | In this episode, Dave is joined by Kevin White, Head of Marketing at Common Room, a leading customer intelligence platform for go-to-market teams. Kevin shares insights from his experience helping teams capture and act on digital breadcrumbs to optimize their marketing and sales efforts.

Dave and Kevin cover:

How to be a good marketer even when you're not the Subject Matter Expert
Signal-based marketing and how it is transforming the buyer’s journey by focusing on the right actions instead of just clicks
B2B influencer marketing plays that work

Timestamps

(00:00) - - Intro to Kevin
(06:17) - - How to Be Good At Marketing When You're Not a Subject Matter Expert
(08:55) - - Why You Should Stay Close to Your Customer
(16:14) - - How to Manage a Marketing Team with Limited Resources
(18:33) - - Eliminating Ineffective Marketing Efforts to Drive Real Results
(25:06) - - Signups and Demos Boost From LinkedIn
(26:12) - - How to Attribute ROI in Multi-Platform Marketing
(30:22) - - Creating Authentic and Valuable Content
(35:01) - - Generating Pipeline with Economic Buyer Signals
(36:42) - - Increasing Digital Touchpoints
(40:40) - - How To Maximize Actionability, Volume, and Conversion Rate
(42:26) - - LinkedIn Measurement

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