Ep #132: Strategic Positioning is Key to Relevance with Customers w/ Tom Butta

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Tom Butta, CMO and Chief Strategy  Officer (CSO) at Airship. As someone who’s held almost 10 different CMO roles throughout his career, Tom’s learned a thing or two about positioning a brand in the market along the way. Tom shares his tricks of the trade from a leadership perspective and explains what it takes to be an effective CSO.

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Key takeaways from this episode:

• Being a great CSO means taking a strategic approach to marketing. For Tom, the CSO role begins with positioning the company effectively within the market and clearly articulating its vision. The role of the CSO and the CMO, then, is to find alignment behind the company strategy, bringing it to life through each interaction within the ecosystem.
• Work with challenger brands. Since the beginning of his career, Tom has been drawn to working with what he calls “challenger brands,” companies that are shaking up the status quo and disrupting a space by thinking outside of the box. By doing this, he’s been able to carve his own unique career path and gain experience that sets him apart from the crowd.
• Walk your talk. Tom argues that excellent marketing really begins within the organization. Companies need to first ensure they’re truly delivering on their value proposition before they focus on marketing efforts because, otherwise, it’s just “fake news,” as Tom says. This is one reason why he spends so much time with the product team at Airship—so he can develop a solid understanding of the product and the value it brings to customers.

Learn more about Airship here: https://www.airship.com/ 

Learn more about Tom here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tombutta/