Pipeline Visionaries

This episode features an interview with Todd Wells, CMO at Acumatica, a leading innovator in cloud ERP. In this episode, Todd provides insights into the marketing team’s responsibilities within Acumatica, how people want to be sold to, and what major sports sponsorships have done for brand awareness and helping his team break through to new audiences. Todd dives deep into his vision and work in brand awareness for Acumatica and how those efforts directly work with and alongside demand generation.Key Takeaways:It’s imperative to focus on brand awareness alongside demand generation.Explore innovative ways to market your brand to break into new audiences, whether it’s major sports sponsorship, airport ads, connected TV, etc.No matter how you market, always think of your individual personas: their wins, wants, and pain points. People want to see themselves in your marketing.Quote:“We've progressively been dipping our toes into just brand awareness as well, and so whether that's airport advertising, whether that's connected TV, whether that's sports, sponsorships, but all of those are really something that we've understood from the marketplace that there's, you know, especially from partners and in speaking to partners, what do they value? What do they want?...In our scenario, I think it happens interestingly very far down the funnel, and so where it's really critical and where the partners are asking for is really that conversion to win.”Episode Timestamps:*(02:45) - The Trust Tree: Acumatica’s criticality of awareness*(11:49) - The Playbook: How Acumatica reconciles their spend with partner spend*(28:01) - The Dust Up: Dust ups are a productive outcome of pushing the execution and strategies of business models*(29:47) - Quick Hits: Todd’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline 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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Todd on LinkedInLearn more about AcumaticaLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Christopher Willis, CMO and self-proclaimed Chief Pipeline Officer at Acrolinx, an AI platform that uses a unique linguistic analytics engine to “read” content and provide immediate guidance to improve it, transforming how the world’s biggest brands create high-performing content.In this episode, Christopher shares about why he and his team are focused on 1 to 1 equals 3 partner relationships and what that’s meant for the business, building trust between the sales, marketing and BDR teams, and how awareness and authenticity set up organizations for greater wins with prospective buyers. Christopher also talks about the partner ecosystem and why partner relationships are critical in making Acrolinx as successful as it is today.Key Takeaways:Zeroing in on 1 in 1 equals 3 strategic relationships with partners by crafting a product, an offering, and point of view in order to be able to identify as a content impact platform.Pushing a compensation model where everyone wins or loses together builds greater trust between sales, marketing and the BDR teams.The best results come out of hyper-personalization to prospective buyers, which enables teams to get granular with prospects through research and relationships.Quote:“The difference between then and now is the focus on the one in one equals three relationship that we're having with the businesses that we work with now. Businesses like MHP, which is a services organization owned by Porsche or Hitachi in Japan, or RWS where there's real value in the two companies working together that goes well beyond small technical and marketing relationships.”Episode Timestamps:*(14:31) - The Trust Tree: How Acrolinx is the TSA checkpoint for content inside of big business*(24:58) - The Playbook: Investing in relationships with partners matter*(41:41) - Quick Hits: Christopher’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline 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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Chris on LinkedInLearn more about AcrolinxLearn more about Caspian StudiosWordBirds Podcast: How HPE Is Revolutionizing Customer Experience With Content

In this episode, Theo shares Brightcove’s holistic go to market strategy, how and why to create a Netflix style experience, and the importance of collecting and harnessing the power of first-party data when it comes to video content. Theo also talks about how thinking and acting like a media company is the way forward for all marketers.Key Takeaways:Different personas need to be sold to differently. Be sure all messaging directly reflects the needs of a particular persona and that it’s not written for every potential buyer.A go to market strategy that’s worked for Brightcove: Treat buyers as individuals, personalize content, and since video is king - make good use of it.Create a Netflix style experience for your customers. Thinking and acting like a media company is the way forward.Quote:"It's ubiquitous. Now research shows that 90%, 97% in fact of recent video viewers would be more receptive to sales communications from a business after consuming their video content, so it's incredibly important that enterprises get on board with video as well.”Episode Timestamps:*(4:20) - The Trust Tree: Brightcove’s focus on “streaming” content strategies *(25:09) - The Playbook: Marketing to customers as customers and not simply as prospects*(38:53) - The Dust Up: Overcoming tension between marketing and sales*(42:56) - Quick Hits: Theo’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline 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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Theo on LinkedInLearn more about BrightcoveLearn more about Caspian Studios

In this episode, Spencer Dent, Founder of Clozd, provides insights for running effective win-loss programs that help companies see the bigger picture when it comes to product marketing and roadmapping. Spencer also shares Clozd’s three tiered approach to the buyer’s journey, the importance of getting feedback directly from clients, good or brutal, and how to make sure companies are visible to the right people at the right time.Key Takeaways:Continued education for the customer is paramount in showcasing your product’s or service’s value.An effective win-loss strategy is essential for product marketing and product road-mapping.Choosing to focus on nurturing your pipeline and thought leadership efforts not only helps to educate potential buyers on what you do but it also allows for more streamlined content creation and brand messaging.Quote(s):“ I think what you've seen in the last 10 years in terms of the evolution of rev ops, going from being like there's a marketing ops team and a sales ops team and whatever, and a customer success ops team, to a lot of companies are moving to a unified, there's one team that runs the whole customer journey that's responsible for reporting on the whole thing. Making sure all the systems and everything are tied together. We see that right across our clients. And the cool part about win loss is it's the companies that do well with win-loss and actually get the most value out of it, it has very little to do with who owns it, whether it's sales or marketing. It has everything to do with, do they have a culture that can accept feedback?”Episode Timestamps:*(04:17) - The Trust Tree: Why pulling buyer data is key to understanding why a deal happened or not*(24:17) - The Playbook: Clozd’s tactical approach to win-loss*(34:25) - Quick Hits: Spencer’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline 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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Spencer on LinkedInLearn more about ClozdLearn more about Caspian Studios

Episode Summary:In this episode, Johann shares how he and his team are approaching spend management in a holistic way, the beauty of championing your clients, and how all marketing comes down to adding value. Johann also talks about strategies for shifting budget spend to incorporate additional high-converting formats and channels and the importance of focusing on strong content and adding value outside of demand gen interactions.Key Takeaways:Incorporating customer success into the buyer lifecycle journey helps to avoid internal breakdown through departmental silos.Learning how your potential customers interact with your brand before your sales team gets involved allows for deeper insights into the kind of content a business should be investing in and creating.The effectiveness of ads is diminishing and that ad spend should transition away from single use assets to resussable assets that can be repackaged in multiple ways.Quote(s):“What are the business processes that our buyers go through? What are their jobs like? What is their working environment? What does their day look like? Right? And then how do we give the salesperson the education on the topics  that are relevant to those buyers that we can address so they can start asking questions and start sort of engaging in an open-ended way and that's kind of the problem, right? You can do all this automation on the website and you can create beautiful content, but if you're not thinking about how do I enable my sellers to understand that content journey and how to leverage the insights that are attached to that content to create dialogue, then it will fall short.”Episode Timestamps:*(8:40) - The Trust Tree: How and why Johann and his team are starting to “solution sell”*(29:44) - The Playbook: Engaging potential buyers before the sales team gets involved*(47:11) - Johann’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline 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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Johann on LinkedInLearn more about EmburseLearn more about Caspian Studios

In this episode, Thomas Gröhl, VP of Marketing at DocuWare, shares the three methods DocuWare focuses on for marketing campaigns, why engagement is key to everything they do, and how DocuWare is leveraging a more emotional approach to connect with their customers. He also provides insights into how marketing can have a better relationship with sales, the importance of keeping buyers in mind when creating campaigns, and how to be a trusted advisor. Key TakeawaysProviding value in a digital world begins with engagement and being a trusted advisor.Have a local mindset. Step outside of normal marketing tactics and strategize language, tone, and value propositions in a way that can be adapted to a local market.Utilize emotion to tell your buyers a story and connect with them as human beings.Quote(s): “I would like demand gen marketers out there to have their buyers more in mind when they create their campaigns, their content, the messaging. Think about how relevant is it for my audience? What's the value proposition? There are no shortcuts that last long, and your customers will value that in the long run.”Episode Timestamps:*(03:24) - The Trust Tree: How DocuWare uses the channel for 80% of their business*(06:40) - The Playbook: Thomas’s uncuttable budget items*(29:44) - The Dust Up: How Thomas utilizes facts and numbers to bust through company tension*(30:33) - Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline 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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Thomas on LinkedInLearn more about DocuWareLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Stevie Case, CRO at Vanta. Vanta is the leading trust management platform that helps simplify and centralize security for organizations of all sizes. At Vanta, Stevie oversees and helps expand Vanta’s go-to-market team to support the company’s rapid growth. She brings over 15 years of sales and business experience, most recently serving as Vice President of Mid-Market Sales at Twilio, a market-leading cloud communications platform.You might also know Stevie as "KillCreek" -- the world's first female professional gamer.In this episode, Stevie shares her experience and expertise with not forcing prospects into a one size fits all experience, how Vanta stays on top of industry dynamics, as well as how and why her team is moving into an always-on approach. Key Takeaways:Buyers today are much more educated than they have been historically, and companies need to take into account the end-to-end buyer journey.Moving away from one-off activities and into always-on programs that are scalable and repeatable.Everyone on the team is responsible for pipeline generation.Quote(s): “It is an all hands on deck effort. You gotta do it in a way that's scalable and thoughtful and evolves and it's gonna be different for everybody. You know, there are, all of the best practices in the world are great, but unless you figure out how to personalize them to your company, your brand and your target personas, it won't work.”Episode Timestamps:*(07:27) - The Trust Tree: How Vanta organizes activities around their ICPs*(34:49) - The Playbook: Stevie’s uncuttable budget items*(42:43) - The Dust Up: Vanta’s inward focus on execution and speed to drown out the noise of market competition *(47:27) - Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline 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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Stevie on LinkedInLearn more about VantaLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Megan McDonagh, CMO at Amperity. Amperity is a customer data platform company that helps B2C brands unify and stitch together their fist party customer data for effectiveness and efficiency in order to help companies attain and acquire customers. Megan is a seasoned marketing executive with over two decades of experience leading marketing teams in the high tech space. In this episode, Megan dives deep into the world of first-party data. What it is, how you collect it, and how you can harness its power to create effective marketing strategies. Key TakeawaysUnless your first-party data is stitched together, it’s almost impossible to understand your customer persona and create effective marketing strategies.Education is necessary for defining personas, their problems, and the solutions to help them.Approaching ABM strategies as a pyramid: who are the big players to go deep with? Who are the one to few? Who are the one to many?Quote(s): “How do you understand that and know that if you don't truly know who your customers are? You have data coming in from offline sources…but how do you know if that data is not all unified and stitched together? Unless that's done, it's really hard to understand how to build really effective marketing programs.”Episode Timestamps: *(04:07) - The Trust Tree: Why Amperity pushes for the unification of first-party customer data*(22:35) - The Playbook: Megan’s uncuttable budget items*(37:42) - Quick Hits: Understand your customer journey and what’s needed throughout the funnelSponsor:Pipeline 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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Megan on LinkedInLearn more about AmperityLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Carmen Williams, Co-CMO and Head of Product Marketing at Zuper. Zuper builds digital solutions to help businesses provide exceptional customer experience. Their mission is to create the world’s most comprehensive tool for field workforce management. Carmen is an evolutionary marketing executive, with experience accelerating innovation and growth for fast-growing companies. She is skilled at driving marketing strategy and plans for fast-growing organizations, and is a forward-thinking, collaborative leader who advocates an evolutionary mindset and empowers teams to optimize performance.In this episode, Carmen shares about her work with inbound ABM strategies for growing field service operations by streamlining their processes, delivering better customer service, and helping them to be more efficient to scale and grow.Key TakeawaysIn order to help fast-growing businesses streamline their efforts, working with a team who strategically uses AI and automation for better customer service and efficiency is key to scaling.Deep collaboration and discussion amongst leadership is one of the secrets to ongoing success.Having an evolutionary, adaptive mindset and culture around testing can prove to be one of the greatest marketing advantages in business.Quote(s): “We're very lucky that the culture and the mindset is around testing sort of the agile, evolutionary adaptive mindset. So we're always thinking kind of like the 80% core that we keep that's working and constantly be testing the 20%. So both my counterpart and I are very much focused with that mindset.”“As every company I've ever been with, I'm sure every company that exists, there's always that tension between subjective, anecdotal, and data, right? Because there's never enough of the exact data you need. Uh, so I think it's just always trying to get everybody on the same page about, um, let the data speak, you know, let the evidence speak whatever it is, rather than, you know, opinions. And I think that's always the dance.”Episode Timestamps:*(02:56) - The Trust Tree: Zuper’s evolutionary mindset*(07:10) - The Playbook: Carmen’s uncuttable budget items* (22:21) - The Dust Up: Carmen’s experience with company culture fit*(23:45) - Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline 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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Carmen on LinkedInLearn more about ZuperLearn more about Caspian Studios

Martha Aviles, formerly VP of Marketing at Talroo, shares how the company leverages dynamic market segmentation to meet customers precisely where they are in their buying journey. In this episode, Martha gives insight into Talroo's innovative demand generation strategies and describes why they are founded on a test-and-learn approach.Key TakeawaysGrowth lies in the ability to connect with customers on their own terms, espeically in a market defined by segmentation and intense competition.Growth in a segmented and competitive market necessitates the adoption of a test-and-learn mindset, coupled with a proactive pursuit of cutting-edge tools and methodologies.Strategic employment of data should be utilized to customize content that resonates with distinct buying personas.Quote: “Customers are getting much more sophisticated. They want to know the differentiators about your platform. How is it better? How are you matching me with better candidates? How are you filling my pipeline?”Episode Timestamps:* (03:02) - The Trust Tree: How Talroo uses segmentation & experimentation* (12:11) - The Playbook: Martha’s uncuttable budget items* (23:32) - The Dust-Up: How to improve rapport with the finance department* (24:53) - Quick HitsSponsor: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.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Martha on LinkedInLearn more about TalrooLearn more about Caspian Studios