Pipeline Visionaries

This episode features an interview with Jason Ing, CMO at Gusto, a company that automates and simplifies payroll, benefits, and HR, while providing expert support. Jason was early on the ground at Xbox and Prime Video, playing pivotal roles in revolutionizing online gaming and digital media. Jason offers a behind-the-scenes look at marketing major shifts in entertainment consumption, like launching Netflix on Xbox and his role in getting Amazon fire sticks into our homes. He also dives into his current marketing strategy at Gusto.Key Takeaways:Everyone loves good content, and creative, entertaining content attracts and retains customers.Commitment and excitement about a long term vision can lead to groundbreaking success, even if others are skeptical initially.There is value in trying out unexpected or unconventional strategies, such as direct mail for Amazon Prime Video.Quote: “As it relates to Netflix, and streaming overall, this was during the years in which people were still getting Netflix by mail. That was what they were known as. But the technology was being built and the amount of Xboxes we had in living rooms in the U.S. households and across the world was at a point where these streaming providers could create a viable business by getting into all those living room spaces. And this was before TVs were all smart-TV-enabled. So, it was really cool to  see a vision for the future. And there was a bit of belief that you had to have around knowing that there was a better way. When you're fortunate enough to work for a company that is as successful as Microsoft was, and it's even more successful today, the company was willing to think long term. And I think that was really the first time in my career where I was exposed to this idea that you had to manage things on a day-to-day level and for the short term, but you had to have long-term vision and commitment to it. And I think all of us who were there, we were just very much bought into that idea, that there was just a future that was around the corner.”Episode Timestamps: *(29:09) The Trust Tree: Bringing elements from B2C to B2B*(34:58): The Playbook: Controlling the narrative through brand *(45:39): The Dust Up: Tension around partnership deals *(47:42): Quick Hits: Jason’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 pipeline 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 Jason on LinkedInLearn more about GustoLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Karen Budell, CMO, Totango + Catalyst. Totango and Catalyst recently joined forces to build a leading customer growth platform that helps businesses protect and grow revenue, providing businesses with a united platform that drives recurring revenue success and measurable growth.In this episode, Karen talks about leading a marketing team through a merge. She talks about the importance of customer success and investing in the full marketing “bowtie” to focus on retaining customers.Key Takeaways:Post-merger, marketing teams need to harmonize the brand and messaging, the product, the tech stacks and more. While this is a challenging process, it allows you to take the best from each company and present a unified brand that fosters trust. Start with outcome-based conversations when talking to prospects to make sure you understand their objectives before you complete the sale. Your customers’ success is your success. Don’t just invest in the marketing funnel. Invest in the full marketing “bowtie”. Retaining and growing current customers is very important. Quote: “We stood up a sales enablement and go-to-market enablement role and function within the marketing org. So reporting up to me, but a dotted line to the CRO’s organization. And part of the reason that I thought that that was a great fit and was so successful was because you really want to make sure that your frontline team understands who your target audience is and what your galvanizing story and narrative is all about. So, being close to the marketing team that was working on that messaging and positioning and the programs and events really helped create a nice bridge and reinforce the partnership that we had with our sales team.”Episode Timestamps: *(4:18) The Trust Tree: Outcome-based conversations with customers *(16:02) The Playbook: Updating the website post-merger*(33:24) The Dust-Up: CMOs that come from a brand focus*(39:59) Quick Hits: Karen’s quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline 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 on Karen Budell on LinkedInLearn more about Totango + CatalystLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with  Laura Beussman, Senior Vice President of Marketing at CallRail, an intelligence platform that helps businesses track and attribute each lead to their marketing journey and use real-time insights to optimize their marketing. In this episode, Laura discusses their marketing strategy as a pure-play PLG where marketing generates all the leads, and how they reach prospects through a sub-verticalized approach. She also shares how they are leveraging AI for better SEO results. Key Takeaways:A sub-verticalized approach can improve efficiency and return on investment, helping to ensure that you are accurately speaking to customer needs. Learn about the sub-verticals in your market.Leveraging AI in your content efforts can really improve your SEO results, by allowing you to create more content that is specifically catered to sub-verticals in the market.When marketing takes full responsibility for generating all leads, it eliminates the tension with sales by offering clarity, improving operational efficiency and allowing sales to focus on closing deals.Quote:“ One of the ways that the team is really capitalizing on AI is on SEO content. Again, as a PLG, SEO is very important for us. And with those verticalized go-to-market strategies, we needed to create a high volume of content to support not just the verticals, but the sub verticals. So, we have developed a strategy on creating that SEO content that leverages AI. Now, it's not that the AI writes the content from top to bottom with no human assistance, but what we do is we educate the AI tools on our content guidelines. We create a robust draft of an outline. AI then converts that into an article. Our content team edits, and makes sure it's reflective of our brand and our voice before we publish. What we've been able to do with that, though, is triple the amount of SEO content we're able to produce. And what that means is that we're able to be really hyper targeted, really hyper verticalized, and we're actually ranking better. And it's not that we're ranking better because the articles are significantly better. It's because they are able to be more specific, because they are able to be more targeted and sub verticalized. That allows them to rank better as well.”Episode Timestamps:*(03:34) The Trust Tree: Operating in a marketing-led lead generation model *(17:25) The Playbook: Using hyper-targeted content to boost visibility and conversion rates*(36:14) The Dust-Up: Making sure sales feels supported by marketing *(39:08) Quick Hits: Laura’s Quick Hits  Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline 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 Laura on LinkedInLearn more about CallRailLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Prachi Gore, SVP of Marketing, Checkr, Inc., a company that makes background checks faster, easier, and more compliant. In this episode, Prachi shares how they balance marketing to both the SMB and enterprise markets, and discusses her approach to reach each group of prospects. She also emphasizes the importance of investing in brand, and talks about how her revenue team is focused on “push marketing”.Key Takeaways:Be strategic about how you target different customers. Prachi has distinct approaches for SMB and enterprise markets, —focusing on brand advertising for SMBs while leveraging thought leadership and compliance content for enterprises.It is worth investing in customer lifecycle and partner marketing to improve customer retention and expand market reach. Customer lifecycle marketing is especially crucial in businesses with a transactional model.A robust inbound marketing strategy, supported by comprehensive brand awareness efforts, is vital for capturing latent demand and nurturing leads, even when brand investment feels like a riskier bet. Quote: “I think brand campaigns are always a bet. You're taking a risk of placing a bet on something that may or may not work. It's not measurable. It's hard, really, really hard to measure. And so it's kind of like, you’ve got to jump in with two feet and you'll float. But I think that that makes it hard for us as marketers to say like, hey, you're just like two million or five or whatever is your number, I'm going to put this towards a test and let's see what works, what doesn't work. Versus anything else, even we talked a lot about content syndication, but anything else like search, demand, events, campaigns, everything can be tied back to, it produces so much pipeline, exactly how much, you know. So, it just makes taking those bets, experiments, faster, easier, and at lower risk. Brand is hard, and then it also needs a philosophical alignment with your CFO, with your CEO your board, like everyone needs to be on board to help place those bets with you.”Episode Timestamps: *(02:10) The Trust Tree: Marketing to SMB and enterprise markets*(12:19) The Playbook: Hitting both parts of the business through search *(33:13) The Dust Up: Turning the BDR program around *(35:15) Quick Hits: Prach’s Quick Hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline 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 Prachi on LinkedInLearn more about Checkr, Inc.Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Michael Freeman, VP of Marketing, Airbase, a procure-to-pay solution that simplifies purchasing.In this episode, Michael discusses smart SEO strategy and the importance of investing in the distribution of your content. He also talks about how, while marketers are incentivized to demonstrate that they are generating pipeline, they still have to pursue the high ROI tactics that are difficult to measure and predict. Key Takeaways:If you create content, customers will not just come; they may never even find it. SEO is a core ingredient from the start, not an afterthought, and you need to find people with the language they use, understanding their intent. Marketers are charged with generating pipeline and proving it, but they need to avoid neglecting high ROI tactics that may be difficult to quantify or predict. Don’t just feed the content beast; make sure you are creating quality content purpose that has a genuine impact on your audiences. Quote: “I've been at a lot of companies where there was just a mentality of feed the beast on the blog. And we don't do that here. Every post has a specific objective and purpose that we're trying to meet. Sometimes there's just some corporate brand stuff we need sales to be able to point to or use for other purposes, but 95, 96 percent of what we publish has a specific objective and purpose from a traffic or leads perspective. And we've done the research upfront to say, yes, we have a reasonable chance to achieve that objective before we commit the resources on that piece of content.”Episode Timestamps: *(04:14) The Trust Tree: Be smart about paid search *(18:59) The Playbook: SEO and good content strategy *(48:43) The Dust Up: Inheriting a bad website *(51:11) Quick Hits: Michael’s Quick Hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline 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 Michael on LinkedInLearn more about AirbaseLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Lisa Bennett, CMO at Kaltura, a company that provides live and on-demand video SaaS solutions to thousands of organizations around the world, engaging hundreds of millions of viewers.In this episode, Lisa talks about the new world of repurposing your content and how marketers can improve their content strategy and outcome measurement. She also talks about how she thinks about “brandformance” and ensuring that you are walking the walk, as a marketer.Key Takeaways:It’s easier than ever to repurpose your content across channels, maximizing its impact. Marketers should be thinking about this, instead of just constantly generating new content without thinking critically about its delivery and impact. You can focus on “brandformance”, brand and performance marketing, even without a huge budget. To do so, you need to collaborate with the c-suite to determine the best go-to-market strategy. Marketing is constantly changing and the new norms are not set. It’s a new world, in a lot of ways, and we will have to find these new ways of marketing. Quote: “It feels as if, to a degree, we're generating content and not necessarily measuring it well enough. And then moving on to the next piece of content, and the next piece of content, and the next webinar, and the next event, and the next thing. And there's so much that actually can be repurposed, which is definitely becoming a trend now with AI because it's so easy to do. So, maybe before people didn't repurpose content as much, and video especially, because it was complex. It wasn't so easy to do. But now, you take a tool like Kaltura, not only have your event or your webinar, and then repurpose it, put it into social, put it into blog posts, put it into whatever you need and get all the data on it. So, that's an example of kind of this new world that we're looking at.”Episode Timestamps: *(04:22) The Trust Tree: Brandformance and strategizing with the executive team*(18:05) The Playbook: Maximizing the impact of events by repurposing content *(29:35) The Dust Up: Communicating and having a partner in crime*(32:09) Quick Hits: Lisa’s quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline 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 Lisa Bennett on LinkedInLearn more about KalturaLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Heidi Bullock, CMO at Tealium, a customer data platform that connects customer data across web, mobile, offline, and IoT so businesses can better connect with their customers.In this episode, Heidi highlights the essential role of brand in B2B marketing and the effectiveness of the pod structure in marketing organizations. She also dives into the need for marketers to be proactive and come to the table with a point of view.Key Takeaways:In a competitive market, it is all about creating preference, and you do that through your brand. B2B marketers need to invest in the brand.Marketing needs to come into conversations with sales with a point of view and they need to do their homework. They can’t just wait to be told what to do.Everything runs more smoothly if you consolidate signals and create summaries of intent.Quote: Marketing can't be the order taker. It really has to be the salesperson that's the quarterback, but marketing has to come in with a point of view. Like, hey, you're talking to a lot of people in the pharma space, let's make sure that we're doing X, Y, and Z. We've got this amazing workshop. We have this great piece of content. Come in with a viewpoint versus like, hey, just wait and have somebody tell me what to do. Everything goes better if you can consolidate signals, and then the marketer has a strong point of view and does their homework.Episode Timestamps: *(02:50) The Trust Tree: The benefits of a pod structure*(18:00) The Playbook: Reducing the friction*(38:30) The Dust Up: Working with product teams, focusing on the user*(41:22) Quick Hits: Heidi’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 pipeline 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 Heidi on LinkedInLearn more about TealiumLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Cristy Garcia, CMO, impact.com, a partnership management platform that automates business partnerships, at scale.In this episode, Cristy shares the do’s and don'ts of marketing, and the primary reason for failed partnerships. She also discusses the evolution and importance of using influencers in marketing, and what it's like marketing to marketers.Key Takeaways:Influencers have been around for awhile, but they became even more important during the pandemic. If you aren’t working with influencers as a marketer, you’re being left behind. When partnerships fail, it is most often due to lack of communication. Make sure to be very clear about payments, expectations, and what you are promoting. You can generate significant revenue through partnerships, for some companies, as high as 28 percent of their total revenue.  Quote: “If you're not working with influencers right now as a marketer, you're left behind. This is happening now. The rise of influencers, they've been around for a long time, I spoke at mommy blogger conferences back in 2012, so it's not new. But what is new is sort of the heightened awareness and demand for influencer content. And I think it all happened around the pandemic when people were at home with their phones, creating social interaction, buying things online, and the influencers really took off.”Episode Timestamps:*(3:06) The Trust Tree: The rise of commerce content*(14:20) The Playbook: THe dos and don’ts of partnerships*(35:55) The Dust Up: Knowing your worth*(37:28) Quick Hits: Cristy’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 pipeline 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 Cristy on LinkedInLearn more about impact.comLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Stephen Gold, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at SparkCognition (Previous), a company providing AI solutions that allow organizations to predict future outcomes, prescribe next actions, empower people, and protect assets. In this episode, Stephen discusses experimenting to find the best combination of elements to engage prospects through a long sales cycle. He also dives into the healthy tension between marketing and sales, and how he is thinking about using AI tools in his marketing. Key Takeaways:Experiment to find the right mix of tactics to engage with prospects and customers. Continue to test and tweak to find the right combination for your prospects and sales cycle. Use AI and other tools with a specific objective in mind; don’t get distracted by shiny new toys with little pragmatic use. Marketers will always be challenged to demonstrate their value to their organization. Even in smaller organizations, this takes a concerted effort and CMOs would be remiss to forget the importance of internal marketing. Quote: “There's always a question, the proverbial question that hangs over marketers heads, that says, am I really getting a return on my investment? Maybe we can cut the budget and we're not going to feel the effect. And marketing, unlike other areas of the business, it's probably harder to quantify the impact because it touches so many parts of the business. Marketers are constantly, or should constantly be thinking about, how do I demonstrate to my organization, qualitatively and quantitatively, the value we bring? We work really hard to produce content internally for consumption by other executive members, by the rank and file. Who doesn't want to work at a business where the brand matters? Who doesn't want to work at a business where they're doing social good? We're a small company, approaching 400, but it's still important that you get the word out. And it's not easy. You have to put a concerted effort to do that.”Episode Timestamps:*(6:20) The Trust Tree: The importance of education *(16:35) The Playbook: Finding the combination of tactics that work*(37:08) The Dust Up: Inviting friction between sales and marketing *(39:14) Quick Hits: Stephen’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 pipeline 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 Stephen on LinkedInLearn more about SparkCognitionLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Tom Wentworth, CMO at Recorded Future, the world’s largest threat intelligence company, working with over 1,600 businesses and government organizations across more than 74 countries.In this episode, Tom talks about building Recorded Future News, a separate P&L that has become one of the largest cyber intelligence news sites, and a trusted media entity that breaks important news in the cybersecurity/intelligence world.Key Takeaways:Brand building is not just about creating awareness, it is about building trust and building relationships. Sometimes, the only information you need to determine ROI is whether your clients and prospects feel your initiative provides them with value.A quick way to fail as a CMO is to run someone else’s playbook. Make sure that you understand the current company and context; create a bespoke plan. Quote:  “If you think about brand building, what most people do in cyber security, when they get to be Recorded Future size, we're about over 300 million in ARR, which makes us a pretty good sized company. What most companies our size do, is they go buy an F1 sponsorship, or they go put their logo on some sports team's jersey. And that's cool. That's a cool way to get in front of people, but I don't think it builds trust. Like, why would I trust this vendor just because their logo is on a jersey or their logo is on a car? That just tells me they’ve got a lot of money to spend. So we said, instead of going to do that, the way that we're going to build awareness for Recorded Future and build a relationship with our audience is through news and then through a podcast, which I'll talk about a little bit too. So that's our brand awareness investment. We feel very confident that people who fall in love with our news are also going to like our product. I don't have to prove it, in the sense that I don't have to have this super complicated attribution scheme. We just ask our clients and our prospects, ‘Hey, do you like Recorded Future News?’ And they love it. That's just about enough for us.”Episode Timestamps:*(04:22) The Trust Tree: Becoming a fan of account-based marketing *(25:34) The Playbook: Building Recorded Future News*(43:45) Quick Hits: Tom’s quick Hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline 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 Tom on LinkedInLearn more about Recorded Future Learn more about Caspian Studios