Marketing Spark (The B2B SaaS Marketing Podcast)

Hiring a marketing consultant is often a leap of faith. You’re hoping their expertise and experience fills gaps and make things happen. But a lot of consulting engagements don’t work as well as expected. - There’s misalignment on expectations. - A lack of engagement and collaboration (no partnership) - Not enough clarity about what success looks like. - A lack of commitment to actually do marketing (more talk than walk) When I lost a client recently, some of these issues reared their ugly heads. To get some more perspective, I talked to Kevin Whelan, who helps marketing consultants improve their businesses. A key theme was how companies need to hire consultant and, as important, how and when consultants should take on clients. Consulting is a two-way street. Both parties need to agree to work together. It’s there’s a good fit, that’s a great start.

In simple terms, account-based marketing (ABM) is about targeting the prospects that really matter. It's about a laser-focused approach to marketing and sales. Behind the scenes, however, a lot needs to happen. It includes ensuring that marketing and sales work together to attract, engage, and nurture prospects. On this episode of Marketing Spark, Andrei Zinkevich also points out that ABM also involves determining the customers that you don't want as much as the customers you do want. Andrei goes into depth about how his company, Full Funnel, helps B2B SaaS companies leverage ABM to drive leads and revenue growth.

For many B2B SaaS companies, conversations are the ultimate success metric. When customers directly engage with you, relationships are established and, as important, the sales journey is jump-started. On this episode of Marketing Spark, Mark Kilens, Drfit's VP of Content & Community, talks about how conversation marketing gained momentum last year at a time when conferences disappeared. Drift pioneered conversation marketing with the introduction of an AI-powered chatbot that attempts to engage, understand and recommend solutions. Mark and I also talk about Drift's approach to content marketing, the importance of content distribution, and some of the metrics used to assess content marketing success.

Over the past 19 months, a growing number of people have embraced LinkedIn as a platform to make connections, drive conversations, and share content. Among the most successful is Joel Lalgee , a professional recruiter, who has more than 73,000 followers.  In this episode of Marketing Spark, Joel looks at how LinkedIn has evolved and how his approach to LinkedIn has changed. It's great insight from someone who has clearly seen huge ROI from LinkedIn. Joel also talks about the "Great Resign" movement that has dominated the work landscape, as well as the challenges and opportunities of working from home. 

When did building a personal brand become so important? Does everyone need a personal brand? DP Knudten has some great insight into why a personal brand is a key part of how to operate professionally and personally. He looks at the keys to success and the mistakes made by people along the way.  As well, DP talks about his Non-Fiction Brand approach to personal branding.

Many marketers believe that when they hit "publish" on a piece of content, the job is done. But the reality is it's just beginning. Ross Simmonds says one of the keys to content marketing success is distribution. Without it, he says all you're doing is building a content library. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Ross talks about: - Why so many companies and marketers struggle with content distribution - How to kick-start a content distribution plan - How to repurpose content on multiple platforms - Why it's important to focus on quality, not quantity - How to create content that's valuable and SEO-friendly.

To gate or not to gate, that is the question. Should prospects cough up an email address to access content? It’s a question that I’ve asked many marketers in recent months. And most of them believe that gated content is disappearing. In theory, gated content is a great way to attract MQLs and justifying/quantifying marketing investments. In practice, however, getting email addresses is increasingly challenging. On the Marketing Spark podcast, Jonathan Bland suggests that marketers need to look at content differently. Rather than it being about email farming, the focus should be brand awareness and funnel development. “It’s about getting maximum reach,” Jonathan says. The decision to un-gate can be a difficult pill to swallow but the digital marketing landscape has changed. There’s so much good content that a company simply can’t afford to create a barrier or friction.

When marketing fails to perform, a frenzy of fixes happens. It’s about tactical optimization and doing things differently. But often marketers are addressing symptoms, not root problems. Sometimes, bad marketing is caused by a rotten foundation. Marketing execution stumbles when it’s not underpinned properly. Michelle Tresemer describes this problem as “compounding defects”, a term that she borrowed from the construction industry. Compounding defects happen when there is no strategic vision or purpose. This leads to marketing that isn’t focused, structured, or aligned. Michelle says that “by the time you to tactics, there are no guardrails or no direction. Everyone is just doing what they think is best and it doesn't work”.  In the physical world, compounding defects is what happens when a skyscraper’s foundations are slightly off.  As the building is constructed the foundational flaws are magnified and exacerbated. In the marketing world, compounding defects can involve a lack of leads or sales, or content that a CMO finds difficult to approve because it’s somehow off the mark.

In many organizations, marketing and sales operate in silos. Sales complains that marketing delivers crappy leads while marketing claims sales can't close deals. In an ideal world, sales and marketing operate as a cohesive team that collaborates to effectively attract and engage prospects. On the Marketing Spark podcast, April Palmer provides insight into how startups and entrepreneurs can create powerful marketing and sales teams. As well, she talks about the mistakes that many companies make when hiring a sales leader, and how to build a sales organization in the right way. For companies looking for sales help, April has advice on how to hire a third-party sales organization.

In the software world, agile has been around for many years. It's how software is developed more efficiently and iteratively. But agile is also being embraced by organizations looking to make their marketing more successful. Michael Seaton says agile fundamentally changes how marketer think and work.  It's about making marketing more structured, focused and effective. It's about giving marketing teams the psychological safety to test and learn without getting sent to the penalty box if they make mistakes.