The Marketer's Journey

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Blake Adams, VP of Marketing at Florence Healthcare. Florence is solving workflow issues in clinical trial execution, allowing companies like Pfizer more efficient operations to run trials through tech. Blake joined the company years ago as a marketing manager and has been a part of their growth from 8 to 100 employees. He is now VP of Marketing at the company, a position that he loves because it allows him to advocate for marketing as a tool to drive business. As a marketer, Blake understands the importance of metrics, especially because data allows you to take risks and still instill your board with confidence, even in a high growth company like Florence.Check out this and other episodes of The Marketer’s Journey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play! Key takeaways from this episode:The hardest challenge moving into a higher level marketing role can be moving from a place of subject matter expertise to a place of connecting the dots and facilitating the experts. Blake had to learn how to move away from leading with technical skills and focus on setting his team up for success.Marketing is a tool to drive business value. As marketers we need to bring marketing into the conversation at the executive table and talk about how it can drive business strategy. How does it fit into the overall business structure? How does it drive revenue growth?Measure everything-- even if you don’t report on it outside your team you may eventually be able to put that data to use somehow-- a culture of measurement and metrics also evokes trust in your board to allow you to take risks as you grow.Learn more about Florence Healthcare here: https://florencehc.com/Learn more about Blake here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blakegadams/

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Seema Kumar, CMO at New Relic. Seema is an accomplished CMO who walks me through her journey to joining New Relic and how her approach differed the second time she stepped into a CMO role. For Seema, education is key, all around. After a long tenure at Salesforce, she only moved on when she felt that she was no longer learning there and believes in educating her team about their role in their organization’s big picture. She also understands the importance of educating your customers through your content marketing and other marketing efforts. As a content marketing expert, Seema breaks down how to approach content marketing for top of funnel customers vs. bottom funnel customers. The difference? Focus on pure product education for top of funnel customers-- but be straightforward in doing so, and you’ll build more trust.Check out this and other episodes of The Marketer’s Journey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play! Key takeaways from this episode:Focus on content that truly educates your buyer-- if it’s informative and based in fact it will be much more successfulRemember to think about the fact that adults learn in different ways. Too often marketers don’t think about different form factors and alienate a large part of their audience.As a CMO, you need to focus both on your team and your executive peers. Tight relationships are imperative to scaling your impact in the business.You don’t always design your career. Often it’s about walking through doors when they’re open and a fair bit of luck. But Seema noted, “the harder she worked, the luckier she got”.Learn more about New Relic here: https://newrelic.com/Learn more about Seema here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seemaxkumar/

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Pascal Ehrsam, SVP of Marketing at Rokt. Pascal has held multiple CMO and fractional CMO positions but actually came to his latest post after losing his job in the pandemic. He chose to view it as an opportunity to build his next chapter and follow his passion. As a marketer, Pascal’s north star is to follow products he believes in and when he was presented with the opportunity at Rokt, he knew it was something he was excited to help build. On today’s episode we discuss Pascal’s career journey, his jump from B2C to B2B marketing, as well as what he learned working agency side. We also reflect on the importance of balance in marketing and how to personalize with the customer experience in mind.Check out this and other episodes of The Marketer’s Journey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play! Key takeaways from this episode:Setbacks and losing opportunities can hurt but the key in these moments is how we respond, how we adapt, and what we do next.Marketing is all about balance. Balance between science and art, data and customization; balance in your messaging. Striking a balance can be tricky and is a skill marketers hone over years and years in the industry.Timing is also such an important factor. It’s not just about serving your customers with what they need, it’s also about serving it at the right time.Learn more about Rokt here: https://rokt.com/Learn more about Pascal here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefractionalcmo/

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Jessica Hoffman, VP of Marketing and Communications, and also an operating partner at Craft Ventures. Jessica learned the value and definition of a story from her background in traditional news, eventually moving into a career in PR, agency side. She moved away from agency because she wasn’t able to develop a depth of understanding of any one company and wanted to work in a role more rooted in strategy over tactical execution. In fact, she measures  a lot of the leaders and CEOs she has worked with by their ability to think of comms and media strategically, as a proactive tool, as opposed to reactively. On today’s episode, we discuss the role communication plays in defining your strategy and creating your movement.Check out this and other episodes of The Marketer’s Journey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play!Key takeaways from this episode:Once you’ve established who you are and how you speak about your company, there are so many other factors like customers, community, and social media that all come into play. Yet the only way to do comms well is to be aligned on what the overall goal is.Understanding your customers and having a feedback loop is so important in communications, it will influence how you speak to them and how you develop your strategy.Movement marketing is based on a deep understanding of your mission and marketing in a way that holds this in focus and ensures your message is heard and understood by your customers. Learn more about here: https://www.craftventures.com/Learn more about Jessica here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-hoffman-a65224/

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Megan Lueders, CMO at Silicon Labs. Silicon Labs is a transformative company in the semiconductor space, and focused on building a smarter more connected world. As a tech company, their marketing has always been product focused but today we explore how the buyer journey is transitioning and the acceleration of digital has driven a need for content marketing and other touchpoints for product driven businesses. We also discuss Megan’s career journey and how she used a six month sabbatical to focus on her family, but also refocus on herself and understand what she needed in her career. Any buyer journey starts with a customer saying “give me something that will be of use to me” and Megan took a similar approach to her career, assessing opportunities for value, fit and holding out for the right opportunity.Check out this and other episodes of The Marketer’s Journey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play! Key takeaways from this episode:You can balance being a career driven leader and a family person. For Megan, she needed this time to refine her needs and approach and be strategic about her next move.Your career is like a marriage-- it needs to be right because it has implications on every aspect of your life. It needs to be a good match and a good partnership.Even when your company is product driven, it can’t be as simple as “these are our products, buy them from us”, especially during these turbulent times when things are less certain, you need to connect with customers and potential customers in increasingly different and digital ways.Learn more about Silicon Labs here: https://www.silabs.com/Learn more about Megan here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganlueders/

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Amy Holtzman, SVP of Marketing at AlphaSense. On today’s episode we chat about the important role of demand generation and how it builds an earned platform for other forms of marketing.  We also discuss Amy’s career journey and hiring strategies to build out her team at AlphaSense; and how you know both when you need to bring subject matter experts onto your team and when you need to reinvent yourself as a marketer.Check out this and other episodes of The Marketer’s Journey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play! Key takeaways from this episode:Your demand performance is what gives you the right and the budget to do other, cooler things like invest in brand and do cooler executions. Amy says she always spoke in terms of metrics and demand and this earned her a seat at the table.Good content always prevails-- find out what content works for you and prioritize making it great.There is always a debate of who should “own” things in marketing. When we have projects where there isn’t a specific owner, this actually builds opportunities for partnerships and teamwork.Learn more about Alphasense here: https://www.alpha-sense.com/Learn more about Amy here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aholtzman/

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Brian Kardon, CMO at InVision. A big part of Brian’s strategy is building an enterprise sales channel, and this remains top of mind as he leads his team. Brian is an accomplished marketer who has held senior marketing roles at companies such as Fuze and Forrester. At InVision, he leads sales and marketing, with an understanding that they need to be integrated to be successful. On today’s episode, we discuss how to leverage product led growth to build a successful enterprise strategy, lining up customers who are ready to advocate for you.Check out this and other episodes of The Marketer’s Journey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play! Key takeaways from this episode:Take calls with recruiters. Even if you’re not looking, you may know someone who is a great fit, and it’s good to stay informed about what’s out there. It always benefits to stay connected and continue relationship building even if you’re not in the market for a job.So few companies consolidate sales and marketing under the same leader, and most C Suite teams talk about aligning sales and marketing when they should be talking about integrating them. At InVision, Brian has had great success with converting PQLs or product qualified leads into enterprise clients--as he says, seeds become trees. People do certain things in the app that trigger a signal to try to convert them to enterprise customers. But Brian recognizes the skills needed to nurture an enterprise account are very different than those needed to nurture other customers, so it’s important to have a diverse team to manage this.Learn more about InVision here: https://www.invisionapp.com/Learn more about Brian here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-kardon-446b4

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Heidi Bullock, CMO at Tealium. Throughout her career, Heidi has garnered extensive experience building and scaling high-performance marketing teams. She knows the immense importance of understanding your customer data and taking advantage of it, and on today’s episode we discuss: how to utilize this data to create better experiences for our customers, embracing change (whether in our business or in our careers), and how to be a marketing leader that provides vision, excitement and a point of view.Check out this and other episodes of The Marketer’s Journey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play! Key takeaways from this episode:Change is scary but it’s so important- it’s the only constant in life and in marketing, and learning to embrace it is so beneficial.Acquisition is great but ABM is all about “land and expand”. Especially in SaaS marketing, acquisition is only half the battle. It’s all about landing enterprise clients and expanding to other parts of their business.You have to know who you’re targeting to deliver the experience they expect. The more we know, the better we can deliver.Learn more about Tealium here: https://tealium.com/Learn more about Heidi here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hbullock/

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Anna Griffin, CMO at Smartsheet. Anna says that she has never thought about her career path in a traditional sense, but instead has always looked for companies doing something new or disrupting existing business models-- just like MarTech startup Smartsheet. On today’s episode, Anna and Randy discuss the importance of consumer curation in creating new business models, how to set your team up for success as a CMO, and where you should focus to build a successful MarTech business.Check out this and other episodes of The Marketer’s Journey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play! Key takeaways from this episode:In marketing, we often think we need to “stay in our lane” but the most creativity can happen when we take these lanes down, try new things and collaborate.Demand and brand do not need to be mutually exclusive-- as a CMO, you have to have both and you have to be focused on both. It can be advantageous to move into tech/startup marketing from a large company. Working at enterprise companies can help you identify pain points in business models and with using MarTech.Learn more about Smartsheet here: https://www.smartsheet.com/Learn more about Anna here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-griffin-1969843/

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Gil Rosen. Gil started his marketing career in pharmaceuticals which he cites as a great training ground that helped him understand what marketing is all about including distribution, targeting different demographics, adhering to regulations and more. He is now CMO of Amdocs, a massive company with over 27,000 employees and over 4 billion in revenue. To lead an organization like this requires perspective to tell the right stories. Gil knows that storytelling is key to bridging the gap between the creator and end user, and also key in rallying everyone around an idea. On today’s episode, Gil and Randy discuss the different aspects of storytelling, escaping a legacy to expand your offering, and the importance of the communication industry in a post COVID world.Check out this and other episodes of The Marketer’s Journey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play! Key takeaways from this episode:In tech and startup marketing, finding the sweet spot between “too early” and “too late” is key in a go to market strategy. Imagine trying to explain TikTok to someone five years ago!One of Amdoc’s greatest challenges has been escaping its legacy, however positive it may be. They are the “Michael Jordan of billing” but this can make it difficult for them to escape this box and make a name for themselves in another domainA new segment has been born-- enterprise consumers. Businesspeople are working from home, requiring security and broadband previously only available from the office. Identifying new customer segments like this is key to thriving in a changing world.Learn more about Amdocs here: https://www.amdocs.com/Listen to their podcast, The Great Indoors here: https://www.amdocs.com/TheGreatIndoorsLearn more about Gil here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilrosen/