Marketing Trends

Coming into a new marketing role during a critical re-branding phase of a company’s life is no small task to take on. There are challenges with developing new working relationships, and most importantly, trust, in order to create a smooth and successful evolution for the business. “I'm naturally curious. I like to seek to understand; I'm naturally very curious. Want to delve into the details on some things and, as soon as you get to a confidence level and you're like, okay, that's either great or yeah, that might be something we want to revisit. Honestly I think some people feel like that's a little bit micromanage-y.”This is what makes Paul Stoddart successful in his role as CMO of Epicor, an Enterprise Resource Planning company.  and while he’s a relatively new leader at Epicor, he’s done a lot for the brand already. Paul told us all about it on this episode of Marketing Trends and his impact starts with the fact that his foundation is built on the idea that you should always start with the customer no matter what it takes. And even though at first blush he admits he may come across as a bit of a micromanager, Paul’s ultimate goal is to understand the way things are done in order to find efficiency in the processes and ultimately build deep trust and foster teamwork with his colleagues. We’ll dive into exactly what that looks like, and all the cool ways the Epicor marketing team is standing out from the competition right here, so sit back and enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:The Essential Of Great Marketing: Understanding people’s needs is the first step in successful marketing. Another piece of the equation requires building great relationships. As a marketer, you want two key ingredients, first a great product to bring to market, and second, great people to work with. A key component to the latter is to be supportive of your colleagues and not too competitive.Brand Authenticity and Importance of Simplicity: The key to staying true to your brand, especially during a brand-refresh, is understanding what people are saying about you. You can then make honest decisions about the changes that you want to move forward with based on those perspectives. The awards for doing good work come, but the work should speak for itself. When you reduce something down and make it simpler, you make it better.Characteristics of Great Leadership: There are many ideas and ideals that make for a company with great leadership. Leadership comes from all levels in an organization. Management together is better than alone, and collaboration across all levels of the organization leads to the greatest sense of community, as well as the best possible end product. When it comes to the guiding principles of what that leadership looks like, there are many. A sense of ownership, as well as a deep level of curiosity, are two traits that make for great leaders.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

There’s a notion among marketers that the way to provide the best customer experience is to have the richest data. After all, to CMOs and most modern marketers, data is basically the key to unlocking customer success. But to provide those marquee customer experiences, there’s a myth swirling around that the only way to have success is if all your data sets live in one place. You need the mythical “single source of truth.” But is a single source of truth actually attainable in today’s oversaturated martech ecosystem? Paul Cowan is the CMO of FreshBooks, and he isn’t so sure.“Having a single source of truth is next to impossible. I haven't been in any organization where anybody said, ‘Man, our data is in a perfect state. Here it is. Here's our 360 view of the customer. We're done, clap your hands and walk away.’ That doesn't exist. You need to have your single source of truth in terms of what you believe success looks like, and everybody's aligned to that...But I think being able to have that 360 view of the customer is the hard part.”Having a better understanding of who your customers are is something all marketers are striving for today, and it’s something that Paul and his team are working toward. But while a single source of truth might not be attainable, there are avenues to create a clearer picture to work with. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Paul joined me for a fun conversation covering a host of topics, including what it will mean to build FreshBooks’ data strategy to target an SMB market in dire need of reliable insights. Paul and I also discussed how FreshBooks reorganized its marketing department to eliminate siloed segments, and why the best marketers need to have an understanding of their sales counterparts. Enjoy! Main TakeawaysDo you Understand Where I’m Coming From?: In order for marketing and sales to have true alignment, both departments must have a clear understanding of the pain points that the other is experiencing. When marketing is under the direction of sales, it does not work. And when marketers don’t have a clear understanding of the sales process, there tends to be miscommunication. If you want true alignment between both, marketers and sales individuals must understand the roles of the other.Tension Builds Success: Healthy tension between sales and marketing is okay, as long as that tension is focused on building the overall relationship and strength of the brand. When there is tension between the two departments, it keeps both parties on their toes and responsive to the other. When those lines of communication are closed, there’s more room for complacency.Sources Say: The idea of a single source of truth for your data might be unrealistic, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t harness your first-party data to create a clearer picture of your target audience. A single source of truth should be about understanding the value of your datasets, but also understanding the best way to use your data.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

What are your three words? It’s a question Amber Armstrong, CMO of LivePerson, loves to ask her team members. Those three words can be anything — they can be a personal mantra, a list of questions, or even a grocery list. But regardless what your three words are, the key is to make them count, make them relatable, but, most importantly, to let those three words be the driving force of your end goal. “When I was getting to know my team, I asked everyone for their three words. It all originates back to my time at IBM, and working for Ginni Rometty, who was our CEO. And it was a well-known fact that when you talk to Ginni, you gave her three things and that's it. And when she talks, she gives three things and that's it. And it's a number that you can remember, and when you can remember things they can become meaningful. They can really have a deeper association. If I told you my 10 words, you wouldn't believe half of them.”Armstrong’s three words are “focused, passionate, and kind,” and those three words are the backbone of how she hopes to continue building LivePerson’s marketing strategy. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Amber joined me for an insightful conversation about how LivePerson is building a robust ABM strategy to target not just the right clients, but the ones for whom LivePerson can have the most impact. Amber and I also took a trip down memory lane, as she reminisced about how her past experiences — including a transformative trip to Hong Kong and a 15-year career at IBM — shaped how she plans to push LivePerson forward. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.Main TakeawaysCan I Get Some Help?: ABM has traditionally been used by sales teams to build awareness on potential prospects and better target the prospects that are real opportunities for the business. But ABM can also function as a key building block to align marketing and sales. For example, when a sales team is able to identify key prospects, the marketing team can then target those potential customers, by honing in its efforts on certain ad placement to meet those areas.Can You Meet Me Halfway?: We hear all the time how important it is for marketers to meet their customers where they are. This can mean having active responses to customer questions through mobile channels and customer service, but there are more opportunities to explore. Marketers should begin using conversational intelligence in all channels as an opportunity to answer pressing questions,gain valuable customer insights, and build first-party data sources.Global Means Local: When you’re a global organization, your messaging still must be localized to resonate with specific audiences. This can be as simple as having a national message, but altering it to include things such as local pictures or restaurants.--Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com.  Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

At first blush, getting insurance seems relatively straightforward. You research providers, you request a quote, and you go with the option that best suits your needs. Simple, right? Boring even. And sure, marketers have tried for years to add spice to a relatively bland industry… Geico continues to celebrate the Gecko, Progressive has long-running ads with the lovable Flow, and State Farm has encouraged us all not to buy insurance our parents did. But none of those ads cater to SMBs, and neither do the companies. But Thimble has been able to fill an SMB-sized void in the market.“Insurance is very intent-driven, and therefore search-driven for digital marketer. We can see what these guys are looking for. What are all of our competitors ranking for? So rather than... try to deconstruct their content calendar, we really go find new opportunities and find ways of thinking that are important to us versus them. So it's still the same approach or a skill set, but it's a different strategy.”That’s Rikin Diwan, SVP of Marketing at Thimble, a SaaS-based insurance platform that is helping SMBs and freelancers get insurance based on their needs. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Rikin unpacks how Thimble is making insurance fun by building a content strategy based on reusable blogs that puts the company at the top of the search rankings. Rikin also discusses his personal journey to Thimble and why every marketer should do a little self-exploration. Enjoy! Main TakeawaysAre We Speaking the Same Language?: Marketers can talk about KPIs, engagement and growth tactics all they want, but at the end of the day those are not the numbers other C-Suite members care about and relate to. Marketers must be able to relate marketing metrics back to business metrics and show how your efforts are affecting the overall health and growth of the business.Understand your Niche: You have to be able to identify what your unfair advantage is and consistently lean into that strategy. If the other big players are catering to a certain demographic, pivot and focus on the segment of the industry that is being neglected. When you consistently lean into strategies that larger companies are using, you won’t have an opportunity to stand out or grow your business.Did You See this Post?: Look for ways to spice up your industry. Just because the product doesn’t seem exciting, doesn’t mean that consumers are not looking for your product. Utilize SEO and blog posts to get in front of customers who are asking consistent questions that could serve as a gateway to your sales funnel.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

The Tonight Show debuted in 1954 with comedian Steve Allen welcoming a local television audience to his version of what he thought The Tonight Show should be. Since then, six different hosts have manned the desk for the late-night comedy show. Jay Leno was known for his charm and hair, Johnny Carson established the standard format for television chat shows – including the famous guest couch — and Jimmy Fallon is known for his exuberance, musical moments, and skits.  Everyone brings something unique to the table, and when they do, a new era begins. You see, in the entertainment industry the only standard is change, and while hosts come and go, they all leave their mark and set a standard for the next person while the brand marches on.On this special episode of Marketing Trends, Ian Faison, who has held the mantle as host of the show since its inception, passes the baton to incoming host, Jeremy Bergeron. First, you’ll hear from Ian, as he reminisces on the origin story of the program, some of the behind-the-scenes folks who helped get the podcast off the ground, and what it was like to be part of the show as it’s grown from an idea in a Google doc, to more than 300 episodes and one million downloads and counting. Then later, we’ll introduce you to Jeremy, who will share a bit about himself, his background, and why he is so excited to take the reins and put his own unique spin on the show.Main TakeawaysYou Host for Evening Is: After more than 300 episodes, Ian Faison steps down as host of Marketing Trends. In his place, Jeremy Bergeron takes over as full-time host. Hosts Change, Brands Don’t: The role of the CMO is one of the most prolific positions within the C-suite, but it also has seen its fair share of change. Just as CMOs change from time to time, the brand and company will remain consistent. The same will be said for Marketing Trends, which will continue with a focus on the evolving role of the CMO, and interviewing innovators and leaders in the marketing space to deliver the strategies that you need to stay ahead.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

CMO’s tend to have a mantra when they take over a new job: reorg, rebrand, and restructure. But while the mantra is simple, the process is not. Any time things change, feathers get ruffled, even for the most well-intentioned CMOs.“Being performance driven, it's not always the most popular thing to do when you come into a new company. I pulled back spend in Q2 quite significantly from where we were spending, because I didn't feel it was working. And there were a lot of conversations with my peers, as well as with our CEO, and even the board on some of the risks of doing that. But I really believe that by pulling back a little bit and slowing down in order to get those insights and those key learnings in place, we'll be able to speed up in the future and kind of double down on what's working.”That’s Dana Paris, who is the first CMO of Canidae Pet Food, and she is quick to note that changes and hard conversations are not done in a vacuum. They are calculated risks designed to drive the overall health of the organization. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Dana dives into how having those tough conversations with your C-Level peers can set the foundation for a successful partnership. Plus, she also touches on why alignment across all your touch points, online and in-person, is imperative when you’re building your brand awareness.Main TakeawaysWell, this is Awkward: As a CMO, you have tough conversations. After all, there are KPIs to meet and products to sell. But as a CMO, it's imperative to remember that you were brought in to do a job, which means setting the company up for future success. Don’t be afraid to mix things up that you see holding the company back.A True Symbiotic Relationship: Today brands are not only fighting for awareness for the inventory on shelves, but they are also fighting for recognition online and across all digital touchpoints. Companies must have strong alignment when it comes to their ecommerce sites and their brick and mortar locations so consumers can easily connect the in-store and online experiences. A strong alignment on these things will also help lead the consumer further down the funnel in their purchasing decision. Building Brand Loyalty: When you’re a new brand trying to break into a populated space, you have to find organic avenues to naturally introduce your product to consumers. For Canidae, this process included working with breeders to introduce dogs to its food when they are puppies, and then having the breeders recommend the food to the consumer. This process helps to build consistent buying behaviors, while also helping grow the brand. ---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

There is one thing that every marketer would say they need: content. But what makes for good content and what makes for the best content? Is it storytelling? Is it authenticity? What content drives engagement, versus what content is merely passable? Kristin Frank is a well-respected and highly-seasoned media expert, and after a 20-year run at MTV, it’s safe to say she knows a thing or two about content.“My biggest advice is to not look at marketing, look at it as content. Make sure the story has quirks, make sure it's compelling, treat each individually as a separate piece of content, and be authentic to the platform. If you do that, you will have a relationship with your consumers that you can then speak to them in any way, and they will trust you.”On this episode of Marketing Trends, Kristin, now the CEO of AdPredictive, explains why after a successful career with Viacom and MTV, she had the itch to ditch her comfy enterprise digs and roll her sleeves up with a startup. Kristin also explains why different forms of content resonate with various platforms, how to attack those different channels and how AdPredictive is playing a role in helping marketers turn insights into advertising. Enjoy!Main TakeawaysNot All Platforms are Created Equal: The way people absorb content differs greatly depending on what channel they are using and the way marketers push their content should accommodate those different behaviors. This means that your content cannot be a one-size fits-all approach. Your content must vary by channel to fit what the consumer is expecting For instance, a piece of video might work really well on TikTok and Instagram, but would not generate the same engagement on Twitter. When you are designing your content to fit within a certain channel you have a better chance of resonating with your audience.Don’t View Content as Marketing: Content should be used in the same manner as how you would tell a story. It needs to have quirks, there needs to be a story arc, but most importantly, you should treat every individual show, blog, or post as it’s own piece of content rather than try to group everything together in a larger push. Can I Get Your ID?: Data visibility and data accuracy are two things marketers need in order to drive business values. When you have both accurate data and easily accessible insights, you can gain a better understanding of who your audience is, what their buying behaviors are, and what pieces of content get them to convert to your product.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

Here’s a contrarian thought: buying ads doesn’t win you customers. What does win is when previous customers are happy and willing to tell everybody else just how great you are. Now think about this, before you buy a product, what’s the first thing you do? You read the reviews. From influencers, to friends, to referral codes and trade magazines, the way consumers decide what product or service is perfect for them is dependent on who they trust. David Lehman is the President and Chief Operating Officer at Birdeye, and he knows this more than most.“It's all about what research people are doing and who do they trust? Do people trust the brands? Do they trust the articles that they're getting from them? No, they trust their community, They trust their friends. They trust their network. They trust the crowdsourced reviews of both the business, a product. As a marketer, experience marketing is so critical because you've got to fulfill all of those needs for everybody.”So how are marketers flipping the funnel and tying their success to customer success? On Marketing Trends, David answers that question while also providing an in-depth look at how brands such as Blaze Pizza have used Birdeye’s experience marketing platform to put brand advocates front and center. He also provides a unique look at how marketers can supercharge their SEO strategies on Google, Facebook, and more. Enjoy this episode. Main Takeaways:Did You Leave a Review?: Customers leave reviews to help them advocate for a product or service, but they also read those same reviews to help them make an informed buying decision. Customers no longer trust a brand’s messaging to make their decisions, they trust their peers. This is why it's important to seize control of reviews and aggregate them all into a single place. When you have everything in one place, you can identify and resolve common problems as you see them come through and you can also gather and display top reviews easier. Just Call My Mobile: Customers need to be met on the channels where they are most active, which is mobile. In order to have an effective mobile strategy, you must have an always-on mentality. This means that prospective consumers should always be able to get answers to questions in real-time and you can facilitate that through chat, FAQs, or aggregated reviews.Stand-Up, Stand Out: An well-structured and optimized SEO strategy is a great way to make sure that a company does not get buried on the search pages, but it also is integral when it comes to making sure consumers can find you at a moment’s notice.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

Text message marketing is a powerful tool — after all no other channel provides marketers with the same level of one-to-one communication that you get by sending a simple text. But just because you have the ability to press send, doesn’t mean you always should.“You need to think to yourself before you send any text message, ‘Is this message providing value? Is the person on the other end of this going to look at this and say, yes, I want to save this.’ If it's not the case, you probably shouldn't be sending it because you've got this unicorn right now, and this way to communicate to your customer is so direct, you want to hold it in the highest regard and respect it as much as possible.” On this episode of Marketing Trends, Matt Baglia, the co-founder and CEO of SlickText, dives into the dos and don’ts of text messaging marketing, and touches on the main reason marketers should approach this channel with extreme caution. Matt also explains some of the best practices that will set up any marketer for success. Enjoy this episode.Main TakeawaysSeeking Approval: You always need to know that the information that you are sending to customers is the information that they have opted into. If you don’t have a user's permission to send them content, don’t. If you send materials to a user that didn’t ask for them, you won’t only be breaking privacy laws, but you also run the risk of your materials being perceived as spam, thus creating a negative image for the brand.Set Expectations: When users opt in to your service, you must be explicit about what materials the user is signing up for. This does not mean that you need to provide a long explanation of every message a user will receive, but if a customer is expecting tracking information for a product, that is all they should be receiving.Don’t Hit Send Too Often: Make sure you have a consistent strategy for how often you send your users messages. Nobody wants to read an excessive amount of text messages from your business or organization. A good rule of thumb in most cases is 2-6 messages per month.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing. Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

B2B marketing gets a bad reputation. Some will say it’s boring and you can’t be creative in the B2B space. But who wrote the rulebook that said B2B couldn’t be fun or inspiring? Meredith Stowe Christie, the VP of Marketing at HVR, says that regardless of who your client is, B2B doesn’t have to be boring.“It's B2B, but you're still marketing to a human. Chances are, given the amount of people that are watching the Super Bowl, your target is watching the Super Bowl. If you have the budget and a message that resonates to a lot of organizations, why not do that? You want to be top of mind to these folks when they need to make that decision on your product.”On this episode of Marketing Trends, Meredith explains how HVR is spicing up B2B marketing by putting the customer at the center of everything it does. What does that look like? Meredith says it’s about aligning S sales and marketing efforts to tell the best stories because content is what should be leading prospects through the funnel. Enjoy this episode. Main Takeaways:Know your Story: Make sure you know your product inside and out so you can fully tell the story of your company. When you’re marketing complex products, such as data replication, you have to know all aspects of your product to know what your unfair advantage is and what differentiates you from competitors. Make sure you talk to stakeholders at every level of the company so you can gather that intel in order to best tell the story of the company.Every Last Cent: Digital marketing has made it easier for marketers to track where every dollar and every cent is going, but it’s important to remember that as the company grows, your digital practices should too. This means you have to make sure to experiment with what channels you are spending in to create new avenues for the business.Can I Get an Alignment?: We hear a lot about the importance of marketing and sales aligning their efforts, but it’s important to remember that your content should be a driver to make those sales conversations easier for your reps. Make sure the content you produce opens up opportunities for prospective clients to learn about your product prior to the sales conversations.---Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing.  Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.