Marketing Trends

When Jared Drinkwater first joined BSN Sports, the company was still sending out physical catalogs to schools in an attempt to sell its products. As a veteran marketer with experience at PepsiCo and Pizza Hut, Jared knew it was time for BSN to go through a digital transformation. As the CMO of BSN Sports, Jared has been able to lead that transformation and it’s making an impact at the heart of the sports world:  at the high school level. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Jared shares how BSN Sports is making waves at the amateur level thanks to the evolution of its email marketing efforts. Puls he explains why telling the right story in the right place makes all the difference. Main TakeawaysEmail Marketing is Not Dead: For BSN, having a digital-first mindset means being proactive and making sure that its products are being delivered to coaches and schools at the appropriate time. To accomplish this, BSN built a highly sophisticated and robust national selling calendar that has become an integral piece of its email marketing strategyContent is King, but It’s Not Everything: Your job as a marketer is to not only make sure you are delivering the appropriate content, but that you are also giving your sales staff and fellow employees the proper tools to feel confident and comfortable in their jobs. This means developing strategies that allow them to execute sales and be empowered in meetings.Find Your Fit: Knowing your brand and your space will benefit your overall message. Use your advertising spend wisely and make sure your products are being seen in the appropriate channels. For BSN Sports, advertising dollars spent on national TV campaigns are not what move the needle, but social media and various digital channels offer more ROI.---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.

But first, Coffee. Maybe you’ve seen the phrase hanging above a picture in a coffee shop or cafe, or maybe you first saw the phrase on Instagram. Regardless of where you noticed it, those three words resonate with coffee drinkers around the globe — but it’s also the mantra that drives Josh Zad. Josh is the founder and CEO of Alfred Coffee, a coffee shop less focused on the actual coffee and more on the customer experience. Josh joined Marketing Trends to discuss everything from building and marketing the Alfred brand, to his new adventure with Calidad beer. Plus he talks about how to approach advertising investment and connecting with customers.Main TakeawaysMake it Pop!: Your brand is your image and it’s how your consumer connects with the product. Work hard to create something iconic and something that stands out on the shelf so that when the consumer sees the product, it’ll instantly resonate with them.Invest Like the Best: Invest in advertising that fits your distribution needs and find channels that make sense for your brand. When it came to marketing Calidad beer, digital and social advertising didn’t make sense for the industry because there was no way to push consumers to an eCommerce store. Instead, the Calidad team bought physical billboards near locations where people could purchase the products.Change Isn’t Always Good: When Josh was building Alfred coffee, he was constantly tinkering with the brand’s image, its colors, font, and website. When you change your imagery for the sake of change, you make it hard for your consumer to keep up. Find something that is powerful and resonates with your consumer and build off that.---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 backbone of digital marketing is data. But how marketers use that data is what separates those who have success versus those who struggle. Richard Jones is the CMO of Cheetah Digital, and on this episode of Marketing Trends, Richard discusses why data is the fuel that keeps pushing the needle forward. Plus he touches on the importance of digital marketing and how brands can build meaningful relationships with their customers.Main TakeawaysRespect My Privacy!: Companies need to be aware that the relationship between brand and consumer is a fragile one. Understand that consumers will give you information when they feel there is a return for it and when they know that what they provide will be protected. If that trust is broken, the relationship with the brand is strained.Staying Loyal: Rewards and loyalty programs have always been built on data. Loyalty programs need to be used to establish a direct relationship between a brand and the consumer to form a better understanding of its customer.Data, Data and More Data: Grow your databases and invest in those databases. When you invest in growing your databases, you commit to expanding consumer relationships and building better customer journeys.---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.

While it may seem like we are further apart than we’ve ever been before, we have actually never been more connected than we are today. That’s a lesson that Heather Craft and her team at Hotwire Global have learned first-hand. With offices around the world, Craft and her team have had to rely on internal communication strategies to keep their clients satisfied. How have they done that? On this episode of Marketing Trends, Heather breaks down exactly how her team stays connected, and why those strategies are important. Plus, she explains why the relationship between employee and brand has never been more important.Main TakeawaysInter-Communication Rises in Need: In order to be the best in this department, you need to have a fundamental understanding of the information that the client needs, but you also need to grasp that you won’t have all those answers. Understand your strengths, then rely on your internal team to fill-in the gaps where you don’t have the answers.Let Me Tell You a Story: The ability to tell a compelling and engaging story has always been at the intersection of where PR and marketing meet. As the two become more interwoven, you need to make sure the stories you are telling are consistent across all channels, not just one.Employee Meet Brand, Brand Meet Employee: The relationship between the employee and the brand they work for is more important than ever. Oftentimes, this relationship has been at the lower part of the pecking order, but as employees seek to work for companies they can align their values with and respect, the significance of this relationship has grown in need.---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.

In Andrew Nester’s own words, communication is what drives people. It motivates them. So why do we spend so little time creating and delivering new and better ways for us to communicate with other people? Andrew is the CMO of SocialChorus and on this episode of Marketing Trends, he discusses the increased need for communication platforms, why your marketing teams shouldn’t always be personalized and why you need to be both data and experience-driven in order to succeed.Main TakeawaysCommunication is key: There’s no doubt that communication drives business. In order to drive people to do tasks, you have to communicate with them, but the amount of time that goes into creating communication and delivering it is shockingly low and that needs to change.Personalization is Not Always the Answer: Not all your marketing efforts need to be focused on highly- personalized and individualized content. When you create these segmented materials for individuals, it creates silos amongst stakeholders. This becomes a detriment because they only see their perspective on the platform.Data Moves the Needle: You need to always be thinking about what the data says and allow those insights to drive your decision- making process. Allow the data to tell you what you need to be testing and then cross-check that with your experience.---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 are many parts of the driving experience that we all would love to change. One of them is a challenge most of us have faced — a long commute followed by a hunt for a parking spot.  But what if you could streamline that process? Well, luckily there’s an app for that. Jonathan Sadow is the co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of Scoop, and he’s on a mission to give that time wasted in the car back. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Jonathan discusses why Scoop is the right tool for those looking to get back some time, and he also talks about the importance of trusting what the data tells you as you start to market in a new category.3 Takeaways Stop wasting my time:  Employees no longer want to waste parts of their day commuting to and from the office. When they are commuting, they want to streamline the process because employee frustration is not about the commute itself, it’s about how the time is wasted.Data Chief: Big numbers and data are your best assets. Use those tools to drive your decision-making process instead of focusing on creating nicely designed websites or other marketing assets.Retain Your Talent: Organizations need to place an emphasis on recruiting and retaining their employees. If you aren’t building a culture that entices employees to come and stay, ask yourself what kind of culture you are building and why.---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.

Latane Conant always says it is her job to create a movement, and if you aren’t focusing on that movement, you really are not doing your job. Latane is the Chief Market Officer at 6sense. And yes, you read that right...Market officer. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Latane details why she felt it was time to drop the i-n-g from her title, the importance of the subtle change, and why it matters. Plus, she explains why it’s time to throw MQLs out the window and what the deal is with demand generation.Main TakeawaysTime to Throw those MQLs Out the Window: Instead of going down the usual path of using MQLs to measure your business, focus on the customer experience and prioritizing your current accounts.Taking the I-N-G out of Marketing: When you think about the word marketing, the root word is market. Focus on what is going on in your market and start thinking first how you can improve your in-market numbers.Demand Generating..what?: Once you shift to the notion that MQLs are not worth the time, you are no longer demand generating. Instead, what you begin to notice is you’re capturing demand and then you are engaging with your customers on a more regular basis.---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.

Every day we wake up to scores of emails in our inboxes, but how many of those emails do we actually read versus the amount that end up in our trash folder? How can marketers better differentiate their emails to avoid being lost in the cluttered inbox? Melissa Sargeant is the CMO of Litmus and on this episode of Marketing Trends, she discusses all things email, including strategies to prevent your messages from ending up in those garbage cans and what the best email construction looks like.3 TakeawaysEmail marketing has become an integral part of every marketing department’s overall strategyBe strategic in how you’re pushing your content. Make sure you understand the customers that are engaging with your posts and the ones who are reading your content. If you don’t understand your base, your content will not resonateExperimentation amongst marketing departments is paramount to learning what works and what might work. If you don’t experiment, your department can’t learn---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.

Nick Runyon is an accomplished marketing executive with more than 20 years of experience developing and implementing marketing strategies. His latest endeavor as the CMO of PFL.com might be his biggest undertaking yet. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Nick details how coming into an organization as a CMO with a fresh set of eyes can be beneficial to the growth of the marketing department, why you should never call your customers clients, and why personalized, well-orchestrated experiences across all channels can mean endless possibilities. 3 Takeaways: Prove Your Value: The packages that the department sends out won’t close the deal on their own. It’s important to help customers understand that the experiences you provide are worth their time.Coordinate Across Channels: Customers do not want disjointed messages or experiences. Therefore, when doing multichannel efforts you need to coordinate your messaging and make sure that customers are receiving quality and consistent experiences.Add Value: There are a few things that are proven to add value, and one is personalization. To create a personalized experience, you need to understand your customer and what they face on a day-to-day basis. ---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.

Fear often precedes and preempts the need for change. But when a global pandemic necessitated quick adaptation, marketers around the world sprung into action, enabling new strategies and mobilizing campaigns everywhere. Diaz Nesemoney, the founder and CEO of Jivox, joined Marketing Trends to discuss how the pandemic empowered marketers everywhere to attempt new strategies. Plus he touches on why digital marketing is going up-the-funnel, and how the elimination of cookies will be good for both markets and consumers.3 Takeaways:Balancing Opposing Priorities: The balance between privacy and personalization is an ongoing battle, but it is critical that marketers can achieve both.A New Freedom: The effects of the pandemic have reached far and wide, and almost always people have been impacted negatively. However, there is a small silver lining, which is that marketers have been able to experiment more with new strategiesGoing One-On-One: Recently, brands are shifting away from some of the traditional marketing strategies that have defined the industry. Instead of going one-to-many, more often than not, marketers are looking to focus on one-to-one strategies.---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.