Renegade Marketers Unite

About 5 years ago, Rebecca Stone joined LiveRamp and the CEO said, “I want you to be as sophisticated as possible in advertising, and how you use it.” At the time, the company had two sales development reps, a funnel that wasn’t necessarily feeding leads properly, and a young tech stack and tons of potential, so Rebecca got to work on the company’s digital transformation. Now, the company has a tech stack built from roughly 40 different tools, broken into different operating nodes, a marketing team that supports 20 sales development reps, an in-house data lake, and data analytics models that can accurately predict how marketing spend will translate to revenue—a sort of holy grail for marketing analytics. On this episode, Rebecca shares her journey at LiveRamp, a platform that helps brands get personalized ads in front of users across the web, and how she helped build the well-oiled marketing machine that her department has become.

You might think the first step to asteroid mining is get a rocket ship. Usually you would be right. But on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Sean Regan, Head of Product Marketing at Atlassian, is taking a different approach. To Sean, mining an asteroid speaks more to the idea that a portion of your marketing, or overall company strategy, has to seek out untapped, sometimes hard-to-reach areas, otherwise you’ll just be chipping away at coal in the same mines as everyone else, looking for small, incremental bumps in value. As Sean says about marketing, “if you’re not nervous about it—even a little bit—there’s a pretty good chance it doesn’t matter.” At Atlassian, a software developer aimed at improving collaborative productivity for companies, Sean keeps asteroid mining front-and-center when formulating marketing strategies. On today’s episode, join in as he and Drew talk about how to bring emotion and creativity to science-driven marketing, how product development and marketing is contributing to Atlassian’s 100M monthly active user goals, how to get customers to become brand evangelists, and more.

If you were constructing a bingo board based on the lingo in tech company discussions, you’d have “disrupt” right in the middle square, as it’s basically a freebie. What’s far less common, is seeing a company actually follow through on that disruption, but that’s what SAP has managed to do. Alicia Tillman, CMO, has been hard at work trying to re-envision how SAP presents itself, largely driven by the CEO’s ambitious goal to crack the top 10 most valuable brands in the world. So, Alicia took the reins, set about repositioning the company, and has since seen SAP move from 21st most valuable brand to 17th—their highest growth rate since 2009. Quite a few cylinders have been firing to make this happen: Their commitment to rallying behind a bold, company-wide purpose, their internal buy-in and alignment, their dedication to creativity and storytelling, and of course, good old fashioned hard work, have all played a major role in kicking SAP into the next gear. For more of Alicia’s keys to effective marketing, and to get a closer look at how one of the most valuable companies maintains and builds on its success, check out the full interview.

In the utopian holster of magical marketing bullets, employee advocacy is right up there with viral videos (think Ice Bucket Challenge) and real-time marketing (remember Oreo’s ‘dunking in the dark’ social posts?) But, unlike the last two options, employee advocacy is actually something most companies can execute consistently, assuming they follow a few critical steps. First, you have to run a company that employees actually enjoy working at and feel comfortable advocating for. Second, you need to allow your employees the latitude to speak in their own voice not just the brand’s. And third, it really helps if you have a tech platform that makes it easy for employees to advocate on the brand’s behalf. On this episode, Drew chats with Glenn Gaudet, CEO and founder of GaggleAMP, an employee advocacy enablement tool. In their conversation, Drew and Glenn dive into the issues most marketers face when developing these programs, how to build a culture of eager sharers and the importance of segmenting potential advocates. They also discuss how employee advocacy programs need to align with broader marketing strategies, a few dos and don’ts, and more. Listen in and learn how to get employees caring about sharing.

What the heck is a purpose-driven story statement and why are they so critical to successful marketing? These are the question Drew answers on the first-ever installment of Drew’s Takeaways, a special RTU episode where he distills and discusses key topics and themes of recent interviews. On this episode, Drew breaks down why and how a company can rally behind a powerful, purpose-driven story statement. Through the discussion of two such statements—one that worked, and one that fulfilled its promise—Drew helps shed some light on how a brand can craft a meaningful identity that engages employees, customers, and prospects, while helping drive the brand forward. To hear more about being purpose-driven, and to take a closer look at statements like Family Circle’s Where Family Comes First and SurveyMonkey’s We Power the Curious, tune in!

A true, purpose-driven brand doesn't happen overnight. What it really takes is a goal, specific actions, and at times, a bit of sacrifice. For Bank of the West, their mission meant, in the short-term, potentially leaving money on the table in the name of responsible investment of customers' money, and transparency as to what that money was doing. That initial cost was worth it, as the long-term benefits, like new customers, talent attraction, and differentiation, outweighed any money lost. Now, when high-profile job candidates ask, "Why should I join you? How are you helping the world?" Bank of the West has a great an answer—they're one of very few banks that has restrictive financing policies on things like coal, fracking, and arctic drilling. On this episode of RTU, learn how CMO Ben Stuart and his team helped shape this relatively small financial institution to become a competitive, purpose-driven company with marketing that doesn't feel like an uninvited guest. The discussion touches on crafting a tight strategy, gaining internal buy-in, data analytics, the keys to differentiation, and more on how to craft brilliant marketing.

Payroll tends to be a purely transactional moment between employer and employee, but Gusto is working to shift that to being a "life moment," potentially one of delight (as receiving a paycheck should be!). Effectively reaching their audience while balancing internal alignment, a hefty tech stack, and their mission statement—to create a world where work empowers a better life—can be something of a juggling act. Tolithia Kornweibel, head of marketing, and her team at Gusto, are up to the task. On today's RTU, Drew and Tolithia talk about how to effectively build a demand engine, how to demonstrate value internally to gain support, and how to keep track of your brand through a balance of qualitative and quantitative assessment, all while staying true to a brand mission. Tune in! Connect With Tolithia: On LinkedIn Via gusto.com Connect with Drew http://renegade.com/ On LinkedIn On Twitter On Facebook On Instagram

Silicon Valley is home to thousands of B2B startups—and one of the the newest B2B  unicorns. Brex offers a corporate credit card more built around the ever-changing needs of a startup, and they've been valued at over $1 billion. One of the secrets? Champagne and chocolate. Brex's overall success has tied heavily into their bold marketing, and on this episode of RTU, Chief Sales Officer Sam Blond, and CFO/CMO Michael Tannenbaum, discuss it in detail. From identifying your targets, to orchestrating outdoor campaigns, to in-depth attribution models, Brex has been firing on all cylinders. Listen in to learn more. Be sure to listen. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts - Stitcher - or Podsearch What You’ll Learn How Brex found its current market Brex is located in Silicon Valley, where there are thousands of B2B startups. Brex’s founders stumbled upon the painfulness of managing corporate credit cards when they could not get a credit card for one of their own new business. Their experience demonstrated a business opportunity and a marketplace in the niche of corporate cards for startups. Typically, founders of startups had to personally guarantee a corporate card. Even with millions of dollars in the bank, these businesses would have 20k-30k spending limits placed on them that were nowhere high enough to support the spending of a company. Brex instead uses businesses bank accounts and bank activity to determine the spending limits on corporate cards. Michael and Sam point out that startups move and grow too quickly to have spending limits determined on a yearly basis, so Brex is constantly evaluating what a business needs and what limits will be. Their business model has resonated especially with tech startups and B2B businesses in Silicon Valley. Why outdoor marketing works To launch its company, Brex turned to outdoor marketing. With already 100 clients prior to launch, Brex knew it had a good story to tell with a large impact for startups. They wanted to maximize the one time impact of the company’s launch. With a highly targeted market of startups concentrated in the San Francisco area, they purchased as much outdoor inventory as they could. Brex flooded the market with billboards informing the public that they were the first corporate credit card for startups. Outdoor marketing allowed them to go broader and reach a larger number of people. Brex’s unique email campaign Prior to working with Brex, Sam had lots of experiencing testing outbound email copy. For Brex’s unique email campaign, they coupled creative email copy with Brazilian chocolates or champagne. Brex was able to research companies that seemed like a good fit for their corporate card. Then, they targeted specific CFO’s in the Bay area to receive these gifts, and then an email from Brex shortly after. There was a combination of these emails and outdoor marketing to continue to get the word out there that there was an alternative to the current idea of a corporate credit card. Timeline [2:23] Who Sam and Michael are [10:35] How Brex found this viable market [15:28] Why Brex chose to use outdoor to launch its product [18:02] The “Brex It” message [22:45] Outdoor correlation to measurable results [25:09] How’s Brex’s email campaigns are different (and successful) [28:45] Viable CPA and the lifetime value per customer Connect With Michael Tannenbaum & Sam Blond: Connect with Michael Tannenbaum on LinkedIn Connect with Sam Blond on LinkedIn Resources & People Mentioned www.Brex.com Connect with Drew http://renegade.com/ On LinkedIn On Twitter On Facebook On Instagram

Perhaps Kathy Button Bell’s title should change from “Chief Marketing Officer” to “Chief Complexity Reduction Officer”—after all, she’s been simplifying things at Emerson Electric for over 20 years. Over that time, marketing has become complex due to the advent of new tools and the increased precision of targeting, among other things, but sometimes marketers need to shift their priorities towards making things easy to understand. On this episode of RTU, Kathy and Drew discuss unnecessary complexity, employee engagement, the importance of—and keys to—longevity in marketing, and perhaps most importantly, how to keep your marketing brave, human, and uncluttered. You won’t want to miss Kathy’s insights! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts - Stitcher - or Podsearch What You’ll Learn How to stay fresh as a tenured CMO In a world where there is massive CMO turnover, Kathy Button Bell has not just survived for 20 years as CMO at Emerson, but she has thrived! She digs in and stays at one place by working on culture and driving it in a positive direction. She stays fresh in her job by being transparent. The world is pushing her to change every day, and she says to not be afraid of this change but to run with it! Marketing today has become overly complicated with all sorts of new channels, but it's not becoming more effective as a whole. Return to your main purpose. Instead of advertising your way to greatness, you have to earn your way to greatness. Emerson’s “We See” Marketing Campaign Emerson launched its “We See” marketing campaign for its 125th anniversary. This campaign started internally with videos, banners, and information going first to employees. This campaign plays on Emerson’s core brand idea: Consider It Solved. Focussed on video advertising, it highlights the warmth and care from Emerson by showing how they enable life-saving drugs to be made faster and allow quicker access to natural gas. Kathy explains that they chose to go broad with this campaign to drive the relevancy of their business and remind people who they are! With this campaign, she has set the table for other businesses and created an umbrella for the campaign to be stretched and applied locally. 2 dos and a don’t for other CMOs Kathy Button Bell shares her biggest dos and don’ts for other CMOs. She says to be the Chief Complexity Reduction Officer. Meaning, a great CMO should reduce complexity in an organization and make others’ jobs easier. A great CMO should also reduce complexity externally by creating messaging that is simple and understandable. Secondly, she shares that CMO’s should always do the thing that is a little unexpected to keep people’s attention. For example, when Emerson wanted to create a video on its core values, instead of filming its employees talking about values, the children of employees were filmed! A small change such as this keeps people interested. Kathy says that as a CMO, you should never be defensive. Defensiveness is the enemy and makes you inauthentic. Timeline [2:01] Who is Kathy Button Bell [3:47] How she dug in and stayed at one place as a CMO [11:24] Living out her moto: Be Brave and Have Fun! [18:48] How to stay fresh when you’ve been in the same job [22:12] Emerson Electric’s new iteration of a campaign [28:21] Kathy Button Bell’s guiding principles [31:30] Measuring the success of the “We See” campaign [34:16] Two dos and a don’t for other CMOs Connect With Guest: Kathy Button Bell’s Bioon Emerson’s Website Connect with Kathy Button Bell on LinkedIn Follow Kathy Button Bell on Twitter Follow Kathy Button Bell on Facebook Resources & People Mentioned Video: Emerson Kids Website: Emerson.com Connect with Drew http://renegade.com/ On LinkedIn On Twitter On Facebook On Instagram

Call an Uber, order from Amazon, book a hotel… You can do all of these things instantly—even at 4 AM. People today want commodities quickly and with round the clock access. Believe it or not, your B2B buyers are also people, and they probably want the same. Now, most businesses can’t man their websites 24/7 (unless you’re shelling out for night shift employees or lots of coffee)—this is where the chatbot comes in. But there’s an art to the bot—they shouldn’t replace humans, but should help facilitate conversations with customers. Proper use can result in tremendous boost to lead generation, and can radically speed up a company’s growth. Dave Gerhardt, co-author of Conversational Marketing and VP of Marketing at Drift, joined RTU for a chatbot chat, and really digs into the value, and ideal usage, of these automated critters. Beyond that, Dave touches on a few broader subjects, including how marketing efforts need to be rooted in empathy and humanity. After all, you’ll always be marketing to people. Listen in! You’ll want to hear about why businesses big and small can benefit from chatbots! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts - Stitcher - or Podsearch What You’ll Learn Conversational marketing: why you should nix your lead form When Drift nixed its own lead form, they did so to teach the market about conversational marketing! Drift needed to practice what it preached. Drift utilizes bots to capture leads. Instead of a form submission, there is a conversation with a potential customer. Dave shares that a form is binary while a chatbot allows a conversation to occur. Today’s technology is so good that from a single email address, your company can get ample information. Because of this, companies should feel free to focus on the conversation. Why chatbots? Chatbots work 24/7. You can get leads while you are sleeping, and no matter when a customer is on your website, they can get help. Consumers do not want to wait for information, and bots allow access to it at any time. Humans are used to instant gratification, and it has been proven that if you can respond to a new lead in 5 minutes, the chances of getting into contact with them goes up 10x. Astonishingly, over 90% of B2B companies are not replying within 5 minutes. But, a bot service can help them do just that! Your company can look to chatbots to facilitate conversations as a helper of humans. The need for empathy in sales conversations Dave defines marketing as helping people to buy, and empathy as the ability to put yourself in others’ shoes. He explains that it is necessary to have empathy in good sales conversations. It changes how you approach sales by trying to understand how to best help the customer by understanding their point of view. It is a give-to-get economy, so if you want to build trust, you must give! Bots can answer questions and get information to buyers. Chatbots are a great way to give customers back their time, and time is one of the most valuable commodities. Timeline [2:40] Get to know Dave, and why he was first attracted to Drift [6:15] Information from his book, ConversationalMarketing [11:11] Is there every information on a website worth gating? [14:03] Why chatbots [20:20] Embedding a calendar-like function to a chatbot [25:20] The point of moving from a chatbot to livechat [28:16] Why speed matters! [31:37] The importance of empathy in sales conversations [35:40] Using chatbots for customer service and post sales [39:35] CQL’s and why they will save the world Connect With Dave Gerhardt: Connect with Dave Gerhardt on LinkedIn Follow Dave Gerhardt on Twitter Resources & People Mentioned Book: Dave Gerhardt’s Conversational Marketing Connect with Drew http://renegade.com/ On LinkedIn On Twitter On Facebook On Instagram