Modern Marketing Engine podcast hosted by Bernie Borges

The Modern Marketing Engine podcast hosted by Bernie Borges is the podcast for the modern marketer who wants to hear from their peers in the trenches and the occasional analyst or rock-star-influencer sharing strategies and tactics about what’s working in modern marketing. Show notes are available at http://bit.ly/MME-show

My B2B Podcasting Strategy 05/27/2021

My B2B Podcasting Strategy Social audio has become very popular recently with the advent of Clubhouse. According to 15% of social media users 18+ say they have used Clubhouse. Podcasting is a form of social audio. And, it continues to grow as a content channel. According to , which began tracking audio consumption in 2014, podcasting’s share of all audio listening is now 6% of consumption. This level marks an all-time high for podcasting, up from 2% in 2014. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have launched or plan to launch social audio functionalities. I’ve had a love affair with podcasting for nearly 10 years. In fact, I listen to many podcasts. MME is my second podcast. My first podcast ran for 49 episodes. I co-hosted it with a buddy of mine. We bantered about digital marketing topics. The big difference between my first podcast and my second podcast is that I didn’t have a strategy with my first podcast. I had fun recording them. But, there was no strategy. We just horsed around, recorded them and published them hoping something good would come of them. In truth, some good did come from the first podcast. But, we all know that hope is not a strategy, right? So, what is my B2B podcast strategy? My strategy is relationship building. I set out to build relationships with marketing executives working at B2B brands. The method is simple: I provide a platform to feature marketing executives. I interview each guest and share their experience and wisdom with my audience. This relationship-building strategy in podcasting has a business benefit. First, it starts with a human connection. I genuinely try to connect with each of the guests I’ve had on the podcast. I don’t mean just connect on LinkedIn. I mean, I want to make an authentic human connection with each guest. So, what’s the benefit of this relationship building? Life is all about relationships. People do business with people they know, like and trust and that is relationship-based. Some have become friends. And, some of my guests have become clients of Vengreso. And, in some cases I was able to offer something of value to my guest in the relationship whether it’s an introduction to someone or an endorsement or whatever. The purpose of the MME podcast is for me to build relationships with marketing executives at B2B brands – it’s that simple. And, if you’re thinking this strategy is over simplified, you’re right because it doesn’t need to be more complicated than building authentic relationships with no more agenda than that. However, there is something I do behind the scenes that works really well for this relationship-building strategy. Be sure to listen to the whole episode to learn what it is. An Important Announcement This episode is the last one of the MME podcast. The reason is that I’ve accepted a new opportunity at a different company and the Vengreso leadership team has decided to sunset the MME podcast. Vengreso has a sales-centric podcast called the Modern Selling Podcast, hosted by Vengreso’s founder and CEO, MMJr. He’s published more than 175 episodes at the time of this recording. It’s a wildly popular podcast and you and or your sales leader at your company should definitely check it out. Additionally, Vengreso has a live show called the Modern Sales Mastery show, which is broadcast live every Friday at 11:30 am ET. I tell all about my journey at Vengreso and my next steps in a . Finally, I want to thank you, for listening to the MME podcast. I TRULY hope I’ve delivered value to you through the modern marketers I’ve interviewed on this show. It has been a privilege. /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/19252064

B2B Influencer Marketing for the Entire Customer Journey 05/19/2021

B2B Influencer Marketing for the Entire Customer Journey B2B influencer marketing is not the same as it is in B2C, where you have celebrities like top athletes and Hollywood actors endorse a brand and post on Instagram about it. B2B marketing leaders can leverage industry influencers in their marketing efforts with a solid plan. That is the topic of conversation with my guest in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, , SVP of Marketing at Tipalti. Amisha is a groundbreaking B2B innovator with deep marketing and communications expertise across multiple industries and geos. She was recognized in PR Week’s Women to Watch 2020, Top 50 Influence Marketer by Talking Influence and Top Digital Marketer on LinkedIn. Amisha is also an accomplished speaker at multiple industry conferences including Content Marketing World, MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum, and many others. Listen to our conversation to learn how to find and work with B2B influencers. What is a B2B Influencer? Influencer marketing is the practice of engaging internal influencers at your company or industry who are experts, analysts, bloggers or public speakers who have active networks of influence. They can influence their audiences to help you achieve your business goals. “It's about people,” Amisha says, “it's about community. B2B influencers aren't celebrities, but they could be celebrities in the business world. They've written books, some of them are even academics.” Start by asking yourself: Whose audience do you want to reach? Why do you want to reach them? What are you trying to convey and what is the outcome that you hope to achieve by working with influencers? How to Find B2B Influencers Amisha says there is definitely a process to identifying and selecting influencers. There are specific tools you can use, but you can start by using Google and search for the top influencers in your industry. Then use LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Clubhouse. “It just depends who you're trying to reach and how you would like to relate to your audience.” Amisha says. “You have to find out where your audience is and who they're listening to and who they’re influenced by. Look at the conferences, third-party associations and other places where people are speaking, you'll start seeing some names popping up.” Then you have to look deeper at the content these people are sharing and the level of engagement their content has. Once you have a list of potential influencers, you should assess which ones can help you achieve your goals in a mutually beneficial relationship. Amisha says you should look at influencer marketing as a holistic practice that you can apply across the entire customer journey. For example, can you get some good top funnel content? Can you create some demand? Can you create a community of advocates? “Once you find folks that are really influencing your audience, reach out to a couple of influencers, start talking to them, see if they’d like to work with you. Say, ‘we're thinking about doing this upcoming campaign, what do you think?’ And have a conversation, because they may tell you, ‘I don't think that's going to work for my audience.’ That will help you frame up your campaign and make it even better than what it is.” Start with top of the funnel activities, like a podcast, to create awareness with their audience. Then you can go into demand generation content like co-authored ebooks or a webinar series where people are willing to give you their information. “There are some influencers who are very speaker heavy and they don't do long form content. They are thought leaders and they do more podcasts. That's why you have a group of influencers. You're going to have some people that are going to do top funnel and events and some people who are great speakers and great on video. There are some people who are great only in voice and folks that do longer form content.” Over time some influencers can become advocates. This happens when they keep talking about your brand even when not taking part in your marketing campaign, because they consider your content to be of value to their audience. Listen to episode 299 for specific ideas of what you can do when working with an influencer and some of the pillars and best practices for co-creating content and sponsored content. Finally, Amisha reminds us that customers can be our best influencers, so we should take care of them. /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/19155071

How Internal Communication Drives Marketing ROI 04/21/2021

How Internal Communication Drives Marketing ROI Most CMOs favor external communications (, content marketing, etc.) over internal communications. Why? Because these external activities seem to create more measurable ROI. However, with the modern workforce internal communications are now more important than ever to motivate and activate people within the organization to be a channel of communication. My guest in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast, Mark Derks, has great insights about how much effort marketing should put into internal communications. Mark is the CMO at BlueGrace Logistics. Founded in 2009, BlueGrace Logistics is one of the fastest growing leaders of transportation management services in North America. As a full service third party logistics provider (3PL), BlueGrace helps businesses manage their freight spend through industry-leading technology, high-level freight carrier relationships and overall understanding of the complex $750 Billion U.S. freight industry. Listen to our conversation to learn the pros and cons of allocating resources to internal communications versus external communications. Five Pillars to Develop a Profitable Internal Communications Strategy 1. Develop your strategy/goals. Any successful program must identify the goals it is trying to achieve and the strategy and tactics to get there. Ask yourself these questions about your internal communications: Is it going to be multi-touch? How frequently will I communicate to the organization? At what velocity will information be shared? Some examples of goals are: Having 100% of your internal resources know and being able to recite your mission, vision and values. Having your internal resources know your company revenue projections and targets and your gross profit targets. “I think that our own internal resources and our own people are a marketing channel for the company,” Mark says. “You should build a strategy around and goals around things that bring strong results. So there has to be a metric if you're going to engage in a robust internal comms plan. What are the key factors to success and what are the metrics that you as an organization are going to agree on that you can either identify as a success or identify those gaps where you need to continue to refine and improve.” 2. Mission/Vision/Values Mark says that case studies have shown, organizations who have stated missions, visions and that drive stated values are higher performing than businesses that do not, because they build a strong culture around those pillars. “We're empowering our employees to share public information that they've learned through internal communications to our external customers,” Mark says. “And to be really successful, you have to make it easily accessible to all employees. We need to make it available in multiple places, on our website, in our hallways and on the signage and our offices.” 3. “How does my job contribute to the company’s success?” “We have to look at our organizations where every employee adds value and it's our job through internal communications to tell them how they do that, to make sure that they know how their specific job leads to company growth.” Highly engaged employees are those that understand how their contributions help the company grow. And when they know that, they become more creative, more productive, more innovative, and they're more successful in their own professional goals and what they're trying to do. 4. Content Content is at the intersection of external communications and internal comms, sharing content between teams and channels. Not all internal communications can go externally, but almost all external communications can be shared internally. You can take the content that you share with your customers, partners, suppliers and share it with your internal teams through an . Mark says that will make them better service providers, better salespeople, better marketers. Listen to the whole episode to learn some great ideas on how to repurpose marketing content for internal comms. 5. How does the CMO lead the internal communication strategy? “Make sure you have a solid strategy and stated goals that you're pursuing and that everybody knows,” Mark says. “So when we measure our efforts we can clearly come back and see if we've been meeting our goals. So be a leader of strategy, focus on what's important, communicate that strategy, clearly measure the impact and ROI.” As the CMO you don't do this by yourself. “You're a leader, but you have teams, so consider allocating head count as a resource to internal communications. Consider adding resources around culture and standing up things like diversity, equity and inclusion programs within your company. Make sure that you're communicating critical attributes of your ideal customer profile.” Your employees are one of our best external marketing channels, but they're only good if they have internal comms that have educated them on messaging, target customer profile, new products, new customers, changes within the organization, mission, vision, and values. Don’t miss this episode to learn more about finding a balance between external and internal communications and how to develop a profitable strategy. /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/18799475

Planning the Marketing Strategy for a Global Brand 04/14/2021

Planning the Marketing Strategy for a Global Brand How would you plan the marketing strategy for a new brand? What are some factors that marketing leaders should take into consideration when rolling out a new product? That is the topic of conversation of this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast, with my guest . Armen is the CMO at RSA Fraud & Risk Intelligence, which is part of the larger RSA Security, a 38-year old global brand. As his division expanded and with more revenue and customers around the globe, they decided to transform the Fraud & Risk Intelligence division into a stand-alone business. As the CMO, Armen was responsible for creating and implementing the marketing strategy for this new business unit. Listen to the episode to learn how he did it and some key lessons you can implement in your own organization. Creating a Marketing Strategy 1. Assemble a Team “I'm spending a lot of time on organizational design,” Armen says. “I'm working very closely with the HR leader for this business and really plotting up the next three years and the type of organization I need to assemble.” What are the roles you need and what is the hiring priority? Listen to find out. 2. Develop the brand “Second, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about the brand, knowing that we are moving from a product portfolio within the broader RFA family into a more independent business with its own identity. How we describe that business, what we call it, how the product is positioned.” Armen and his team decided to create a new name while taking advantage of the history of its parent company. However, the buyer persona of the new company is different from the persona of RSA Security, which created new challenges. To navigate the complexities of rebranding a global company, Armen hired an external agency to help create a new website and sales collateral pieces. 3. Content Strategy “We have a product called Fraud Action, and that is our risk intelligence team,” he says. “So this is actually the team that investigates the dark web, goes deep undercover and understands the organized crime organizations around the world, uncovering very important and interesting insights. So we take those insights and we actually package those up as services.” This primary research is the fuel for great thought leadership, so they publish Quarterly Trends Reports from the insights, blog posts and a podcast. “Every CMO should have a content strategy. We have 3 or 4 anchor pieces that are evergreen, that we are always refreshing, always publishing, and our Director of Content Strategy is largely accountable and responsible for keeping that pipeline of great content flowing.” Listen to the whole episode to learn about the challenges Armen has faced during this transformation, including organizationals challenges, managing finite resources, prioritizing areas of focus and issues with having a global presence (language and privacy issues). /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/18713579

Why Analytics is a Must in Account-Based Marketing 03/31/2021

Why Analytics is a Must in Account-Based Marketing How do you formulate an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy? How do you decide which accounts to target? And what is the role of analytics in ABM planning? That is the topic of this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast with my guest, Chris Rack, President at PureB2B. PureB2B leverages a database of B2B decision-makers in combination with their predictive analytics technology, to provide a full suite of solutions that help their clients meet their specific B2B demand generation sales and marketing revenue goals. Listen to this episode to learn how to plan a successful ABM strategy. Building Your ABM List Who is responsible for creating the ABM list? Marketing or sales? Chris says it should be a very collaborative approach, “taking a data approach and combining thought and feedback from both leaders, frontline sellers, sales leaders and front line marketers to come up with a real collaborative list.” Marketing must go through a process of digital marketing transformation to rely on data and analytics to build a list of target accounts. Instead of just going for the larger enterprise clients out there, marketers should start by looking at their CRM data to see: Who is buying with the highest frequency Who are the prospects answering sales calls Who is engaging with your website Who is engaging with your emails Which gates have the highest conversions on your website Once you have that list, start filtering them by: Job title Company size Geo Industry Buyer personas Roles Level Influencers Buying history Public/private All of the above are analytics that marketers can use to determine which accounts to target using internal data. Using Analytics Data Now, there are also external analytics or predictive indicators marketers can use, with some tech tools available. However, Chris says, the intent signals from these tools are not designed to identify when people are ready to buy. “Only Google knows that,” Chris says. External analytics can identify when a buyer has a problem they need to solve, based on their content consumption triggers as well as public data such as job board postings. For example, certain tools can identify companies who are consuming content across topics that are related to the solutions you offer, either content on your own website or other websites. If you want to know when a customer is “in market,” your first task is to know the ICP and then partner with analytics providers to acquire intent data. Chris says that companies of all sizes have access to these analytics tools, but large companies have more data to process from their CRM and many more products to sell requiring more analytics to uncover intent signals compared to smaller companies. There are also many analytics companies as a service who can help smaller companies analyze data to identify buyer intent. Chris says that in a startup scenario his first hire would be a Rev Ops person to understand their buyers and to select the tools needed to create a successful ABM target list. Listen to the whole episode to learn more about using analytics and in your account-based marketing plan. /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/18539189

Marketing’s Role in the Modern Sales Experience 03/17/2021

Marketing’s Role in the Modern Sales Experience B2B buyers have changed dramatically, especially during COVID. Consider these three recent trends, for example: B2B buyers are looking critically at any opportunity that comes to them, whether it comes from marketing content or from a sales conversation. B2B buyers are giving less access to sales people and traditional conversations. In fact, 83% of the buyer journey does not include a sales rep. B2B buyers place a greater priority on perspective and recommendations from people who aren't sales people, from their peers and from subject matter experts via content marketing. So, as marketers, how do we approach the modern buyer? That is the topic of conversation in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine with my guest, , Sr. VP Marketing at . Listen as Spencer unpacks marketing’s role in the modern sales experience. The 3 Pillars of the Modern Sales Experience 1. Role of messaging to the buyer “I think it's really critical for B2B marketers to think about how we are interacting with today's buyer,” Spencer says, “who is putting more scrutiny on their decisions, who's giving less access to traditional channels for education and who is listening to so many other sources.” Spencer believes that B2B marketers should use the three-act structure of classic playwriting to engage with buyers. Act one is about introducing and building the understanding of the various characters, and introducing the problem those characters are going to face. “In act one of the messages we create, we need to establish our credibility, why we have a perspective or a point of view about that customer’s business and we need to introduce a problem in their business that we're going to have a perspective or point of view on.” Act two is the journey or the struggle. In act two of the marketing message, we have to introduce the status quo or the current actions that the customer is taking. “Those actions are costing them something in rational and emotional ways, and we need to explore that to build some motivation.” And act three is the solution. We must suggest the next steps they need to take and connect that to our differentiators or our solution. So, what is marketing’s role in developing this narrative? Spencer says marketing should not create this message by itself. “It really is a cross-functional group that needs to come together to develop that narrative and we'd recommend marketing play a key role in that. But you also need to get the feedback of sales people who will ultimately be delivering that narrative as part of a conversation. You need to make sure that product is involved in representing the end part of that narrative where you do talk about the solution.” Think about the story you want to tell to the market and then “atomize” it. That means telling the story in bite-size content throughout your website, social media posts, sales conversations, pitch books and other channels. Listen to the whole episode to learn the three types of content you must use: Spark, Introduce, and Confront. 2. Foundational skills for sales to deliver the message Research reveals that buyers are not satisfied with the experience that sellers create in the remote selling environment. Spencer says that it is on the shoulders of salespeople to improve that experience, to get better at presenting information, listening, using silence to build constructive tension more effectively, and having more engaging virtual experiences with customers. However, marketing must look at the narrative and give sellers compelling content to bring to the conversation. In essence, sellers need to: Address the unique perspective they have of the customer’s business Express what that perspective means to their business And marketers can help with more confront tools, with bite-size content for natural conversation and making it easy for sellers to create conversation. “If you can build a confront tool that can get that buyer or that buying group to really evaluate themselves and capture that data and you put that in the hands of your sales people, then they're not having to do that confront exercise on their own. They can take the output of that exercise and have a powerful conversation with the buyer around that output.” Don’t miss this episode to learn more about creating great sales messaging for sellers. 3. Arming sellers with the right content for the right time Buyers trust others in their network more than sellers. In fact, only 12% of buyers rank sellers as top trusted resources. That’s why modern sales must be done through advocates of mobilizers. Marketers have to build content not only for their sellers to use, but that B2B customers can understand and then use within their organizations to build consensus. “It has to be clear,” Spencer says. “It has to be defensible. So when they get those questions and objections, they can easily handle those because they have the resources and the information they need to be able to defend the narrative, the concept, the insight that you've presented to them.” Sellers need to identify those individuals and pass that content to them at the right moments so they can use it in consensus-building. Sales enablement tools will help teams to know what information and when it should be used to interact with customers. Listen to our conversation to learn how to measure the efficacy of your marketing content in sales conversations. /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/18355790

The Importance of Customer Data Marketing for Modern Marketers 03/10/2021

The Importance of Customer Data Marketing for Modern Marketers Marketing professionals need to have a strong grip on data. These uncertain times have inspired marketers to rely less on qualitative insights and more on data-driven insights. This is what my guest realized during 2020. Paul Cowan, CMO at FreshBooks, joins me in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast to talk about why they are doubling down on customer data marketing in 2021. FreshBooks serves mainly the small business owner segment with easy-to-use accounting software. As many organizations, the pandemic affected their business initially but it then bounced back and they started to experience growth in 2020. So, they decided to invest in a direct sales force, target international markets and focus on demand generation to accelerate growth. Join our conversation to discover how you can use customer data in your own marketing organization. Leveraging Customer Data Marketing Paul says that after 15 years of operations, FreshBooks realized they were sitting on a lot of data they had not previously leveraged. For instance, they had a tremendous amount of invoice and expense data within the SMB universe ― 15 years of historical data on how small businesses have either created revenue or spent their money. For example, looking at the data, they discovered some interesting trends and published a report on the impact that Covid had on women business owners and how it took them longer to recover than their male counterparts in many different industries. “When we talk about the opportunity in data marketing,” Paul says, “we're sitting on this huge resource to be able to turn that to our customers or to prospects in the industry in general and say hey, here's how your business should be performing, here are all the historical norms that you should be expecting your business to do.” Besides reports on specific trends, FreshBooks has created gated microsites with specific information related to particular verticals and industries. “People can go through and see how their vertical looks, how it has changed and be able to drive insights into their business so it helps them with their planning and then eventually, we all assume that it's going to then help drive activity back to us and convert through the funnel.” This focus on content marketing using data has been driving leads for FreshBooks. Furthermore, data on their engagement with the content brings even more insights on their customers that then they can use to improve their marketing efforts. “The cool thing is that it's like this virtuous data circle where it all started with knowing something about our customer and then bringing other people in and then progressively knowing more about them because they engage with customer data. We'll bring them all through and then at the end of it all it helps us improve our overall funnel efficacy and in our conversion rates overall.” We also discussed the dynamics of the current marketing team and why it is important for marketers to understand data analytics and the sales process. Listen to this episode to learn more about how FreshBooks is using customer data to improve marketing and how they incorporate the feedback from their sales teams. /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/18238211

Mission-Driven Marketing and Sales 02/24/2021

Mission-Driven Marketing and Sales The pandemic hit just about every industry hard and many companies are still trying to recover. That’s why stories of B2B companies helping out others around them are so encouraging. And I’m excited to bring you one such story in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast. My guest is , CMO at , a cloud-based contact center, unified communications and artificial intelligence software provider. Customers use their contact center software to scale and improve their customer support experience. Traditionally, customer support was limited to call centers, which involved agents receiving phone calls. But today they're really contact centers because when people reach out for service or support or to even purchase online, they use many different channels, not just the phone. “We like to say we're the best solution for those companies who are customer-obsessed,” says Kathie. Listen to this episode to discover how Talkdesk became a mission-driven organization during the Covid crisis. Mission Driven Marketing in Response to Crisis At the start of 2020, Talkdesk had plans to launch 20 new products. But then, Covid happened. “It was a fun marketing campaign idea,” Kathie says. “But the world had shifted, what was important to people had really shifted. So we pulled together a group of people across the company to say, what can we do to help? You know, we said we're customer obsessed, so we want to figure out, what can we do to help our customers, other companies and the community at large?” As a result, Talkdesk revisited their 20 in 2020, and launched a program called Business Continuity, with 12 of the original 20 offers. Pre-Covid, 5% of the workforce in the US worked in a contact center, and 85% of them worked on-premises. That meant that many organizations would face a challenge to get their employees remote and safe. “In a contact center, they're sitting three feet apart,” Kathie says. “There are hundreds or thousands of people in a room making calls or answering emails. So this was a pretty big issue for companies. How do I get my employees out of the building? And how do I still maintain productivity for my business?” They rolled out their strategy in the following three phases. Phase 1: Get Remote The first challenge was to get employees remote and fast. They launched this offer on March 4th, helping clients get remote in only 24 hours, and offered the service for free to industries like travel and hospitality. Not only that, but they launched Mobile, to allow employees to connect from their phones. Phase 2 : Get Productive By March 21, Talkdesk began phase 2, to get employees productive and leverage AI and training to help not only their clients, but people in the community. In this phase, Talkdesk launched a new gig economy platform, called CX Talent, which trained people to become certified agents or supervisors in a matter of hours and then paired them with companies looking for agents. “This was one way we could really help not only our customers who needed to hire agents quickly in remote locations who are trained, but also to help people out in the world who all of a sudden were displaced and didn't have a form of income.” Phase 3: Permanent Remote In the summer, Talkdesk began thinking about the future of their clients, anticipating there would be a new normal, where remote working could be permanent. So on July 1st, they launched phase 3 with remote management solutions and solutions against fraud and for authentication. This is now a reality, where is the norm and our customers are working from home. “We're still in Phase 3,” Kathie says. “Companies today are still making the decision on what their contact centers will look like in the future. I believe most will be hybrid. But some people are going back into offices and we'll have people working in buildings again.” The Impact on Marketing and Sales The marketing team at Talkdesk was doing full-throttle marketing at this time, educating analysts, sending out press releases, raising awareness through thought leadership and blogs. “There was no playbook for Covid for any marketer,” Kathie says. “But we really found that people had a huge appetite for content. So we spent a lot of time writing content to help companies and people understand what's happening, the impact on the business and how we could help them continue to survive and hopefully thrive in this environment. So full-funnel marketing across every offer is we brought to market.” Kathie says that the sales team at Talkdesk really embraced the challenge of offering free services and giving back to the community. “This is why I talk about this as being mission-driven,” she says, “the way that we could help people, the way that we could help the community, the way that we could help companies. I think everyone at Talkdesk rallied behind that.” Listen to this episode to learn more about what Talkdesk is continuing to do in phase 3 and innovating in driven-mission marketing. /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/18067268

The Future of B2B Buying and Selling 02/17/2021

The Future of B2B Buying and Selling What is the future of buying and selling? How do marketing and sales approach digital native decision-makers? That is the topic of this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine with my guest, . Dave is the Chief Strategy Officer, XANT, where he divides his time between corporate development, corporate strategy, and operational strategy. He is also a board member of Forrester Research Inc. since 2017. This episode was inspired by two articles that Dave published on LinkedIn: Join us in this conversation to learn why marketers must understand the . The Journey of the Modern Buyer Both marketers and sellers must be aware of the changes to their buyer personas in the past year. Today, our buyers are sitting in their living room, the people who are signing purchase orders are at home, almost nobody is at an office. That means that almost everyone involved in the decision process is using digital channels to research potential suppliers. Dave says the modern buyer is a digital native. That means that: They will do independent research online about our products and our competitors They don’t like to fill out forms so they will rely on ungated content They trust their network and will ask other people for recommendations and experiences After the steps described above, the buyer is now 60% to 70% of their way towards understanding their options. “The remaining amount of her journey,” Dave says, “she's going to have to do collaboratively with the sales team. But her silent partner during that 70% of her journey was our marketing team. Not that they were talking to her, but they were publishing and orchestrating and curating a learning journey that was either easy to use and therefore she really leaned into it or is less easy to use and therefore she learned from our competitor.” Marketing needs to focus on providing a great experience during the modern buyer’s journey, even if it means ungating content. Dave says that instead of collecting information through forms, marketers can use technology like intent signals. This technology tracks searches from domains to know when people from certain companies are searching for specific terms related to your solutions. Then it can flag your CRM so you can do outreach to existing contacts from those companies. The Modern Seller In the US, 56% of the B2B sales force were field sellers. But with now being the norm, those sellers are either out of a job or doing something different. And the truth is that buyers like the new normal and don’t want to go back to the old field sales model. “The buyer doesn't want protracted exchanges with the salesperson,” Dave says. “They don't want to retreat again from acquiring information digitally. They don't want us to force them into the conference room to have a stakeholder meeting with a white board. They actually like the way it's working right now and it's better for everybody. If we're honest with ourselves as salespeople, we're more efficient. If we're not spending our time navigating airports and trains and cabs and Ubers and instead we're on the job of selling most of our time. So it's not going back. We have to figure out how to lean into the future and do it faster than our competition.” Sales leaders must now focus on modernizing their sales teams with the five modern seller attributes: Fast (answering to their messages quickly) Always-online (engage the buyer when they want to engage) Customer-centric (being empathetic, sympathetic and helpful) Content-rich (adding value with information that is helpful to the buyer) Technology-enabled (it's not just Zoom and LinkedIn but the entire marketing and tech stack, including a CRM and sales prospecting tools) “It's all about being where the buyer is and being a resource to the buyer,” Dave says. Don’t miss this episode to hear some great insights from Dave about the role of the modern seller. /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/17971232

Shifting the Conversation of Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace 02/10/2021

Shifting the Conversation of Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace This is a different, but very special, episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast. My guest is Hang Black, VP, Revenue Enablement, Juniper Networks and I invited her to talk about her new book, . This book has the potential to be life-changing for some. Hang says the idea for this book was in her head for a decade. It not only describes Hang’s experience as a Vietnamese immigrant to the United States, but also deals with important issues of in the workplace. So don’t miss our fascinating conversation about inclusion, diversity and access from a perspective you haven’t seen before. Tokenism Although Hang was raised in a diverse culture, she really never felt included or excluded. As an Asian, she wasn’t shunned from the black community when growing up, but neither was she fully embraced -- and the same thing happened within the white community. “One of the reasons I wrote the book was there's a lot of conversation about diversity and inclusion,” Hang says, “but it's an incomplete conversation without a discussion about access.” Whether it’s women or ethnic minorities, more and more people are gaining access to leadership roles in the workplace. Nonetheless, they may still be a minority. Hang explains that minorities are the smaller population in the room. However, when there is only one person of a minority group at the table, that person may feel that she got a token seat and will try to hold onto that position at all costs --unintentionally excluding others. This is known as the Queen Bee syndrome. Hang thinks this needs to change. “I never ever proposed a revolution,” she says. “I prefer Evolution. And that's where I'm trying to have these very frank conversations because the most heartbreaking thing for me is to see minorities who bemoan injustice, turn around and do the same to other minorities behind them.” Building Access The reality is that sometimes a person from a minority is invited to the table because there was a diversity initiative. “So the question is,” Hang says, “once you get to the table, do you have a voice? Do you have your role? Do you know what your goal is at the table? Are you sitting, are you serving or are you speaking? They’re all very different things.” Access is not just about getting to the table, but once you get there, how much voice are you allowed to have? And if you don't have a voice, how do you gain that voice? Hang’s experience is that there will always come a point in a person’s career where they will need to find a person who will give them access to opportunities where meritocracy is not enough. “Meritocracy works for a while, it works through the individual contributor ranks. But as you move up, you need to find a person who will show you the secret door and give you the secret code. That's what access is.” The people who will help others move along the journey to the top are a combination of mentors, sponsors and allies. Be sure to listen to the whole episode to learn the difference and how to identify them. Intentional Evolution Hang says that there needs to be an intentional evolution in the conversation about diversity and inclusion. That means we need to get to a point where it is not an issue, but it just happens. And it all begins with leadership. “It's so important to ensure that leaders not only talk the talk, but they walk the walk,” Hang says. “Every executive has about three to five people in their closest circle. In that circle, do they have any one that represents diversity? Even if it's just one. There are many categories of diversity: age, tenure, religion, gender, all of that stuff. And if they don't, my challenge to leaders is: are you willing to find someone, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it goes into a little bit of a lower rank than you're used to, because there have not been enough women and minorities promoted?” Embrace Your Edge Hang wrote Embrace Your Edge for the next generation, those who are exhausted, for people who don’t have access and for people in power to understand this population. This book is written for those who did not inherit access, but who have clawed their way to earn every step forward. It is written for those with will and grit, who are searching for guidance to build their own powerful networks and to shape their own destinies. This book is dedicated to those who are highly capable but may be exhausted or stuck. This book is also written for those in power who want to attract these scrappy ones, the often diverse talent pool who possess an innate entrepreneurial spirit. And for this audience, the book is written without anger or accusation, but with a simple mission to seek mutual understanding and support. Listen to the entire episode to discover more on this important topic from Hang Black. /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/17884607

Digital Selling Tips for the Modern Seller 01/27/2021

Digital Selling Tips for the Modern Seller What drives the success of a sales team today? Knowing how to engage the digitally savvy modern buyer. And modern buyers need modern sellers. While digital marketing is a mature ecosystem with proven processes and practices, digital selling is still evolving. Many sales organizations were reluctant to implement a until COVID-19 came and forced everyone into remote selling. Today, is more important than ever. In this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, I talked with , Industry Analyst at , who recently released the research report. This survey sought to understand the capabilities and key success factors enabling the digital transformation of selling among B2B businesses. It was based on a survey of 506 sales professionals across North America, Europe, and China, and it offers a comprehensive view of how B2B sales teams are leveraging digital in their sales processes. Listen to this episode to learn about the key findings of this report and how you can apply that knowledge to your organization. The State of Digital Selling Ed provided some great insights on the key findings from the report. Here they are: 1. Now, more than ever, selling is a team sport. The customer is the center of experience in any business. Marketing is the front end of customer experience. They then go through sales and then they go through service and customer success. So it's really important to connect all of those dots between those organizations and think not just about digital marketing but also digital selling and how they work together and then customer success and service. “All of the teams that touch the customer must have a consistent view,” Ed says. They have to understand what white papers the customers are reading from marketing, what service problems they're having, what kind of value propositions work in the sales process.” Their research found that those selling teams that had a well aligned Marketing, Sales and Service teams always did better than others that didn't. 2. Sales teams need to make the digital mindset shift. According to the report, a sales team with a strong digital culture will accomplish its objectives and perform better, as sellers trust the value of data and the tech tools they use. “The technology industry really outperformed other industries when it came to digital selling,” Ed says, “because they have a digital culture, they're in this business and they're actually much more effective in this world and achieve higher results. Making that culture mindset shift is so important.” The seller's mindset needs to really shift and think about engaging digitally through value. 3. High-touch, high-value cross-functional selling outperforms automated high-volume selling. Automation in sales has been rapidly growing in the past few years, but Altimeter Group’s research found that it underperforms when compared to other high-touch approaches, such as Account-Based Marketing and Account-Based Selling, which are more customer-centric. Cross-functional teams that partner on key accounts are more effective in achieving revenue and customer success goals than sellers who rely on automation. “This reinforces the fact that it's not just digital, it’s people teaming together and getting the highest results,” Ed says. Listen to the episode to learn about the three models of selling they tested and which one performs better. 4. Top performers focus on the customer through customer-focused metrics, cross-functional teaming, and selling by vertical industry. The fourth key finding was that top sales organizations prioritized customer satisfaction above metrics such as sales quota achievement, recognized and addressed the diversity of B2B buying committees and customized sales approaches by industry vertical. “Successful companies are focused on the customer,” Ed says. “Digital sellers that were not as mature were focused on things like revenue growth, rather than leveraging existing customers and really optimizing the value from those customers. Instead, they tended to seek out new customers.” Part of having the right focus is knowing that the modern B2B buyer expects sellers to understand their industry to the point that they become a trusted partner in their own success. 5. As teams build digital excellence, boundaries are likely to blur between sales and marketing teams. Digital marketing automation is a mature practice, while sales automation is evolving. Ed provided the analogy of left brain versus right brain to talk about this difference between digital marketing and digital selling. “Marketing is sort of the left brain, very analytical, very focused on data to make decisions,” Ed says. “Versus the sales team that might be more about the gut feeling, more relationship-based. They're complimentary, of course, but as sales teams become more digitally mature, they rely more on data analytics technology and AI to guide their next moves.” Sales must undergo a cultural shift to develop trust in sales automation and data, using and software, for example. 6. Digitally mature sellers are outperforming less mature teams through the COVID-19 pandemic. Altimeter found there was a very strong correlation between mature digital sellers and less mature sellers regarding their success during the pandemic. Digitally mature teams have the enablement tools, the digital culture, the data, and the leadership alignment to succeed in a environment. The pandemic has laid bare the challenges businesses face as they transition, such as finding cross-functional alignment to achieve seamless customer experience, made possible through leadership alignment. Ed’s advice to marketing leaders is to get ready to help your sales teams succeed in embracing digital. Marketers should see themselves as partners of the sales team. Don’t miss my conversation with Ed and don’t forget to download The 2020 State of Digital Selling. /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/17697254

How Showing that you Care Can Start Sales Conversations 12/16/2020

How Showing that you Care Can Start Sales Conversations The year 2020 has brought a lot of pain and confusion due to the pandemic, but also many opportunities for companies to show compassion and generosity. And that willingness to help others can sometimes reap rewards in the marketplace. That’s exactly the story my guest in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, Adriel Sanchez, CMO at Newsela shares. Newsela provides instructional content to K-12 schools in the United States, serving 35 million children. What do they do exactly? They take content from reliable sources around the web and incorporate changes to make it ready for the classroom. First, they rewrite every piece of content at 5 different reading levels, so in a single class every student can access the content at their own reading level. Then, they surround content with instructional support for teachers, so it would be easy for them to embed the content into their lessons. And finally, Newsela attaches the content to individual grade standards by state (over 130K in the US), through machine learning, algorithms and human intervention. Newsela is both business-driven (they are a for-profit company) and mission-driven (making education better for as many teachers and students as possible). This podcast is brought to you by Postal.io. A Sales and marketing engagement platform that generates leads increases sales and improves customer retention. Request a demo to learn how to integrate direct mail and gift into your existing strategy by visiting . Doing What is Right for Your Customer Newsela went from one to four products in January, 2020, with great plans of expansion. Then the pandemic hit in mid-March and education was one of the hardest-hit sectors. Most schools around the US closed. Many teachers and students were unprepared for the shift to remote learning, with some school districts panicking over what to do, as they lacked the resources to implement remote education. Although Newsela has four stakeholders (Education Administrators, Students and Teachers, Investors, and Newsela employees), they could not serve the immediate interests of all four at the same time during the COVID lockdowns. Adriel says they decided to do the right thing for the schools above the business needs. So they provided their entire product portfolio for free to students and teachers. No conditions, no questions asked. All schools had to do was ask for it. How did they implement the plan? They came up with three phases to their response to the crisis. Provide the product for free and get the word out. This phase included a message from the CEO and social media outreach. Word got out quickly and in the first 7 days 15,000 schools signed up. At the end of the program, two thirds of US schools (about 90,000) had signed up for some component of Newsela. Make sure the product was adopted. Adriel says that it wasn’t enough to give away the product. They needed to make sure people were using the platform and getting value. During March and April of 2020, virtual classes were new to teachers. So Newsela deployed training 7 days a week and had 1 to 1 coaching for teachers and administrators. A lot of people were exposed to Newsela’s team and people really appreciated the support they provided. If they provided that kind of support for non paying customers, how would it be if they paid? This focus on customer service paved the way for future sales conversations. Start sales conversations. By June 2020, Newsela was preparing to turn some of those free users into paid subscribers. The fact that they had given the product for free, no matter if the schools were open or closed, gave them trust and credibility with their customer base. People really felt supported. “Timing was very important,” Adriel says. “Start too early and you could be perceived as exploitive. Start too late and you could miss out on budget allocations elsewhere, competitors and other priorities.” Sellers had to be situationally aware when they started those sales conversations. So the marketing team at Newsela identified 10 criteria to start sales conversations, analyzing macro and micro leading indicators, state by state. Here are some examples of the indicators they used. Macro leading indicators Had states released a budget? Were schools closed or still open for in-person sessions? How much did states receive from the Federal education budget? Micro leading indicators Had administrators asked about pricing after June 30th when the free period was over? Was there a renewal scenario? All the information was tracked in the system for sales. Sellers were able to track it state by state and account by account, looking for patterns on a weekly basis. Adriel says the effort was a collaboration between marketing, sales and product. “It was a Marketing-led initiative, who owned market intelligence (stimulus funding, budgets, etc.). But sales ops helped to rollout, track, and adjust as they learned things in the field.” The CRM tracked two basic metrics: Rate of account contact (were schools taking the calls from the sellers?) All Systems Go metric (was the account ready for a sales conversation based on the macro and micro criteria?) Sellers would look for patterns by state in the CRM to see if they were open and ready, so they could be more upfront with their sales conversations. Reaping the Rewards Although 70% of education companies offered something free during the first few months of the pandemic, only 25% saw an increase in paid subscribers. Newsela was part of that 25% and growth surpassed their expectations, reaching their 2020 revenue goal in August 2020. They started with the idea of what is the right thing to do for their customers and the hypothesis that the marketplace would reward them for that, was validated. They now have sales conversations with entire states and school districts that they never had in the past. Listen to this episode to hear more about Newsela’s story and how showing that you care can result in increased revenue. /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/17212016

The Sales Messaging Playbook that Converts Prospects to Conversations with Mario Martinez Jr. 12/10/2020

The Sales Messaging Playbook that Converts Prospects to Conversations with Mario Martinez Jr. Sales messaging is a vital part of a sales reps’ daily work. It’s how they engage with prospects and it can make a big difference in their results. While the perfect sales message will connect and engage the buyer (eventually leading to a sale), a weak sales message will just be ignored, or worse, will damage the reputation of your company. In this article and episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast, my guest, Mario Martinez Jr., CEO and Founder at Vengreso, discusses what marketing and sales leaders need to know about sales messaging and some actionable tips you can start implementing today. Plus, he announced a new tool Vengreso created to help your sales team deploy a consistent message throughout your sales organization. Now, it is self-evident that sales messaging is crucial for sellers, but why is sales messaging important for marketers? Mario says that marketers should be supporting the sales team with all of the right messaging, from the Go-To-Market messaging to the messaging to engage with buyers, including messages for social media and sales enablement content such as playbooks, sales cadences, case studies, ebooks, blogs and the like. At the end of the day, there is just one type of messaging: messaging designed to attract your buyer, not sales or marketing messaging. Today, the modern marketer is more integrated in the sales ecosystem than EVER before, so it’s imperative that marketers have a defined sales messaging strategy. Things Every Sales Messaging Strategy Needs Automation in sales and B2B marketing has made life easier for our teams in many regards. But it also has reduced a lot of the personal touch we used to have in sales messaging. That’s why at Vengreso, we teach our sellers to leverage personalization and hyper personalization in all their sales messages. In fact, we created a with the foundation of hyper-personalization. It’s called the PVC method, which stands for Personalization, Value, and Call to Action. The PVC Sales Methodology focuses on prospecting, from the “pre-hello” to the “hello.” The purpose of this methodology is to help salespeople who are having a hard time connecting with potential customers, create more conversations with their targeted buyers. And the best thing is that the PVC sales methodology can be used in inbound or outbound sales, when writing an email, a text message, a LinkedIn message, or making a phone call or video conference via Zoom. No matter the medium, every effective sales messaging strategy needs to be personalized, valuable and contain the appropriate call to action for the situation. “Sales messaging should be structured around PVC to attract our buyers, not detract or distract them,” Mario says. “Never before has the buyer been so digitally connected, socially engaged, mobile-attached, and video hungry. And salespeople must be as well, becoming video producers to create engaging video messages.” Mario says that in the new normal, sellers will be remote 60% of the time. In fact, according to , by 2025 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in digital channels. Why? Because 33% of all buyers desire a seller-free sales experience (44% for millennials). There is no going back to a sales rep that is 100% of the time in the field. That’s why we must teach sellers social selling skills, including how to personalize their messaging, bring value and add the right CTAs to their sales messages. At Vengreso, we offer virtual sales training programs in modern selling skills, such as , and more. Now, let’s look at the PVC components in more detail. Components that Every Sales Messaging Framework Should Have Let’s talk about each of the components of your sales messaging framework: P – Personalization V – Value C – Call-to-Action Personalization is more than just using the prospect’s first name. If possible, sellers should take the time to research the prospect’s social networks and find shared experiences or recent events or news related to the prospect’s company that they can mention in the sales prospecting message. When creating a sales messaging strategy (whether or ) make sure the sales message brings value to the conversation. Adding value may sound like a cliche, but we must realize that each buyer has an individual business pain, and if our messaging speaks to that particular pain, we’ll have a greater chance of getting through. So, how do you bring value? With content that helps solve their problems, especially related to the solution you are selling. It can be a webinar, a report or a relevant blog article. Provide value instead of just asking for a meeting. Instead of asking for a meeting, add a call to action that keeps the sales conversation going, such as asking a question for them to respond or inviting them to an event. Sales-Ready Messaging vs. Marketing Messaging What’s the difference between a sales-ready message and a marketing message? Marketing messaging is generally one-to-many. For example, marketing will create an email drip campaign to take leads, convert them to MQLs, then to SQLs and finally hand them over to the sales organization. Sellers do the same thing but instead of one-to-many, they do it one-to-one. That is why sellers have to deliver hyper-personalized messages. Marketing can’t create messages the same way. Marketing messaging is focused on the buyer persona, trying to hit the pains of that persona. In sales-ready messaging this can also be the case if the seller doesn’t have enough information to personalize the messages, as in a cold email or cold call. But the ideal sales-ready message is hyper-personalized to the individual, not the buyer persona. The seller must be able to find out details about the prospect, such as interests, particular needs, and other background information. For example, when Vengreso sellers reach out to sales leaders, they do it through video, holding a whiteboard and writing the prospect’s name on the board. They find bits of information to use in their sales-ready messages such as an interesting LinkedIn post or a recent promotion. That way, they can personalize their messages with phrases like “I saw that you posted….” or “Congratulations on your recent promotion to…” Now, who’s responsible for writing these sales messages? Marketers usually cringe at the idea of a seller writing a message. And, in general, you don’t want salespeople writing messages if they are not writers, as it would take them too long to write and may not be as good as the text from a trained copywriter. Mario says that the responsibility for writing these messages falls on the shoulders of the Sales Enablement team -- or if you don't have one, the marketing team. “But the marketing team must be in tune with what is happening in the field before writing. We have our marketing team listen to sales calls weekly so they can structure sales messaging. They must understand the sales process in order to create messaging that attracts buyers and sells more.” What is a Sales Message vs. a Product Message? Another important distinction we must make is between a sales message and a product message. In short, while a sales message includes the PVC components discussed above, a product message centers around features and functions. Product messaging should always reside inside of marketing. The idea is to take the features and what the products do and translate them into benefits, into how they solve real-world problems. Sellers are usually trained on products to attract a potential customer, but they are sometimes not trained in communicating how the product solves actual problems. From our experience, if you were to ask 100 sales reps at a company to tell in one sentence what business problem they solve for their customer (the value proposition), 80% would not be able to answer consistently. Marketing must be able to articulate in one sentence the business problem that the company solves and sales leaders should make sure their sellers know it well so that they are all communicating the same message. For example, at Vengreso we know that VPs of Sales have two common problems: a) they want to increase the number of sales conversations that their sellers are having and b) increase their sales pipeline. So, a message to that buyer persona (if the seller doesn’t have details to personalize the messaging to the individual) would start by asking if they have one of those two problems. If the answer is “no,” they would just stop reading. If the answer is “yes,” they’ll continue reading. In that case, the sales-ready message should provide value before introducing the solution. For example, the sales-ready message could say: If you have any of those two problems, here are two resources that can help you out: I encourage you to watch this webinar [ADD LINK] with your team in your next one-hour call. It will take you through two things your sellers can do right now to create more sales conversations on LinkedIn. Read this blog article [ADD LINK], which tells you five things you can do to improve your sales video messages. Do you see what we are doing here? We are providing value, which is what a good sales message will do. Once a conversation is started with the prospect, product messaging comes in. That’s when the seller goes deep to explain the product features and translate those features into business benefits. How to Develop Sales Messaging The PVC method will help you develop your sales messaging with the right elements. But how do you deploy those messages so your team can use them? Usually, the marketing team would create a “42-page document” with the messaging, upload it to a local server or the internet and send the link to the sales team for them to use. The reality is that most sellers will not use that document. That is why we created a sales productivity and sales messaging tool called . FlyMSG is a text expander tool under the category. This Chrome extension helps marketers and sellers improve their productivity and efficiency by letting them expand pre-written communication templates and messages for use in their daily digital communication. Or as we like to say it: “Type less. Sell more." FlyMSG solves these three real-life problems: Allows sales and marketing professionals to write complete messages, emails, LinkedIn connection requests and more using only a short and simple shortcut (FlyCut), leaving more time to focus on the needs of the customer. Increases the reach of sellers in their pipeline, allowing them to focus more on selling and less on administrative tasks. Uses a centralized repository of each user’s best, templatized messages (FlyPlates), creating unity in each user’s overall messaging. A large portion of our PVC Sales Methodology templates are inside of FlyMSG for free to download. FlyMSG is the only text expander tool that allows you to add images, video, rich text format, hyperlinks, as well as categorize your templates. Mario says that with a corporate account, a marketing team can own the creation and distribution of a company’s sales messaging. “Marketing can write the messages, add the templates to FlyMSG and make them available to all sellers,” Marios says. “Then, all sellers have to do is type the shortcut (FlyCut) and the message will automatically expand, ensuring usage, adoption and consistency in all sales messaging across the sales organization.” Mario gives the example of a FlyCut he created called -bookameeting which he created to expand automatically to a pre-written sentence inviting someone to book a meeting with him with his calendar link included. It's a huge time saver since he uses it often. /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/17148023

3 Pillars of Digital Marketing Transformation for Sustained Resilience and Growth 11/11/2020

How This Omnichannel Marketing Strategy Enabled Success in 2020 11/04/2020

How to Use a Marketing and Sales Funnel for Better Prospecting 10/21/2020

How to Use a Marketing and Sales Funnel for Better Prospecting A unified marketing and sales funnel is the solution to better prospecting in any organization. In this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast, my guest, A. Lee Judge, Global Digital Marketing Director at Hexagon GeoSystems, discusses his approach to digital marketing and how it is contributing to sales prospecting with a focus on quantifiable attribution. B2B Marketing leaders are being held to a higher standard in 2020. CEOs and CROs want to see marketing drive activities that demonstrably help salespeople be more productive. Sales prospecting is one of the most undesirable activities in sales. Marketers are asked to deliver marketing programs that enable sales prospecting to be more productive. Listen to this episode to learn more about how marketing can help sales to prospect better. This podcast is brought to you by Postal.io. A Sales and marketing engagement platform that generates leads increases sales and improves customer retention. Request a demo to learn how to integrate direct mail and gift into your existing strategy by visiting . How the Full Marketing and Sales Funnel Works Marketing must identify the buyer persona using feedback from the sales team. There must be a two-way communication between sales and marketing to clearly understand the changing needs of the customer. Data shows that prospects will self educate and conduct research before engaging with a sales rep, so marketing must get ahead of the competition and educate their prospects first. How? By understanding the prospect’s questions and pain points, which sales knows really well. Sales organizations should never hold back information from the marketing team, otherwise the competition may end up educating their prospective customers. Lee says that organizations must understand that it’s the customer’s journey not the sales journey. And it's not a linear journey that they can control. That means neither sales nor marketing own that journey. There shouldn’t be a wall between sales and marketing when optimizing for the prospect’s journey. Prospects will interact with sales and marketing on and off during their journey, talking to a sales rep, while reading the blog or social media posts, then going back to the sales rep and so on. According to Lee, there is just one funnel, the Sales and Marketing Funnel. In traditional sales funnels, marketing doesn’t know what is going on with the SQLs they handed over to the sales team, so if there is a roadblock or lack of information, then marketing can’t help. But when there is only one funnel, sales and marketing are in constant communication, collaborating to move leads through the funnel. Marketing can provide the content sales needs to help the prospect understand the solution and move through the funnel on their way to making a buying decision. In his role as Global Digital Marketing Manager at Hexagon GeoSystems, Lee supports hundreds of marketers in this process, helping them use technology and understand the business, so they can have a clear view of sales and marketing activities and create content that is enabled for sales. The Modern Marketer is Data Savvy Today’s modern marketer is not just a creative person who creates great content, but also a very data-savvy marketer. The modern marketer must understand data because data is what holds marketing and sales together. Data will help marketers understand where people came from, how they responded, as well as to segment people by campaigns. That data must be shared with sales so they know what the prospect’s needs are. Marketing should be able to show Sales a picture of the customer’s journey. For example, how many times the prospects visited the website and which pages, how many emails they received and opened, which webinars they attended and so on. The prospect’s digital journey provides very valuable information for the sales reps. That means marketing needs to collect that data and make it easily accessible to sales. “Marketing can’t qualify, Lee says, “but if sales lets marketing know who they are looking for and what they expect to know, then marketing should be able to set up the processes to deliver on that information.” How to measure attribution Lee tells the story of a company who made the decision to cut particular tradeshows from their budget based on the information the sales people put in the CRM. The sales reps were asked to identify which deals could be attributed to trade shows. The CEO didn’t cut the show which was attributed to deals, hence proving to deliver ROI, but cut the rest of the events from the budget. This story illustrates the importance of attribution data. The attribution dilemma stems from the difficulty of connecting an opportunity to a multi-touch sales cycle. Was it the first touch, the last touch, or several touches? Lee says there is no right or wrong answer to this question. It depends on the length of the sales cycle, how in sync sales and marketing are, and the structure of the CRM and the tech stack. If there is a culture of documentation within a company, then attribution is easier. Such a culture states that “if it’s not in CRM, it didn’t happen.” When sellers take the time to document in the CRM what they did, not only do they help marketers know what is going on, but they can prove the ROI of their sales tools. Finally, Lee says that the bottom-line message for sales and marketing is to keep the one team mindset in mind, communicating with each other, knowing both have the same goal. Outline of this Episode [3:00] About Hexagon GeoSystems and A. Lee Judge [6:10] How Marketing Can Help Sales Target Prospects [11:05] The role of technology in the sales and marketing funnel [12:50] The characteristics of the modern marketer [20:01] Sales Prospecting Attribution [26:14] The one team mindset for sales and marketing Featured on this Episode Connect with A. Lee Judge on Follow A. Lee Judge on Twitter: Resources & People Mentioned with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr. Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/16474346

Creating Sales Engagement Through Corporate Gifting 09/23/2020

Creating Sales Engagement Through Corporate Gifting In 2020 with in-person conferences being redirected to online events, marketers are looking for alternative ways to continue to grow their demand generation efforts and ensure that they can drive quality leads into the sales funnel. One of those ways is gift marketing. Marketing teams are allocating budgets and efforts toward gifting, as opposed to sponsoring virtual events, as some marketers are not seeing the ROI from a $10k+ sponsorship. How can you use gift marketing in your company and what are some great use cases? That is the topic of this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast with my guest, Nick Grant, Head of Marketing at Postal.io. Postal.io is an integrated direct mail platform for sales and marketing teams that leverages machine learning to automate and optimize the creation, delivery, and reporting of personalized physical assets (a.k.a. gifts) in the sales process. The Postal.io platform integrates into HubSpot, Salesloft and Salesforce. Postal.io activities can be tracked in CRM, such as if the gift was received or denied, and reports on different metrics so marketers can know what works and doesn’t. It can also trigger other events to happen, like an email or call right after the gift was received. Listen to this episode to learn more about modern gift marketing. How Companies are Using Gift Marketing Almost every industry can use gifting to help with their marketing. One common way is to share knowledge by sending books. The book helps build rapport with customers and it can be about something that supports content your business writes about or contain content that your prospect will find relevant for their specific business. For example, Postal.io often uses Giftology: The Art & Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through the Noise, Increase Referrals, and Strengthen Retention, to educate their clients on how they can effectively use gifting in their marketing and sales process. Although some brands have their own books, most don’t. However, they can use books from recognized thought leaders in their industry. For example, agencies use books like This is Marketing by Seth Godin or Sales Engagement from the team at Outreach. These books not only educate their prospects, but also help position themselves as an expert in their space by providing these hand-picked resources. Most books cost around $20 and are a very cost-effective way to experiment with driving more engagement at the top of the funnel. Personalization in Gift Marketing Although it is difficult to automate and scale personalized gifts, Nick says that he has seen it often in the SaaS space. There is a lot of competition in the SaaS industry, so companies try to get in front of key prospects and get them into their sales funnel through personalized gifts. “This is where swag can come into play,” Nick says, “as you can do a bit of research on a prospect and often find out some info about things they’re passionate about, like where they went to college or a sports team that they support. Just find what they post about on Instagram and perhaps send them a Yeti Mug with their college logo on it, or a hat from their favorite sports team.” Another common example is companies sending gifts that relate to their client’s pets, like a box of cat toys. Such gifts help companies stand out amongst the competition. An added benefit is that people get excited when they receive the gifts and usually post their pictures with the gifts on social media, raving about the company. Nick talked about some interesting use cases for gift marketing in particular industries. Finance and Real Estate Nick says that clients in these industries are often introducing new services and they need a way to market them to their existing clients, so they can try to get them interested in learning more about their new offerings. “This is where we often see food-related items used to help get them into the funnel and engaged with the new offerings. Like sending a box of cookies or fruit basket with some information for them to review, which helps to make them more receptive to learn about the new offerings.” Veteran-Owned Organizations “We have a client who is a veteran and he owns a sales training company that works with a lot of other veteran-owned businesses,” Nick says. “He likes to leverage an American Flag as a gift to help drive leads into the top of the funnel. This was not something we originally had in our marketplace, but when he told us about his business we brainstormed and thought it would be the perfect item for him to use.” In gift marketing, every gift should be tailored to the company’s unique business needs to get the best possible results. Webinars and Virtual Events With in-person events went virtual, a lot of demand generation managers shifted their focus onto webinars as a way to drive leads at the top of the funnel. However, with so many webinars going on right now, it can be difficult to get people to sign up and attend. Nick says he has seen some really savvy SaaS companies using gift cards after a webinar registration occurs to help drive registrations AND attendance. “We see them use a mix of charity gift cards, where the recipient can pick from a variety of charities, often going with someone local they want to support. Or having it go to a Covid related charity. In addition we see food delivery or coffee gift cards used as well. Being able to have lunch while watching a webinar is a great pairing and all of these digital gifts help build rapport and trust, so that registrants want to attend and see what the webinar is all about.” Can Gift Marketing Contribute to Marketing and Sales Alignment? Nick says that they often see marketing partnering closely with sales to help send out gifts to secure meetings with their strategic accounts that hadn’t responded to outreach in the past. “This really boosts the ability for marketers to get these leads engaged and help sales to drive more meetings that they could with only relying on emails, texts, phone calls and Linkedin InMails.” Through Postal.io sales and marketing can see what types of gifts are effective to book meetings, fill the pipeline and close more sales. Don’t miss this episode to hear more about how you can use gift marketing in your marketing strategy. Featured on This Episode Connect with Nick on Follow Postal.io on and Postal.io Outline of this Episode [1:50] About Postal.io [3:09] What is modern gift marketing [4:50] How are companies using gifting [7:20] Personalization with gifting [12:14] How does a marketer track the gift in the CRM [15:00] Webinars and gifting [17:24] Gifting and Marketing and Sales Alignment Resources & People Mentioned The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/16103633

Building a B2B Podcast and Making it Work 09/09/2020

Building a B2B Podcast and Making it Work Podcasts are becoming more popular each day (there are ). So it’s not surprising that marketers are deciding to create a B2B podcast as a strategy to reach their buyers. But how do you start a B2B podcast and how do you make it work? That is the topic on this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast with my guest Rachel Clapp Miller, Vice President of Marketing and Digital Engagement at Force Management. Force Management is a B2B sales effectiveness consulting firm that helps its clients define sales solutions and create management tools that produce measurable results. In her role, Rachel manages communication and content generation that drive leads and client engagement. She is also the host of The Audible Ready Podcast, a weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and revenue-driving executives, who share their best insights on how a focus on sales effectiveness can help companies increase revenue, improve sales margins and gain market share. Listen to this episode as Rachel tells us how she started the podcast and those factors that have made it successful. The Evolution of a B2B Podcast The Audible Ready Podcast was born organically, almost by accident. Rachel was in charge of content marketing, blogging regularly, posting on social media and running demand generation activities. “I needed to get into the heads of the subject matter experts,” Rachel says. “So I started scheduling regular content chats with co-founder John Kaplan. We had conversations every other week about sales planning, pipeline, whatever it was we were producing content on.” Rachel decided to record these conversations so she could listen to them later, but soon realized that she had a B2B podcast on her hands. So she kept recording the interviews as a podcast without telling John that she planned to publish them… A risk that paid off! After producing and editing some of the interviews, however, Rachel asked for the official green light to make the interviews an actual podcast. Fortunately, she got the approval and the podcast launched in 2015 as The Force Management Podcast. Although people liked it, originally it was just a hobby and not a regular production of content. However, as the company was growing, the podcast evolved. Rachel evaluated the marketing tactics and realized the podcast was a low hanging fruit, an effective B2B marketing tool they could leverage. So she hired a writer for the marketing team to maximize resources and also contracted an outside company to edit and publish the podcast. Rachel realized that since 2015, B2B podcasts had grown exponentially and to compete, Force Management had to take their podcast to the next level. That’s why in 2020 they did a complete rebranding, changing the name to The Audible Ready Podcast. The Goals of a B2B Podcast As a B2B marketer, how do you measure the impact your podcast has on your business? The first thing is to set some goals, whether it is lead generation, sales enablement or branding. For Rachel and her team, the goal is to increase visibility and brand awareness. “There are many sales consulting firms, so we need to differentiate ourselves, and the podcast helps us do that,” Rachel says. “We sell to the C-suite and high-level sales leaders on the go. We want to give them different avenues to find us, other than the newsletter.” The podcast also serves to remain top of mind with their target audience, in this case, sales reps, who are the users of their training programs. Furthermore, they have integrated the podcasts as added content to their training program, which not only increases the audience but serves as a tool to reinforce learning. We do the same with the Modern Marketing Engine podcast and our Modern Selling podcast, integrated into our Vengreso On Demand training portal. Where to Find Content for a B2B Podcast So far, Rachel’s guests have been Force Management executives with stellar sales backgrounds. “They are working with fast growing tech companies, so they have a boots-on-the-ground perspective,” Rachel says. However, she is planning to interview outside guests in the future. One thing that I loved about our conversation is that Rachel mentioned that the Force Management salespeople use the podcast to provide valuable information to their clients and even sometimes send her ideas for new episodes. In fact, she has on occasion bumped episodes to incorporate ideas from the sales team. That’s what I call real marketing and sales alignment! Measuring the Results of the Podcast In business and in marketing we are always measuring the results of our activities to know if it is worthwhile to continue with that activity. A podcast is no exception. Rachel says her primary metric for her podcast is the number of unique downloads. This metric has been increasing over time. “The longer the podcast is out, the more downloads it gets. The podcast is building positive brand awareness, and that is valuable.” Another way Rachel’s team measures the success of the podcast is by the feedback and engagement on LinkedIn. For instance, John Kaplan regularly gets comments on his LinkedIn posts from people who heard him on the podcast. Don’t miss this episode to learn more about how a B2B podcast can help you build brand awareness and stay top of mind with your customers. Featured on This Episode Connect with Rachel Force Management’s Outline of this Episode [2:25] About Force Management [3:25] History of The Audible Ready Podcast [9:33] Goal setting when doing a B2B podcast [13:34] Who to invite as guests for your B2B podcast [14:45] How sellers can use podcasts in their selling activities [18:26] Measuring the results of a B2B podcast Resources & People Mentioned The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/15893273

Why CMI is Breaking the Content Marketing Rules in 2020 08/19/2020

Why CMI is Breaking the Content Marketing Rules in 2020 The year 2020 has seen many marketing events cancelled, postponed or gone virtual due to COVID-19. And Content Marketing World, the largest event for content marketers held in person each fall is going 100% virtual as well. My guest on this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine is Cathy McPhillips, VP of Marketing at the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), the organizer of Content Marketing World, which is one of my favorite marketing events (I have never missed one since its inception), by the way. Cathy oversees all marketing efforts for CMI, their events, their Chief Content Officer magazine (now digital only), their research, CMI University and all other CMI properties and happenings. Her goal is to grow the CMI community and audience online and offline. Pre-CMI, Cathy has 20+ years experience in marketing, including agency life, B2C, national restaurant and nonprofit marketing, and her own marketing consulting business. She’s currently also a board member for . Listen to my conversation with Cathy to learn about the exciting plans for this year’s Content Marketing World virtual event. Content Marketing World’s 10th Anniversary Content Marketing World is CMI’s flagship event and although many marketers like me were looking forward to attending the 10th anniversary event live and in person, we all understand the need for this year’s event to go virtual. However, this won’t be your typical online event. Cathy explains how the CMI team didn’t design a virtual version of the annual in-person Content Marketing World, because mimicking the live event is not feasible. Instead they are focusing on the tracks that make sense for virtual delivery and the speakers who embrace virtual speaking. This year’s theme is “Break the Rules.” As marketers we all have documented content strategies, such as frameworks, templates and calendars that we are following -- which are great of course. But, the CMI team asks, what if we step out of the comfort zone, be creative and break the rules to do something new? If we want to differentiate ourselves and our organizations, we must break the rules. That’s what the speakers at Content Marketing World will be talking about, bringing some great case studies. In fact, I have the privilege of delivering a session on Account Based Podcasting (ABP), a term I use for using podcast content for lead generation at target accounts. So, what’s different about this year’s event? Cathy says the CMI team wanted to create an epic experience for attendees but also avoid Zoom fatigue and the heavy load that comes from working from home and juggling a million things. So they reached out to their loyal community and asked them what they wanted for this virtual edition of Content Marketing World. Additionally, the CMI team studied hundreds of virtual events to see what they liked and disliked, not only in marketing but also in other industries to avoid limiting their creative thinking. Here’s a quick overview of what they came up with and what you can expect from the 10th Content Marketing World. Community activities before the event and sneak peeks of some talks to warm up the attendees. Extra sessions in November and December to follow up on what will be taught during the event in October. Access to speakers to ask questions. Online discussions within small groups before and after sessions. Events spread across several days. Workshops and forums available as video on demand. Main conference over four days - October 13 to 16, 2020 Live keynotes. Virtual happy hours and entertainment. Cathy says they have also created a strategy for attendees and sponsors to connect virtually. Registrants will answer a few questions about their company and their needs, and then will be matched with exhibitors who match their interests in the “Solutions Hub.” “I want attendees to know which sessions to attend and which sponsors to visit, craving time with sponsors,” Cathy says. The goal of the Content Marketing World team is that attendees leave with the ability to create epic content experiences for their customers and stakeholders. Speaking from personal experience, CMW has achieved this goal for nine consecutive years. I’m confident they’ll do it again in 2020. Don’t miss this episode to learn more about the most epic event for content marketers and why you must attend. Hope to see you there! You can save $100 when you register with the code: BORGES100 Featured on This Episode Connect with Cathy Follow Cathy on Twitter: CMI’s Outline of This Episode [2:10] About the Content Marketing Institute [4:21] Content Marketing World’s 10th Anniversary [11:30] Why this is NOT the virtual version of CMW [20:40] What CMI learned from studying other virtual events Resources & People Mentioned The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/15667961

A Successful Shift from an Outbound to an Inbound Marketing Strategy at NAWSP 07/29/2020

A Successful Shift from an Outbound to an Inbound Marketing Strategy at NAWSP There’s a powerful analogy used to describe the difference between an outbound and an inbound marketing strategy: an outbound strategy is like chasing or hunting for leads, while an inbound strategy is like attracting or luring leads to you. And although both marketing strategies have their merits and their limitations, my guest in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast, found great success for her organization when she shifted from an outbound to an inbound marketing strategy. Cynthia Barnes, Founder and CEO of National Association Women Sales Professionals (NAWSP) is a here on my podcast. Cynthia is a LinkedIn Top Sales Influencer, highly sought-after keynote speaker, and Champion for Women in Sales, known for motivating others to feel confident, empowered, and brave. She founded the National Association of Women Sales Professionals (NAWSP) with one simple mission: to help women in sales reach the Top 1% and end gender inequality in sales. Women from around the globe have joined together to create a community of 15,000+ women in sales who band together for the support and professional development that only other women can provide. They want to level the playing field. They want to have conversations otherwise considered taboo and who want to hold leaders accountable and ask the hard questions. Listen to this episode to learn how Cynthia was able to grow NAWSP’s membership to more than 15,000 with a simple but well-thought of inbound marketing strategy. The story of NAWSP Cynthia recalls how a Facebook meme inspired her to start NAWSP. The meme said: “The true test of whether you are successful in life is not based on how well you do. It’s based on how many others you helped do well.” She realized she had been in the top 1% for many years and wondered how many women she could help reach that top 1% in sales. Women in sales have unique challenges that men don’t have, but also have innate strengths that they can tap into to get to that top 1% faster. Cynthia explains that women are often held back by the imposter syndrome or their inner critic and don’t know how to express themselves in the right way. NAWSP teaches women how to tap into their strengths such as relationship building and time management to overcome those challenges. And because 89% of sales leaders are male, when a woman wants to reach the top 1%, it benefits her to have a male sponsor. So, NAWSP has men who serve as allies, sponsors and mentors who help women in sales ascend the corporate ladder in their organizations. NAWSP’s Inbound Marketing Strategy At launch in 2016, NAWSP didn’t have a defined marketing strategy. In Cynthia’s words, it was a “cluster and haphazard at best,” doing Meet-ups and LinkedIn groups. But when they started identifying the demographics and psychographics of their ideal member, things began to change. There’s a marketing formula that NAWSP began to apply: M x M = R. That is: Message X Media = Result The first M is the message. What do you say to your target market to get them to stop scrolling? The second M is the media. Where do you put your message once it’s fine-tuned? Social media, radio, billboards? Result. In 2016, NAWSP didn’t have a clearly defined message nor a media platform to place that message, so their results were terrible. Once they identified how their ideal member thinks, her goals, her values, and her objections to the sale, they were able to create the right marketing message and found she was most likely to engage with them on LinkedIn and their results skyrocketed. In the early days, the focus was an outbound strategy, chasing potential members. But then they shifted their focus to attract members to what they had to offer. The current attraction content strategy includes blogs, webinars, events and the NAWSP community. They provide women with content that helps them become part of that top 1% in B2B sales organizations that are usually male-dominated. And once they have that, they want to be part of the community. NAWSP conducts polls about every 90 days to learn what their members want to achieve from the organization and to learn from a community of peers. This continuous conversation with the community, allows the organization to constantly nurture them with the content they want and need to reach their goals. An Inbound Marketing Success Story A marketing strategy that NAWSP uses is to take one piece of content and repurpose it many times. For example, they created a webinar for their members to uplevel their skills and knowledge and at the same time used the webinar to attract sponsors interested in hiring women. According to Cynthia, their webinar sponsors see a 64% increase in women in sales hires, thus reaching their diversity and inclusion goals. NAWSP only partners with companies with strong women in sales initiatives that seek to attract, hire, develop and retain female sellers. The success of NASWP lies in their ability to attract members with the right inbound marketing strategy but also in retaining them through initiatives like the NAWSP Tribe, an online community where women in sales can bring their challenges, celebrate their successes and discuss what it is like to be women in sales. Listen to this episode to learn more about the NAWSP Tribe and how to grow your organization’s women in sales marketing strategy. Featured on This Episode Connect with Cynthia Follow Cynthia on Twitter: NAWSP Outline of This Episode [2:04] What is NAWSP [2:57] The inspiration for starting NAWSP [4:47] The unique challenges that women in sales face [5:35] The marketing strategy at launch vs. today [10:50] NAWSP’s two member types [11:31] The role of men in NAWSP [13:22] A success story with sponsors [15:59] Member’s ideas and the challenge of focusing on the mission [17:21] NAWSP Tribes [18:38] The vision of NAWSP in 2020 Resources & People Mentioned The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr. Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/15390131

How the Right Market Intelligence Enables Organizations to Thrive in Challenging Times 07/16/2020

How the Right Market Intelligence Enables Organizations to Thrive in Challenging Times Companies must have a strategic plan to grow and expand, especially in challenging times like the current pandemic, where market dynamics have shifted and priorities have shifted. Most B2B companies use traditional market reports to guide their strategic decisions, but they are not enough. However, with the right market intelligence, B2B organizations can prioritize their accounts, reevaluate territories and rethink their ideal customer profile to actually thrive. In this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, my guest, Elizabeth Cholawsky, PhD, describes how technology intelligence helps companies plan with confidence and make better decisions. She is a seasoned executive leader in the technology industry with a strong focus on growing successful SaaS-based businesses. Elizabeth has led and worked with companies to build market-leading offerings, using in-house talent as well as through partnerships and acquisitions. Elizabeth is the CEO at HG Insights. The company has built the world’s largest and most accurate database of B2B technology customer intelligence, tracking more than a million businesses and the specific technology stack products they are using. Elizabeth won . This post summarizes our conversation. I invite you listen to the entire episode (33 minute interview) to learn more about market intelligence and how it can help your marketing or sales team succeed. Success Begins with Strategic Planning Whether your company is trying to determine which territories to expand to, how to align sales and marketing with the right accounts, staff your business appropriately and invest in effective tools for growth or persuade investors to fund you, or pivot due to COVID-19 you need strategic planning. But where do you start? You must start with data. Unfortunately, traditional market reports are not enough to make informed decisions. Most are based on customer surveys interpreted by analysts and provide only high-level numbers on potential size and growth of a market. These reports are too generic and not very actionable. This is where technology intelligence comes in. Technology Intelligence Elizabeth says that her clients are usually looking for much deeper insights than what’s provided on an analyst report, which is generally an estimate of the total available market (TAM) or serviceable available market (SAM). What they need is to understand their serviceable obtainable market (SOM), which represents the segment of the market they think they can realistically capture with their product or service. And to obtain the SOM, they need detailed tech intelligence on what technology products their accounts or prospective buyers have installed. Tech intelligence allows the entire organization to make better decisions. For instance: Sales leaders use granular tech intelligence to map out and divide their sales territories into regions that contain accounts that match their ideal customer profile (ICP). Sales and marketing teams use tech intelligence to develop and deliver highly relevant campaigns with messaging customized to a prospect’s strategic initiatives, existing solutions and pain points. Product teams use tech trending information to make decisions on which products they need to enhance or end, and what new solutions they need to develop to better compete in the future. Elizabeth says that the data HG Insights provides is so detailed that their clients can understand what technology products are installed at each account and what the budgets are for those products. That way they can make fair comparisons between markets. In our interview, Elizabeth shared an example contrasting tech intelligence between Germany and France, providing data to support the decision to invest in one country over the other. In Challenging Times You Must be Able to Change Your Plan Quickly When a crisis such as COVID-19 hits, organizations must re-think everything: from reevaluating territories to reevaluating their ICP. In the current environment, account prioritization becomes critical. How can the right market intelligence help marketing and sales teams to focus their efforts? Elizabeth says that tech intelligence can help sales by identifying accounts with the highest propensity to buy, with insights about a company’s tech stack and what their budgets are. And it can help marketing in developing messaging to address pain points for better engagement rates. One success story Elizabeth shared is Citrix, which used tech intelligence to build an $80M pipeline, reduce sales cycles by 30% and quadruple the rate at which they turned leads into opportunities. Listen to the entire episode as Elizabeth shares more details about how the right market intelligence can enable B2B companies to identify the best opportunities, even in the midst of the COVID crisis. Featured on This Episode Connect with Elizabeth HG Insights Outline of This Episode [1:58] About HG Insights and Tech Intelligence [4:35] Elizabeth’s journey: From PhD to CEO [6:57] Having the right market intelligence: Where do you start? [9:25] The role of market intelligence in strategic planning [12:55] The Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) [14:55] What are companies doing with intelligence data in 2020? [18:30] The impact of market intelligence on product teams [20:39] A success case study of a company increasing their pipeline with market intelligence Resources & People Mentioned The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/15220523

How B2B Sales Teams Are Pivoting in the COVID World 07/08/2020

How B2B Sales Teams Are Pivoting in the COVID World Marketing and sales plans conceived in early 2020 are either no longer relevant or no longer work, so B2B sales teams have had to change how they sell (and sometimes even WHAT they sell) to adapt to the new environment of the COVID world. In this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, I talk with Jillian Ryan about some of the pivots B2B companies are making to respond to the changing marketing and sales landscape. Jillian is a principal analyst on the eMarketer vertical for Insider Intelligence. Her expertise and analysis focus on B2B marketing, advertising and sales, as well as trends in marketing transformation and the modern workplace. As a former B2B marketing director, Jillian has over 15 years experience driving strategy for B2B software companies and digital publishers. She is also a frequent presenter at industry events such as The B2B Marketing Exchange, Advertising Week and Social Media Week and her commentary has been featured in Bloomberg, CNN, The Wall Street Journal and Ad Week. Listen to this episode as we discuss how B2B sales teams are pivoting to succeed in the COVID world. Two Pivots for B2B Sales Teams At the beginning of the COVID crisis, many B2B sales teams were left in the dark while executives shifted priorities and marketing teams figured out new messaging. Sellers wondered what would happen with their quotas, if their jobs were secure and what would the future look like. Sales leaders had to pivot and inform their teams that budgets shifted from live events to other channels such as video conferencing and . Pivot #1: From Live Events to Virtual Events For B2B companies, in-person events in a pre-COVID world were a pivotal touchpoint to drive demand, secure active deals and build stronger connections with prospects. These events took on many forms: some companies hosted their own events to launch new products and features and provide their audience with educational and thought leadership content. Other B2B companies relied on trade shows to showcase their products, while others participated in large scale industry events to meet with partners and potential customers. Today, . This is what Jillian discovered in her research. Pivot #2: From In-Person Meetings to Virtual Meetings Without face-to-face events, business travel and meetings, sellers have lost critical touchpoints with their prospects during this pandemic. Further, navigating conversations with potential buyers during an economic crisis is not easy. B2B sellers who are consultative, creative and empathic can find success. The obvious pivot is to virtual meetings with 77% of salespeople in North America saying they are doing more while sheltering in place, according to ®. Phone calls (57%) and emails (51%) also saw increased usage with sellers looking to engage with buyers. How Sales Video Came to the Forefront in the COVID World Without the possibility of face-to-face interaction, video calls are on the rise. This includes sales messaging. Although it’s very easy to hop on a call now because work schedules are less cluttered with business trips, getting a buyer to respond is also increasingly challenging as bandwidth for Zoom calls competes with the pressures of being locked in the home with kids, family members and other COVID-driven challenges. There is no universal answer to these challenges: it depends on the individual buyer. That’s why sales leaders are increasingly teaching their sellers to use sales video messaging to connect with prospects in a manner that allows flexibility in how they respond while working from home, but also includes the personal touch that is lost in written digital communications. In fact, according to LikedIn®, video messages have 5x better response rates than written messages. Jillian says that not only the message has to pivot in the COVID world, but also the format -- and . ABM in the COVID World Tactics and strategies that enable B2B teams to be more precise with their messaging and dissemination will get results in a COVID world. This includes segmentation, personalization and target account-based marketing (ABM) approaches. Jillian says that today buyers are being more intentional, so marketers and sellers need to be more intentional. B2B companies must identify and prioritize their target accounts. Of course, any data analysis and account identification that was done pre-COVID needs to be revisited as it may no longer be valid. Buyers are different now; therefore, the approach to reach them needs to be different. Some industries that were hit hard by COVID (such as airlines) are harder to reach. “They don’t want to talk to you,” says Jillian, “unless you help them pivot and recover; show them how your solution is a necessity in this period of time.” Listen to this episode as Jillian explains how to and how to get serious about customer data. Now is the time to serve and support your customers with their current needs. In the new normal, buyers will remember those sellers that were supportive during the COVID crisis. Featured on This Episode Connect with Jillian eMarketer Jillian’s article: Outline of This Episode [1:45] Jillian’s work at eMarketer. [4:12] Why marketing and sales plans from early 2020 don’t work anymore. [10:29] The importance of sales video in the COVID world. [17:37] Why the B2B buying process is more complex now. [19:29] The Pivot to ABM in the COVID world. [31:33] B2B pressures ahead. Resources & People Mentioned The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr. Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/15117488

A 5-Point Marketing Strategy to a Target Audience Who Doesn’t Recognize Your Value 06/24/2020

A 5-Point Marketing Strategy to a Target Audience Who Doesn’t Recognize Your Value Innovative business models bring interesting challenges for marketers. When your company fills a previously unrecognized void, your target audience won’t probably know you exist or recognize that they need you. What marketing strategy can you use if your target audience doesn’t recognize your value? That was the case of my guest in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, Stephany Greene. Stephany is Director of Marketing and Public Relations at WestCMR, a company that purchases surplus inventory of in-date surgical supplies from hospitals and surgery centers and sells them to facilities at a discount. WestCMR was founded in 1997 by Randy Ware. Randy was in sales when he observed excessive waste where hospitals and surgery centers sent their new, unused un-expired surgical supplies to landfills. So he innovated a unique business model to empower hospitals and surgery centers, that enabled them to capitalize their excess inventory by selling their supplies to Randy’s company, instead of sending them to landfills. WestCMR’s Marketing Strategy Randy established a strong market presence with WestCMR with a persistent effort. Stephany says that even though WestCMR became the leader in this niche market over the past 23 years, and they serve thousands of hospitals and surgery centers, they’re still a niche business that many in the industry don’t even know exists to help them. She joined the company in 2018 and implemented the following 5-point marketing strategy with great success. 1. Video Focused on Telling the Story Stephany began implementing her strategy with videos focusing on the vision of the CEO, interviewing employees and showcasing the warehouse and the employees working there. This allowed them to overcome misconceptions their target audience had about the quality of their products, about what they do, and how they do it. For example, competitors have tried to imply that WestCMR sells blackmarket supplies, or the products are not authentic – which is not true. The videos showcasing the cleanliness of their warehouse, the actual products and the skilled staff position them as a reputable supplier in the eyes of their customers. They not only used the videos online but converted them into a 30-second TV commercial, social media ads and other marketing assets. 2. Still Images The second point in the marketing strategy is images. Stephany has used professional quality photographs of the warehouse and their products for advertorials and online catalogs. The target audience places a lot of importance on the products: that they are legitimate and un-expired -- and here’s where the photos help out, showing the expiry date and the manufacturer’s logo. 3. Events - Tradeshows Prior to COVID-19, WestCMR attended and exhibited at the top trade shows in their industry (between 3 and 6 per year). Stephany and her team innovated in their exhibits, emulating the warehouse in their booth, playing ads in the convention center and hotel lobby monitors and covering tall columns with life-size photos. Listen to this episode as Stephany shares the impact they had at the different events they attended. 4. Digital Marketing WestCMR’s digital marketing strategy focuses on email, partnering with a vendor that uses a double opt-in list, thus reaching qualified sales leads. Additionally, they use animated videos to tell the story of WestCMR online and on TV and buy online ads to reach Materials Managers and Procurement Managers at hospitals and surgery centers. 5. Sustainability Message on “Being Green” Integrated into all the channels above is WestCMR’s sustainability message. This message allows them to reach a wider audience. Their slogan, “Turning surgical supply waste into green profits” has been popular in the media (they’ve gained a lot of free coverage) as well as with their target audience. Hospitals now understand that rather than discarding unexpired surgical supplies, they can participate in both economic recovery and environmental sustainability when they liquidate their inventory to WestCMR. Listen to Stephany share their Zero Landfill Mission and how they have recycled 25 tons of surgical supply waste that would have otherwise gone to landfills. Finally, WestCMR is deeply involved in their local community as active contributors to many philanthropic efforts, such as supporting local and national community organizations like the Childrens’ Dream Fund and the Salvation Army. Every employee gets two paid volunteer days a year to help the charities of their choice. Join us for this conversation to learn more about how to develop a marketing strategy to reach an audience that doesn’t recognize your value. Click the play button above ☝🏽 or listen on your favorite podcast player. Featured on This Episode Connect with Stephany Greene WestCMR Outline of This Episode [2:53] The innovative business model of WestCMR [7:40] What to do when your target audience doesn’t recognize your value [9:42] How Stephany came to WestCMR [11:31] The 5-point marketing strategy Stephany used [11:49] Point 1: Video [16:18] Point 2: Images [19:02] Point 3: Events [24:22] Point 4: Digital Marketing [27:54] Point 5: Sustainability message [33:36] WestCMR’s philanthropic initiatives Resources & People Mentioned The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr. Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/14941640

The Power Of Human In Growth Marketing During A Pandemic 05/27/2020

The Power Of Human In Growth Marketing During A Pandemic Growth marketing is what drives pipeline and increases sales in the long run. The correlation is undisputed. During a time of social and financial disruption like the current COVID-19 pandemic, growth marketing can be perceived by some as insensitive and opportunistic. What is the modern marketer’s best response? I’m happy to have Meredyth Jensen as my guest on this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast. She serves as Senior Vice President, Corporate Marketing & Brand Communications at RGP. During our conversation, I learned that RGP is a spinoff from Deloitte in 1996 and has become a global company that has served more than 80 of the Fortune 100 companies with services spanning financial, legal, HR, IT and supply chain. Meredyth’s perspective is simple yet powerful: Marketing that is human is marketing that works, no matter the social or economic climate. Join us for this intriguing conversation where Meredyth outlines her personal approach to her own marketing career, why RGP has not missed a beat in its marketing efforts despite COVID-19, and so you can benefit from her advice on ways you might want to adjust your marketing approach to reach your ideal customers. We Marketers Still Need To Do Our Job During Social And Economic Crisis Every season in the life of a business has its unique challenges, but right now (H1 of 2020) companies worldwide are facing unprecedented obstacles. COVID-19 has changed the story when it comes to the needs of the consumer or business we’re marketing to. Many things that used to be pertinent talking points have become irrelevant — or at least no longer appropriate to be part of the marketing conversation. In this environment, marketing teams still have to do their job, albeit with more compassion than ever. Meredyth acknowledges that although this is true, it doesn’t change the approach of brands who have been doing marketing with an authentic emphasis on people all along. Meredyth approaches marketing from a “human” perspective, meaning she leads her team to craft both her marketing approach and messages to the person on the other end of the conversation. She wants to provide true care FOR that person, whatever form it might take. That's a big reason why her transition into her current role at RGP is such a perfect fit. Hear more about when you listen to this episode. RGP’s moniker is "The Power of Human." This is a mindset that most marketers would say they want in their approach but one that's not always practiced. Listen to this podcast episode to hear Meredyth explain the RGP mindset to get inspired in your own growth marketing strategy. How Can A Company Be Truly Human? It may sound like hyperbole to say that RGP, a business that serves over 80 of the Fortune 100 companies is a “human” company, but it’s legit. Meredyth explains that she hears it from their customers. One of the most common sentiments expressed by their customers goes something like this, “You don’t just work for us, you work with us.” To Meredyth, that’s proof that the RGP team has “the power of human” in their DNA. The vision is more than a slogan at RGP. Human is how they do business. The people on the other end of their marketing are what matter. The assumption that when the customer is cared for in a human way, loyalty and profitability are natural outcomes, has proved to be true since their founding in 1996. Marketing practitioners have much to learn from such a great example. Listen to learn more about how to orient your growth marketing around a human approach. Growth Marketing Cares For The People On The Other End At the outset of this episode you’ll hear Meredyth say the following… “I don’t even want to say we’re marketing to people right now. We’re helping people. How can we be helpful and be a resource and be useful?” Her comment is at the heart of what it means to be human as a company. It’s a practice of care and concern for the people behind any possible . COVID-19 is a stark example of how the circumstances that happen in life impact both the needs of companies as well as the needs of the people within those businesses. Think it through for your situation — as those you seek to do business with work through the situations caused by this pandemic. Consider how you can be a resource to them in ways that are helpful and of value? That type of care and concern for the people your business serves builds a level of trust that may not yield immediate business results but may open the door to a relationship that can serve both you and them in the future. This mindset is well suited for a as well as they engage in their selling activities with customers whether it’s an existing customer or a new customer. Join us for this conversation to learn more about how growth marketing can be human. Featured on This Episode Meredyth Meredyth on Twitter: The Outline of This Episode [2:06] Meredyth’s role at RGP and the mission of the company [4:55] The three pillar approach to modern marketing Meredyth applies [7:12] What drove RGP’s recent rebrand? [10:45] How RGP achieved its “more human” reputation in the industry [13:28] COVID-19 has impacted growth marketing in these ways [17:04] The sales mindset shift required in the COVID-19 era [22:12] My summary of this conversation and Meredyth’s take away points Resources & People Mentioned The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/14570990

4 Strategies to Drive Marketing Results with Limited Resources 05/13/2020

4 Strategies to Drive Marketing Results with Limited Resources Every team of marketers needs to drive marketing results that matter, and as my guest on this episode says, “I’ve never heard a marketing team say, ‘We’ve got all the budget we need!’ “ That’s especially true for small teams. On this episode, David Buffaloe, CMO of Vertical IQ shares the steps marketing leaders can take to drive marketing results despite having limited resources. Vertical IQ provides insights into what’s happening on a variety of levels in over 500 industries. By tapping into the data available through Vertical IQ you will quickly become an industry expert; which equips you to find, connect with, resource, and close new customers and nurture relationships with existing customers. You’ll enjoy hearing the insightful strategies David has for assessing your marketing approach, choosing and using automation effectively, locating the right talent and nurturing their success, and producing marketing results that drive the bottom line profitability of your company. I invite you to listen! The First Step To Optimizing Your Small Marketing Team Is... ...Assessment! David has only been in his present position as CMO of Vertical IQ for 7 months at the time of this conversation, but he’s been in marketing for over 25 years. His approach when stepping into leadership at any organization is to assess the state of the company and the current marketing approach. This includes understanding the needs of the company and the needs of the audience they are selling to. He asks questions about the content currently being produced and what is missing. He considers the opportunities for driving demand, building brand awareness, and how thought leadership is being used and can be used more effectively to build expertise in the industry. When this kind of assessment is done you’ll better understand how to make best use of what you have in place and what skills are needed on your team to utilize those resources and drive marketing results. There is so much here, you won’t want to miss what David has to share. Prioritizing Tasks That Drive Marketing Results For small marketing teams a clear set of priorities must be established so that the real limitations that exist can be optimized. As David says, “You can’t do everything and you can’t do everything well.” Choosing the right priorities and balancing the difference between long-term needs and the short-term impact you can make is essential. It’s your assessment that will help you identify and drive the right priorities. Once you’re clear on what you need to be doing, you should set up your processes and systems in agile ways. This is important with a small marketing team because things change too quickly for a “set it and forget it” approach. Adaptable, flexible teams and systems can make the most of every situation and continue driving qualified leads to the sales team so they can generate closed-won deals. Learn To Balance Automation With The Need To Remain Adaptable Since David emphasized the need to be agile, it was interesting to hear that he also encourages the use of automation. When I asked him to clarify how the two fit together he said that marketing automation is great but that you can have too much. When overburdened with automation options, a marketing team can hamper its own efficiency and effectiveness. David recommends you start sorting out your automation needs by asking yourself “WHEN is the best time to automate within our current ?” He encourages you to understand your audience intimately, understand the typical buyer’s journey, and THEN you’ll see clearly WHEN is the right time to automate. Some suggestions for where automation typically fits best are... Adding automation to the initial touches with prospects so they receive helpful, value-adds immediately upon showing interest. When a prospect comes into the funnel but is not entirely ready to have a , you can add automated sales enablement and industry-specific pieces that will add value to them and address questions or reservations that are common with people in their position. What Metrics Indicate Marketing Results That Matter? Metrics are vital for any marketing team. Without them, how are you going to know which of your efforts is effective and which needs to be improved or abandoned? David agrees and emphasizes that you need to focus on the right metrics. What he calls “vanity metrics” are to be avoided. What are vanity metrics? The typical questions asked around vanity metrics are… How many leads came in this month? How many followers do we have on social? How many website impressions are we seeing? While these questions will undoubtedly have numeric answers, they are not specific enough to be truly helpful. Instead, David says we should be focusing on what he calls “Impact metrics:” How are we doing at moving people from one stage of the buyer’s journey to another? How many opportunities have we created and how many of those have turned into pipeline? What marketing activities are directly attributable to closed-won deals? Listen to hear David describe these important distinctions and how to use them effectively to drive marketing results that will make a difference in the bottom line of your organization. Featured on This Episode VerticalIQ’s website: Follow David Connect with David on Twitter: @dbuffaloe Outline of This Episode [1:12] Why industry intelligence is beneficial to sales and marketing teams [4:14] What’s the role of a marketing team in getting things done? [11:14] Finding a balance between adding automation and remaining agile as a team [16:09] How to identify the skills needed to focus on your top priorities [20:25] What about measurement? What needs to be measured, what doesn’t? Resources & People Mentioned VerticalIQ’s FREE COVID-19 Resource site: The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/14369738

Managing A Remote Marketing Team As The New Normal 04/01/2020

Managing A Remote Marketing Team As The New Normal With the changes happening in the business world due to the Coronavirus crisis, many marketing leaders are learning that managing a remote team of marketers is not a simple matter. Since the entire Vengreso team is remote- now known as “WFH” (work from home) - I wanted to offer help for those making the transition. I invited Matt Langie, CMO of Xant to help me pull it off. And, he delivered! Matt’s background working for tech giant Adobe and other tech firms has enabled him to amass the experience you’d expect from the CMO of an up and coming sales technology company like Xant. During his career, he’s had plenty of experience working with remote marketing teams so his insight into the subject will serve you well. If you’re a team member who’s now working from home or a manager looking for tips on how to manage a remote team, you’ll find Matt’s advice to be golden. Don’t miss it! This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at Managing A Remote Team Begins With Setting Clear Expectations If your marketing team has been moved off-campus due to the “shelter at home” restrictions implemented by local authorities, you're not alone. If you're a team leader, you’ve got to remember that many of your team members have never had to work in that kind of an isolated, distraction-prone environment before. They’re going to need your help to set proper boundaries and approach their work with an attitude that will enable your entire team to thrive. Start by setting expectations for work hours, meeting attendance and protocols, and the use of tech platforms you’ll use to communicate and share resources. When remote team members understand what's expected of them and the tools they’ll be using to accomplish their work, they’ll feel more confident in their new environment. Your proactive leadership and patience will go a long way in helping them make a healthy transition. Remote Marketers Need To Set Appropriate Boundaries At Home Consider the differences between working in an office environment as opposed to a home office. First off, many people on your team who are transitioning to working from their homes don’t have an actual office in their homes. They may have to set up shop on a dining room table, in a corner of the basement, or in a spare bedroom. That sort of isolation in itself is going to be very different for them. In addition, many of them will have pets, children, or spouses at home who need to be considered and taken into account—and your team still needs to get their work done! Help your team understand the importance of setting appropriate physical and psychological boundaries for themselves and with their family members. When they do, they will help their “home team” (their families) come alongside their efforts to continue working and will make it easier for everyone to understand how this “new normal” needs to work. Matt has great advice about the issues to address and how to address them sensitively and with compassion. A Remote Team Needs The Tools To Succeed It’s wise for marketing managers who are transitioning team members to remote work to take a careful look at the tools typically used in their office environment. Does the software and platforms you’ve been using for on-campus work fit the digital/remote context? Do you need to find new ways to communicate, collaborate, and deliver assets? Matt says that most teams will need laptop computers, clear channels of communication, and processes that fit the remote work situation. Making communication clear and effective is key. Matt says that his remote teams have weekly check-in meetings every Monday morning using a video conferencing platform. Seeing each others’ faces, hearing the tone of voice and seeing the body language of team members goes a long way toward building a sense of being in this together. As well, getting clear on the workflow for the week helps everyone be on the same page and feel connected to what’s going on. In his words, managers need to “over-communicate” to ensure everything is understood clearly, including deliverables and deadlines and that work is progressing according to schedule. Don’t Forget To Celebrate The Wins Of Your Remote Team In your office environment, you experience natural opportunities to celebrate with your team. Office drop-ins, high-fives, and other regular celebrations of progress and success are fairly common on a healthy team. When team members go remote, team celebrations become more difficult but no less important. If you are the team leader, it’s your job to ensure that wins are still celebrated and that everyone has the opportunity to join in. Matt suggests using a portion of your meeting time each week to share wins, large and small. He also suggests the use of workflow platforms to encourage sharing and interaction that builds and supports team spirit. The point is that team members and the contributions they make are no less valuable when accomplished remotely. The manager needs to ensure everyone feels valued and is recognized regularly for their part in the success of the whole. There’s a whole lot more Matt and I talked about on this episode, so make sure you take the time to listen. You’ll hear how he’s been able to lead remote teams successfully and I’m sure you’ll learn some tips to help you make your team’s transition to remote work successful. Featured on This Episode Connect with Matt Follow Matt on Twitter: Follow Xant on Twitter: Connect with Xant Outline of This Episode [1:32] Xant’s place in the marketplace and Matt’s role there [6:31] How marketing leaders can motivate remote teams who are newly remote [11:39] Why physical and psychological boundaries are important for working at home [13:32] What are the best ways to manage projects and deliverables remotely? [15:27] How can you celebrate wins together when working remotely? [17:10] Strategies to make online meetings productive and powerful [20:58] Managing remote teams toward appropriate working hours Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/13729604

Growth Marketing through Hyper Personalization 03/18/2020

Growth Marketing through Hyper Personalization . Growth marketing is about increasing pipeline so the sales organization can be more successful, faster. My guest on this episode of the podcast approaches growth marketing through hyper-personalization. What is that? Imagine yourself driving down the highway and two billboards appear along the road. One is a generic, “buy this product from us” presentation while the other speaks directly to you, addressing a very specific personal need you have. Which are you most drawn to? Ari Capogeannis is Senior Marketing Director in charge of Demand Generation for Cumulus Networks.The company designs and sells a Linux operating system to deliver networking solutions for large datacenter, cloud computing, and enterprise environments. . Ari has seen how hyper-personalization —directed at every person within the decision-making unit of mid-market and enterprise businesses — can accelerate sales pipeline with truly qualified leads as well as decrease the time to close. Listen to hear a brief but deep-dive explanation of what hyper-personalized growth marketing could do for your modern marketing strategy. This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at Acquisition, Engagement, Retention: Three Pillars Of Growth Marketing Ari explains that there are three aspects of growth marketing that must be mastered: Acquisition Engagement Retention He explains how a hyper-personalized approach to growth marketing can improve the effectiveness of each of these pillars by introducing a new concept: He calls it “Demand Gen 3.0.” Demand Gen 1.0 is marketing that’s focused on marketing qualified leads (MQLs) which is primarily a volume play with limitations. Demand Gen 2.0 is focused on generating opportunities within target accounts and managing those opportunities in collaboration with the sales team. It uses scoring models to develop accountability and measure the journey of those opportunities. It’s less about leads. It’s all about driving opportunities at accounts. Demand Gen 3.0—which is what Ari is advocating— refers to a holistic approach whereby marketers create a digital experience that addresses specific pain points of each person encountered on the website and other digital channels. Different than 1.0 and 2.0, this 3.0 approach is not just lead gen and it’s not just coming up with scoring models that allow sales teams to be more efficient. Demand Gen 3.0 is about leveraging the marketing technology stack to deliver messaging that speaks directly to the pain points of the varied members of the decision-making team within a prospective customer's decision-making unit. It’s done by segmenting content according to role and persona and also providing it directly to the sales team for their use. What Size Marketing Staff Is Required to Hyper-Personalize Marketing This Way? An approach to growth marketing that dives so deeply into hyper-personalization by personas and buying stages sounds very people intensive. It’s understandable to think that it could require many people. But Ari explains how, by making the right choices about tools within the MarTech stack and centralizing the data, these tasks can be handled by a team of one, two or three people, of course depending on their other responsibilities. He says you must hone in on the tools that can integrate effectively. You may need to replace four or five separate technologies in your MarTech stack to achieve centralization of data that enables your team to manage personalized messaging. This change will impact everything, including targeting, predictive analytics, sales enablement and more in a way that accelerates your ability to be effective in this growth marketing strategy. Effectively Passing Personalized Assets To The Sales Organization By using this streamlined set of predictive analytics tools and other MarTech solutions, Ari's team can discover insights about the prospect’s buying journey, both on and off the company’s website. Off-site: Are people researching key brand terms or other terms related to the products that Cumulus Networks sells? Are they exhibiting behavior that indicates an interest in the company’s offerings? On-site: Ari's team can tell exactly when people from matched accounts are hitting the website each day, tie it to a sales territory, and arrange to sort each one by sales engagement stage. Then he can identify leads that indicate buying intent and provide them to the appropriate person in the sales organization. The integrated and centralized way the tech stack works enables sales to understand the content paths they should use—by vertical, purchase intent, stage, who they are competing against, etc. Ari refers to this as “People-Based Marketing”—it IS ABM but not focused on the account, it’s focused on the people within the account’s decision-making unit. Among the many results, Ari says that this hyper-personalization reduces time to close by as much as 50%. That’s impressive. Listen to this episode to hear first-hand from Ari about growth marketing through hyper-personalization. Featured on This Episode Connect with Ari Capogeannis Follow Ari on Twitter: - where Ari serves as Senior Marketing Director Outline of This Episode [1:39] Ari’s role and goals at Cumulus Networks [3:05] Why should growth marketing take place through hyper personalization? [7:48] Unpacking the tools and approach underneath Demand Gen 3.0 [10:03] What impact does this approach have on a marketing staff? ]17:03] Reviewing metrics of prospects and decision-makers [27:50] Metrics that show the effectiveness of these growth marketing approaches Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/13581095

Why Sales Enablement Strategy Fits Best in Marketing 03/11/2020

Why Sales Enablement Strategy Fits Best in Marketing Who is best equipped to carry out an effective Sales Enablement Strategy? Sales? Marketing? Maybe another department? Bernie’s guest on this episode of Modern Marketing Engine is Genefa Murphy PhD, SVP and CMO at Micro Focus, one of the world’s largest digital transformation solutions providers. Genefa believes that Marketing should own Sales Enablement and the goal of this podcast episode is to understand why. We'll also get a peek into how it’s being carried out at Micro Focus. You’ll learn how Genefa’s team organizes “Sales Councils” to inform and empower Sales Enablement, how they go about repurposing and creating the right content for Sales, and how she evaluates Sales Enablement efforts both qualitatively and quantitatively. Be sure you listen to the entire podcast episode! This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at Is There A Compelling Reason For Sales Enablement To Belong In Marketing? Genefa believes that the buyer’s journey is influenced by both marketing and sales. Marketing delivers messaging to the marketplace, which establishes brand identity and reputation, while sales delivers the message first-hand to potential customers. She says it’s crucial that identical messaging is happening in both of those scenarios and that Marketing is best equipped to ensure that happens. But, the insular perspective of a marketer could come up short when it comes to real-life scenarios that sellers face. Additionally, the buyer’s journey is not linear, so there must be a continuous feedback loop that allows for iteration and improvement of resources, training, and Sales Enablement methodology. In Genefa’s words, having Sales Enablement under the Marketing banner “enables marketing and sales to be singing from the same sheet of music.” However, contrary to what you might think the relationship between Marketing and Sales isn’t always completely harmonious. In her words, there needs to be a “healthy tension” between them so there is a kind of push-back that allows for mutual growth and accountability between the two teams. How Content Fits Into An Effective Sales Enablement Strategy One of the clear areas of need that must meet is that of creating effective tools and resources that can be delivered to team members in all roles within the sales organization. With that goal in mind, Genefa’s Sales Enablement team has developed a robust content repository that enables them to get the right content into the hands of the right team members, and in the timing that matches each stage of the buying journey. They’ve developed: Case studies Competitive battle cards Buyer profiles and personas Competitive intel Sales flows Objective handling resources Door openers and MORE This wealth of content enables sellers to reinforce company messaging more effectively, avoid duplication of effort, increase consistency, avoid fragmented customer experiences, and leverage the knowledge and expertise of the individuals on her team who have in-the-trenches sales experience. Making Contracts Between Sales And Sales Enablement Through A Sales Council A great example of applying a Sales Enablement Strategy to great effect can be seen in the way Micro Focus rolled out its new sales methodology. In order to get buy-in from everyone company-wide and to facilitate consistency, the Sales Enablement team created a “Sales Council” in collaboration with Sales Leadership. It’s a team made up of individuals from all roles within the Sales organization who serve as a sounding-board for Sales Enablement. Genefa says this step was vital because it enabled the Sales Enablement team — those responsible for building the methodology into practical tools — to create something relevant and useful for the Sales team, those who consume and use the content. An additional benefit is that the members of these Sales Councils became vested in the process personally and thus became advocates within their departments for the Sales Enablement strategy behind the new Sales Methodology. Adoption was effective as a result. How Genefa Measures Micro Focus’ Sales Enablement Strategy Genefa confesses that she enjoys data and the insights that come from it. But she also realizes that the data may not tell the whole story. There are ways to measure the effectiveness of their Sales Enablement strategy that are not strictly tied to the metrics, but also give them viable insight into the impact of the strategy. To that end, Genefa pays close attention to what’s happening during the day to day interactions with the sales team. Are Sales professionals reaching out to the Sales Enablement team with questions or for help? If yes, that means the tools being created by Sales Enablement are being used. During sales meetings, are sales reps referring to the tools Sales Enablement has provided pertaining to their selling activities? If so, it’s a great indication that the right tools have been created. But that’s purely a qualitative analysis, what about the quantitative markers that metrics provide? Genefa looks at the data to discover whether the Sales team is becoming in greater numbers, if there is evidence of greater pipeline productivity, if they are closing more deals or closing them faster, and if they are increasing the value of opportunities. All of these metrics indicate that the tools created by Sales Enablement are being used and are proving to be effective in the sales organization. Listen to hear more details of Genefa’s Sales Enablement Strategy at one of the largest digital transformation companies in the world - Micro Focus. It’s on this episode of Modern Marketing Engine. Featured on This Episode Genefa Murphy Follow Genefa on Twitter: - where Genefa serves as Chief Marketing Officer Outline of This Episode [1:54] Genefa’s role at MicroFocus and how her career path led her to it [3:51] The definition of “Sales Enablement” from Genefa’s perspective [5:23] Making the case for Sales Enablement being part of Marketing [7:18] Threading the pieces together: the MicroFocus approach [10:22] Putting together “sales councils” within the company [14:27] The ongoing challenge of delivering Sales Enablement to a massive sales team [20:10] Measuring success of Sales Enablement efforts [22:47] What’s next for the MicroFocus Sales Enablement team? Resources & People Mentioned This episode is sponsored by XANT, the enterprise leader in sales engagement. Xant has authored the Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence. Get your copy at The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/13484360

The Three Pillars of Marketing at Sykes, a Global Brand 02/26/2020

The Three Pillars of Marketing at Sykes, a Global Brand . The Unique DNA Of This Global Brand Sykes is a leading provider of customer engagement services with a rich, 40 year history serving global and emerging brands. One demonstration of how Sykes is uniquely different than many long-lived brands is the story of how Ian Barkin came to be part of the company. Ian was previously co-founder and CSO of Symphony Ventures, a professional services firm focused on designing, delivering, and managing modern business processes. The company was so successful that it got the attention of Sykes leadership and was acquired by the company. When that happened, Ian was offered a spot in the C-suite of Sykes as Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer and he says now that he couldn’t be more delighted with this role. Ian says the exposure he had to the culture at Sykes while acquisition talks were underway impressed him. Particularly, he appreciated that Sykes leadership often referred to team members as “family,” a practice he and his co-founders at Symphony had intentionally used as they developed their 200-person team. When he was offered a role on the Sykes executive team after the acquisition was complete, Ian felt it was a great opportunity and an amazing fit from a cultural perspective. You don't see that kind of open attitude at the global level very often. Pillar 1: Internal Marketing That Fuels The Global Brand When we speak of “internal marketing” we’re talking about the communication of the company values and mission to those already employed with the company. Ian doesn’t feel the Sykes approach of using the #OneSykes messaging was anything novel, but the way they implemented it was quite unique. The strategy is “to teach us about ourselves, to get us all aligned.” This means enabling everyone on the team to know about the rich set of services the company offers, to cultivate a very real sense of unity among team members, and to encourage a sense of integration and collaboration between services. In the end, Ian wants everyone within the Sykes employee family to feel a sense of pride about being a part of the team and about delivering amazing solutions to their customers. To market these values and distinctives internally, Ian has been traveling to company offices around the globe, meeting with managers and teams and amplifying the “We Are One Sykes” message. He’s had rich experiences as he’s connected with teams around the globe and witnessed their enthusiasm and determination regarding the company’s approach to serving its customers. Pillar 2: Branding In The Marketplace For Education And Reputation Building The interesting part of what the Sykes team is doing in this regard centers around the company’s traditional set of services — which primarily provided call center services. Many in the industries they serve view them as “the call center people," which is now only a subset of their overall portfolio of solutions they offer to the global marketplace they serve. With a desire to expand awareness among customers and prospective-customers about the company’s robust solution portfolio, the Sykes team devised a somewhat tongue-in-cheek campaign they refer to as #NotJustAllTalk — a play on words that communicates how the company offers much more than call center support services while at the same time proving that they deliver on what they promise. This marketing approach is contributing to an expansion of opportunity within their customer base and elevation of the brand’s reputation in the marketplace. One such example of creative communication is the Sykes OneTAKE video podcast, hosted by Ian. The purpose of this show is to feature a business leader on topics that span innovation, sustainability, entrepreneurship, sales, marketing, customer service and more. Bernie was recently featured on OneTAKE where he spoke with Ian about the evolving role of modern selling to engage effectively with the modern buyer. In fact, this podcast was recorded on site at the Sykes OneTAKE studio. Pillar 3: Branding for Talent Recruiting As a global brand, Sykes is always recruiting new members for its team. Ian says that part of his role is to deliver marketing messaging that fuels the perpetual recruitment engine. A huge challenge to this task is that Sykes is recruiting for positions around the globe. The potential for cultural and social differences in different regions can impact the strategy when communicating recruitment messages. Though his team could be developing messages to recruit for one position, that role may be carried out in various places around the globe. That means how the message is said and knowledge of which social media channels are prevalent in each geographic region are vital to recruiting effectiveness. Ian says that he works closely with local HR and recruitment teams to ensure that the approach he’s taking is on target. The team members on the ground in the area where recruitment is done have the best perspective from which to approach the communication. Featured on This Episode Connect with Ian Follow Ian on Twitter: Bernie Borges on Sykes Outline of This Episode [1:35] Ian’s journey as CMO of Sykes, a global brand that helps companies help their customers [4:35] An overview of the 3 areas Sykes focuses on for marketing [9:18] The basis of the cultural “gelling” that happens within Sykes [10:02] The #OneTake strategy and mindset [13:10] The massive array of services Sykes has added to its offerings [17:18] Working to attract and retain team members across the globe Resources & People Mentioned The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/13282160

How To Measure Contribution To Sales Pipeline From Events 02/19/2020

How To Measure Contribution To Sales Pipeline From Events . Events have been a notoriously difficult marketing channel to measure when it comes to adding qualified leads to the sales pipeline. Much of that difficulty has been due to the limits of the technology marketers have used for years, but there are also shortfalls that have happened in the realms of strategy and planning that need to be addressed. Bernie’s guest on this episode of Modern Marketing Engine is Corey McCarthy, CMO of Socio—a company whose are changing the way companies engage with and measure event leads. Listen to discover how to coordinate event lead generation efforts with sales, how to get marketing and sales on the same page for event planning and strategy, how to make sure event leads make it into the sales pipeline, and ultimately how to measure contribution to sales pipeline through events. Mark your calendar for February 26th and 27th in Salt Lake City at the Grand America Hotel for NEXT 2020. Register now using the discount code ‘Vengreso’ and save 40% Why Has The ROI On Events Been So Difficult To Track? In the past, lead capture at events has not been easy or effective. Corey points out that the paper-spitting dinosaur marketers have used for years - printers - are still around and are part of the ongoing problem of tracking event ROI. The good news is that events don’t have to remain on the fringes of effective tracking. This is the age of data and technology has changed in ways that provide options for capturing and integrating leads from events into existing CRM systems. There are also many lessons-learned from past failures that savvy marketing and sales leaders can implement to make event planning and strategy pay off more. Listen to hear how Corey leads her team to make the most of events through effective planning and the use of technology. How To Effectively Tackle The Handoff Of Event Leads To Sales To make sure leads collected at events make it into the sales follow-up pipeline, you have to start at the top. Corey says you must align marketing and sales at the highest levels so that everyone is pursuing the same goals for the event. Part of the problem in the past has been that while sales leaders have often set goals for events they have failed to clearly set KPIs for the sales team selected to attend the event. There has also been a failure when it comes to setting ground rules for event participants. An example that resonates with Bernie is that sales reps at the event should not be allowed to conduct sales calls or demos from their hotel rooms while at the event if that would require missing pre-assigned event responsibilities. It’s also beneficial to understand the context of an event to maximize the spend and manpower invested. Event attendees are often decision-makers who are hard to connect with through traditional means, so wisely making a priority of connecting with them at the event is key to effectively . How Marketing And Sales Can Collaborate For Events From A Planning Standpoint Corey was kind enough to walk Bernie through her event planning process to demonstrate the pieces that make for effective collaboration and strategy. Corey says that she (the CMO) looks at her calendar for the coming year so she can plan events the company will participate in— and identify the personnel that should be assigned to participate in those events. She’ll coordinate with sales leadership to select the sales reps for each event whose skills best match the needs of the potential attendees. From there, Corey communicates with sales leadership so they can plan travel budgets and clear the schedules of sales reps accordingly. Once the top leaders from marketing and sales have chosen their team, they will pull together that team to discuss the event, their goals for it, and to communicate expectations and KPIs. They will assess prospects who are expected to attend and get their SDRs started with outreach to those individuals. They hope to book meeting times with those prospects during the event. This kind of collaboration from the top levels of sales and marketing is essential. If strategy doesn’t start from the top it breaks down quickly. Make Sure Event Activities Fill The Sales Pipeline Too often, those who are chosen to staff booths at events get busy chatting with each other or checking email on their phones while prospects are walking right by them. This behavior is detrimental to the goal of an event - to generate sales leads. Corey suggests setting clear expectations and accountability to avoid this problem. She’s had success placing a respected Senior Marketer from her team as the lead person over the event, and she gives this person a vested interest in event-specific outcomes. This motivates the team from the inside and drives active participation. She also recommends setting daily goals for the event and coordinating end-of-day recaps to assess KPI achievements and make plans for the next day. When it comes to making the booth appealing, she says you have to develop creative ideas that provide reasons for people to come to your booth. In this conversation, you’ll hear her describe two of the successful approaches her teams have taken in the past, including a “party bus” her company provided to shuttle attendees to the evening meet-ups—and the only way to get a pass for the bus was to visit their booth! Listen to learn how you can make events pay off for your company in qualified leads and the ability to track the ROI of your event spend. Featured on This Episode Connect with Corey Follow Corey on Twitter: - where Corey serves as Chief Marketing Officer Follow Socio Follow Socio on Twitter: Outline of This Episode [1:50] The services Socio brings to the marketing world and Corey’s role there [3:32] Why has it been so difficult to track the ROI on event spend in the past? [5:20] How sales and marketing need to collaborate better for events [11:55] Making the event itself a success from a lead / sales standpoint [14:40] How to strategize in light of limited budgets [16:05] Ideas for effective post-event follow-up [19:10] Tracking leads into pipeline - including multi-touch attribution Resources & People Mentioned Mark your calendars for February 26th and 27th in Salt Lake City at the Grand America Hotel for NEXT 2020. Register now using the discount code ‘Vengreso’ and save 40% when you attend NEXT 2020. The with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine /episode/index/show/sbengine/id/13206272

Modern Marketing Engine podcast hosted by Bernie Borges

TOPICS