Renegade Thinkers Unite: Marketing Tips From Cmos And Expert Marketers

How can a business discover its brand story? The first step, according to David Altschul of Character LLC, is to identify the story’s conflict. Now, this isn’t the classic “good vs. bad” conflict that you tend to see in Marvel movies—a brand conflict is between two positives, think “independent vs. social” or “strong vs. soft.” That’s what Character specializes in, and they’ve helped some big-name clients (think Walmart, Amazon, Wendy’s) embrace such conflict and infuse it into the way they do business. Why does this matter in B2B, you ask? Well, there are a few reasons. At the outset, brands with story set themselves apart from competitors that are just selling products; when the buying committee comes together, story unifies the c-suite’s perspective of your brand; and finally, story gives you a framework for making decisions no matter what you come up against, even a pandemic. Tune in to this week’s episode to hear David’s expert advice on discovering brand story, and how to align the goals of your busines

Imagine you’ve spent the past year preparing to rebrand your organization. You’ve ticked off all the boxes—strategized with a cross-functional team, developed a robust communications plan, and defined your brand purpose—and you’re finally ready to start rolling things out, but then, the COVID pandemic brings the world to a halt. This is a moment for a big decision, do you still rebrand? Or do you put things on hold? For Julia Fitzgerald, CMO of American Lung Association, the answer was to forge ahead. After all, if they were going to make their new brand promise real, if they truly were dedicated to fighting lung disease, then this was the perfect opportunity to do it. The rebrand didn’t come with all the bells and whistles that it normally would have, but this, perhaps, makes it that much more real. After all, as Ben Franklin once said, “Well done is better than well said.” Tune in to this week’s episode to hear about all about American Lung Association’s rebrand and how they’ve agilely pivoted their marketi

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: no CMO can succeed without the backing of their CEO. Countless CMO guests on the show have talked about how crucial it is to have that top-down support, and on this special episode, we’re joined not only by the CMO of Wasabi, Michael Welts, but also by his CEO, David Friend. With a strong working relationship that most can only dream of, they talk about how they’ve built their brand and grown their customer base from 1200 to 15,000 in just two years.   The key thing David was looking for was a “simplifier” CMO, and with Michael, he found just that. Through bold marketing, Michael and his team developed a strong value proposition, “1/5 the price of Amazon and 6x faster” and based their sales strategy around the three Wasabi “peas:” price, performance, and protection. Tune in to this week’s episode to hear how to build a B2B demand gen machine, measure metrics outside of revenue, and have the CEO/CMO relationship that dreams are made of.

Now more than ever, people want simplicity. They’re looking for simple solutions to complex problems, simple language to describe complex ideas, and simple experiences in an increasingly complex world. That’s why this week’s episode, recorded pre-COVID, is so poignant. Mika Yamamoto, the CMO and CXO of F5, joins us to share the ways she has transformed how they do business by asking one simple question: “Does this remove friction or add delight?” Mika discusses the advantages of combining the CMO and CXO roles, they’ve given her a unique end-to-end perspective that has ultimately led to innovative, measurable changes for F5’s employees, customers, and prospects. With the battle cry “code connects us all,” tune in to hear all about how to best measure customer satisfaction (spoiler, it’s not NPS) and how to align your employee’s day-to-day interactions with the larger goals of the organization.

Where do you go when you’re a guest on Renegade Thinkers Unite but can’t find a quiet place in the house? To the RV, of course! That’s where Ed Rusch, the VP of Marketing at Command Alkon, has set up his #WFH headquarters, working closely with his team as the company adapts to working remotely. Fortunately, the heavy construction software company isn’t new to big change—over the last three years, Rusch has led the launch of an impressive brand transformation, repositioning Command Alkon as a category innovator and leading provider with the perfectly pithy purpose-driven story statement: “Together we build amazing.”   Command Alkon had defined the way that business was done for the last 40 years, so when they found an even better way of doing things, they were setting out to disrupt themselves in order to change the industry, pulling intercompany value from a supply chain perspective through to construction. On this week’s episode, Rusch leads us through Command Alkon’s brand reimagination, starting with the q

It's impossible to have business continuity during a crisis if your contact center software is only designed to run on-premises (on-prem for short) and your employees can’t come into the office. This has become a serious issue for many companies in the recent weeks, because if your customers can’t reach your service team, it stops business in its tracks and, ultimately, adversely affects your brand. That’s why Talkdesk, a cloud-based contact center solution, made it their mission to bring on-prem operations home quickly so that businesses can continue thriving while protecting their employees. Their first of many crisis-centered products launched one week before “business continuity” started trending, and Talkdesk CMO Kathie Johnson joins us this week to talk about how her team’s agility, commitment to goodwill, and holistic view of business put Talkdesk front and center in the conversation.

Stack Overflow, an online Q&A community for developers, has a clear #WFH advantage—they’ve operated with a largely remote workforce for over a decade, and they’ve done it well, simultaneously growing their business and earning a spot on numerous Best Developer Website lists. That’s why, in response to COVID-19, they’ve made it their top priority to share their #WFH best practices and anticipate the challenges that more traditionally in-office businesses may be facing. On this week’s episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, we’re joined by Khalid El Khatib, Stack Overflow’s VP of Marketing, to discuss the things companies can do to not just keep their teams connected, but to continue collaborating and innovating as they work from their new home. Tune in to hear his well-informed take on virtual socializing, the future of events, and the wealth of resources and tools available as we navigate a virtual world. 

As our CEO & host Drew Neisser so aptly puts it, “this an unusual episode for an unusual time.” There has been a lot to think about in recent weeks, and with the current COVID-19 pandemic affecting nearly every facet of life, it’s tremendously important—now more than ever—for leaders to step forward, take action, and lead by example. That’s why, on this week’s episode, Drew reflects on how you can take care of the people in your orbit: yourself, your family, your employees, your customers, and the world at large. His valuable insights incorporate the input of 7 CMOs who have shared their recent actions and thoughts concerning the current crisis, including Sarah Larsen (Brightcove), Jeff Perkins (ParkMobile), Paul Sparrow (Chief Outsiders), Janine Pelosi (Zoom), Mandy Dhaliwal (Dell Boomi), Sara Varni (Twilio), and Alicia Tillman (SAP). For more, take a look at Drew's tips on our blog, here.  

Joshua Leatherman has been CMO at Service Express for 9 years now—during that tenure, revenue has grown from 30 million to 130 million, marketing efforts now contribute a whopping 70% of qualified leads in their sales pipeline, and their NPS score is currently at 90. Behind these impressive numbers is a lot of hard work, gaining executive buy-in, inspiring staff with an employee-first organizational purpose, and building a customer experience that drives satisfaction and referrals. Leatherman is an expert on the metrics that matter, both the impressive ones listed above, and the ones that you look at behind the scenes to get there. It’s not about the number of meetings, it’s about the number of quality meetings; not the number of prospects, but the strategy behind how prospects are brought in and engaged. In this episode, you’ll get an up-close look at CMO math as Leatherman discusses how they calculate ROI and the essential steps to building a revenue-generating marketing engine.

According to a Gartner Report, Dell Boomi leads the way as an innovative strategic partner for its clients in the Enterprise iPaaS category, with over 8,000 customers and a churn rate below 3%. That’s the biggest compliment you can get, especially if you’re a company with a large service component. What role did marketing play in developing these relationships and garnering this reputation? Drew sits down on this week’s episode with Mandy Dhaliwal, Dell Boomi’s CMO and certified sommelier, to discuss how she kept Boomi’s marketing initiatives grounded in company strategy in order to modernize engagement across the board.   When she joined in 2018, Mandy hit the ground running: she developed a company purpose within a six-week period (during a holiday, no less!), presented the positioning at the annual sales kickoff, and oversaw a complete rebrand with a clearer customer focus than ever before. This week’s Renegade Thinkers Unite is packed with remarkable insights. Check it out!

How important are your customers to your business? This one should be a no-brainer—the relationships you build with your customers are vital to success. Leaders that actively focus on customer engagement and satisfaction are able to nurture a customer-base that will champion your product on your behalf and help push innovation. With a wealth of experience under his belt, Chip Rodgers, CMO of WorkSpan, knows the quantifiable value of cultivating customer champions and is here to tell us how he nurtured these relationships from Workspan’s early startup days to now.   Chip puts a special emphasis on building and retaining trust, and shared a perfect Bill McDermott quote on the subject: “Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets.” For more gems like this, listen in to this week’s Renegade Thinkers Unite and learn about how cultivating customer champions can boost your business value, shape your product, and bring in new prospects.

It’s tough enough to build a company’s marketing engine from the ground up, but Isabelle Papoulias, CMO of Mediafly, successfully navigated through not just one, but two acquisitions within a six-month period. What did she learn? Not all acquisitions are created equal: it was two weeks before their second acquisition announcement when Isabelle, in conversation with her CEO, realized they had an opportunity to completely pivot their brand messaging for the better and decided to scrap their original plan. While this would be considered risky to most, the decision ultimately elevated Mediafly to a new level within the sales enablement category. Join us on this week’s episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite to hear all about Isabelle’s experience during these back-to-back acquisitions, how their campaign brought both expected and unexpected successes, and why ABM goes beyond marketing to give a company a surround sound approach to targeting valuable prospects. 

When purpose moves front and center, a company can attract better talent and better customers. This is not conjecture. Dov Baron, via his leadership consulting practice, has proven it over and over. Dov, who is also a top podcaster, best-selling author and speaker, gets to purpose by asking the tough questions. No wonder he sees himself as the “father of dragons,” helping executive teams find their own distinct purpose, and a collective purpose for the organization. This means digging deep and even exploring one’s biggest fears. There’s obviously a lot more to it and we spend a lot of time in this episode exploring why “starting with why” is in fact just the beginning of every organization’s purpose-seeking journey. On this week’s episode, Dov and Drew are also joined by a live audience of industry-leading CMOs, who weigh-in and help shape the engaging discussion. Listen in for more about the best way to find the why of your why, which questions you really should be asking to get there, and how to get tangibl

Sometimes, the big ideas sort of just happen. That said, some magical brand moment isn’t going to just appear without some planning or effort—but sometimes, some small bit of genuine authenticity can grow into a brand pearl. That’s part of what happened with White Ops, and on this episode, Dan Lowden, CMO, discusses how. White Ops is fueled by their purpose-driven mission to disrupt the illicit economy built by cybercriminals; that mission has caught fire and stands as a sterling example of why purpose is a must. Tune in to hear about how they formed their mission, how they show it to the world, why they shun the hard sell, and how an overarching purpose came from a simple t-shirt that just read “human.”

“It’s not if—it’s how.” That’s how Karen Jones, CMO of Ryder, a supply chain management and logistics company, started wrapping up our interview. It’s also what she tells her team often, and an integral part of how they approach business hurdles. The key to their success, though, isn’t just relishing the opportunity to overcome a challenge—they also rely heavily on a deliberate, test-heavy approach where they have room to explore, experiment, and find bold solutions that work. Another crucial element is the CEO relationship—for Karen to succeed, she noted the need for support from the CEO and board to have leeway in her marketing endeavors. In this episode, we’ll hear more about how she’s formed her marketing mindset through her career, and how learning from failures has helped shaped her current approach. Listen in for a candid conversation about the pitfalls of marketing in a silo, marketing’s limitations within a business, and how effective marketing can accelerate a product’s demise.

In this interview, host & Renegade CEO Drew Neisser actually sits down with, well, Drew Neisser. Maybe it’s half interview, half monologue. Either way, on this episode, Drew explores the concept of CATS. Not the fluffy, loveable-yet-tempestuous pets, but the four key traits for being an effective marketer that are absolutely crucial in developing an effective B2B marketing strategy. Listen in to learn about being an effective, creative marketer, crafting a brand, cutting the clutter in your efforts, and much more! For the main course on How to Develop an Effective B2B Brand Strategy in 2020, please chomp on Drew’s Special (17,771 word) Report http://renegade.com//b2b-brand-strategy-report/

In 2017, Jeff Perkins was champing at the bit to get started as CMO of ParkMobile, a parking assistance app based out of Atlanta. He saw the 7.5 million users, the hundreds of thousands of new users each month, and the awesome product driving everything. However, when he got going, he began to notice his enthusiasm wasn’t exactly the norm. Jeff joined the team following some significant board changes, executive changes, and turnover. As a result, the company moral was experiencing a sort of slump, despite the app's early success, and the leadership decided to step up. Jeff was quick to spot that this relative malaise could be remedied with a clearer articulation of the company’s vision in a clear set of core values. Following that, an emphasis on employee engagement would help that mission—and a new positive spirit—spread through the company. Listen in to this episode to hear more about how ParkMobile built a thriving culture around core values and an engaged internal team, and how that culture has helped the

One of the integral questions most marketers face is: How do I expand my audience? Well, you could draw up a new campaign, make a new product—heck, you could even bite the head off a bat; Ozzy Osbourne definitely reached quite a few new people in the 80’s with that stunt. Well, maybe that last one isn’t the best idea for businesses. Anyways, an important aspect is: you have to do something that works with your brand, resonates with the people who want to use your product, and is relatively product agnostic. Now, while they may not be dining on any small nocturnal mammals, Twilio’s marketing efforts certainly capture the aforementioned guidelines, and take on a spirit of boldness and experimentation, all in the service of expanding their audience. In this episode, Sara Varni, CMO of the cloud comms company, discusses how they’ve created marketing that they know their users will like and respond to. It ranges from gamified tutorials, to dev conferences, to sponsored hackathons at client offices and so much more

As a veteran of Silicon Valley with tenures at multiple massive, industry-leading tech companies, Carl Tsukahara has developed a serious taste for adventurous testing, especially in B2B. That doesn’t mean just running around pushing buttons and selecting metrics at random, it means breaking free from the common snare of planning multiple meetings and emails before adjusting a small facet of the landing page for A/B testing. Speaking of A/B testing, Tsukahara’s career path has led him to currently serve as Chief Marketing Officer of Optimizely, which is essentially the home of the A/B test. They also call themselves “the world’s leading experimentation platform,” painting the company as a fitting place for a bold marketer and tester like Tsukahara. In this interview, Carl discusses what different companies ought to be testing for, how to properly set up certain guardrails to guide your testing, what we can learn from big brands like Amazon and Netflix, and much, much more. Check it out!

When Matrixx started out in 2008, they were a David among Goliaths. People thought they were crazy to even try cracking a pretty crowded SaaS market for communications and digital services provider. Skip ahead a few years and they’re boasting 70% growth (for 3+ years!), 15% responsibility for the lead pipeline—which in a niche market like Matrixx’s is quite a feat—and, perhaps most impressive of all, a 100% renewal rate for the multi-year subscription model. You don’t see 100% all that often (Citizen Kane’s 100% on Rotten Tomatoes is certainly good company to share), and with good reason: it takes some simply stunning work from the company to achieve. In this episode, Jennifer Kyriakakis, Founder & VP of Marketing, talks about their journey from startup to top-5 brand in their industry. She shares how they’ve celebrated customer loyalty (hint: don’t make your case studies about your product), how to boldly approach new business acquisition, how they manage to show each prospect a live demonstration of how