Renegade Thinkers Unite: Marketing Tips From Cmos And Expert Marketers

No matter how dramatic or controversial, truly great storytelling in marketing doesn’t just boil down to publicity stunts. Rather, the most impactful storytelling is all about the message a company is trying to convey and how that message originates from its internal values. And in the case of the famous “Fearless Girl” statue that faces down Wall Street’s charging bull, it was the message about fostering a greater diversity in the financial industry that has had a lasting impact. Stephen Tisdalle, CMO of State Street Global Advisors, was on the team that made the “Fearless Girl” statue. And although the installation made headlines all over the world, the campaign also prompted State Street Global Advisors to devote themselves to greater gender diversity in their own leadership and on their own boards. On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Stephen shares the internal challenges his team faced when developing the idea, the global reaction to the statue, and how this striking piece of storytelling marketi

When it comes to building customer loyalty, Dani Cushion believes that the creativity is in the data. In her role as CMO of Cardlytics, she and her team work under the power of “purchase intelligence,” or the ability to know where your customers are buying when they’re not buying from you. As Dani has learned throughout her career as a marketer, it’s all about defining who is loyal and figuring out why. On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Drew and Dani discuss why defining your existing loyal customers can help you understand where you’re missing profits, as well as why using insights on aggregated data doesn’t mean creative marketing is dead. As Dani admits, “it ain’t sexy,” but working to have a extraordinary customer experience will result in unmatched loyalty. Get to know your customers by following this advice - listen here. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts - Stitcher - or Podsearch What You’ll Learn “Defining your loyals” is step one in the process of building repeat business Dani explains the import

  As the marketer of a software service product, Meagen Eisenberg isn’t just a CMO. She is also a salesperson, which is why her alignment with MongoDB’s sales team proves critical to the company’s rapid success. Through her influential roles at multiple B2C and B2B tech companies, Meagen can attest to the fact that any company, no matter its audience, can create a pattern of collaboration and success in creating a unified buying path. From insights about demand generation, to Martech, to work-life balance, Meagen’s marketing insights apply to CMOs everywhere, whether you’re B2B, B2C, or even B2D. When reflecting on her career, Meagen shares that the alignment of sales and marketing teams has transformed companies that she has worked for, including MongoDB. On this episode, you’ll hear Meagen’s top 5 ways to increase your company’s internal collaboration, as well as discover the engaging marketing strategies MongoDB uses to attract developers. She also explains why the marketing and sales funnel strategy isn’t

Far too many marketers believe that “competency creates conversation,” thinking that a word of mouth marketing strategy will simply appear out of thin air. Jay Baer, entrepreneur and author of his new book “Talk Triggers,” joins this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite to convince you otherwise. Word of mouth marketing is essential to B2B businesses. After all, 91% of all B2B purchases are made because of its influence. Despite this overwhelming need, most B2B companies don’t have a specific word of mouth marketing strategy in place. As Jay shares, it’s all about doing something different in your company’s operations that makes customers chatter -- a “talk trigger”. On this episode, you’ll hear about several successful talk trigger stories, like the ingenious DoubleTree cookies, along with the 4 main criteria any talk trigger needs to meet. Jay also shares his expert advice on following his book’s 6-step process to creating a successful talk trigger. His message on word of mouth marketing says one thing loud

  Catherine Davis knows how marketing for non-profits differs from marketing in the for-profit sector — and she succeeds at both. From building her marketing foundation at Leo Burnett and Diageo to her current role as the CMO of Feeding America, Catherine has mastered the ability to distill powerful stories into tangible pieces that entire populations can connect with. Through strategic brand tracking strategies and working to solve an issue that she is passionate about, Catherine is proving that the role of a CMO as a storyteller has never been more important.   As Renegade Thinkers Unite meets its 101st episode milestone, Catherine Davis and Drew sit down to discuss why a career in marketing does not have to be linear to be successful. Catherine also explains how to capture individual stories, overcome challenges in brand awareness, and manage a non-profit CEO’s expectations. In this episode, Catherine will walk you through what it takes to communicate what your organization stands for and how to break down

  Carl Neisser starts every new year with a list of learning goals. Last year, he aimed to master texting with his children and grandchildren. Throughout his lifetime of over 90 years, Drew’s father Carl has collected important lessons about everything from teamwork, to leadership, to continually building a personal network. Above all, he never stops learning and never stops caring about his relationships. On this special 100th episode of the Renegade Thinkers Unite podcast, Drew and his Dad discuss the Neisser family legacy in marketing and business, and chat about why putting people first is the first idea that any Renegade marketer needs to understand. For Carl, listening is important, but retaining that information is even more crucial in becoming the player that your team can rely on. In an inspiring “like father, like son” fashion, Drew and his father will walk you through the steps to becoming a lifelong learner in marketing and beyond. Listen here to celebrate 100 episodes of Renegade thinking. Subsc

  Few professionals are as knowledgeable about marketing leadership and the CMO’s role as Greg Welch. A senior partner at Spencer Stuart, one of the world’s foremost leadership consulting firms, Greg helps to connect companies with the right fitting CMOs. He’s witnessed firsthand how, when leadership is done right, a CMO can be his or her team’s biggest cheerleader and source of inspiration. Greg has worked with the leadership of dozens of large corporations, including Walmart, Facebook, and Dunkin’ Donuts. Greg believes that the intangibles of an extraordinary leader can transform a good CMO into a great one, but developing those skills takes work. On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Drew and Greg discuss what aspiring professionals need to know to be successful in marketing leadership, as well as concrete advice for CMOs striving for that CEO desk. Greg also shares why you should surround yourself with a group of supporters and mentors to develop your personal marketing leadership style. You’ll be i

As a CMO, sometimes nothing seems worse than your business receiving scrutiny on a review site. But don't review site pages with only stellar, positive reviews also seem suspicious? The reality is that even negative reviews serve an absolutely vital role in how authentic and genuine your business comes across to potential customers. Not only can they create a well-rounded story around your brand, but review sites can even be a  major lead generation source. Now that sounds like a strategy that every marketer should take into account! From her experience as GM of Capterra, a leading online review platform, Claire Alexander shares her expertise in everything from lead generation to turning a bad review into a marketing win. Claire drives everything she does at Capterra with the motto, “Do the right thing and the right results will follow.” Throughout this episode, you’ll learn Claire's advice on how you can best engage with your audience on review sites and optimize every dollar of your marketing budget to get

With growing demands from the C-Suite, (often) low budgets, and pressure to keep up with today’s current trends, marketers constantly face the challenge of creating authentic content that builds brand awareness and inspires action. Every CMO knows how difficult it can be to recruit brand ambassadors to create compelling content that cuts through. But what if the answer could be found in the co-workers around you? A recent study showed that brand messages posted by employees achieved 561% more reach than posts made by the company itself—resulting in 8 times the engagement for those posts! You’ve probably heard of different employee advocacy programs, but Jeanniey Mullen’s concept of “people marketing,” through her role as CMO at Mercer, is a brilliant concept of building big brand awareness with no media budget at all. There is no formula and no equation to adhere to in order to get the best results. Jeanniey’s philosophy is simple: trust in your people to tell their stories. Mullen has a deep background in ad

The notion of a CMO building or rebuilding a marketing team is not an unfamiliar concept, especially on Renegade Thinkers Unite. Thinking back to the insights provided by Paige O’Neill, hiring a new team can be one of the first major tasks a CMO has to tackle in their first 100 days. When faced with this challenge, CMOs should always focus on designing a team that will align with the strategic goals of the company and that fills the current HR gaps. But one element of the process that is often overlooked is the interview—and more importantly, the interview questions. That’s where Kipp Bodnar comes in. As a wine enthusiast, mechanical watch aficionado, and host of HubSpot’s "The Growth Show," Kipp Bodnar, the CMO of HubSpot, loves learning from the people he interviews and encounters. Kipp’s recent article, “The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Interview Questions From HubSpot's CMO,” made waves in the marketing community, discussing the best questions to ask in a marketing interview. On this episode, Drew turns t

One of the more refreshing trends in marketing is the grand “mea culpa” in which a brand apologizes for past shortcomings and offers a renewed commitment to quality/integrity. Wells Fargo’s recent “re-established in 2018” campaign is one striking example. Another comes from Domino’s a few years back when they admitted their pizza was poor and relaunched with a better tasting product. This approach takes guts but really resonates especially when the pledge to be ‘better” comes with demonstrable actions. Which brings us to this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite in which Jonathan Beamer, CMO of Monster, admits that the online jobs site had “coasted” for a while and explains how they are renewing their commitment to job-seeker success. What is so interesting in this case is that though Monster had coasted after dominating the job search market for most of the dot-com era, the brand still enjoyed high awareness and what Beamer calls “latent favorability.” Having this strong baseline to build from, Beamer expected

Joining a company as the new chief marketing officer can be an intimidating affair. There are new team members to meet, historical strategies to digest, and an overwhelming pressure to make an impact early in your tenure. With the rest of the C-Suite reminding you of the needs to generate demand and to calculate ROI on every expenditure, it is easy to find yourself being pulled in multiple directions and forced into “ready, fire, aim” mode. Luckily, Paige O’Neill is here to help on this special episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. As the new CMO of Sitecore, an integrated CMS, and e-commerce solution, Paige is an expert at handling new roles in marketing departments, having been through the process on multiple occasions. Dubbing herself as the chief marketing “synthesizer,” Paige has a knack for synthesizing all the information that is thrown her way and gaining a quick understanding of the company’s goals and priorities. Having worked as a CMO for large companies as well as start-ups she continues to add to h

Sometimes a marketer’s most renegade moment comes from a change in their career path. As it turns out, moving across the country and making a career change is no easy feat and requires a healthy amount of courage. But that’s exactly what Peter Isaacson did, and after a productive decade-plus working on the agency-side of advertising, he’s now nested in Silicon Valley and leading a charge of marketing innovation as the CMO of Demandbase, a targeting and personalization platform and the global leader in account-based marketing. This podcast dives into the world of ABM and why it's no longer just optional for B2B marketers. As the CMO of Demandbase, the ABM market leader, Peter Isaacson offers an insider look at account-based marketing, serving up concrete advice on how to make the most of these programs. To achieve major results, Peter advises marketers that are new to ABM to take things slow and steady. It’s not something that you can just rush into, but with the help of Peter and this podcast, crafting an ABM

Let’s face it – simple is hard, especially in B2B marketing. It’s so easy to get caught up in flashy features, complicated jargon, and complex campaign strategies that we forget what marketing is all about – making buying easier. Faced with this challenge of persuading people, many CMOs are struggling to keep things simple. Margaret Molloy is not one of those CMOs. As the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Siegel+Gale, Margaret has mastered the art of persuading people with simple, but powerful messaging. She points her success to two key foundations: having permission to fail and the effectiveness of fact-based storytelling. The lessons she has to share are not only coming from her experience at Siegel+Gale, but also from what she learned by exploring her own passion project, the #WearingIrish initiative. In this episode, Drew and Margaret talk about how to keep things simple in B2B marketing and explain the four main traits of successful CMOs. Margaret describes her experience with her passion project, the #

Fans of The Simpsons may remember the episode in which Homer is jubilant about "new billboard day." This 1995 episode happened long before digital marketing became an obsession that in some circles rendered outdoor obsolete. Well Homer Simpson has a new comrade in arms with Janine Pelosi, the CMO at Zoom, at least when comes to the appreciation of outdoor advertising.   In past 18 months, Pelosi and Zoom put forward the simple but powerful message "Meet Happy" to build awareness of their online meeting platform. Then they shared it with the world, but not just through ads on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. They invested heavily in billboards and transit ads across major US and European markets. The results? 100% year over year revenue growth. 135% year over year user base growth. 1600% growth in weekly web traffic. That Simpsons gag was released in 1995, but Janine's team is proving that billboards and outdoor advertising can still be powerful, as long as the message is right.   In this episode, Drew and Janin

Brent Adamson has a bone to pick with marketers: the way many of them define their industry is miles off the mark. In fact, Brent may want to abandon the term 'marketing' altogether, because too often the notion of separate marketing and sales departments breeds a lack of coordination. If your marketing and sales teams are not in perfect lockstep, you can count on your business suffering. If you disagree, maybe he can sway you in part 2 of his interview. In today's conclusion to the interview, Brent and Drew get at to the heart of how a marketing team needs to operate to be successful, and it involves a lot more than handing leads off to sales like a relay-race baton. Brent will talk the listener through seven tools that can help make speed up the process of connecting a customer with a product. Then, Drew and Brent talk through the buyer enablement journey, and why breaking down walls between sales and marketing will enable the teams make it as easy as possible for the customer to buy. In the end, that's goa

A customer’s purchase journey is never an easy process to document and collect data on. Thankfully, Brent Adamson is interviewed on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. As Principle Executive Advisor at Gartner (formerly CEB), Brent works to help B2B companies explain to customers why their solution is the best available. Throughout part 1 of this conversation, Brent and Drew discuss why putting the customer first should be at the heart of any B2B organization. They explain the 6 non-linear steps in any purchase journey, and Brent shares his #1 tip for any B2B supplier. This conversation will shed new light on the purchase journey. Check it out. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts - Stitcher- or Podsearch What You’ll Learn Putting the buyer first is the #1 step to create a better purchase journey B2B companies should be focusing on understanding how buying happens. Learning how your ideal customer views the buying process will give you direction when bridging the gap between marketing and sales departments. Brent

Becoming a great B2B company starts with one thing: creating a better brand narrative. The story you tell about your brand is the driving force behind every action your team takes. A great brand narrative inspires quality product design and links every team member to your common values and goals. Throughout this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Drew and Barry also discuss why marketers need to go out and be the face of the company through making sales and speaking with customers. Finally, Barry shares his best tips for creating apps people ACTUALLY want to use. You can learn from his clear insights that break down app design into a few easy ideas. You’ll enjoy and learn from this podcast - check it out! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts - Stitcher- or Podsearch What You’ll Learn Professionals should do these 3 things in the B2B marketing industry B2B marketers do more than create content to be shared. The best professionals break out of the marketing mold regularly and become salespersons for the day. By going o

On part 2 of this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite recorded live at the PSFK conference, Drew speaks with two guests about how marketers can relate to audiences over 50 and the future marketing trends to be looking for. David Stewart, CEO/founder of Ageist, explains the disconnect between 50+ audiences and younger marketing teams. He shares insights that will change the way you approach marketing to older generations. Dr. Devon Powers shares her knowledge on future marketing trends and how brands need to be thinking about their future interactions with guests. You’ll appreciate this episode, it’ll leave you thinking. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts - Stitcher- or Podsearch What You’ll Learn [1:18] Part 2 of the podcast recorded live at the PSFK conference [1:55] Most marketers are missing the mark for consumers over 50 [8:10] How can you communicate effectively with the 50+ demographic? [16:26] Dr. Devon Powers, researcher and professor, on future marketing trends [23:57] Devon explains why challenging your ma

Throughout this episode, recorded live at the PSFK conference, Drew speaks with two professionals that explain 3 strategies on how to build a quality brand. Both guests focus on how a brand can help people think about big ideas and create change in their own lives and in their communities. Jordan Schenck is the Head of Global Consumer Marketing at Impossible Foods, and she talks about how a brand can spark change across multiple business platforms. Amber Case is a Research Fellow at MIT and is an expert in “calm tech,” an area of research that focuses on eliminating unnecessary tech systems. She wants to see every marketing professional avoid distracting systems, and get back to the heart of working for a quality brand. You don’t want to miss these inspiring conversations. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts - Stitcher- or Podsearch What You’ll Learn [0:01] Drew’s overview for this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite [1:38] Jordan Schenck from Impossible Foods is Drew’s first guest [8:27] How Impossible Foods maintai