Renegade Marketers Unite

If you have a product that would really help customers adapt to the world of remote work, how do you sell it to them while being mindful of budget cuts, layoffs, and a global downturn? Take a page from HackerRank's book. The B2B tech company's remote interview solution was just what their primary personas needed, and CMO Jennifer Stagnaro knew that the product needed to be endorsed with empathy an...

Unless they were deemed an essential service, most B2B brands had to pivot their marketing strategy in 2020 to make themselves relevant in a world of digital transformation, lockdowns, and quarantine orders. This was especially challenging for brands that depended on in-person events—from the travel industry to the hotel industry to the restaurant industry, things were going to be tough. In this e...

What do a premium content strategy and conversational AI have to do with driving revenue? Perhaps unsurprisingly, quite a lot! Content raises awareness and nurtures leads, and after the human handoff, Sales teams can use AI tools to assist them to close. In this episode, ringDNA CMO William Tyree shares a behind-the-scenes look at the AI-powered sales enablement platform's remarkable content strat...

There are 50 honorees listed in TopRank's 2020 installment of Influential Women in B2B Marketing Who Rocked , and in addition of these amazing leaders, we at Renegade know that there are countless others worth celebrating for their contributions to marketing in the B2B world.     This episode comes from our recent livestream show on the subject, featuring LogRhythm CMO Cindy Zhou, Skillsoft CMO Mi...

After nearly 7 years with Salesforce, 2.5 of which she served as CMO, Stephanie Buscemi announced on Twitter that she's saying goodbye. The 100+ (and counting) responses to her announcement have been overwhelmingly positive—a testament to her inspiring, compassionate leadership and her trailblazing, marketing-led initiatives for the cloud-based software powerhouse. We had the pleasure of interview...

Anthony Kennada knows a thing or two about ANA's 2020 word of the year: "Pivot." In just 4 years, Anthony "pivoted" from Business Development Associate (BDA) at Box to CMO of Gainsight—an astounding feat for any marketer—and during his 6 years at the startup, he helped establish a category, growing the brand from $0 to over $100 million in revenue. Now, he's at Front, a start-up customer communica...

It's not every year that Christmas falls on the same day as a new Renegade Thinkers Unite episode, so this one is extra special. The show focuses on the story of Keane Veran, a cancer survivor who, while undergoing treatment for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) as an 8-year-old, was asked by Make-A-Wish to wish big. And wish big he did. In 2011, Keane and his family, including his older brother,...

In the premiere episode of Renegade Thinkers Live, Drew was joined by CMOs Rashmi Vittal (Conversica) and John McCrea (Amplify.ai), to discuss all things conversational AI. We take stirring things up quite literally here at Renegade, so in this episode, we sipped in the latest AI marketing insights along with Letherbee's original label gin (which was amazing, by the way). It was a fun episode, fil...

What happens when you pair an identity security company and Terry Crews? An impressive, wildly successful influencer marketing success story, that's what. It was the final piece of the "Let's boost our brand awareness" puzzle that Ping Identity CMO Kevin Sellers was looking for. They had already identified their new brand identity and got internal support, now it was time to go big. This episode i...

Would CMO Kevin Ruane recommend renaming a brand during a pandemic? No, he wouldn't; but they had to do precisely that when Syncsort acquired the data and software division of Pitney Bowes in December 2019. The company had 6 months to change the Pitney Bowes name—6 months that just so happened to coincide with all of the disruptions of 2020. In this episode, Kevin shares how Syncsort became Precis...

2020 has not been easy for anyone. In this episode, Drew reflects on the personal and professional challenges faced by marketing leaders, and how they've overcome adversity to build better, more empathetic B2B organizations that are dedicated to making the world a better place. As the great Ben Franklin once said, "Out of adversity comes opportunity." From how #WFH has changed the way we work to w...

This September, Litmus released the results of its latest state of email survey: 77% of marketers say email is one of their most effective channels, and 78% suggest that it's been vital to their overall success. This should come as no surprise, especially given that Litmus surveys have also found email has a staggeringly high return on investment: $42 ROI for every $1 spent. The survey came out wi...

Any B2B or B2C organization is only as good as its team, so it may be surprising to hear that the hiring process hasn't really changed for the last decade. In fact, 9 out of 10 CMOs say they aren't doing anything different when it comes to building their marketing squads. It's high time for that to change; it's time to bring all of the tools available in MarTech over to the people side of the hous...

Shifting an entire B2B organization from a traditional to a cloud-based selling motion is no walk in the park. Throw in a global pandemic and a sweeping digital transformation, and you've got yourself a real marketing challenge. CMO James Whitemore and his team at NetApp were up to the task, ripping up their marketing playbook and transforming business from the inside out. James tells all in this...

As a multi-disciplined, multi-functional channel, social deserves a seat at every B2B brand's strategic table. A robust social strategy does more than just drive brand awareness, it also can also generate leads, attract talent, and build a strong employee culture with far-reaching effects. Don't take just our word for it though—this week's guest is Jamie Gilpin, the CMO of Sprout Social, a leading...

Like many B2B companies, K2 Software has really zeroed in on what makes its low-code process automation platform mission-critical for its customers. Unlike many B2B companies, K2 had already started shifting its strategy and messaging in 2019, months before the far-reaching effects of COVID were on anybody's radar. In the scramble to prove that its product or service is essential during a downturn...

Citing a recent virtual event she attended, CMO Latané Conant of 6sense truly believes that, for marketers, "The more things change, the more things stay the same." Now, a lot of things have changed: no more physical events, no more sales presentations, no more opportunities to bring clients together or close deals via in-person entertainment. So, what stays the same? In Latané's opinion, what doe...

Imagine a globally recognized brand (say, IBM Watson Marketing) decides to spin out and gets packaged up and purchased by private equity. Imagine said brand not only has big name recognition, but also a handful of acquisitioned companies with some seriously loyal customers. So, you're a brand-new company with 1,000+ employees, 3,500+ customers in 21 countries, and 5 major products; you need to bui...

"So, a brand walks into a bar…What drink does it order?" And no, it's not the start of a joke, instead, it's a question that CMO Paz Macdonald asks when thinking about brand. When she joined Software AG in 2019, it was clear that the 50-year-old enterprise software company's brand needed a massive overhaul—they had a great reputation but poor brand awareness. It was time to stop being the brand th...

The challenges of 2020 have set the stage for big changes in 2021 (and beyond). For optimistic marketers, this means that 2020 is the fertilizer for a beautiful 2021, but it's going to take a progressive, agile, and strategic mindset to reap the rewards. To discuss upcoming changes in the way that buyers buy and sellers sell in the context of marketing, Brent Adamson, distinguished VP at Gartner,...

Businesses need marketing now more than ever if they want to drive top-line growth. Why? Because marketers know how to do more with less. Despite budget cuts and the shift to virtual-only communications, marketers still know how to motivate employees, generate quality leads for sales teams, and gather customer feedback to influence product. As Drew says, "Marketing to the rescue. This is your mome...

2020 was going to be the year of the brand refresh for the data and analytics company, Information Builders. CMO Carol McNerney came on board in January to help bridge the gap between the company's 45-year history and its desired future, and despite all of the challenges this year, they've successfully rolled out an ambitious (and fascinatingly unique) rebrand.    In over 200 episodes, this is the...

It's not easy to create your own category. It takes vision, it takes competition, and it requires the analysts' blessings. But, if done right, category creation can differentiate your business in a big way. B2B brands that establish a new category often become the household names of said category—visionary thought leaders who are tuned into ever-evolving customer needs.  CMO Scott Brazina joins us...

At the beginning of 2020, Pluralsight decided it was going to give away all of its online tech courses for an entire month. The education company knew that this might negatively affect revenue, but that was a risk worth taking. After all, unemployment numbers were soaring and non-essential workers had to stay at home—this was an ideal time to learn some new skills and level up.  Pluralsight's offe...

In case you haven't heard, it's time to rev up your demand generation tactics. With budgets cut and in-person lead nurturing opportunities out of the picture, it's up to marketers to put the pedal to the metal and show their CEOs and CFOs the return of marketing investment in hard dollars i.e. closed sales from marketing-generated leads. In this episode, we're joined by Kevin Fliess, a veteran CMO...