Renegade Marketers Unite

With 25 years in the tech industry, Conversica CMO Rashmi Vittal knows a thing or two about sales and marketing alignment. She knows that it's about "company-wide enablement" as opposed to "sales enablement." She knows the value of a simplified product message. And she knows the common excuse, "Well, I gave leads to sales and they just didn't do anything with them," just won't cut it. In this week...

If you could go back in time and meet one historical figure, who would it be? For Drew, the answer is obvious: Dr. Benjamin Franklin. This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows Drew. As a proud Franklin nut, he considers the man who sold a revolution to a king to be America's first-ever marketer. That's why it was a no-brainer when we discovered a special "time travel" button on Zoom—we j...

What does B2B excellence look like in a downturn? When faced with this question, the software company Coupa quickly adopted a story of resilience. The decision to change its messaging allowed Coupa to change buying committee perspectives on its offering—if the prospect's goal was to preserve capital and mitigate risk in the long-run, Coupa had the solution to get there. Coupa's strategy has proven...

While California went into shelter-in-place in early March, Talend CMO Lauren Vaccarello read an article about a popular bubble tea franchise laying off 400 workers in less than two weeks. With a self-prescribed "healthy sense of paranoia and a very strong desire to grow the business," Lauren jumped into action. She knew that, if the company wanted to survive the long road ahead, they needed to di...

Right around mid-March 2020, every brand, B2B or B2C, had to take a cold hard look at their brand promise and consider its relevance. Was the brand promise that seemed so right in the go-go months before the pandemic suddenly tone deaf? For Jakki Geiger , CMO of Reltio , a Silicon Valley-based data management platform, the answer to that question was "yes." Practically overnight, the idea of "winn...

If you're looking for an example of a high-quality virtual event, you've got to check out Skillsoft's Perspectives 2020. Drew did, and he was absolutely blown away by the online summit. In fact, it was so engaging that he just had to interview their CMO, Michelle Boockoff-Bajdek (Michelle BB for short) to learn more about the work that went on behind the scenes to create a global experience that r...

With physical events and direct sales canceled, the idea of filling the pipeline with valuable leads may seem daunting. However, many CMOs see this challenge as an opportunity to prove that it can be done digitally, and it's become glaringly apparent that when it comes to B2B demand generation, content marketing is king. One such CMO, Richard Jones of Cheetah Digital, has made quality, valuable co...

"Zoom, Zoom, Zoom" may seem like the title of a children's song, but for many of us, it's the reality of the workday—a string of Zoom meetings that take up the brunt of one's time. And while virtual meetings have been a great way to stay connected to colleagues and hold brainstorming sessions, they can be a real hindrance to productivity. It's important for CMOs and other leaders to help their tea...

A rebrand is not a campaign, it's a new direction. That's why NI (previously known as National Instruments) brought on their first-ever CMO, Carla Piñeyro Sublett—they wanted someone to guide them through the brand refresh process, to shake up their foundation and challenge their entire business strategy for the better. Knowing that this would be a bold undertaking, Piñeyro Sublett and her team, w...

Brands must be handled with care. They are emotional, enduring, and convey everything a business stands for, so it behooves CMOs to ensure that their company's brand purpose and the messaging around it are not tone-deaf, but accessible—so accessible that they become a rallying cry for employees and customers alike and speak to any challenge that may come your way. Now, how can you achieve this? At...

When do company values matter? Just ask today's guest Peter Finter, the SVP and CMO at Couchbase: "It's when you have to make a hard decision, that's when values matter." Speaking with conviction, Peter knows what it takes to prepare a business to take on any challenge. This conviction was made clear in Couchbase's nearly seamless response to the COVID pandemic and how it took care of employees, c...

Enter overused marketing advice: Be authentic. Understand your customers. Helping is the new selling. Clichés, yes, but they are as true today as when they were first uttered. You can't skip these steps, and most people get it wrong by assuming they can, ultimately undercutting their "authentic" image with overtly salesy content or "authentic" messaging with no steps taken to back it up. In our op...

With budget cuts looming (or already made), CMOs are suddenly being asked to do even more with even less. Many are stirring up their inbound marketing efforts, concocting lots of content with the hope that their audiences will drink it up. But as the old saying goes, hope is not a strategy. SEO, or should we say smart SEO, is indeed a strategy, one that takes a specific expertise and can pay subst...

What does leading through a crisis look like? Drew covered the subject in-depth in a recent episode, but if you want a real-life example of leadership in action, look no further than Holly Rollo, the CMO and SVP Transformation at  RSA Security (and avid sailing enthusiast). In the past few months, Holly has taken the helm, steering her team through the COVID storm from her #WFH office in South Lak...

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...

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...

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...

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 q...

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,...

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 bran...

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 th...

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...

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 organization...

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 s...

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 WorkS...