Episode Summary

In this episode of Sunny Side Up, host Jon Miller interviews Heidi Bullock, Chief Marketing Officer at Tealium, to gain insights into navigating tough economic times in the realm of B2B marketing. The conversation delves into four crucial areas of focus: efficiency, driving meetings in customer accounts, delivering bad news, and managing team growth during downturns. Heidi stresses the importance of understanding customer pain points by regularly engaging with them to identify their needs and concerns. Transparent communication is highlighted as a cornerstone for building trust and credibility, especially when delivering unfavorable news. Keeping messaging simple, focused, and repetitive emerges as a powerful approach to ensure information retention and audience engagement. Additionally, Heidi offers valuable advice on optimizing team productivity, certifying members for specific tools, and utilizing project management platforms like Asana to enhance collaboration in global teams. As a leader, she emphasizes the significance of promoting growth opportunities for team members during challenging economic times. 

About the Guest

Heidi Bullock is an experienced marketing executive who has built a 20+ year career working at both global enterprise technology companies and start-ups. She is currently the CMO of Tealium, one of the largest independent and most trusted customer data platforms (CDP). Before Tealium, she held leadership roles at Engagio and Marketo.

Connect with Heidi Bullock

Key Takeaways

- Focus on four key areas: efficiency, customer meetings, delivering bad news, and team growth during downturns.

- Set clear goals for both net new logo acquisition and customer expansion.

- Regularly interact with customers to stay attuned to their needs and pain points.

- Prioritize transparency when delivering bad news to build trust and credibility.

- Keep messaging simple and focused to resonate with the audience.

- Utilize repetition to reinforce important information and ensure it sticks with the audience.

- Build efficient teams by organizing and leveraging existing content and tools.

- Certify team members for certain tools to increase efficiency and autonomy.

- Use project management tools like Asana to facilitate collaboration and visibility in global teams. - Offer growth opportunities to team members even during tough economic times.

- Involve global teams early on in projects to ensure their perspectives are heard and incorporated.

- Product marketing should focus on customer pain points and storytelling for impactful messaging.

- Have an optimistic approach as a leader during challenging times.

- Drive expansion by dedicating resources to customer-focused efforts in marketing and customer success.

- Success in B2B marketing lies in clear goal setting, customer-centricity, effective messaging, and strong leadership.

Quote

"I think maybe the role of marketing in many cases stays the same. It's just where you put your focus and energy changes." - Heidi Bullock 

Recommended Resources

Book

- "The Happiness Advantage" by Shawn Achor

Blog
Dave Kellogg's "Kellblog"

Podcast

Shout-outs

Bhaskar Roy – Head of Marketing at Workato

Rashmi Vittal – CMO at Productiv

Chandar Pattabhiram – CMO at Coupa Software

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