The Revenue-Driven CMO

Today's guest is an award-winning B2B SaaS Marketing Leader and an outspoken advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Sarah Reynolds is the Chief Marketing Officer at HiBob. Sarah discussed the benefits of incorporating inclusivity into your marketing and how to frame it when talking with key internal stakeholders. They also share tips for using inclusive language in marketing and how small considerations can make a big impact.

Takeaways:

• Inclusive marketing is an important part of widening your company's audience. Use inclusive language and maximize accessibility to make your brand more appealing to diverse groups.

• B2B buyers and decision-makers are becoming more diverse than ever before, so it's imperative that your brand and messaging feel welcoming to everyone.

• Intersectionality and inclusivity in marketing are a journey, not a destination, and should be reflected in company culture and product representation. Prioritize diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in both personal and professional settings.

• Bringing your authentic self to work can free up mental space and help you perform better at your job, but prioritize emotional and physical safety when deciding whether to share who you truly are. Being a visible leader can greatly impact the experience of coworkers.

• Standing out in a crowded marketplace requires creativity, diversity, and brand activation. HR tech companies should prioritize the employee experience and create a positive work environment.

• Inclusive language and accessibility are important aspects of optimizing your content and website for SEO. Use language that is inclusive and accessible to widen your audience and make your brand more appealing to diverse groups.

• Disconnecting during paid time off is important for your mental health and self-improvement. Set clear boundaries for team members and prioritize disconnecting to recharge and avoid burnout.

Quote of the Show:

• "Inclusive Marketing is smart marketing" - Sarah Reynolds

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahlizreynolds/

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/fairpaymonster

• Company website: https://www.hibob.com/

Shout Outs:

• Kill James Bond - Podcast

• Alice Caldwell-Kelly - Co-Host of Kill James Bond

• Abigail Thorn - Co-Host of Kill James Bond

• Devon - Co-Host of Kill James Bond

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1638785560

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17

• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9tb3JlbWFya2V0aW5nLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz

• iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/

• Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic-rdU1oESluqs/

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/Mx2VJ7rWaHY

The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/

Performance Marketing is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Today's guest is an experienced senior marketing leader that also has a toolbox full of amazing marketing tactics. Chris Allen is the SVP of Marketing at Heartland and the Host of The Entrepreneur's Studio. Chris shares his framework for assessing the ability of your marketing team along with tips on how to communicate marketing outcomes effectively with other C-Suite executives.

Takeaways:

• As a marketing leader, one of the most important skills to know is how to step into a new team and instill the right cultural elements in order to increase that team's performance. When inheriting a team, your superiors will be looking at how quickly you deliver growth.

• There are two parts to this hiring and management framework. The first is to assess what contributions an individual could make to the team's output. The second is to evaluate an individual's people skills and ability to pick up the team's technical language.

• A new CMO's 90-day plan should include a listening tour. This means meeting with as many members of the team as possible to understand the people and the culture within the marketing organization.

• There are four roles an individual can play on a team and leaders need to ensure all four roles are represented. Leaders need to assess where each member fits within the team. The four roles are Producer, Entrepreneur, Integrator, and Administrator.

• To assess the skills your team excels with, break up their responsibilities into three key areas and ask them to assign a total of ten points across the three skills based on their abilities. Cross-reference their self-assessments with their managers

• Once a CMO has done their listening tour and assessed key competencies specific to each role, they need to take that data and use it to identify where their team's strengths and weaknesses are. Test how the team works together by having them take on a new project and examining their performance.

• Use the insights from your team assessment when meeting with the CEO and other C-suite members. The data-driven approach helps you outline your forecast and tangibly justify requests for additional resources for the marketing team.

Quote of the Show:

• "Part of my 90-day plan is to come in and say, okay, we'll get to forecasting really quick, but let's understand who we have." - Chris Allen

Connect with Chris:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriscallen/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisallentv/

• Heartland website: https://www.heartland.us/

• The Entrepreneurs Studio Podcast: https://www.heartland.us/resources/entrepreneurs-studio

Shout Outs:

• Peter Drucker

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1638785560

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17

• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9tb3JlbWFya2V0aW5nLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz

• iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/

• Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic-rdU1oESluqs/

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/syUWifcJ0Ko

The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/

Performance Marketing is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Joining the show is a marketing powerhouse that came from the B2C world of mobile advertising but is now leading marketing at a major B2B SaaS company. Ryan Morel is the SVP of Marketing at Flexe. Ryan goes deep into the stories told by B2B content, how to tell a great story through marketing, and why you should change your medium before you change your story.

Takeaways:

• Marketers need to fight the urge to say too much. By keeping your content brief, you can dedicate more time to crafting it and making it more thoughtful. This way, each piece of content you create is more valuable to your audience.

• Your content needs to have a story and a structure. You also need to understand which channels you are going to use and which parts of the story each channel will tell.

• The difference between a good story and a bad story is who the story is about. Many companies, especially early in their lifecycle, craft stories about the company. These are less effective than stories that revolve around the customer.

• When using an enterprise sales motion to grow a SaaS company, marketing should provide support for BDA or SDR teams. The sales team will have a much easier job as the company's brand awareness grows within the market.

• Avoid being too reliant on a single channel as buying behavior can change quickly. A great example of something that caused buying behaviors to change rapidly was the Covid-19 pandemic. Overnight budgets were slashed and buyers had new challenges.

• It's easier to change marketing channels than it is to change the story of your content. If your marketing tells a clear story, then you can be flexible with the channels you use to distribute the content.

Quote of the Show:

• "When we can create brief, but also impactful and clear messages in the voice of the customer, that drives meaningful results" - Ryan Morel

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanmorel/

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanmorel

• Company website: https://www.flexe.com/

Shout Outs:

• Principles by Ray Dalio

• Annie Duke - Author and poker champion

• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

• The Knowledge Project - Podcast

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1638785560

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17

• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9tb3JlbWFya2V0aW5nLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz

• iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/

• Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic-rdU1oESluqs/

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/xYwDbGozR4Y

The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/

Performance Marketing is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

While he is crushing the B2C space today, this special guest built his marketing skills over a long and successful tenure in B2B marketing. Mike Manheimer is the CMO and Head of Growth at PostScript, an SMS tool available for e-commerce sellers on Shopify, but he's here to explain how the same principles can be applied in B2B. Mike unveils the misconceptions holding marketers back from sending SMS, how the proper use of SMS can help you close deals, and why you need consent to have an effective SMS campaign.

Takeaways:

• Before seeing the benefits of your first SMS campaign, you need to overcome the fear of sending it. SMS (short message service, eg: text messages) is an extremely intimate channel because your brand is placed among texts from prospects' friends and families.

• Don't use the excuse that your 'customers might not like it' as the reason not to use SMS campaigns. As with anything in marketing, you need to test it. That's how you will get feedback and data on the efficacy of SMS for your brand.

• The bar for good SMS marketing is much higher than it is for good email marketing, meaning that you need to be much more thoughtful with the messages that you send.

• After good discovery calls, sales reps should ask the prospects if they can reach out to them via text message in case they can't contact them through email. This way the prospect opts into SMS messaging and the rep verifies the phone number.

• During the B2B sales cycle, the rep that has built the relationship with the prospect should tell them that they prefer to communicate over text and ask if they can text them throughout the process to check-in. Prospects are becoming more open to this now.

• SMS can be an extremely valuable tool to have for getting B2B deals closed, but in order to have it as a viable option, you need to build rapport with the prospect and then ask them if texting works for them.

• Another way to both capture phone numbers and gain consent to send SMS messages is through on-site pop-ups, discounts, exclusives, etc. For example, offering a 20% discount in exchange for a phone number saw a 75% conversion rate.

• An additional benefit to incorporating SMS into your marketing mix is that your communication with a prospect via SMS is not constrained to what they are doing on their computer at that time. You can directly connect to their phone and cut through the noise.

Quote of the Show:

• "All marketers know we make everything way more complicated than it needs to be. We forget that this entire game is about humans marketing to other humans" - Mike Manheimer

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemanheimer/

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mikemanheimer

• Company website: https://postscript.io/

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1638785560

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17

• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9tb3JlbWFya2V0aW5nLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz

• iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/

• Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic-rdU1oESluqs/

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/_O3yxvAOcEA

The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/

Performance Marketing is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Today's guest is a global marketing strategy expert who is passionate about building high-performing teams and coaching the next marketing leaders. Allison MacLeod is the Chief Marketing Officer of Flywire and is a Member of the Board Of Trustees for the Mass Technology Leadership Council. Allison shares the ROI mindset that marketers need to have, the importance of prioritizing cost-effective revenue, and how to develop a strong and capable team as a marketing leader.

Takeaways:

• Whether in B2B or B2C, as the CMO, you need to understand the ROI generated from everything your marketing team does. You must also be focused on the goals you share with the sales organization and work toward them.

• Marketers must consider how they support the company's sales or account management teams. What can marketers do to help them improve retention, upselling, and cross-selling?

• MQLs and your top-of-funnel are the lever and gauge that you can use to impact revenue. It's crucial to learn how to scale them up and down to provide more predictable results and improve them quarter over quarter.

• As a marketing leader, you must aim your efforts at what provides cost-effective revenue and is aligned with the sales team. It's essential to de-prioritize anything that is not driving to that goal, to maximize cost-effective revenue.

• Marketers should be sitting in on sales calls and speaking with clients to get real feedback on what resonates with potential customers that they can include in the messaging of marketing collateral.

• When recruiting new members for your team, make sure they have opportunities to grow and improve the company. Lay out the path ahead of them and highlight the areas in which they can become involved and take charge of. Be a mentor and listen to them.

• No matter how skilled you are or what field you are in, everything in business comes down to communication, trust, and relationships. Without communication, there is no collaboration which leads to everything falling apart.

Quote of the Show:

• "As a CMO, you should act like the CRO." - Allison MacLeod

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonbmacleod/

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/allisonbmacleod/

• Company website: https://www.flywire.com/

Shout Outs:

• Bryan Law - CMO of ZoomInfo - Episode # 094 https://performancemarketinginsiders.com/differentiation-doesnt-matter-distinctiveness-does-bryan-law-the-revenue-driven-cmo-094

• You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero

• The Book of Boundaries by Melissa Urban

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1638785560

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17

• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9tb3JlbWFya2V0aW5nLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz

• iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/kjwzFxB-Ggw

The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/

Performance Marketing is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/