The Revenue-Driven CMO

Today's guest is a marketing leader and creative idea-generator. They have a strong background in communications and brand development. Jordan Sher is the Vice President of Corporate and Brand Marketing at Gainsight and an advisor to AudiencePlus. Jordan broke down the benefits of earned media, the best practices for writing press releases, and what ChatGPT could mean for SEO.

Takeaways:

• Brand marketing and earned media can help performance marketing teams accelerate the pipeline to reach their goals, both tactically and strategically.

• From a tactical perspective, earned media is one of the biggest contributors to a website's SEO. The quality of the links to your site plays a big role in SEO and earned media, such as a press release, that links back to the website can boost performance.

• When trying to raise your site's SEO metrics, a press release is a great tool for building links and providing longtail results. Wire services are interconnected so issuing a release to one will result in increased organic awareness and multiple quality backlinks.

• During the deal cycle, your earned media strategy will amplify your brand and move a deal through the pipeline because it creates credibility which will stick with prospects as they do their due diligence on your company.

• Although their effectiveness has diminished slightly over time, press releases can still deliver better awareness and organic SEO results than specific content marketing.

• The best practices for writing a press release are to get specific about product news and benefits, include a quote from a large client, and encourage the client to share the release through their own channels.

• If your company has invested in building a community, engage the community members when you launch your earned media campaign and encourage them to share and interact with the content.

Quote of the Show:

• "Most of your target audience do not take a linear path from awareness to close." - Jordan Sher

Links:

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

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

• Gainsight website: https://www.gainsight.com/

• AudiencePlus website: https://www.audienceplus.com/

Shout Outs:

• Will Reynolds

• John Klosterman

• The Nineties: A Book by John Klosterman

• Oscar Wars by Michael Schulman

• The Town with Matthew Belloni - Podcast focused on the media industry

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/5f9c8c1a-fbf5-43c7-b7eb-958674860156/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic/id1444680950

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=c4050290cbb54c65

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

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

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/wBBmdtu-Qjw

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 B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Every marketer has heard how vital differentiation is to success, but today's guest has a different point of view and the data to back it up. Bryan Law, the Chief Marketing Officer of ZoomInfo, joins this episode to provide his marketing expertise which he has built over two decades of leading marketing teams at companies like Salesforce, Google, Tableau, and Deloitte. Bryan explains why being distinct is more important than being differentiated, why your brand's messaging should be the same across segments, and how to discover the category entry points for your brand.

Takeaways:

• For marketers, it's much more important to be distinctive than differentiated. Being distinctive means your company stands out from the noise and is noticed. Differentiation conveys how your company and services differ from a competitor's offering.

• B2B buyers are bombarded with messaging and don't have time to compare competitors. Most buyers start with a list of one potential vendor and most buyers don't look beyond that list. To get on that list, your company needs to be distinct.

• Data from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute shows that brands succeed better when they focus on standing out and getting noticed than when they focus on conveying why they are better than competitors.

• There are many ways for your company to be distinctive, but the most important aspect is to think about what the company needs to be known for and then deliver that consistently. For example, if your brand uses humor to stand out, your brand needs to deliver on that consistently across every interaction a prospect has with your brand.

• Examples of assets your brand should keep consistent include colors, logos, taglines, symbols, sounds, characters, etc. In addition to tone and storytelling, these small, consistent nuances help your messaging feel familiar, yet distinct, to buyers.

• Hyper-personalized messaging actually degrades the strength of your brand. The more consistent your messaging is for every segment, the stronger your brand becomes. Hone your targeting by industry and deliver consistent messaging to every type of buyer.

• Identify the category entry points for your buyers. These are the thoughts and feelings they have during buying situations. Then, attach your brand to those entry points that are associated with purchasing. For example, a prospect thinks about how to fix X, and in doing so, they simultaneously think of your brand.

• The first step to becoming more distinct is learning the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that buyers have when purchasing. Use a survey to ask them, "When you are thinking about this category, what are the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that come to mind?"

Quote of the Show:

• "It's really about thinking about what you want to be known for, and then doing it consistently." - Bryan Law

Links:

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

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

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

Shout Outs:

• Ehrenberg-Bass Institute: https://www.marketingscience.info/

• Building Distinctive Brand Assets by Jenni Romaniuk

• ZoomInfo Plays: https://www.zoominfo.com/plays

• How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp

• Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug

• Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/5f9c8c1a-fbf5-43c7-b7eb-958674860156/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic/id1444680950

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=c4050290cbb54c65

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

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

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/1i8Be-JDAHE

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

Today's guest is an amazing marketer and leader that has spent over a decade in education marketing and sales. Lia Davidson is the CMO of EAB and the creator of the CONNECTED conference. Lia shares her framework of the Marketer's Compass which can be used to evaluate individual marketers and marketing teams.

Takeaways:

• The north and south ends of the marketer's compass are the opposite ends of thinking strategically versus tactically. The east and west axis on the compass represents the left and right brain thinking that marketing requires.

• Great marketers are able to easily switch between long-term vision-setting and getting their hands dirty by working in the trenches and getting in the weeds of a project. Marketers need to be able to look at things from both 4 feet and 40,000 feet.

• The problems that marketers have to solve demand a mix of both analytical and creative thinking. There is a lot of math involved in certain points and lots of creative thinking in others.

• When creating and managing marketing teams, think about how the individuals within the group represent the four directions of the marketer's compass. Because each person won't excel in every aspect, it's vital to add others to balance out the team's strengths.

• The Marketer's Compass lens is most valuable for viewing senior marketing talent. Entry-level marketers should be focused on executing the one thing they're responsible for, but over time they will grow in their knowledge.

• For many companies, it's becoming harder to secure sales conversations which weakens their pipelines. This makes it more important than ever for sales and marketing to overcome customer indecision.

• Marketing leaders need to have empathy for those working in sales and should develop deep relationships with them. This is key to maintaining sales and marketing alignment.

Quote of the Show:

• "If you can take some risks and explore the adjacencies of the career that you want to do, you're going be better at whatever it is you're doing" - Lia Davidson

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lia-davidson-94b1552/

• Company website: https://eab.com/

Shout Outs:

• The JOLT Effect - by Mathew Dixon and Ted McKenna

• Winning The Challenger Sale - by Brent Adamson and Mathew Dixon

• Orbit Media - https://www.orbitmedia.com/

• 6sense - https://6sense.com/

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/5f9c8c1a-fbf5-43c7-b7eb-958674860156/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic/id1444680950

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=c4050290cbb54c65

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

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

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/UcqmLuBnJ3M

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 B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Today's guest, Devang Sachdev, is the Vice President of Marketing at Snorkel AI. Devang started his career engineering hardware and managing products before transitioning and developing his expertise in strategic marketing planning, new product launches, and identifying emerging opportunities. Devang shares how he uses generative AI models to conduct market research, keep a consistent tone throughout his messaging and content, and create content that wins snippets on Google.

Takeaways:

• Generative AI models are extremely effective when used to conduct market research and understand the positioning of competitors in a certain space. Start with basic questions about who are the main companies in a niche and then refine your prompts.

• To learn about competitors, you can ask tools like Open AI's Chat GPT4 to go to a competitor's website and break down their lead, differentiation, and positioning. Ask for the competitor's shortcomings to uncover great opportunities.

• A great way to keep your messaging consistent and comprehensive enough is to perform the same test as above with your own website. This can show the impression that a new user of your website might get.

• By starting with a simple prompt, you can assess the quality of the AI model's output to indicate whether it understands your industry or niche well enough. This builds the amount of trust and confidence that you can have in the answers it gives.

• Open AI's new Chat GPT4 brings greater functionality than the existing Chat GPT 3 tool. The new model incorporates different structured data modalities and can handle information with spatial relationships.

• Capture the Google snippet by asking a generative AI tool to create FAQs and answers for them based on your product page. This is a great starting point for writing an SEO-optimized article that provides value and has a good chance of ranking well.

• If you use Chat GPT as an assistant to handle any proprietary or confidential information, it's a good idea to use it through the API. If you just use the normal version, the AI will be trained on your data and it could show up for other users.

Quote of the Show:

• "The more you start putting yourself in the mind of your prospect and start using Chat GPT as a way of inquiry, the better responses you'll start getting, and the more readily available that content will be to use in long form or even short form pages" - Devang Sachdev

Links:

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

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

• Company website: https://snorkel.ai/

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/5f9c8c1a-fbf5-43c7-b7eb-958674860156/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic/id1444680950

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=c4050290cbb54c65

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

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

• YouTube:

Performance Marketing Insiders 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 B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

This special guest has spent over 25 years of international experience championing Fortune 500 brands and articulating their vision through marketing and advertising initiatives. Through her career, she has earned over 100 advertising awards from AdAge, Adweek, Brandweek, Forbes, and The New York Times among many others. Suzanne Darmory is the VP of Integrated Marketing & Creative at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. Suzanne discusses the importance of balancing a thick skin and a warm heart, how to track attribution when running omnichannel marketing, and how marketers are managing the pressure to do more with less.

Takeaways:

• To have a long and fruitful career, marketers need to have thick skin along with a warm heart. Treating everyone with the same level of respect regardless of standing is also important, especially as marketers advance in their careers.

• For those working on creative content, it's important to resist taking criticism of your work personally. While this can be challenging, remember that decisions on creative ultimately come down to what will produce the best results.

• While some companies in "unfun" industries, like taxes, concentrate on brand awareness and spend big on Super Bowl ads, there is a great opportunity for companies to build a more human brand that resonates by using one-to-one communication.

• When using an omnichannel marketing approach, each channel will have different measurement standards. For example, TV ads are harder to track than digital ads. However, a well-developed CRM and tech stack can provide crucial attribution data.

• Managing multiple marketing mediums is complicated, but it can be much easier by getting the brand right. For larger companies, building an internal team to manage the brand rather than relying on outsourced agencies to deliver the brand.

• With marketers being asked to provide more results while using fewer resources there is a push across industries toward increasing efficiency and finding ways to cut costs. For example, using an in-house creative team can be cheaper than using an agency.

Quote of the Show:

• "One of the things that I really, truly believe in is always having a thick skin, but a warm heart." - Suzanne Darmory

Shout Outs:

• The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

• Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

Links:

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

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

• Jackson Hewitt Website: https://www.jacksonhewitt.com/

• Personal Website: http://suzannedarmory.com/

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/5f9c8c1a-fbf5-43c7-b7eb-958674860156/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/3-minute-marketing-with-chris-mechanic/id1444680950

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=c4050290cbb54c65

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

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

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/3NKPxHNA0gA

Performance Marketing Insiders 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 B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/