The Revenue-Driven CMO

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, we're trying something a little bit different.

In this solo episode, Chris is going to talk you through a 3-Minute Marketing "growth hack" that you can take and apply in your marketing straight away.

The hack for this episode is all about how you can build the perfect list of prospects or accounts using technographics. Chris is going to show you a Chrome extension you can use to find out what technologies your best potential customers are using and what they have in common so that you can build perfect list of dream customers to go after.

If you're a marketer at a business that wants to grow faster, you're going to love this episode... especially if you're a B2B company.

Show notes:

1. Best practice: whenever you're building a list that's based on technographics, you can't just rely on data sources like ZoomInfo. Always check the websites to confirm they're running the technology you're targeting.

2. There's a really cool ad blocker Chrome extension called Ghostery that allows you to do this.

3. Once you install it, disable the ad blocking feature. Then click on the Ghostery icon on your extensions list to see all the technologies any website or webpage you visit is using.

4. You can use this to build a list of companies you want to target by reverse engineering your dream customers from the technologies they (and only they) use on their website.

5. Visit the website of one of your best customers (e.g. home services) and use Ghostery to see what tools they're using. Then search for these tools in your data provider (like ZoomInfo or BuiltWith).

6. WebMechanix identified a technology a client was using called "TVSquared". We then built a list of companies that used this tool and reached out via email. We've landed several dream clients thanks to this tactic alone.

Anna Griffin (CMO of Intercom) is back for a second round of 3-Minute Marketing!

We're talking about a topic that's very near and dear to my heart, based on Anna's TEDx talk called "The Blank Page." It's all about how changing the stories we tell can make a dramatic impact on the trajectory of our lives, careers and the companies we grow.

I was excited to dig in and understand how it could benefit marketers in particular. So I asked her,

"Can you summarize your TED Talk for me and explain how can it impact brands and marketers?"

Show notes:

1. For one instant in your life, we're all created 1,000% equal.

2. As time goes on, you become the product of the stories you're told -- by your parents, community, leaders, etc. This shapes your belief system.

3. The reason some people achieve more greatness and success in life comes down to the stories shaping their beliefs.

4. If you don't like the trajectory you're on, the answer is to change your story to a bigger and better one that serves you. This will change your belief system, which will change your actions.

5. This also applies to brands. Companies that tell a bigger story can achieve greater outcomes.

6. Marketers have the power to change the story of their company. In doing so, they can transform the trajectory of the businesses they serve forever.

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I have the pleasure of sitting down with Leigh Caldwell, a cognitive and behavioral scientist turned marketer. He's the Founder of Irrational Agency, an award-winning author of "The Psychology of Price" and an avid blogger at his site, knowingandmaking.com. He's also a successful entrepreneur, having built and successfully exited 3 firms in the tech and economics consulting space.

Leigh's behavioral economics background has helped him yield some surprising insights on what does and doesn't work when it comes to understanding your market. My question for Leigh is: "What are the counterintuitive secrets to performing GOOD market research?"

Show notes:

1. Secret #1: People don't tell you the truth.

2. Your customers want to tell you all the great things about your product. But you want them to tell you the truth. So you need to ethically "trick" them into being honest with you.

3. Leigh built a simulated web store for his CPG client. While 60% of their panelists said they would buy their product, only 15% of users actually bought on the website.

4. They they then tested variables like packaging, pricing, etc. to drive the purchase rate up.

5. Secret #2: Behind everything people do, there is a hidden story.

6. Learn why and hear the rest of Leigh's secrets in the bonus footage by visiting WebMechanix.com/three-minute-marketing-episode-62

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I'm speaking with Angela Earl. She's an accomplished marketing executive, currently CMO at RFPIO — the industry leading software for response management. Before joining RFPIO, Angela was the owner of a B2B marketing agency which she successfully exited in 2019. Angela shared an impressive (and maybe controversial) content marketing case study on LinkedIn recently that I've been dying to ask her about. My question for Angela was: "How can ungating your content actually drive MORE leads?"

Show notes:

1. Content is made to be engaged with, but marketers somehow lost sight of this as we went down the "MQL rabbit hole".

2. We became more revenue-focused, but forgot we're creating content so people can read and watch what we're making.

3. Instead, we're adding friction to the experience by asking personal questions. But really, our audience just wants to read what we wrote, engage and respond.

4. When you start surrounding your content with "wrappers" like forms, chatbots and popups, you make it more difficult for your content to get digested and shared.

5. Content marketers got on this hamster wheel of "more content" at the expense of "quality content." Ungated content that generates leads requires investment: research, running surveys, and gathering tangible learnings your audience will want to consume.

6. At the end of the day, it's about building trust. If you add genuine value to your audience, they'll come back to you to learn more.

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I'm speaking with the one and only Dave Kerpen — bestselling-author, speaker & serial entrepreneur. He's currently Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Apprentice, the platform that connects entrepreneurs and business leaders with smart and motivated college students. Dave and his wife also successfully exited his agency Likeable Media in 2021. Dave joined me to answer the question, "What's the one ability or trait that separates 'okay' leaders from great leaders?"

Show notes:

1. Great leaders are effective because they know how to delegate.

2. Leaders struggle to delegate because they either are afraid to give other people the work, or they're wired to micromanage.

3. To delegate effectively as a leader, follow the SHARE model.

4. The leader's job is to do 3 things: Set the strategy and vision (S), Hire the right people for the right seats (H), and Assures access to resources and capital to get the job done (A).

5. When a task comes a leader's way, if it's not "SHA" they Remind themselves to delegate it (R) and empowering the right person to get the job done (E).

6. The "right person to get the job done" doesn't have to be an employee — it can be a freelancer, contractor, partner, vendor, etc. Thinking through who that person is is the leader's job.

Short description:

On today's 3-Minute Marketing episode, I'm speaking with serial entrepreneur Richard Lau. He's currently Founder & CEO at LOGO.com, the logo design platform that allows you to create a great logo for your brand in minutes.

One of Richard's passions is sharing what he's learned in his journey as an entrepreneur that can help other leaders be more successful in their careers, particularly mistakes made or opportunities missed that others can learn from.

Richard told me a networking story (one of the keys to his success) and I was intrigued to learn more. So I asked him, "If I were your protégé, how would you tell me to maximize the power of my own network?"

Show notes:

1. Facebook and Instagram are NOT your business network. LinkedIn is your business networking tool. Make sure you're over the 500+ connections threshold.

2. Be useful. Don't go out there selling and pitching. Instead, make connections between people in your network.

3. When you do this, you're helping 2 or more people in your network become more successful. The goodwill compounds over time.

4. Helping is a numbers game. If you help 100 people, 99 may never turn into anything. But one could lead to an opportunity that will change your life.

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I'm sitting down with Alex Morrison. He's currently CMO at PearPop, an on-demand creator collaboration platform. Prior to joining PearPop, Alex has had a remarkable career agency-side, serving in leadership positions at firms like Grey Group, R/GA, AgencyNet and J Walter Thompson.

Alex has first-hand experience seeing the impact of great influencer marketing and is stoked about how brands can benefit from partnering with creators at scale. So I asked him, "What is the future of commerce and why are creators the core of that engine?"

Show notes:

1. Creators who have influence can engage audiences from their unique worldview and perspective. This is particularly enticing for eCommerce and D2C brands, who are trying to reach consumers in an increasingly noisy and competitive environment.

2. Creators can add credibility and authenticity to a brand while showing real use cases of a company's product.

3. You can create a "surround sound" effect by having 100's or even 1000's of influencers sharing and mentioning your site or product.

4. It's hard to work with mid-tier and long-tail creators at scale, so most brands fall back on paying a premium to top tier influencers. But mid-tier influencers actually tend to generate the best CPAs and ROI.

5. PearPop allows marketers to solve this challenge and attract/activate creators at scale and track exactly which influencers are driving results. You can try it out for yourself at pearpop.com/business.

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I'm chatting with all-around badass CMO, Christian Campagnuolo. He's currently CMO at Revature, the largest employer of entry-level technology talent in the U.S. Prior to Revature, Christian has had a remarkable career in marketing — he found his roots in brand marketing at Disney, then transitioned into agency life and built his own agency. He eventually found his way into the tech world, heading up marketing for renowned tech brands like Blackboard, Logi Analytics, MicroStrategy and most recently EVERFI.

Christian has so many gems, we could have fit five episodes into our conversation! But we got some particularly good nuggets when I asked him, "What's the playbook for how a new CMO can take their company's marketing from startup to grown up?

Show notes:

1. Start off by observing what's wrong, not working or absent in the current marketing programs.

2. Do you have individuals that fulfill the core functions of a world class marketing team? Identify those talent gaps and build up the perceived value of those roles in your organization.

3. Get your marketing team delivering "delight" for your customers and internal stakeholders quickly. Do this by clarifying your team's priorities, e.g.: "Here are the 5 things you need to accomplish in your first 90 days."

4. Break your CEO's stated goal down to specific tactical initiatives and timelines to help your marketing team understand the journey they're embarking on.

5. Listen to your sales team's calls at different stages in the sales process — ask, "How long does it take for prospects to understand what our company does?" Then create and provide materials for your sales team to arm them to surgically shorten that learning curve for prospects.

Today on 3-Minute Marketing, I'm chatting with Kristi Melani. She's currently CMO at Telesign, an industry-leading Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) that's relied on by the world's most trusted brands. Prior to Telesign, Kristi headed up growth marketing efforts for technology brands like Anaplan, Poly & Plantronics.

Kristi has a contrarian perspective on evaluating marketing performance that piqued my curiosity. So I asked Kristi to tell us, "Why is the benchmark dead in marketing... and what should marketers use instead?"

Show notes:

1. Then pandemic shook up the tradition of reporting YoY benchmarks dramatically, because everything changed (including the traditional channels marketing and sales teams relied on).

2. Marketing is often measured on SQLs, but not all SQLs are measured the same. For example, some SQLs may have a higher deal value or close at a higher rate.

3. Come up with what and how you want to be measured. Then come up with the equation, such as, "I want to be measured on MQLs, SQLs, average deal size, Closed Won opportunities and net retention." Together, these tell a more holistic story of marketing's contribution than one KPI.

4. The fact is that some results in marketing are hard to measure. So by evaluating marketing off of a blend of important metrics, you can deliver a more realistic view of marketing's impact.