April 10, 2025 • 21 mins
Kendra talks imperfect marketing with Samuel Winderö, Marketing Director at a global software company based in Sweden. With experience spanning from banking to running his own agency for eight years, Samuel brings unique insights on aligning marketing strategies with business objectives.
Topics covered in today's conversation include:
- How to align marketing team goals with broader business objectives
- Understanding the fundamental importance of knowing your customers at multiple levels
- Identifying different buying centers within customer segments
- Measuring marketing's impact on the bottom line
- Building cross-departmental collaboration to prevent marketing from being the first to blame
- Creating a shared vision for how marketing teams should function
Connect with Samuel Windero
LInkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuwelii/
Are You Ready to Elevate Your Marketing Strategy?
Marketing is anything but a perfect science, but understanding your customers, aligning with business goals, and measuring impact can set you up for success.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Kendra Korman .
If you're a coach, consultantor marketer, you know marketing
is far from a perfect science,and that's why this show is
called Imperfect Marketing.
Join me and my guests as weexplore how to grow your
business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned
along the way.
Hello, and welcome back toanother episode of Imperfect
(00:27):
Marketing.
I'm your host, kendra Korman,and today we're going to be
talking about leadership withinmarketing and, well, everything
that there is to do aboutmarketing.
Right?
Welcome, samuel.
Thank you so much for joiningme today.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thank you, kendra.
So fun to be on your pod.
Finally, it's a great pod youhave, so I'm looking forward to
the chat.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Tell me, how did you get into marketing.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's actually a really funny story because I was
in banking and I was workingwith customer service and was
deep into that and I loved myjob and I had Twitter and back
then it was called Twitter stillthe manager's manager to me.
He called me up in his officeone day and said like hey, I
heard you have Twitter, I wouldlike you to help us with some
stuff online.
And that was kind of the earlybeginnings of social media in
(01:16):
Sweden.
Definitely that was not a thingwhere banks or corporations
were on social.
So from that on and that stageI started working with social
media in the bank.
It led me starting to work atan agency.
I ran my own agency for eightyears and now I am a marketing
director at a big softwarecompany here in Sweden that
operates globally.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Very cool.
I love it when it's that's notreally where you were headed and
that's where you ended up andthat's where your true talent
lies.
So very, very cool.
Thank you for sharing that.
So let's jump in to one of thequestions that I get asked all
the time by people is I'll sayso, what are your goals?
(01:54):
And they're like my marketinggoals, and I'm like no, your
business goals, like marketingshould support your business,
right, and I feel like I'myelling all the time.
So how do you align yourmarketing team's goals with the
broader business objectives tomake sure that marketing is
(02:15):
driving results?
Because I think people get themconfused.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I think this is a really good question and I think
many marketeers and marketingleaders they miss this exact
thing.
And I think that's one of thestrengths that I've had the
privilege to have, thanks to meworking in a financial
institution.
It's focused around the targets, right.
So, coming from that angle,going into marketing, for me it
was very natural and I wasalways digging into what is the
(02:42):
business goals, what are thetargets we have, what's the
achievements we want to achieve,where is it that we're heading?
And then, the day I became aleader for marketeers, my first
job was not to tell them whatthe goals and targets were, and
look at their own tactics andstrategies and understand how do
(03:03):
I tailor my strategies, mytactics, my work around to hit
those targets, to meet thosetargets.
And I think that's really whereI always want to be Looking at
KPIs, looking at metrics to helpkind of support that kind of
journey towards those targets.
And that's how I have done itin the past, that's how I do it
(03:26):
now.
It's all about helping peopleunderstand where we're going
always and not lose track ofthat.
And then we go back into ourcrazy marketing ideas and this
crazy campaign here and thehyper-targeting over here, and
then we have to zoom back alittle bit and say like, hey,
okay, one step back.
What is the target, what's ourbusiness goals, what's the
agenda for the year or for thequarter?
(03:48):
And then we try to build itback up from that.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So it reminds me of a story.
So when one of my previousclients, I called all the heads
of all the different officesthat they have around the
country and I said what are yourbiggest goals?
What are you trying to do?
Because the marketing effortsshould support that right.
And everybody says I want morebusiness from my existing
clients.
I want more business from myexisting clients, more business
(04:14):
from my existing clients.
Not one person said newbusiness from new clients and
finding new people.
And I look at the marketingbudget and half of it was going
to trade publications and I'mlike why are we running an
awareness campaign when we knowevery single person we want
business from because we dobusiness with them?
(04:35):
Like why aren't we doing directmail instead of and paying a
tenth of this?
And they were like, oh OK, soit was just very interesting.
Because if you didn't take thetime to step back, yeah, it's
like trade publications are agreat idea.
No, not when there's much moreeffective and efficient ways to
(04:57):
hit those goals of getting morebusiness from existing customers
.
Right.
When you're talking aboutmeasurement, Right, how do you
approach measuring anddemonstrating how marketing is
affecting the bottom line?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
because marketing is always the first thing to get
cut yeah, and it's also thefirst thing to blame when things
doesn't go the way it should,right.
So it's it's both both thoseareas that that is the
marketing's fault.
I think what I like to do is Ilike to kind of segment out the
different type of roles that theteam has to understand them
first of all.
(05:32):
So, okay, we have differentfunctions within the marketing
team that does different things,and they are triggering or
supporting the business strategyin different ways.
So that's the first partunderstanding what's the
difference between growthmarketing versus product
marketing.
They have different goals.
What's the difference betweengrowth marketing versus product
marketing?
They have different goals, theyhave different jobs to do and
the kpis and metrics that followare, of course, different.
(05:53):
It also needs to connect back tothe business strategy, like we
talked about and you mentionedbefore, like if we are targeting
existing customers to help themutilize our services better, to
maybe buy new products thatexist within the portfolio.
Well then, that's one job, andmaybe the product marketeer is
more engaged in driving thatkind of product adoption, usage
(06:17):
of product, whilst a growthmarketeer would probably focus
more on account-based marketingor reaching as many of our
audiences as possible to as lowcost as possible.
So it really depends on thefunction but also on what we
want to achieve as a company,and I think my role as a leader
is to help the team understandwhat is my role, what is my
(06:40):
responsibilities, what's withinmy control, and give the tools
and assets to help them achievethat.
So the budget and also thetactics and strategies to help
them kind of narrow that down tothe areas that they really need
to work on, and that also fitswith the business strategy.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
One of the things I liked that you said earlier was
that, yeah, marketing is alsothe first to get blamed.
How do you work with otherdepartments to keep them from
blaming you?
I mean, I remember thatsomething didn't sell because
they didn't have a flyer with ablue motorcycle, the flyer that
they had had a red motorcycle.
I mean, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, I mean this is the case for any marketeer and
any marketing manager or leaderor CMO Like I think that happens
Currently.
I'm privileged to work in acompany where the former person
that had my role and our CMO isreally understanding and driving
that and has been building thatup.
(07:37):
In organizations there's afundamental understanding of why
marketing is important and whatwe do and how we contribute.
So it's more proof casing thatand showcasing continuous value.
But I think in other companiesI worked I've seen that a lot.
It was like oh, the sales decksare wrong, so we can't sell.
Okay, what is the sales tacticsthat you want to drive?
(08:00):
How can we support that?
I think it is all aboutunderstanding the conversation
and helping kind of nudge thatconversation and ask questions
and showcase people that I'mlistening, I'm here to
understand what you need and letme help you.
Let us do this together andwhat I've seen been a strong
(08:20):
benefit across my last maybefive, six years is working a lot
with collaboration.
So as a leader, I need to workwith my peer leaders and also
help my team to find the rightpeople, their peers, to also
collaborate across teams, acrossdifferent functions, because
that's essentially how you startgetting that kind of marketing
(08:42):
machine working and where youget the confidence and trust in
what you do because people startunderstanding and people start
relating to you and not only thesales deck or the shiny
marketing thing that, the holygrail of everything, that is the
problem in the company.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Everything yeah, everything was based on this one
thing.
It's like no, that's not theway this works, so all right.
So when you're working withthese other departments, when
you're creating campaigns thatare going to be driving bottom
line results, where do you start?
What questions do you ask?
And then how do you look to seeif those tactics are going to
(09:20):
match up, to make a difference?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I think, fundamentally, there is two
things you always have tounderstand as a marketeer.
Number one is your customerswho are your customers, what are
those segments and what istheir problems that we want to
serve?
Number two is your positioningand messaging of your product,
or the things you want to sell.
If you don't understand thosetwo, it's really hard regardless
(09:45):
, because if the bottom lineusually is financial, it's
driving business, growing thebusiness.
Well, you have to understandthose two and how you package
your product and how it'srelevant for your audience that
you're selling it to.
So those are the two thingsthat you need to understand.
And if you don't understandthem in the marketing team, if
your marketeer doesn'tunderstand it, that's a huge
(10:06):
problem.
But sometimes also it's an evenbigger problem if there is
different views on what thecustomer is in the organization
or if it's different ideas ofwhat the product is we're
selling.
So getting that sorted from anorganizational perspective, but
also from a knowledgeperspective within the marketing
team, are two fundamentalthings to make that happen.
(10:26):
And then from there you canstart looking at okay, what are
our targets?
Okay, we have audience X inthis country that we want to
sell this product to.
Their problem is A, so we sellthem this great thing that
solves problem A.
Right, it sounds easy when Isay it, but then it's all the
actual details of making thathappen and learning together as
(10:48):
an organization and as a team,where there's a lot of work that
needs to be put into that andit also has to be continuously
worked on.
It's not something you set oneday and then it's forever the
correct answer.
You have to build and rebuildyour positioning and messaging
based on what happens with yourcompetitors, what happens in the
(11:09):
world around you and how isyour product evolving and
relating to those other productsor to whatever happens in the
world beginning Number one, yougot to know your customers and
who they are.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
I feel like I'm a broken record all the time when
I say that because I'll askpeople OK, so why did they buy
from you?
And I would say most of myclients really, really, really
struggle with that answer.
They don't know that answer atall because it's time, or they
felt like they needed to.
No, because it's time, or theyfelt like they needed to no,
it's never that rightno-transcript because they felt
(11:55):
it was time and they had anextra 10, 20, 30k laying around,
right.
I mean, you've got to reallyunderstand your customers.
So, going into that, what toolsare you using to understand the
customers?
Where is that informationcoming from?
Is that coming from productdevelopment or the sales team?
(12:16):
Are you guys in marketing doingyour own research?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yes, on all of those three.
It's the combination of all ofthose three.
From how do the data?
From the product, how are ourcustomers using the product?
If it's a software or if it's aphysical product, you can still
get data on that right.
So that is a key ingredient tounderstanding your customers.
It is also listening into yoursupport team.
(12:41):
What are they saying, what arecustomers asking, questions
asked right.
And then it's from our salesand commercial teams that are
talking to customers every day.
They have a lot of insights andknowledge on the customer.
So it's not just marketingsaying over here in the corner,
we know and understand thecustomer.
No, it's the combined data, allof those, that helps you
understand the customer.
(13:02):
And one thing, kendra, that Ithink is super interesting when
it comes to customer segmentsthat that I am very passionate
about, because usually then,okay, we come to the point where
we suddenly then know who isour customer segment.
Here's the, here's the trickthat many misses.
The next layer of customersegments is your buying centers.
Who are the people that buysyour product versus who uses
(13:24):
your product?
So when you know who yourcustomer segments are, okay, we
sell to this category of peopleor companies, perfect.
Now you need to understand whois the buyer and who's the one
that needs to be convinced ofthe product, not only the
segment as a whole.
Right, and especially in B2B,that's what a lot of companies
(13:44):
fail.
They don't understand who arethe buying centers, who are the
different people in anorganization that you need to
convince, and their problem isusually different.
The finance team has one viewon your product, whilst the
sales team or the product teamor the customer, whoever it is,
has different views of yourproduct, and you need to
(14:05):
position and message yourproduct differently to these
different buying centers to, inthe end, get them to buy the
same product.
So that's a big challenge thatmany miss as well, I think, and
I missed for many, many years.
I know you usually talk aboutbig failures and I think that's
one of my big learnings in thepast Like, okay, there is so
many layers to customers, if Idon't know what I'm, what I
(14:28):
think I know, then it's going tobe a problem for me as a
marketeer and me as a leader,leading marketing teams, because
the customers and understandingof it is the fundament to be
successful.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And I think that that's so important.
I love that point.
So just because someone'sbuying your product, it doesn't
mean that they're the end user.
I think a lot about this interms of when people are selling
to children, or if you'reselling training or you know
different services like that Alot of times.
You know the services like thata lot of times you're.
(14:59):
You know the parents buying forthe child.
Is the child driving the salethrough the parent or is the
parent driving you know?
And again, those motivationswhere it goes back and forth
between the buyer and the user,right, who's driving it the user
or the buyer?
And understanding that changeseverything.
Right, because you got to talkto who you each part of your
(15:23):
customer journey needs to talkto, whoever it is that's going
through that, right.
You want to make it easy.
If the user is driving it upthe chain.
Right, got to make it easy forthem to do that, whereas if the
buyer's pushing it down to theusers, got to figure out a way
to get buy-in along the way.
Right.
(15:43):
And so it's differentcollateral and different pieces
that go, because if someone buysit and then nobody's using it,
you're not going to keep buyingit.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
And an interesting thing is also speaking about
journeys.
When you're upselling or, ifyou want to, you know, increase
the usage and there is a premiumor whatever, Well then that's
the users that usually to sellto, to want to ask like, hey, we
love this product and we wantthese extra features, and then
it's suddenly a differentmessage than when you sold from
(16:15):
the get.
Go right.
So it is also differingdepending on in the journey,
where you're at and what you'retrying to achieve.
And I think that's anothermistake that is so easy to make.
I've done it myself and my teamhas done it, but I think that's
really a fundamental also to inthe journey and having the
journey of the customer alwaystop of mind.
(16:35):
And that's back to what wetalked about before knowing the
customer, understanding thecustomer.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Well, and I think a lot of people forget, you get
caught so much up in the dailyrunnings of your business, your
organization, you forget whatthat journey looks like for that
person.
Right, we have so many messageswe want to share, but none of
that matters.
It only matters what thecustomer wants to hear or is
(17:03):
looking for answers to, right,and if you go that way, you'll
be a lot more successful.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
This has been an awesome conversation and I know
you talked a little bit so farabout one of your lessons
learned on the layers ofcustomers, but do you have?
This show is called ImperfectMarketing because marketing is
anything but a perfect science,so I ask every one of my guests
what has been your biggestmarketing lesson learned along
(17:30):
the way?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I was actually thinking about this and I knew
the question was coming, so Iwas kind of thinking what should
I do?
What should I twist?
And we've been talking a littlebit about leadership, right,
and I think, from a leader'sperspective being a leader
within marketing, marketingdirector, cmo, whatever you name
it I think one of my biggestlearnings or mistakes in the
past has been to not calibratethe way I want, or the company
(17:57):
wants, the marketing team tofunction.
So the vision and the missionof how the marketing team
operates.
If you don't have that, if youdon't have a formulation for
that, if you haven't worked withyour team about this, is who we
want to be as a marketing team.
This is how we want to supportour peers, our colleagues and
our customers.
If you haven't connected thosetwo with the business strategy
(18:19):
and the promise of the brand,well then it's going to be super
hard to be successful.
And I think for many years Iwas struggling a lot with that
because I didn't understand howimportant it is to set that as a
team.
It's not something that I comeup with and then it just happens
.
It needs to be built togetherwith a team and we need to be
aligned.
Okay, this is how we approachproblems, this is how we
(18:40):
approach the challenges that weare met and this is how we meet
the organization and ourcustomers in our everyday.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
That's a really good lesson learned.
So thank you very much.
Thank you so much for spendingtime with me today, samuel.
I really appreciate it.
I think we talked a lot about alot of different things, right?
We talked a little bit about,you know, tying your marketing
to the bottom line, leading yourteam, leading other teams right
(19:12):
In the organization, who aregoing to blame marketing first
when everything doesn't go rightand or doesn't go the way they
want it to.
And I think it really comesdown to that teamwork that buy
in and getting all of thatinformation.
But ultimately, it'sunderstanding your customer that
, I think, drives and builds allof those campaigns from there.
Because why are you going tosend direct mail to someone's
(19:34):
office if they work remote,three states away, right?
So you gotta think you gottaknow your customer.
You gotta know not more thanjust how to talk to them, but
also what they're doing.
And you get that from alldifferent places in the
organization.
And if you're just by yourself,this all holds true.
You gotta understand yourcustomer, you gotta understand
(19:54):
your customer journey.
You gotta get that informationfrom every part of the business
that you have and go from there.
So thank you so much again foryour time.
I really appreciate it For allof you listening and watching.
Thank you so much for joiningus on another episode of
Imperfect Marketing.
You learned something today andI hope that you did.
(20:14):
I wish that you would rate andsubscribe wherever you are.
See you on another episode ofImperfect Marketing.
Have a.
Hi, I'm Kendra Korman .
If you're a coach, consultantor marketer, you know marketing
is far from a perfect science,and that's why this show is
called Imperfect Marketing.
Join me and my guests as weexplore how to grow your
business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned
along the way.
Hello, and welcome back toanother episode of Imperfect
(00:27):
Marketing.
I'm your host, kendra Korman,and today we're going to be
talking about leadership withinmarketing and, well, everything
that there is to do aboutmarketing.
Right?
Welcome, samuel.
Thank you so much for joiningme today.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thank you, kendra.
So fun to be on your pod.
Finally, it's a great pod youhave, so I'm looking forward to
the chat.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Tell me, how did you get into marketing.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's actually a really funny story because I was
in banking and I was workingwith customer service and was
deep into that and I loved myjob and I had Twitter and back
then it was called Twitter stillthe manager's manager to me.
He called me up in his officeone day and said like hey, I
heard you have Twitter, I wouldlike you to help us with some
stuff online.
And that was kind of the earlybeginnings of social media in
(01:16):
Sweden.
Definitely that was not a thingwhere banks or corporations
were on social.
So from that on and that stageI started working with social
media in the bank.
It led me starting to work atan agency.
I ran my own agency for eightyears and now I am a marketing
director at a big softwarecompany here in Sweden that
operates globally.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Very cool.
I love it when it's that's notreally where you were headed and
that's where you ended up andthat's where your true talent
lies.
So very, very cool.
Thank you for sharing that.
So let's jump in to one of thequestions that I get asked all
the time by people is I'll sayso, what are your goals?
(01:54):
And they're like my marketinggoals, and I'm like no, your
business goals, like marketingshould support your business,
right, and I feel like I'myelling all the time.
So how do you align yourmarketing team's goals with the
broader business objectives tomake sure that marketing is
(02:15):
driving results?
Because I think people get themconfused.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I think this is a really good question and I think
many marketeers and marketingleaders they miss this exact
thing.
And I think that's one of thestrengths that I've had the
privilege to have, thanks to meworking in a financial
institution.
It's focused around the targets, right.
So, coming from that angle,going into marketing, for me it
was very natural and I wasalways digging into what is the
(02:42):
business goals, what are thetargets we have, what's the
achievements we want to achieve,where is it that we're heading?
And then, the day I became aleader for marketeers, my first
job was not to tell them whatthe goals and targets were, and
look at their own tactics andstrategies and understand how do
(03:03):
I tailor my strategies, mytactics, my work around to hit
those targets, to meet thosetargets.
And I think that's really whereI always want to be Looking at
KPIs, looking at metrics to helpkind of support that kind of
journey towards those targets.
And that's how I have done itin the past, that's how I do it
(03:26):
now.
It's all about helping peopleunderstand where we're going
always and not lose track ofthat.
And then we go back into ourcrazy marketing ideas and this
crazy campaign here and thehyper-targeting over here, and
then we have to zoom back alittle bit and say like, hey,
okay, one step back.
What is the target, what's ourbusiness goals, what's the
agenda for the year or for thequarter?
(03:48):
And then we try to build itback up from that.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So it reminds me of a story.
So when one of my previousclients, I called all the heads
of all the different officesthat they have around the
country and I said what are yourbiggest goals?
What are you trying to do?
Because the marketing effortsshould support that right.
And everybody says I want morebusiness from my existing
clients.
I want more business from myexisting clients, more business
(04:14):
from my existing clients.
Not one person said newbusiness from new clients and
finding new people.
And I look at the marketingbudget and half of it was going
to trade publications and I'mlike why are we running an
awareness campaign when we knowevery single person we want
business from because we dobusiness with them?
(04:35):
Like why aren't we doing directmail instead of and paying a
tenth of this?
And they were like, oh OK, soit was just very interesting.
Because if you didn't take thetime to step back, yeah, it's
like trade publications are agreat idea.
No, not when there's much moreeffective and efficient ways to
(04:57):
hit those goals of getting morebusiness from existing customers
.
Right.
When you're talking aboutmeasurement, Right, how do you
approach measuring anddemonstrating how marketing is
affecting the bottom line?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
because marketing is always the first thing to get
cut yeah, and it's also thefirst thing to blame when things
doesn't go the way it should,right.
So it's it's both both thoseareas that that is the
marketing's fault.
I think what I like to do is Ilike to kind of segment out the
different type of roles that theteam has to understand them
first of all.
(05:32):
So, okay, we have differentfunctions within the marketing
team that does different things,and they are triggering or
supporting the business strategyin different ways.
So that's the first partunderstanding what's the
difference between growthmarketing versus product
marketing.
They have different goals.
What's the difference betweengrowth marketing versus product
marketing?
They have different goals, theyhave different jobs to do and
the kpis and metrics that followare, of course, different.
(05:53):
It also needs to connect back tothe business strategy, like we
talked about and you mentionedbefore, like if we are targeting
existing customers to help themutilize our services better, to
maybe buy new products thatexist within the portfolio.
Well then, that's one job, andmaybe the product marketeer is
more engaged in driving thatkind of product adoption, usage
(06:17):
of product, whilst a growthmarketeer would probably focus
more on account-based marketingor reaching as many of our
audiences as possible to as lowcost as possible.
So it really depends on thefunction but also on what we
want to achieve as a company,and I think my role as a leader
is to help the team understandwhat is my role, what is my
(06:40):
responsibilities, what's withinmy control, and give the tools
and assets to help them achievethat.
So the budget and also thetactics and strategies to help
them kind of narrow that down tothe areas that they really need
to work on, and that also fitswith the business strategy.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
One of the things I liked that you said earlier was
that, yeah, marketing is alsothe first to get blamed.
How do you work with otherdepartments to keep them from
blaming you?
I mean, I remember thatsomething didn't sell because
they didn't have a flyer with ablue motorcycle, the flyer that
they had had a red motorcycle.
I mean, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, I mean this is the case for any marketeer and
any marketing manager or leaderor CMO Like I think that happens
Currently.
I'm privileged to work in acompany where the former person
that had my role and our CMO isreally understanding and driving
that and has been building thatup.
(07:37):
In organizations there's afundamental understanding of why
marketing is important and whatwe do and how we contribute.
So it's more proof casing thatand showcasing continuous value.
But I think in other companiesI worked I've seen that a lot.
It was like oh, the sales decksare wrong, so we can't sell.
Okay, what is the sales tacticsthat you want to drive?
(08:00):
How can we support that?
I think it is all aboutunderstanding the conversation
and helping kind of nudge thatconversation and ask questions
and showcase people that I'mlistening, I'm here to
understand what you need and letme help you.
Let us do this together andwhat I've seen been a strong
(08:20):
benefit across my last maybefive, six years is working a lot
with collaboration.
So as a leader, I need to workwith my peer leaders and also
help my team to find the rightpeople, their peers, to also
collaborate across teams, acrossdifferent functions, because
that's essentially how you startgetting that kind of marketing
(08:42):
machine working and where youget the confidence and trust in
what you do because people startunderstanding and people start
relating to you and not only thesales deck or the shiny
marketing thing that, the holygrail of everything, that is the
problem in the company.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Everything yeah, everything was based on this one
thing.
It's like no, that's not theway this works, so all right.
So when you're working withthese other departments, when
you're creating campaigns thatare going to be driving bottom
line results, where do you start?
What questions do you ask?
And then how do you look to seeif those tactics are going to
(09:20):
match up, to make a difference?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I think, fundamentally, there is two
things you always have tounderstand as a marketeer.
Number one is your customerswho are your customers, what are
those segments and what istheir problems that we want to
serve?
Number two is your positioningand messaging of your product,
or the things you want to sell.
If you don't understand thosetwo, it's really hard regardless
(09:45):
, because if the bottom lineusually is financial, it's
driving business, growing thebusiness.
Well, you have to understandthose two and how you package
your product and how it'srelevant for your audience that
you're selling it to.
So those are the two thingsthat you need to understand.
And if you don't understandthem in the marketing team, if
your marketeer doesn'tunderstand it, that's a huge
(10:06):
problem.
But sometimes also it's an evenbigger problem if there is
different views on what thecustomer is in the organization
or if it's different ideas ofwhat the product is we're
selling.
So getting that sorted from anorganizational perspective, but
also from a knowledgeperspective within the marketing
team, are two fundamentalthings to make that happen.
(10:26):
And then from there you canstart looking at okay, what are
our targets?
Okay, we have audience X inthis country that we want to
sell this product to.
Their problem is A, so we sellthem this great thing that
solves problem A.
Right, it sounds easy when Isay it, but then it's all the
actual details of making thathappen and learning together as
(10:48):
an organization and as a team,where there's a lot of work that
needs to be put into that andit also has to be continuously
worked on.
It's not something you set oneday and then it's forever the
correct answer.
You have to build and rebuildyour positioning and messaging
based on what happens with yourcompetitors, what happens in the
(11:09):
world around you and how isyour product evolving and
relating to those other productsor to whatever happens in the
world beginning Number one, yougot to know your customers and
who they are.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
I feel like I'm a broken record all the time when
I say that because I'll askpeople OK, so why did they buy
from you?
And I would say most of myclients really, really, really
struggle with that answer.
They don't know that answer atall because it's time, or they
felt like they needed to.
No, because it's time, or theyfelt like they needed to no,
it's never that rightno-transcript because they felt
(11:55):
it was time and they had anextra 10, 20, 30k laying around,
right.
I mean, you've got to reallyunderstand your customers.
So, going into that, what toolsare you using to understand the
customers?
Where is that informationcoming from?
Is that coming from productdevelopment or the sales team?
(12:16):
Are you guys in marketing doingyour own research?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yes, on all of those three.
It's the combination of all ofthose three.
From how do the data?
From the product, how are ourcustomers using the product?
If it's a software or if it's aphysical product, you can still
get data on that right.
So that is a key ingredient tounderstanding your customers.
It is also listening into yoursupport team.
(12:41):
What are they saying, what arecustomers asking, questions
asked right.
And then it's from our salesand commercial teams that are
talking to customers every day.
They have a lot of insights andknowledge on the customer.
So it's not just marketingsaying over here in the corner,
we know and understand thecustomer.
No, it's the combined data, allof those, that helps you
understand the customer.
(13:02):
And one thing, kendra, that Ithink is super interesting when
it comes to customer segmentsthat that I am very passionate
about, because usually then,okay, we come to the point where
we suddenly then know who isour customer segment.
Here's the, here's the trickthat many misses.
The next layer of customersegments is your buying centers.
Who are the people that buysyour product versus who uses
(13:24):
your product?
So when you know who yourcustomer segments are, okay, we
sell to this category of peopleor companies, perfect.
Now you need to understand whois the buyer and who's the one
that needs to be convinced ofthe product, not only the
segment as a whole.
Right, and especially in B2B,that's what a lot of companies
(13:44):
fail.
They don't understand who arethe buying centers, who are the
different people in anorganization that you need to
convince, and their problem isusually different.
The finance team has one viewon your product, whilst the
sales team or the product teamor the customer, whoever it is,
has different views of yourproduct, and you need to
(14:05):
position and message yourproduct differently to these
different buying centers to, inthe end, get them to buy the
same product.
So that's a big challenge thatmany miss as well, I think, and
I missed for many, many years.
I know you usually talk aboutbig failures and I think that's
one of my big learnings in thepast Like, okay, there is so
many layers to customers, if Idon't know what I'm, what I
(14:28):
think I know, then it's going tobe a problem for me as a
marketeer and me as a leader,leading marketing teams, because
the customers and understandingof it is the fundament to be
successful.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And I think that that's so important.
I love that point.
So just because someone'sbuying your product, it doesn't
mean that they're the end user.
I think a lot about this interms of when people are selling
to children, or if you'reselling training or you know
different services like that Alot of times.
You know the services like thata lot of times you're.
(14:59):
You know the parents buying forthe child.
Is the child driving the salethrough the parent or is the
parent driving you know?
And again, those motivationswhere it goes back and forth
between the buyer and the user,right, who's driving it the user
or the buyer?
And understanding that changeseverything.
Right, because you got to talkto who you each part of your
(15:23):
customer journey needs to talkto, whoever it is that's going
through that, right.
You want to make it easy.
If the user is driving it upthe chain.
Right, got to make it easy forthem to do that, whereas if the
buyer's pushing it down to theusers, got to figure out a way
to get buy-in along the way.
Right.
(15:43):
And so it's differentcollateral and different pieces
that go, because if someone buysit and then nobody's using it,
you're not going to keep buyingit.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
And an interesting thing is also speaking about
journeys.
When you're upselling or, ifyou want to, you know, increase
the usage and there is a premiumor whatever, Well then that's
the users that usually to sellto, to want to ask like, hey, we
love this product and we wantthese extra features, and then
it's suddenly a differentmessage than when you sold from
(16:15):
the get.
Go right.
So it is also differingdepending on in the journey,
where you're at and what you'retrying to achieve.
And I think that's anothermistake that is so easy to make.
I've done it myself and my teamhas done it, but I think that's
really a fundamental also to inthe journey and having the
journey of the customer alwaystop of mind.
(16:35):
And that's back to what wetalked about before knowing the
customer, understanding thecustomer.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Well, and I think a lot of people forget, you get
caught so much up in the dailyrunnings of your business, your
organization, you forget whatthat journey looks like for that
person.
Right, we have so many messageswe want to share, but none of
that matters.
It only matters what thecustomer wants to hear or is
(17:03):
looking for answers to, right,and if you go that way, you'll
be a lot more successful.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
This has been an awesome conversation and I know
you talked a little bit so farabout one of your lessons
learned on the layers ofcustomers, but do you have?
This show is called ImperfectMarketing because marketing is
anything but a perfect science,so I ask every one of my guests
what has been your biggestmarketing lesson learned along
(17:30):
the way?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I was actually thinking about this and I knew
the question was coming, so Iwas kind of thinking what should
I do?
What should I twist?
And we've been talking a littlebit about leadership, right,
and I think, from a leader'sperspective being a leader
within marketing, marketingdirector, cmo, whatever you name
it I think one of my biggestlearnings or mistakes in the
past has been to not calibratethe way I want, or the company
(17:57):
wants, the marketing team tofunction.
So the vision and the missionof how the marketing team
operates.
If you don't have that, if youdon't have a formulation for
that, if you haven't worked withyour team about this, is who we
want to be as a marketing team.
This is how we want to supportour peers, our colleagues and
our customers.
If you haven't connected thosetwo with the business strategy
(18:19):
and the promise of the brand,well then it's going to be super
hard to be successful.
And I think for many years Iwas struggling a lot with that
because I didn't understand howimportant it is to set that as a
team.
It's not something that I comeup with and then it just happens
.
It needs to be built togetherwith a team and we need to be
aligned.
Okay, this is how we approachproblems, this is how we
(18:40):
approach the challenges that weare met and this is how we meet
the organization and ourcustomers in our everyday.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
That's a really good lesson learned.
So thank you very much.
Thank you so much for spendingtime with me today, samuel.
I really appreciate it.
I think we talked a lot about alot of different things, right?
We talked a little bit about,you know, tying your marketing
to the bottom line, leading yourteam, leading other teams right
(19:12):
In the organization, who aregoing to blame marketing first
when everything doesn't go rightand or doesn't go the way they
want it to.
And I think it really comesdown to that teamwork that buy
in and getting all of thatinformation.
But ultimately, it'sunderstanding your customer that
, I think, drives and builds allof those campaigns from there.
Because why are you going tosend direct mail to someone's
(19:34):
office if they work remote,three states away, right?
So you gotta think you gottaknow your customer.
You gotta know not more thanjust how to talk to them, but
also what they're doing.
And you get that from alldifferent places in the
organization.
And if you're just by yourself,this all holds true.
You gotta understand yourcustomer, you gotta understand
(19:54):
your customer journey.
You gotta get that informationfrom every part of the business
that you have and go from there.
So thank you so much again foryour time.
I really appreciate it For allof you listening and watching.
Thank you so much for joiningus on another episode of
Imperfect Marketing.
You learned something today andI hope that you did.
(20:14):
I wish that you would rate andsubscribe wherever you are.
See you on another episode ofImperfect Marketing.
Have a.
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