August 6, 2025 • 56 mins
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On today's episode, we talk with seasoned B2B marketing leader Pratibha Jain, who has spent nearly two decades driving demand, growth, and operational excellence across multiple industries. From cloud computing to HR tech, she’s seen—and measured—it all. Together, they unpack how to bridge gaps between marketing, sales, and operations to deliver measurable business impact.
Tune in to hear:
- Why alignment between Marketing Ops, RevOps, and Sales is critical—and how to actually achieve it.
- Which metrics matter for executives versus your internal marketing team (and why “vanity metrics” still have a place).
- How to build a unified data and reporting framework to eliminate finger-pointing and drive decision-making.
- Lessons in event marketing: from planning and execution to post-event follow-up that truly delivers ROI.
- Practical ways marketing teams can partner with ops to make account-based strategies more effective.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
by marketingopscom, powered by all the mob pros out
there.
I'm your host, michael hartman,flying solo once again.
I know mike is knee deep inprep for mops blues at 2025, uh,
so I know that recently we justhad the the uh session speakers
announced.
So if you're not sure if you'regoing to go waiting to see
(00:21):
what's out there, you you shouldbe able to start seeing the
speakers now.
But joining me today is myguest, pratipa Jain, a seasoned
B2B marketing leader who's beendriving demand and growth for
nearly two decades acrossindustries like cloud computing,
dev tools, enterprise planning,software and HR tech.
She has led teams across demandgen, growth, marketing,
marketing ops and more, andbrings a unique perspective on
(00:44):
what really matters when itcomes to measuring marketing's
impact.
From ABM to events, paid mediato pipeline metrics, pratibha
has done it all, and today she'shere to share the lessons from
her journey, walk us throughreal world examples and talk
about how she's partnered withRevOps and marketing ops to
drive results that truly movethe needle.
So, pratibha, thank you forjoining.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Thanks for having me, Michael.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, all right, I know, I asked you how to
pronounce your name.
Did I get it?
Was I close?
Please say yes.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I know it's not an easy name to say Well, you know,
all of us, all of us lazyAmericans, you know, but I try,
I try Anyway.
Well, let's get started withyour like.
Let's just maybe start withyour background right, as I
(01:36):
mentioned in kind of the introfor you, you've managed and led
demand gen growth in marketingops and even, like BDR, mdr
teams.
Maybe walk us through a littlebit of like a brief history of
your career and how thatunfolded and you know how that
has impacted the way youapproach marketing.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Absolutely so.
I'd say that I started my careerin a little bit more of a
traditional marketing role butquickly gravitated towards
demand gen and, more recently,growth marketing because I
really liked seeing the impactof the programs I was driving
and how it was connected torevenue right Pipeline and
revenue generation.
(02:18):
And, as you said in the intro,I've led all of the inbound and
outbound marketing channels andcontent marketing and marketing
ops and the VDR, mdr functionand all.
I think having oversight of allof these functions really
shaped how I thought aboutmarketing or how I think about
marketing right.
These are not independent,isolated channels, but really an
(02:40):
integrated story that we buildaround the customer journey but
really an integrated story thatwe build around the customer
journey.
And that perspective led me toask, like, how can we bring that
integrated story across all ofthese touch points?
Our customers and prospectsdon't frankly care who owns one
(03:03):
channel versus anotherinternally at the company.
What they're seeing really is asum total of everything we're
doing and saying right via email, on our website, at events and
so forth.
So I think that's what reallymotivates me and that's kind of
where I am today.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Okay, I don't know why this popped in my head, so
this is totally unplanned, soI'm going to throw a curveball
at you already.
So there was a point in mycareer where I had more of a
marketing and a technical sideof marketing background.
But there was an opportunitythat was like a customer support
team and they were thinkingabout.
(03:37):
What was interesting is, theywere thinking about customer
support as a marketing channeltoo.
Like, how do you?
Top of mind for me is howlittle I see of marketing teams
that are focusing on customermarketing and retention.
Do you think of that as apotential channel for marketing
or at least affecting loyalty,or something like that?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh, absolutely so.
Customer marketing has beenpart of the dimension teams that
have been on as well in priorroles, and I think about not
just how do we acquire net newcustomers, but I've also been
gold on customer retention andcustomer expansion and, as we
well know, right, it's mucheasier for us to keep our
(04:22):
current customers than toacquire a new one.
It's easier, less expensive allof that.
So I think customer marketingprobably doesn't get as much
visibility as it should, butit's certainly a very important
piece of the marketing group.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Okay, yeah, that just popped into my head.
So one of the other things thatyou and I, when we talked
before, is that you said, Ithink, you described as your
passion about data, so which Ilike to hear.
So, from your perspective,maybe with the demand gen lens
(04:59):
in particular, right, how haveyou thought about what metrics
and what data is reallyimportant, and maybe a nuance
like for what purposes?
So what would you use to, say,take to the executive team of
the board versus what would youuse within your marketing team
(05:21):
for just within that domain, asopposed to sharing it broadly
with others?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, definitely so.
For me, it comes down todecision making, right?
So the question I'd like to askis what decisions are we trying
to make and what data will helpus or inform us to make those
decisions?
Otherwise, you're reallydrowning in data.
There are so many data points,reports, dashboards and all, and
(05:50):
they look really impressive,but they don't help move the
business forward, right?
So for my purposes, I look atthe top of the funnel data.
So I care about efficiencymetrics at the very top, right.
What's the cost per qualifiedlead coming in?
How many people are handraisers?
Right?
Those form completes like demorequests and contact us on our
(06:11):
website.
Mid funnel, I'm looking atconversion rates at velocity and
I'm slicing and dicing that bypersona, by segment, by geos, so
I can identify either thefriction points and help remove
those or figure out where todouble down and down the funnel.
I'm focused on influencepipeline, on wind rates by
(06:35):
region, on deal acceleration andso forth.
So there's a lot of data andwhile I look at everything, what
I bubble up to the business oroutside of just the marketing
team are really how is marketinghelping drive pipeline and
revenue Right?
So, the top, the final metrics.
They're interesting, but Ithink they're more interesting
to marketing.
I'm really interested insharing, like what is the
(06:58):
conversion rate?
What velocity and how are wemaking an impact in those target
accounts that we really want togo after and how?
Speaker 1 (07:04):
are we making an impact in those target accounts
that we really want to go after?
Yeah, so a conversation I'vehad multiple times recently is
as much as I like or at least Idid like really thought like
things like attributionreporting were going to be
valuable for marketers.
I think it's pulled people awayfrom what I would call
(07:24):
controllable things, right,which which I think it's.
In general, these get calledvanity metrics.
Now, right, um, and my take onit is like it's not that those
were bad per se, but they wereeither used with the wrong
audience for the wrong kind ofthing, right, which then that
gives them the vanity metrics,but don't tie them to the
(07:45):
business, but then they've beenshunned because of that.
And I think there's this hugeopportunity for marketers if
they really went back to likewhat do they have control over?
So, how well did our contentperform?
Like, did our email get open?
Right?
So we need to think about thesubject line, like all that kind
of stuff.
If you truly believe, right,that all has a full impact
(08:09):
across the buyer's journey, thenyou should be trying to
optimize all those little thingsalong the way, but it feels
like a lot of people steppedaway from that I mean, are you
seeing the same kind of thing?
And it sounds, because itsounds like you actually haven't
gone full circle, like you'restill looking at some of those
kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
So I'd say overall, for the business right, I'm
looking at everything from leadscoming in to MQLs, sqls, and
obviously those stages might benamed differently at different
companies, sure, but I'm lookingat everything you know through
the funnel opportunities createdand closed, won or lost.
But then within each of thosechannels, as you mentioned,
(08:48):
right, it is important to see,like, how is that channel
performing?
If it's a webinar program thatI'm running, not just the
registrations but like how manyactually attended the webinar,
whether it's online or demand ondemand, right?
So with any channel, I'm alsolooking at the metrics.
And attribution is definitely avery sticky topic not sticky
(09:09):
but I guess a controversialtopic, right.
How do we measure the impact?
Is it first touch, last touch,multi-touch, the whole bit?
But I think it's important tosee again, what is that digital
footprint, from a lead coming into becoming an opportunity, to
becoming closed one?
So I can figure out does ittake seven steps to get them
(09:32):
from lead to opportunity?
Does it take 12?
And what are the most commoninteractions that we're having?
So what's working?
Well?
So I do look at it from achannel perspective and then
overall from the full funnelright Marketing and sales funnel
point of view.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Just one last question on this.
So when you're presenting tosenior leadership or the board
or whatever, what like?
What are I think about, likewhat I would do, I would
probably have only a handful ofthings I talk about.
Right, probably wouldn't bejust one thing, but there might
be four or five things.
What have you found that workswell when you're talking to that
(10:12):
kind of audience in terms ofmetrics that talk about
marketing's effectiveness orimpact on the business?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, I think in that case, less is more, right, less
is better.
So, again, what are those keymetrics that actually show that
we're going to contribute topipeline and revenue?
(10:42):
So, if you like, all because weprobably didn't have the right
quality of leads then orsomething else was missing,
right, our message didn'tresonate with them, and so on.
So what I present to in myquarterly business reviews or to
the board are really thosebottom key metrics, right, which
is what's the opportunitycreation, how are we moving that
(11:03):
through pipeline and throughclosed one deals?
And then, what is the velocityand what are the conversion
rates that we expect and are wemeeting those, are we exceeding
those, et cetera.
So those are the key metricsthat I would present to them,
but I'll keep in my back pocket,right, the full funnel metrics
if there are questions moregeared towards, like top of the
(11:25):
funnel or middle of the funnel.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking about it a little
bit here in the moment and Ithink that sounds like a good
way of focusing on the thingsthat that audience cares about.
And then those more top offunnel, upstream ones actually
could be part of like, if thereis something that is happening
in those metrics you're talkingabout good or bad, right, the,
(11:50):
you have the supporting data.
That's probably part of thediagnosis about what you like,
what's causing that, you know,change, right, and probably more
most likely when it's somethinglike oh, we're not meeting our
number for pipeline or somethingyou know.
You know, oh well, if we thinkabout, like, what we have to do
upstream, um, we had a dip inthe quality of our leads three
(12:11):
months ago, so now we're, like,we're seeing the results of that
.
Is that kind of the way youthink about it?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
you nailed it, michael.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yes, okay, okay good, good, all right.
Well, I'm learning here as I go, you know, um.
So.
So another thing, you thinkagain, going back to your career
path, you, um, you've had, forsure, you've had relationships
with marketing ops or rev opsteams, but it sounds like you've
also had teams that reportedinto you.
(12:41):
What, like, if you could pick ahandful of things and say this
is these are the scenarios whenthose teams have performed well
or where we've worked welltogether.
What were those kinds of things?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, I think I'll start with trust and and shared
ownership, right?
So, as you said, I've ledmarketing operations directly.
I've also worked very closelywith marketing ops, leaders in
the company and leaders too.
But I think when marketingsales, rev ops, marketing ops,
like all of them are co-ownersof the pipeline and I don't mean
(13:25):
just working in parallel, but Imean working together to solve
the problems right, aligning onthe goals and the end goal, of
course, is pipeline and revenue,but going at a much deeper
level and trying to makeunderstand and make sure we are
all on the same page as to whatour goals are.
Are we trying to increasevelocity?
Are our conversion rates notwhat we expect them to be?
(13:48):
And therefore you want to workon those.
Are we trying to expand in aspecific segment?
Right?
So, getting clear on what thebusiness objectives are up front
, so that everybody is going inthe same direction, so to say.
One thing that is one of my petpeeves is marketing having their
own dashboards and reports andsales having their own
(14:09):
dashboards and reports.
Right, I think that is a reallybad signal.
I think having a single sourceof truth across the entire
go-to-market organization.
So no matter whether somebodyis in product marketing or the
CRO or the SDR right.
Whoever is looking for thatinformation right, they're
looking at the same data andwe're measuring success the same
(14:33):
way.
The last thing I'll say aboutthis is really really important
to actually get the marketingops and RevOps teams involved
early, and what I mean by thatis, you know when we're setting
up the lead scoring program orthe lead routing, or thinking
about attribution, the funnelstages, and what are the entry
(14:55):
and exit criteria for each stageof the funnel right.
So all of these things, aswe're really starting to think
and plan those really importantto actually work with marketing
ops and RevOps.
Bring them into the fold early.
Align on the big questions.
Make sure we all know, you know, what good looks like and know
what, actually, what levers wecan actually pull, so that you
(15:16):
know when we are looking at thedata we're, you know, coming in
with the same point of view, wecan troubleshoot things easily,
right?
Do all of that.
So I think that you knowrelationships when they're open,
when they are, um, you know,aligned against the same goals.
I think those ones I found tobe most effective it's, it's so
(15:37):
for audience who's justlistening in.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Right, I had this big smile on my face when she was
talking about the differentreports because like it feels
like a real you know sign thatthere's going to be a challenge
with alignment is when you'vegot different reporting right
and that, um, it's already asignal that like there's going
to be a battle when it comes tolike, whether it's like a who
(16:02):
gets credit or who are we goingto believe, who's right, who's
wrong?
And um, like like to me, Ithink that like lesson here is
like, if I start seeing thatkind of stuff in these
organizations, it's a, it's atime to go like, oh, we need to.
I mean, it's kind of thisoverused.
Like you get aligned um, whichsounds simple but it's not.
(16:25):
But if you can at least agreeon which metrics you're going to
use consistently, that might byitself just sort of help solve
some of that alignment problemright.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, that's interesting.
I mean, have you gone throughthat example of like where you
have you had to solve that likebridge that gap, where you were
doing different reporting onwhat on the surface looked like
the same metrics with seniorexecutives and then you had to
like work through how to how tomake them more consistent?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, I've actually experienced that more than once,
unfortunately, where I've comeinto the organization and you
know, marketing has their owndashboard, Sales is running
their own reports and dashboards.
I'm like, why don't we have onefunnel view of this right?
There's one goal, one revenuenumber to achieve and there's no
(17:27):
reason to be looking atdifferent metrics Because, as
you said, what happens is if thenumbers you know, if you don't
meet our numbers, for example,there's a lot of finger pointing
, because I'm looking at thisdata.
You're looking at that data.
It doesn't align and you know,I'd rather not have that hard
burn and just start again fromwhat are our goals and let's
(17:48):
build one view and let's all usethe same data and the same
cadence right reporting cadenceand make sure that we're all
aligned.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, I'm sure that that resonates with everybody,
like a lot of people listening,that there's like it had this
like visceral reaction to thatidea, because I've experienced
it myself too.
So, kind of going back to this,so what are the characteristics
of the marketing ops or RevOpsteams that you've worked with
that made them where you feltlike they were great partners
(18:21):
with what you were doing?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah, I think a lot of it is actually, I would say,
almost cultural, and what I meanby that is it's how frequently
they're actually willing to meet.
How transparent are they rightabout working together.
How quickly can we troubleshootmetrics when they do go south
every now and then?
Right, how we're willing topivot and also clearly define
(18:50):
roles and responsibilities.
What would the marketing opsleader do?
What's expected of the demandgen leader?
Right?
Where does RevOps, you know,come in, et cetera.
Having those clear definitionsof roles and responsibilities
and being able to come togetherto work through any challenges
that come up, I think thosekinds of things right is what
(19:12):
you know, what I look at when Iwork with marketing ops and
DevOps teams.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Got it.
So we talked a little bit aboutalignment.
In a general sense, it soundslike you've done a lot of ABM
kinds of go-to-market strategiestoo, and like one of the things
I've found when I'm in amarketing ops leadership role is
having people come to me andsaying we need, we need to do
ABM, and what they really meanis go buy some technology, and
(19:40):
I've always not always, butpretty consistently gone, turn
around and said great, can we?
My approach has always beenlike I don't mind getting more
technology, but like, can we getaligned on what we mean by abm?
Right, do we have a list oftarget accounts?
Um, and that to me has beenmore of a struggle like, are
(20:01):
there any particular nuances ofalignment when it comes to abm
that you think are unique?
And then, kind of going backagain for our core audience,
right, how could people in ouraudience, in marketing ops roles
, for example, be a facilitator,a catalyst, right, an enabler
(20:23):
of that alignment and execution?
Then for ABM, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So I know ABM is a very easy and catchy acronym to
use, but I would like to frameit a little bit differently.
I would say account-basedstrategy or account-based
planning, because that is trulynot just an ABM, like a
marketing effort.
Right, we need to bring productmarketing, sdr leaders, rep ops
, marketing ops, sales leaders,right, All of them to work
(20:53):
together to actually haveaccount-based play.
So a couple of things I'll say.
I actually, again, will startoff with who is our target
audience, right, do we havethose target account lists?
Are we focused on one-to-oneyou know, account-based strategy
?
Are we doing one-to-few,account-based you know outreach?
(21:13):
In my view, one-to-many isbasically just targeted
dimension, right, it's notreally an account-based strategy
, really.
So let's start with the ICP whatare the pinpoints, the
challenges, how do we solve forthem?
Do we have a champion withinthose customers, especially
those one-on-one accounts, andreally make sure that we are
(21:34):
aligned at the executive level,right, as far as our target
companies and our you know, ourown executive team, so that we
fully understand, right, what isthe pain point they're trying
to solve for and how can we helpthem with that.
It's also again starting orlooking at at, like, our shared
goals, shared systems right, youmentioned account-based
(21:57):
platforms, which, of course, areimportant to get the intent
data and to do a lot of the paidcampaigns and other outreach
and all that, but I think that'sjust one piece of it.
I think it's making sure thatwe actually are focused again on
the same metrics and we aredefining everything right from
the definitions to the handoffs,to the reporting, like
(22:21):
everybody is working towards thesame outcomes.
So those are the kinds ofthings that I, you know,
generally look at, butspecifically for.
Is there any part of thequestion, michael?
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I apologize if I no, no, so the last part I asked
sorry, I asked a long windedmulti-step question, so don't
worry about it.
So the other part was like how,how, how can then ops folks be
kind of and contribute to notonly the execution, because I
(22:58):
think that's fairly obvious, butalso, with the alignment right,
Helping to facilitate?
Speaker 2 (23:13):
that alignment and then turn that into an
actionable plan, whether it'susing new technology or existing
technology.
Yeah, absolutely so.
I think marketing ops and revops both actually have a huge
role to play here I did mention,like the shared definitions,
right, like what counts as amajor count, right?
What are those qualified buyingsignals that we should look out
(23:34):
for?
Marketing ops and DevOps canalso set up the right alerts and
the routing logic so the salesknows who to follow up with,
when to follow up, and so on,and have a reporting cadence
that is consistent across, again, marketing sales, right, all of
the different go-to-marketfunctions.
So everybody is, you know,speaking the same language and
(23:54):
measuring the impact in asimilar way.
One other thing, actually, I'lladd to this, to your earlier
part of the question, which is,oftentimes I've seen that there
is a lack of visibility ofwhat's happening on either side,
and by either side I mean salesor marketing.
Sales may not know whatcampaigns you know marketing is
running and marketing may nothave feedback from the sales
(24:16):
team to really know, like,what's resonating or not, right?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
So quite often I've seen that that is a problem that
makes it very difficult for usto A plan those programs and to
see the impact you know in ameaningful way I mean, I like I
know I can probably think ofmany scenarios in my role and
marketing apps leader where allof a sudden we'll get this is
(24:43):
not even with abm per se, like,but just in general, like, hey,
why didn't my customer get thatnewsletter that promote, you
know, the invite to this webinaror whatever, or the flip right,
why did my customer get thisstuff?
Right?
They're not supposed to begetting stuff and I think
getting alignment on that, andwhat are the signals?
Because my approach is like,hey, I want to know that, but I
(25:09):
think a lot of organizationsdon't really get down to that
level of detail.
How are we going to know in atleast a semi-automated way?
The best example I have is ifI'm a salesperson and I'm
actively working on a potentialopportunity, opportunity um, and
(25:30):
I really want to kind of umcurate the messaging that's
going to them because I'm reallylike I don't want something to
interrupt.
And then, you know, becausethey're in our database and
marketing sending out somethingthat's maybe promotional um
could cause a problem.
I can really see that happening.
Like, how can we provide a wayfor them to like flag those
(25:55):
accounts as ones not tocommunicate with with general
stuff Right, and it's me like itsounds like a pretty easy thing
to do, right, you can come upwith a pretty solid rule that
probably works most of the timeRight, but it's going to require
it does require some disciplineand consistency from the sales
team.
So they like small example,right, and to me this is a way
(26:17):
of like getting buy-in fromsales teams on doing things that
I think a lot of marketerswonder like scratch their head
like why won't sales updatetheir opportunity status?
Why won't they add contacts toopportunities?
Right, and it's because, like,they're not getting paid for it,
there's no incentive for it.
But if what they want to do issay, hey, I really want to make
(26:39):
sure that if I've got keystakeholders from an account
where I'm working on an activeopportunity and I don't want
marketing in general tocommunicate to those, well, the
easy way to do that is add themas contacts to that opportunity
and then marketing couldassuming there's a sync between
that and their marketingplatform, they just say we're
(27:02):
going to have a standardexclusion on certain kinds of
emails, that if there's peoplewho are in an active opportunity
, then we don't send them.
It's not that hard, but it doesrequire someone else to take
action.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
You're exactly right and it happens more often than
you would think.
Right.
But, as you said, sales justwants to work on the active
opportunities when things gosouth.
Right, why did my customer getthis email or why didn't they
get included on that email?
That's when the surfaces, butit requires a lot of diligence
right Throughout the process Afor them to actually for us to
(27:42):
come up with those rules ofengagement and then B for them
to update right the informationin their opportunities so that
they you know, some of theircontacts don't get included or
do get included, as the casemight be.
Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Well, I mean, I've seen, I've seen the over I'll
call it an overreaction butsalespeople who, because they
don't want their customers to becontacted, they mark all their
contacts as unsubscribed.
Right, and I'm like don'tunsubscribe them because once
that happens, we can'tresubscribe them without them
giving us explicit way of doingit.
(28:19):
And it's like if, if what youwant to do is say, like I want
to limit again, like we can comeup with another way of saying
don't send them these people,that doesn't go to the level of
unsubscribing, but because theydon't communicate, that's what
happens.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah, and I think about marketing provides a lot
of air cover campaigns and ifthey were just unsubscribed, I
think these accounts and thecontacts associated with them
would miss out on those learning, educational, nurturing
opportunities, right.
So it's really important.
It's easy to do let's justunsubscribe them.
(28:58):
But, actually, then we miss outon a lot of marketing goodness.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, I mean there's like all kinds of unintended
consequences that come with that, right, and that's I mean mean
I know from my perspective,because I've I've had to deal
with those sort of, um,sometimes right, high emotion
kinds of responses to thingslike that, and in the moment
(29:23):
it's, it's it's like it's hardnot to take it personally, um,
but that's like, that's the likemy mental state is, like I try
to to go okay, this is not apersonal thing, they're actually
trying to help the business intheir own way.
Yeah, so I try to give them abenefit of the doubt.
What I try to do is take it asan opportunity to teach, right,
(29:45):
and this sounds so trite, but,like I mean, the more I've had
the opportunity to talkone-on-one with salespeople
about what they do and when,like why things are the way they
are.
Like, in a situation like that,I find that they actually get
it Right and they're more thanwilling to try to help solve the
(30:05):
problem on a bigger scale.
But if we just simply say, well, oh, you screwed up, you
unsubscribed those people, youshouldn't have done that, sorry,
right, then that doesn't helpanyway.
Like, so it just feeds intothis lack, comes out as a lack
of alignment, but, like it'sjust, there's no communication
that's effective at that point,so there's no way to get
(30:25):
alignment because, like it'sjust like we're talking past
each other.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah, that's true.
I've also found that the easierwe can make it for the
salespeople to do what we'reasking them to do, the greater
the chances that they'llactually do it.
So make it super simple makethe logic the rules.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Or, even better, just make something that you want
done automatic, based onsomething that they're required
to do to get paid.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm very passionate aboutthis particular topic because I
think a lot of people in ourcommunity in this space get
frustrated with sales and salesops and I think a part of it is
just not understanding whatdrives their behavior based on
(31:23):
the incentives that are therefor them.
Right, and so if you recognizethat they're they're not
incented to add contacts toopportunities, to update their
opportunity status until they'rebeing asked about their
pipeline status, right, it'slike if you recognize that it
(31:44):
makes it easier to go, like howcan I make it easier for them
while also moving towards thebenefit that I think the
organization will see by havingthat in a consistent way, which
is a lot different than going.
They're stupid.
They don't understand why we'redoing this.
Throw my hands up.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Right, right.
That's not to move anyoneforward.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
No, okay, sorry, I need to get off that soapbox or
I will just continue down thatand no one needs to hear that
rant.
Um, okay, so one more, one morealignment kind of question.
So, and you hinted at thisalready that, um, sometimes
(32:32):
marketing ops and I'll call I'llkeep it at sales ops, whether
it's called rev ops or not, butlike the ones that are, as
opposed to rev ops, that is sortof across the go-to-market
functions.
But yeah, a lot of times thereis also friction, uh, or lack of
alignment or lack ofcommunication between those
teams, not just at the allmarketing or all sales level.
(32:54):
So do you have any thoughts,suggestions for how the ops
teams can start to do a betterjob of aligning as well?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Right, and I think some organizations actually have
marketing ops rolled into theRevOps function.
Some have them reportingseparately, right, so some of
that may also like have animpact on how those teams are
run.
But again, I would go back toyou know, something I said
previously, which is start withshared goals.
(33:31):
Right, if marketing ops istrying to optimize towards maybe
the top of the funnel metricslike MQLs and SQLs, and sales
ops is thinking more about pipecreation, revenue and so on,
right, there is going to befriction.
So, really aligning on the goals, building the funnel together,
defining the stages of thefunnel very precisely so there's
(33:55):
no guesswork there and makingsure we have those right
reporting dashboards, frameworksthat were built together,
co-created, not just built insilos Using the same reporting
dataset.
The reporting cadence is thesame right, marketing option
we're reporting on a weekly ifRevOps is doing on a monthly or
whatever.
Right, let's align that becausewe're reporting out on the
(34:18):
whole business, not justmarketing or sales.
Obviously, and those are thethings that I have found that
keeps everyone really focusedand honest and really thinking
about how are we reaching thegoal, the goal.
(34:41):
And the other part, again, isjust making sure that it's clear
who's making decisions rightwhen something isn't working?
Who owns what right?
What is marketing ops zone?
What is sales ops or rev opszone?
I think having clarity canprevent a lot of back and forth
and a lot of again fingerpointing or back blood between
those teams.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, there's also sort of what I think would be a
relatively simple thing that Isee not happen in many places,
both where I've been and I hearabout, is like sales ops makes a
change in Salesforce, it breaksan integration to the marketing
platform or vice versa.
Right, and if there simply wasa conversation that happened
(35:19):
like, hey, we are planning thischange, here's what's going to
happen, it could prevent a lotof pain, right and finger
pointing and I think just thatkind of stuff, even like that
one even doesn't evennecessarily require aligned
goals and you know projects andthings like that.
It's just a matter of likerecognizing that there's this
interdependency and going like,oh, I need to make sure that if
(35:41):
we make a change, like is thisgoing to affect what's happening
in the marketing team or viceversa, and it just doesn't
happen enough for my experienceI completely agree and you know
something what'd said before islike having regular meetings
between marketing ops and repops to share those kinds of
things, right, what's comingdown the pike?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
looking at the metrics together and seeing like
, what's trending well, butagain, what's not trending as
well as we expected it to.
The other thing I'll add is,you know, marketing ops and
DevOps, as I said, should beinvolved, you know, very early
on in the process.
They should be communicatingregularly right between those
(36:37):
two teams, but also doing like aretrospective and taking those
learnings and feeding them backinto, like you know, planning
future programs or other changesor updates or whatever might be
coming down the pike.
So those things are actuallyvery effective.
So we don't make the samemistakes over and over.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah, agreed.
So I want to go back to kind ofyou touched on something I want
to go back to a little bit,which is, like Bing being data,
really care about data and usingit to evaluate what's been
effective.
How do you think aboutoptimizing your, I think, in
(37:09):
particular, outbound investments, investments when you're like,
do you do testing?
Do you?
Yeah, like, how frequently areyou looking at results and
adjusting?
What's your approach to that?
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, so I actually look at data every day, you know
, looking at the programs,looking at, obviously, the
dashboards and the top levelmetrics and everything.
Generally.
There are weekly goals that youknow we have in marketing.
So what we do is we look at therevenue number, we walk
backwards from that and say,okay, based on our conversion
(37:50):
rates, based on, you know, timebetween different stages of the
funnel, right, this is how manyleads I need to create now for
it to have an impact.
A quarter down, a month down,and so on and so forth, right?
So I look at the data every day.
On a weekly basis, there is across-functional team meeting
(38:10):
that I typically run, which isbetween the SDR leaders, the
sales leaders and all of themarketing functions that either
bring in leads like you know theevents, you know leaders, the
paid media leaders and so on oreven lifecycle marketing.
They don't bring in leads, butthey do help nurture them and
(38:32):
move them through the funnel.
So anyone who has, eitherdirectly or indirectly, any
touch points which almosteverybody in marketing does
right will be part of thosemeetings.
And ahead of those meetings, Ilook at our weekly metrics.
We have a goal to reach everyweek, based on, obviously, what
our monthly, quarterly andannual goals are to see, like,
(38:54):
how are we doing for that givenweek and ahead of that I will
actually sync up.
So let's say, our webinarnumbers were down this week.
Why were they down?
So I would, either I own thatprogram myself and I would know
because we did fewer webinarsthis month, right, sure.
Or um, we didn't have like apaid media cost really went up.
Maybe that's because ofcompetitor activity and so on
(39:16):
and so forth, right.
Or we paused, spent for anddevoted that to an event or to
an account-based strategy orsome of the program.
So, bringing those insightsinto those cross-functional
meetings and really talkingabout what's happening what are
the trends?
Are we meeting our numbers?
Which channels aren'tperforming as well and the
reasons why?
Having that cross-functionalconversation and deeper dive
(39:38):
into the data is how I look atit and not just wait for end of
month when I have to actuallyreport out to the business what
those metrics are.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Yeah, that's impressive.
So when you've hired marketersacross those different
categories, do you expect themto be doing that as well at
their level, and how does thataffect your hiring practices?
(40:08):
Do you have to teach people?
Do you expect them to come inwith it?
I'm just curious about whatthat has been an impact on how
you build teams.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Yeah, great question.
So I'll say it depends Not thebest answer, but it depends
because some folks may be veryearly in their journey, right in
their career journey.
I've hired folks who were liketheir first full-time job to
folks who've been like directorsof growth and dimension on my
team and obviously the latterright.
(40:39):
They know they've done thisbefore.
They know exactly theimportance of metrics.
They know what to look for andtroubleshoot.
You know things and all that.
But folks are very early career.
They don't necessarily knowthat.
They don't know what you know.
Signals you look for, whatleading and lagging indicators
you know would tell them, likehow the channel is performing
and all that.
So there's a lot of coachingand educating and helping them
(41:00):
understand that we're not justchasing vanity metrics but these
metrics are important becausethis is how it contributes to
our weekly goal, whichcontributes to our overall
revenue goal and so forth.
So I don't necessarily assumethat everybody will have that
knowledge and that experiencewhen they come in um, but it is
based on tenure as you get tomore seasoned professionals.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Obviously that's part of any marketer's role, um, and
yeah, so you like, essentially,you set a cultural norm like
even if you don't have thatskill, your the expectation is
that you're going to continue togrow in that skill, if you
don't already have.
It right To be able tounderstand what metrics matter,
and yeah, okay.
(41:45):
I have to say I think that'shighly unusual, sad as it is to
say, but I don't think it's ascommon as I've seen, like I've
I've seen many teams where evenseasoned people, um, I would say
have a hard time, like they'renot very data literate, I think
is the way I would put it.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
So um, I'm sure I'm sure you're you're right when
you say that, but I feel like ifmarketing isn't looking at the
data and looking at itconsistently, if you take our
eye off the ball right, we'regoing to miss that, whatever
that period is the week, themonth, whatever, and it's really
really hard to play catch upafter.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yeah, I mean, I know examples where there's also an
important thing about clarityabout who's responsible for the
outcome of a program.
For example and I know of atleast one example that really
sticks in my mind where it was awebinar my team helped
facilitate getting it set up,turns out, actually there was a
piece that hadn't been testedwell enough, which was the
(42:47):
connection from the registrationform to the webinar platform.
And we're a week.
We've been promoting it for amonth and a week out.
Finally, the person who waslike kind of facilitating the
speakers and all that was like,hey, what's our registration
numbers?
Well, guess what you go to?
In this case it was on 24, butgo to the webinar platform.
We're like zero.
(43:07):
We're like what?
Oh, my goodness, yeah, well, bywe're now like a week out.
Well, the number wasn't reallyzero because it's just the
registrations happened in themarketing platform.
The integration wasn't set upcorrectly, which it's like.
I was like why weren't theyasking like the day?
(43:29):
Because, like to me, the day ortwo after you do your initial
promotions, you're like I'd beon it like a hawk, like I, when
we publish these podcastepisodes, I watch the numbers
immediately, right, like I like,and I'd say like, how, how,
like, how would you not do thatif you were responsible for it?
And go like, cause I want toknow early signals, like if our
(43:51):
promotions off and it's notgenerating the expected kind of
outcomes and what we expect forregistrations, like I want to
course correct quickly um, andlike this is an example.
What I mean, like there's Idon't why I don't think um, what
?
Like I've seen plenty ofscenarios where, like, those
people are like even not, that'snot even being data literate,
(44:13):
that's just not having a focuson those metrics again, because
like, oh, they're vanity metrics, but like knowing that people
are actually registering, that'snot a vanity metric, that's
like fundamental to whether ornot this is going to be
successful.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Exactly, and those are the kind of surprises you
want to avoid, right, Like aweek out and you don't know what
the registration numbers looklike.
So that's why I think having aneye on the metrics on a very
consistent and I mean dailybasis, super, super relevant.
Same thing running events rightwhen you are, if it's your own
hosted event, whether it's asmall dinner event or a user
(44:56):
conference right, Making surewe're looking at those
registration numbers reallyreally closely and knowing where
they're coming from.
Right, what's the mix betweencustomers and prospects, and so
on and so forth.
So, yeah, I can talk about dataall day long.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah Well, so you brought up events.
I'm curious because it feelslike events uh making a bit of a
comeback coming out of covid.
I think there was a lot ofcraving for that like pent-up
demand.
So mopsa blue is a greatexample.
But how, um, how have youthought about the importance of
like?
How do you think about that asthe mix of part of your
(45:31):
go-to-market strategy?
From a budget standpoint, is itlike?
Do you, are you intentionalabout being clear about what the
goal of a particular event is?
Because, like, I think a lot ofcompanies are not like hey, we
are going to be at the, we'regonna exhibit it at this
conference, because it's asignal to the industry that we
are still viable, but we don'treally expect it to generate
leads.
Right, it's more of a for like,a better like, it's a brand
(45:53):
thing, right, versus somethingwhere we go like absolutely
we're expecting to get meetingsout of this.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah, events has actually been a big part of my
remit and I've run eventseverything from like running the
company's user conference,sponsored events right, which
are industry events, to smallclosing events, to online events
, right, which are industryevents, to small closing events,
to online events, right thewhole gamut.
It's really important and a bigpart of my budget usually, and
(46:25):
events have been one of thebiggest opportunity sources
opportunity obviously, thenconverting into revenue.
For most of these, I would saylast few companies where I've
been, for most of these, I wouldsay last few companies where
I've been.
I think it also takes a lot toplan an event well, and I like
(46:46):
to say that running an event isa team sport, right.
It's just not the demand genand growth marketing team, but
it's product marketing, it's ourSDR team, it's a sales team,
it's marketing ops, rep ops.
Everybody needs to worktogether to really make it
successful.
One of the biggest pitfalls thatI've seen is companies will
spend a fair bit of time reallythinking about it pre-event.
(47:09):
What I mean is securing a greatbooth, making sure we think
about the swag, the collateral,even the demos and all of that,
and do outreach and the day ofexecution.
Yes, they're focused to makesure that all of these places
line up, but I think a lot ofthe events where they start to
fall apart is really post-event.
(47:31):
There's no coordinatedfollow-up strategy, there's no
nurtured plan.
We scan people at our booth.
We had some great conversationsand sales will, of course, pick
up on those really deepconversations that they have,
but there's no outreach to thosepotentially hundreds of people
we scan at our booth that are inour ICP.
(47:56):
There's no clear ownership ofwhat is marketing going to move
forward with and what are,except sending, obviously, that
one post follow-up email sayingthank you for coming to the
booth.
But then what is our plan afterthat and what is sales going to
pick up on?
Right?
So there's a ton that goes intoreally making sure that
everybody is on the same page.
We understand our strategy, uh,etc.
And I want to come back tosomething you said about.
(48:16):
You know, is this a brand?
Are we going to the event justbecause you know we'd be missed
if you're not there, or we'regoing there from a brand
perspective or a regionperspective.
I think that is one of thefundamental things that we
really must talk aboutinternally right before we even
decide to sponsor the event, tosay what is our goal?
You know, to go to this event.
(48:38):
If you don't understand thatwell, you'll probably do a
little bit of everything as wego to the event but not any of
it particularly well, which iskind of a waste of, you know,
time and resources.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Well, or again it feeds into the misalignment
right when you have.
This is a brand awareness kindof event, whereas your CEO
thinks it's a lead gen thing,right?
So if you're not explicit,about what?
You believe the purpose is,that leads to, you know, a
misunderstanding and frustration.
(49:11):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
And it's perfectly fine if it is a brand event or
if it is a closing event andit's really like a small, you
know event where we're going to.
We won't get a ton of leads.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Perfectly fine as long as we know what those are
and we communicate that rightthrough the organization yeah, I
always think of it like I haveno problem doing that, as long
as we all are saying, like, weall understand, like the purpose
of this is not to generateleads are going to close in the
next six months.
It's to build a longer termview of the company and we we
(49:45):
all even though we might not beable to point to all the
connection points we all believethat this is going to have a
downstream impact on what wecare about, which is revenue.
Right, but if that's, I thinkgoing in eyes wide open and
agreeing on what the purpose isis often missed.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
That's true and I think something you said it
really resonates with me, whichis a lot of teams actually think
about the impact and measuringthe impact right after the event
, but then they forget that youknow connections we made at the
event.
They may not mature until andmay not be ready to talk to us
right until a month later, threemonths later, whatever.
So we need to measure theimpact of the events not just
(50:29):
right after the event, but on amonthly basis and a quarterly
basis, going forward for areally long time.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
For years I've seen.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Exactly, I was going to say one of the companies
where I was.
One of the biggest deals weclosed happened actually two and
a half years after we got tothat event, right, but I've seen
the same thing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah, so, but like that's, like, that's the.
I think the point right Is likeit's not like that's what we
believe is potential, but likeif the expectation is that's
going to happen in the shorttime period.
I mean a lot of things it canright.
A lot of things have to be sortof serendipitously occurring,
right.
You get somebody who happens tocome by, who happens to be in
(51:13):
the moment where they're lookingto buy in the territory, to
come by, who happens to be inthe moment where they're looking
to buy in the chair and be likeall those things are like the
likelihood is pretty low, um,unless you are doing one that is
specifically targeting peopleat a stage where you believe
they're already there, right,and that's a different kind of
event.
So, um, I have one last thought,and I think we're going to have
(51:35):
to wrap it up, but like yourpoint about like, putting an
event on, like, I have a softspot for all those event
marketing teams because I thinkthey don't get a lot of credit
and it's probably.
I still believe that ops maybeis the most complicated and
difficult role within amarketing organization, but
events is pretty close to.
Second, I think people are notfamiliar with all the little
(51:59):
things that have to go right andall the things that go wrong,
with every event that nobodyknows about because somebody
cleans it up, is incredible.
So I have a ton of respect forpeople out there in the event
marketing space.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
I couldn't agree more , Michael.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
Yeah, and yeah it's, it's anyway.
Well, hey, proud about it.
This has been a lot of fun.
I enjoyed it.
I'm sure we could have gone onfor quite a bit longer, so
anyway.
So, thank you.
If folks want to connect withyou or learn more about what
(52:36):
you're doing, or, uh, what's thebest place for them to do that?
Speaker 2 (52:42):
um, they can reach out to me via linkedin, that's
probably the easiest way forthem to get in touch with me.
But thank you so much, michael.
I've really enjoyed ourconversation.
I'll be touching a lot of greatpoints and a lot of things that
are actually very near and dearto my heart.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
Yeah Well, I think this one is going to be one that
will be beneficial for all ofour audience.
I know I'm walking away with acouple of new ideas and thoughts
myself, so I'd like to say thathappens regularly.
I am fortunate to get a lot ofthat through these, but it
doesn't always happen, so Iappreciate it.
As always, thank you to ourlong time and new listeners and
(53:20):
supporters.
We really appreciate youcontinuing to support us.
We're always looking for newideas for topics and guests, so
if you have one of those or wantto be a guest, you can always
reach out to Naomi, mike or me,and we would be happy to get the
ball rolling on that Until nexttime.
Bye, everybody.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
Thanks again.
by marketingopscom, powered by all the mob pros out
there.
I'm your host, michael hartman,flying solo once again.
I know mike is knee deep inprep for mops blues at 2025, uh,
so I know that recently we justhad the the uh session speakers
announced.
So if you're not sure if you'regoing to go waiting to see
(00:21):
what's out there, you you shouldbe able to start seeing the
speakers now.
But joining me today is myguest, pratipa Jain, a seasoned
B2B marketing leader who's beendriving demand and growth for
nearly two decades acrossindustries like cloud computing,
dev tools, enterprise planning,software and HR tech.
She has led teams across demandgen, growth, marketing,
marketing ops and more, andbrings a unique perspective on
(00:44):
what really matters when itcomes to measuring marketing's
impact.
From ABM to events, paid mediato pipeline metrics, pratibha
has done it all, and today she'shere to share the lessons from
her journey, walk us throughreal world examples and talk
about how she's partnered withRevOps and marketing ops to
drive results that truly movethe needle.
So, pratibha, thank you forjoining.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Thanks for having me, Michael.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, all right, I know, I asked you how to
pronounce your name.
Did I get it?
Was I close?
Please say yes.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I know it's not an easy name to say Well, you know,
all of us, all of us lazyAmericans, you know, but I try,
I try Anyway.
Well, let's get started withyour like.
Let's just maybe start withyour background right, as I
(01:36):
mentioned in kind of the introfor you, you've managed and led
demand gen growth in marketingops and even, like BDR, mdr
teams.
Maybe walk us through a littlebit of like a brief history of
your career and how thatunfolded and you know how that
has impacted the way youapproach marketing.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Absolutely so.
I'd say that I started my careerin a little bit more of a
traditional marketing role butquickly gravitated towards
demand gen and, more recently,growth marketing because I
really liked seeing the impactof the programs I was driving
and how it was connected torevenue right Pipeline and
revenue generation.
(02:18):
And, as you said in the intro,I've led all of the inbound and
outbound marketing channels andcontent marketing and marketing
ops and the VDR, mdr functionand all.
I think having oversight of allof these functions really
shaped how I thought aboutmarketing or how I think about
marketing right.
These are not independent,isolated channels, but really an
(02:40):
integrated story that we buildaround the customer journey but
really an integrated story thatwe build around the customer
journey.
And that perspective led me toask, like, how can we bring that
integrated story across all ofthese touch points?
Our customers and prospectsdon't frankly care who owns one
(03:03):
channel versus anotherinternally at the company.
What they're seeing really is asum total of everything we're
doing and saying right via email, on our website, at events and
so forth.
So I think that's what reallymotivates me and that's kind of
where I am today.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Okay, I don't know why this popped in my head, so
this is totally unplanned, soI'm going to throw a curveball
at you already.
So there was a point in mycareer where I had more of a
marketing and a technical sideof marketing background.
But there was an opportunitythat was like a customer support
team and they were thinkingabout.
(03:37):
What was interesting is, theywere thinking about customer
support as a marketing channeltoo.
Like, how do you?
Top of mind for me is howlittle I see of marketing teams
that are focusing on customermarketing and retention.
Do you think of that as apotential channel for marketing
or at least affecting loyalty,or something like that?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh, absolutely so.
Customer marketing has beenpart of the dimension teams that
have been on as well in priorroles, and I think about not
just how do we acquire net newcustomers, but I've also been
gold on customer retention andcustomer expansion and, as we
well know, right, it's mucheasier for us to keep our
(04:22):
current customers than toacquire a new one.
It's easier, less expensive allof that.
So I think customer marketingprobably doesn't get as much
visibility as it should, butit's certainly a very important
piece of the marketing group.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Okay, yeah, that just popped into my head.
So one of the other things thatyou and I, when we talked
before, is that you said, Ithink, you described as your
passion about data, so which Ilike to hear.
So, from your perspective,maybe with the demand gen lens
(04:59):
in particular, right, how haveyou thought about what metrics
and what data is reallyimportant, and maybe a nuance
like for what purposes?
So what would you use to, say,take to the executive team of
the board versus what would youuse within your marketing team
(05:21):
for just within that domain, asopposed to sharing it broadly
with others?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, definitely so.
For me, it comes down todecision making, right?
So the question I'd like to askis what decisions are we trying
to make and what data will helpus or inform us to make those
decisions?
Otherwise, you're reallydrowning in data.
There are so many data points,reports, dashboards and all, and
(05:50):
they look really impressive,but they don't help move the
business forward, right?
So for my purposes, I look atthe top of the funnel data.
So I care about efficiencymetrics at the very top, right.
What's the cost per qualifiedlead coming in?
How many people are handraisers?
Right?
Those form completes like demorequests and contact us on our
(06:11):
website.
Mid funnel, I'm looking atconversion rates at velocity and
I'm slicing and dicing that bypersona, by segment, by geos, so
I can identify either thefriction points and help remove
those or figure out where todouble down and down the funnel.
I'm focused on influencepipeline, on wind rates by
(06:35):
region, on deal acceleration andso forth.
So there's a lot of data andwhile I look at everything, what
I bubble up to the business oroutside of just the marketing
team are really how is marketinghelping drive pipeline and
revenue Right?
So, the top, the final metrics.
They're interesting, but Ithink they're more interesting
to marketing.
I'm really interested insharing, like what is the
(06:58):
conversion rate?
What velocity and how are wemaking an impact in those target
accounts that we really want togo after and how?
Speaker 1 (07:04):
are we making an impact in those target accounts
that we really want to go after?
Yeah, so a conversation I'vehad multiple times recently is
as much as I like or at least Idid like really thought like
things like attributionreporting were going to be
valuable for marketers.
I think it's pulled people awayfrom what I would call
(07:24):
controllable things, right,which which I think it's.
In general, these get calledvanity metrics.
Now, right, um, and my take onit is like it's not that those
were bad per se, but they wereeither used with the wrong
audience for the wrong kind ofthing, right, which then that
gives them the vanity metrics,but don't tie them to the
(07:45):
business, but then they've beenshunned because of that.
And I think there's this hugeopportunity for marketers if
they really went back to likewhat do they have control over?
So, how well did our contentperform?
Like, did our email get open?
Right?
So we need to think about thesubject line, like all that kind
of stuff.
If you truly believe, right,that all has a full impact
(08:09):
across the buyer's journey, thenyou should be trying to
optimize all those little thingsalong the way, but it feels
like a lot of people steppedaway from that I mean, are you
seeing the same kind of thing?
And it sounds, because itsounds like you actually haven't
gone full circle, like you'restill looking at some of those
kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
So I'd say overall, for the business right, I'm
looking at everything from leadscoming in to MQLs, sqls, and
obviously those stages might benamed differently at different
companies, sure, but I'm lookingat everything you know through
the funnel opportunities createdand closed, won or lost.
But then within each of thosechannels, as you mentioned,
(08:48):
right, it is important to see,like, how is that channel
performing?
If it's a webinar program thatI'm running, not just the
registrations but like how manyactually attended the webinar,
whether it's online or demand ondemand, right?
So with any channel, I'm alsolooking at the metrics.
And attribution is definitely avery sticky topic not sticky
(09:09):
but I guess a controversialtopic, right.
How do we measure the impact?
Is it first touch, last touch,multi-touch, the whole bit?
But I think it's important tosee again, what is that digital
footprint, from a lead coming into becoming an opportunity, to
becoming closed one?
So I can figure out does ittake seven steps to get them
(09:32):
from lead to opportunity?
Does it take 12?
And what are the most commoninteractions that we're having?
So what's working?
Well?
So I do look at it from achannel perspective and then
overall from the full funnelright Marketing and sales funnel
point of view.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Just one last question on this.
So when you're presenting tosenior leadership or the board
or whatever, what like?
What are I think about, likewhat I would do, I would
probably have only a handful ofthings I talk about.
Right, probably wouldn't bejust one thing, but there might
be four or five things.
What have you found that workswell when you're talking to that
(10:12):
kind of audience in terms ofmetrics that talk about
marketing's effectiveness orimpact on the business?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, I think in that case, less is more, right, less
is better.
So, again, what are those keymetrics that actually show that
we're going to contribute topipeline and revenue?
(10:42):
So, if you like, all because weprobably didn't have the right
quality of leads then orsomething else was missing,
right, our message didn'tresonate with them, and so on.
So what I present to in myquarterly business reviews or to
the board are really thosebottom key metrics, right, which
is what's the opportunitycreation, how are we moving that
(11:03):
through pipeline and throughclosed one deals?
And then, what is the velocityand what are the conversion
rates that we expect and are wemeeting those, are we exceeding
those, et cetera.
So those are the key metricsthat I would present to them,
but I'll keep in my back pocket,right, the full funnel metrics
if there are questions moregeared towards, like top of the
(11:25):
funnel or middle of the funnel.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking about it a little
bit here in the moment and Ithink that sounds like a good
way of focusing on the thingsthat that audience cares about.
And then those more top offunnel, upstream ones actually
could be part of like, if thereis something that is happening
in those metrics you're talkingabout good or bad, right, the,
(11:50):
you have the supporting data.
That's probably part of thediagnosis about what you like,
what's causing that, you know,change, right, and probably more
most likely when it's somethinglike oh, we're not meeting our
number for pipeline or somethingyou know.
You know, oh well, if we thinkabout, like, what we have to do
upstream, um, we had a dip inthe quality of our leads three
(12:11):
months ago, so now we're, like,we're seeing the results of that
.
Is that kind of the way youthink about it?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
you nailed it, michael.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yes, okay, okay good, good, all right.
Well, I'm learning here as I go, you know, um.
So.
So another thing, you thinkagain, going back to your career
path, you, um, you've had, forsure, you've had relationships
with marketing ops or rev opsteams, but it sounds like you've
also had teams that reportedinto you.
(12:41):
What, like, if you could pick ahandful of things and say this
is these are the scenarios whenthose teams have performed well
or where we've worked welltogether.
What were those kinds of things?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, I think I'll start with trust and and shared
ownership, right?
So, as you said, I've ledmarketing operations directly.
I've also worked very closelywith marketing ops, leaders in
the company and leaders too.
But I think when marketingsales, rev ops, marketing ops,
like all of them are co-ownersof the pipeline and I don't mean
(13:25):
just working in parallel, but Imean working together to solve
the problems right, aligning onthe goals and the end goal, of
course, is pipeline and revenue,but going at a much deeper
level and trying to makeunderstand and make sure we are
all on the same page as to whatour goals are.
Are we trying to increasevelocity?
Are our conversion rates notwhat we expect them to be?
(13:48):
And therefore you want to workon those.
Are we trying to expand in aspecific segment?
Right?
So, getting clear on what thebusiness objectives are up front
, so that everybody is going inthe same direction, so to say.
One thing that is one of my petpeeves is marketing having their
own dashboards and reports andsales having their own
(14:09):
dashboards and reports.
Right, I think that is a reallybad signal.
I think having a single sourceof truth across the entire
go-to-market organization.
So no matter whether somebodyis in product marketing or the
CRO or the SDR right.
Whoever is looking for thatinformation right, they're
looking at the same data andwe're measuring success the same
(14:33):
way.
The last thing I'll say aboutthis is really really important
to actually get the marketingops and RevOps teams involved
early, and what I mean by thatis, you know when we're setting
up the lead scoring program orthe lead routing, or thinking
about attribution, the funnelstages, and what are the entry
(14:55):
and exit criteria for each stageof the funnel right.
So all of these things, aswe're really starting to think
and plan those really importantto actually work with marketing
ops and RevOps.
Bring them into the fold early.
Align on the big questions.
Make sure we all know, you know, what good looks like and know
what, actually, what levers wecan actually pull, so that you
(15:16):
know when we are looking at thedata we're, you know, coming in
with the same point of view, wecan troubleshoot things easily,
right?
Do all of that.
So I think that you knowrelationships when they're open,
when they are, um, you know,aligned against the same goals.
I think those ones I found tobe most effective it's, it's so
(15:37):
for audience who's justlistening in.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Right, I had this big smile on my face when she was
talking about the differentreports because like it feels
like a real you know sign thatthere's going to be a challenge
with alignment is when you'vegot different reporting right
and that, um, it's already asignal that like there's going
to be a battle when it comes tolike, whether it's like a who
(16:02):
gets credit or who are we goingto believe, who's right, who's
wrong?
And um, like like to me, Ithink that like lesson here is
like, if I start seeing thatkind of stuff in these
organizations, it's a, it's atime to go like, oh, we need to.
I mean, it's kind of thisoverused.
Like you get aligned um, whichsounds simple but it's not.
(16:25):
But if you can at least agreeon which metrics you're going to
use consistently, that might byitself just sort of help solve
some of that alignment problemright.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, that's interesting.
I mean, have you gone throughthat example of like where you
have you had to solve that likebridge that gap, where you were
doing different reporting onwhat on the surface looked like
the same metrics with seniorexecutives and then you had to
like work through how to how tomake them more consistent?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, I've actually experienced that more than once,
unfortunately, where I've comeinto the organization and you
know, marketing has their owndashboard, Sales is running
their own reports and dashboards.
I'm like, why don't we have onefunnel view of this right?
There's one goal, one revenuenumber to achieve and there's no
(17:27):
reason to be looking atdifferent metrics Because, as
you said, what happens is if thenumbers you know, if you don't
meet our numbers, for example,there's a lot of finger pointing
, because I'm looking at thisdata.
You're looking at that data.
It doesn't align and you know,I'd rather not have that hard
burn and just start again fromwhat are our goals and let's
(17:48):
build one view and let's all usethe same data and the same
cadence right reporting cadenceand make sure that we're all
aligned.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, I'm sure that that resonates with everybody,
like a lot of people listening,that there's like it had this
like visceral reaction to thatidea, because I've experienced
it myself too.
So, kind of going back to this,so what are the characteristics
of the marketing ops or RevOpsteams that you've worked with
that made them where you feltlike they were great partners
(18:21):
with what you were doing?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah, I think a lot of it is actually, I would say,
almost cultural, and what I meanby that is it's how frequently
they're actually willing to meet.
How transparent are they rightabout working together.
How quickly can we troubleshootmetrics when they do go south
every now and then?
Right, how we're willing topivot and also clearly define
(18:50):
roles and responsibilities.
What would the marketing opsleader do?
What's expected of the demandgen leader?
Right?
Where does RevOps, you know,come in, et cetera.
Having those clear definitionsof roles and responsibilities
and being able to come togetherto work through any challenges
that come up, I think thosekinds of things right is what
(19:12):
you know, what I look at when Iwork with marketing ops and
DevOps teams.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Got it.
So we talked a little bit aboutalignment.
In a general sense, it soundslike you've done a lot of ABM
kinds of go-to-market strategiestoo, and like one of the things
I've found when I'm in amarketing ops leadership role is
having people come to me andsaying we need, we need to do
ABM, and what they really meanis go buy some technology, and
(19:40):
I've always not always, butpretty consistently gone, turn
around and said great, can we?
My approach has always beenlike I don't mind getting more
technology, but like, can we getaligned on what we mean by abm?
Right, do we have a list oftarget accounts?
Um, and that to me has beenmore of a struggle like, are
(20:01):
there any particular nuances ofalignment when it comes to abm
that you think are unique?
And then, kind of going backagain for our core audience,
right, how could people in ouraudience, in marketing ops roles
, for example, be a facilitator,a catalyst, right, an enabler
(20:23):
of that alignment and execution?
Then for ABM, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So I know ABM is a very easy and catchy acronym to
use, but I would like to frameit a little bit differently.
I would say account-basedstrategy or account-based
planning, because that is trulynot just an ABM, like a
marketing effort.
Right, we need to bring productmarketing, sdr leaders, rep ops
, marketing ops, sales leaders,right, All of them to work
(20:53):
together to actually haveaccount-based play.
So a couple of things I'll say.
I actually, again, will startoff with who is our target
audience, right, do we havethose target account lists?
Are we focused on one-to-oneyou know, account-based strategy
?
Are we doing one-to-few,account-based you know outreach?
(21:13):
In my view, one-to-many isbasically just targeted
dimension, right, it's notreally an account-based strategy
, really.
So let's start with the ICP whatare the pinpoints, the
challenges, how do we solve forthem?
Do we have a champion withinthose customers, especially
those one-on-one accounts, andreally make sure that we are
(21:34):
aligned at the executive level,right, as far as our target
companies and our you know, ourown executive team, so that we
fully understand, right, what isthe pain point they're trying
to solve for and how can we helpthem with that.
It's also again starting orlooking at at, like, our shared
goals, shared systems right, youmentioned account-based
(21:57):
platforms, which, of course, areimportant to get the intent
data and to do a lot of the paidcampaigns and other outreach
and all that, but I think that'sjust one piece of it.
I think it's making sure thatwe actually are focused again on
the same metrics and we aredefining everything right from
the definitions to the handoffs,to the reporting, like
(22:21):
everybody is working towards thesame outcomes.
So those are the kinds ofthings that I, you know,
generally look at, butspecifically for.
Is there any part of thequestion, michael?
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I apologize if I no, no, so the last part I asked
sorry, I asked a long windedmulti-step question, so don't
worry about it.
So the other part was like how,how, how can then ops folks be
kind of and contribute to notonly the execution, because I
(22:58):
think that's fairly obvious, butalso, with the alignment right,
Helping to facilitate?
Speaker 2 (23:13):
that alignment and then turn that into an
actionable plan, whether it'susing new technology or existing
technology.
Yeah, absolutely so.
I think marketing ops and revops both actually have a huge
role to play here I did mention,like the shared definitions,
right, like what counts as amajor count, right?
What are those qualified buyingsignals that we should look out
(23:34):
for?
Marketing ops and DevOps canalso set up the right alerts and
the routing logic so the salesknows who to follow up with,
when to follow up, and so on,and have a reporting cadence
that is consistent across, again, marketing sales, right, all of
the different go-to-marketfunctions.
So everybody is, you know,speaking the same language and
(23:54):
measuring the impact in asimilar way.
One other thing, actually, I'lladd to this, to your earlier
part of the question, which is,oftentimes I've seen that there
is a lack of visibility ofwhat's happening on either side,
and by either side I mean salesor marketing.
Sales may not know whatcampaigns you know marketing is
running and marketing may nothave feedback from the sales
(24:16):
team to really know, like,what's resonating or not, right?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
So quite often I've seen that that is a problem that
makes it very difficult for usto A plan those programs and to
see the impact you know in ameaningful way I mean, I like I
know I can probably think ofmany scenarios in my role and
marketing apps leader where allof a sudden we'll get this is
(24:43):
not even with abm per se, like,but just in general, like, hey,
why didn't my customer get thatnewsletter that promote, you
know, the invite to this webinaror whatever, or the flip right,
why did my customer get thisstuff?
Right?
They're not supposed to begetting stuff and I think
getting alignment on that, andwhat are the signals?
Because my approach is like,hey, I want to know that, but I
(25:09):
think a lot of organizationsdon't really get down to that
level of detail.
How are we going to know in atleast a semi-automated way?
The best example I have is ifI'm a salesperson and I'm
actively working on a potentialopportunity, opportunity um, and
(25:30):
I really want to kind of umcurate the messaging that's
going to them because I'm reallylike I don't want something to
interrupt.
And then, you know, becausethey're in our database and
marketing sending out somethingthat's maybe promotional um
could cause a problem.
I can really see that happening.
Like, how can we provide a wayfor them to like flag those
(25:55):
accounts as ones not tocommunicate with with general
stuff Right, and it's me like itsounds like a pretty easy thing
to do, right, you can come upwith a pretty solid rule that
probably works most of the timeRight, but it's going to require
it does require some disciplineand consistency from the sales
team.
So they like small example,right, and to me this is a way
(26:17):
of like getting buy-in fromsales teams on doing things that
I think a lot of marketerswonder like scratch their head
like why won't sales updatetheir opportunity status?
Why won't they add contacts toopportunities?
Right, and it's because, like,they're not getting paid for it,
there's no incentive for it.
But if what they want to do issay, hey, I really want to make
(26:39):
sure that if I've got keystakeholders from an account
where I'm working on an activeopportunity and I don't want
marketing in general tocommunicate to those, well, the
easy way to do that is add themas contacts to that opportunity
and then marketing couldassuming there's a sync between
that and their marketingplatform, they just say we're
(27:02):
going to have a standardexclusion on certain kinds of
emails, that if there's peoplewho are in an active opportunity
, then we don't send them.
It's not that hard, but it doesrequire someone else to take
action.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
You're exactly right and it happens more often than
you would think.
Right.
But, as you said, sales justwants to work on the active
opportunities when things gosouth.
Right, why did my customer getthis email or why didn't they
get included on that email?
That's when the surfaces, butit requires a lot of diligence
right Throughout the process Afor them to actually for us to
(27:42):
come up with those rules ofengagement and then B for them
to update right the informationin their opportunities so that
they you know, some of theircontacts don't get included or
do get included, as the casemight be.
Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Well, I mean, I've seen, I've seen the over I'll
call it an overreaction butsalespeople who, because they
don't want their customers to becontacted, they mark all their
contacts as unsubscribed.
Right, and I'm like don'tunsubscribe them because once
that happens, we can'tresubscribe them without them
giving us explicit way of doingit.
(28:19):
And it's like if, if what youwant to do is say, like I want
to limit again, like we can comeup with another way of saying
don't send them these people,that doesn't go to the level of
unsubscribing, but because theydon't communicate, that's what
happens.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah, and I think about marketing provides a lot
of air cover campaigns and ifthey were just unsubscribed, I
think these accounts and thecontacts associated with them
would miss out on those learning, educational, nurturing
opportunities, right.
So it's really important.
It's easy to do let's justunsubscribe them.
(28:58):
But, actually, then we miss outon a lot of marketing goodness.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, I mean there's like all kinds of unintended
consequences that come with that, right, and that's I mean mean
I know from my perspective,because I've I've had to deal
with those sort of, um,sometimes right, high emotion
kinds of responses to thingslike that, and in the moment
(29:23):
it's, it's it's like it's hardnot to take it personally, um,
but that's like, that's the likemy mental state is, like I try
to to go okay, this is not apersonal thing, they're actually
trying to help the business intheir own way.
Yeah, so I try to give them abenefit of the doubt.
What I try to do is take it asan opportunity to teach, right,
(29:45):
and this sounds so trite, but,like I mean, the more I've had
the opportunity to talkone-on-one with salespeople
about what they do and when,like why things are the way they
are.
Like, in a situation like that,I find that they actually get
it Right and they're more thanwilling to try to help solve the
(30:05):
problem on a bigger scale.
But if we just simply say, well, oh, you screwed up, you
unsubscribed those people, youshouldn't have done that, sorry,
right, then that doesn't helpanyway.
Like, so it just feeds intothis lack, comes out as a lack
of alignment, but, like it'sjust, there's no communication
that's effective at that point,so there's no way to get
(30:25):
alignment because, like it'sjust like we're talking past
each other.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah, that's true.
I've also found that the easierwe can make it for the
salespeople to do what we'reasking them to do, the greater
the chances that they'llactually do it.
So make it super simple makethe logic the rules.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Or, even better, just make something that you want
done automatic, based onsomething that they're required
to do to get paid.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm very passionate aboutthis particular topic because I
think a lot of people in ourcommunity in this space get
frustrated with sales and salesops and I think a part of it is
just not understanding whatdrives their behavior based on
(31:23):
the incentives that are therefor them.
Right, and so if you recognizethat they're they're not
incented to add contacts toopportunities, to update their
opportunity status until they'rebeing asked about their
pipeline status, right, it'slike if you recognize that it
(31:44):
makes it easier to go, like howcan I make it easier for them
while also moving towards thebenefit that I think the
organization will see by havingthat in a consistent way, which
is a lot different than going.
They're stupid.
They don't understand why we'redoing this.
Throw my hands up.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Right, right.
That's not to move anyoneforward.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
No, okay, sorry, I need to get off that soapbox or
I will just continue down thatand no one needs to hear that
rant.
Um, okay, so one more, one morealignment kind of question.
So, and you hinted at thisalready that, um, sometimes
(32:32):
marketing ops and I'll call I'llkeep it at sales ops, whether
it's called rev ops or not, butlike the ones that are, as
opposed to rev ops, that is sortof across the go-to-market
functions.
But yeah, a lot of times thereis also friction, uh, or lack of
alignment or lack ofcommunication between those
teams, not just at the allmarketing or all sales level.
(32:54):
So do you have any thoughts,suggestions for how the ops
teams can start to do a betterjob of aligning as well?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Right, and I think some organizations actually have
marketing ops rolled into theRevOps function.
Some have them reportingseparately, right, so some of
that may also like have animpact on how those teams are
run.
But again, I would go back toyou know, something I said
previously, which is start withshared goals.
(33:31):
Right, if marketing ops istrying to optimize towards maybe
the top of the funnel metricslike MQLs and SQLs, and sales
ops is thinking more about pipecreation, revenue and so on,
right, there is going to befriction.
So, really aligning on the goals, building the funnel together,
defining the stages of thefunnel very precisely so there's
(33:55):
no guesswork there and makingsure we have those right
reporting dashboards, frameworksthat were built together,
co-created, not just built insilos Using the same reporting
dataset.
The reporting cadence is thesame right, marketing option
we're reporting on a weekly ifRevOps is doing on a monthly or
whatever.
Right, let's align that becausewe're reporting out on the
(34:18):
whole business, not justmarketing or sales.
Obviously, and those are thethings that I have found that
keeps everyone really focusedand honest and really thinking
about how are we reaching thegoal, the goal.
(34:41):
And the other part, again, isjust making sure that it's clear
who's making decisions rightwhen something isn't working?
Who owns what right?
What is marketing ops zone?
What is sales ops or rev opszone?
I think having clarity canprevent a lot of back and forth
and a lot of again fingerpointing or back blood between
those teams.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, there's also sort of what I think would be a
relatively simple thing that Isee not happen in many places,
both where I've been and I hearabout, is like sales ops makes a
change in Salesforce, it breaksan integration to the marketing
platform or vice versa.
Right, and if there simply wasa conversation that happened
(35:19):
like, hey, we are planning thischange, here's what's going to
happen, it could prevent a lotof pain, right and finger
pointing and I think just thatkind of stuff, even like that
one even doesn't evennecessarily require aligned
goals and you know projects andthings like that.
It's just a matter of likerecognizing that there's this
interdependency and going like,oh, I need to make sure that if
(35:41):
we make a change, like is thisgoing to affect what's happening
in the marketing team or viceversa, and it just doesn't
happen enough for my experienceI completely agree and you know
something what'd said before islike having regular meetings
between marketing ops and repops to share those kinds of
things, right, what's comingdown the pike?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
looking at the metrics together and seeing like
, what's trending well, butagain, what's not trending as
well as we expected it to.
The other thing I'll add is,you know, marketing ops and
DevOps, as I said, should beinvolved, you know, very early
on in the process.
They should be communicatingregularly right between those
(36:37):
two teams, but also doing like aretrospective and taking those
learnings and feeding them backinto, like you know, planning
future programs or other changesor updates or whatever might be
coming down the pike.
So those things are actuallyvery effective.
So we don't make the samemistakes over and over.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah, agreed.
So I want to go back to kind ofyou touched on something I want
to go back to a little bit,which is, like Bing being data,
really care about data and usingit to evaluate what's been
effective.
How do you think aboutoptimizing your, I think, in
(37:09):
particular, outbound investments, investments when you're like,
do you do testing?
Do you?
Yeah, like, how frequently areyou looking at results and
adjusting?
What's your approach to that?
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, so I actually look at data every day, you know
, looking at the programs,looking at, obviously, the
dashboards and the top levelmetrics and everything.
Generally.
There are weekly goals that youknow we have in marketing.
So what we do is we look at therevenue number, we walk
backwards from that and say,okay, based on our conversion
(37:50):
rates, based on, you know, timebetween different stages of the
funnel, right, this is how manyleads I need to create now for
it to have an impact.
A quarter down, a month down,and so on and so forth, right?
So I look at the data every day.
On a weekly basis, there is across-functional team meeting
(38:10):
that I typically run, which isbetween the SDR leaders, the
sales leaders and all of themarketing functions that either
bring in leads like you know theevents, you know leaders, the
paid media leaders and so on oreven lifecycle marketing.
They don't bring in leads, butthey do help nurture them and
(38:32):
move them through the funnel.
So anyone who has, eitherdirectly or indirectly, any
touch points which almosteverybody in marketing does
right will be part of thosemeetings.
And ahead of those meetings, Ilook at our weekly metrics.
We have a goal to reach everyweek, based on, obviously, what
our monthly, quarterly andannual goals are to see, like,
(38:54):
how are we doing for that givenweek and ahead of that I will
actually sync up.
So let's say, our webinarnumbers were down this week.
Why were they down?
So I would, either I own thatprogram myself and I would know
because we did fewer webinarsthis month, right, sure.
Or um, we didn't have like apaid media cost really went up.
Maybe that's because ofcompetitor activity and so on
(39:16):
and so forth, right.
Or we paused, spent for anddevoted that to an event or to
an account-based strategy orsome of the program.
So, bringing those insightsinto those cross-functional
meetings and really talkingabout what's happening what are
the trends?
Are we meeting our numbers?
Which channels aren'tperforming as well and the
reasons why?
Having that cross-functionalconversation and deeper dive
(39:38):
into the data is how I look atit and not just wait for end of
month when I have to actuallyreport out to the business what
those metrics are.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Yeah, that's impressive.
So when you've hired marketersacross those different
categories, do you expect themto be doing that as well at
their level, and how does thataffect your hiring practices?
(40:08):
Do you have to teach people?
Do you expect them to come inwith it?
I'm just curious about whatthat has been an impact on how
you build teams.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Yeah, great question.
So I'll say it depends Not thebest answer, but it depends
because some folks may be veryearly in their journey, right in
their career journey.
I've hired folks who were liketheir first full-time job to
folks who've been like directorsof growth and dimension on my
team and obviously the latterright.
(40:39):
They know they've done thisbefore.
They know exactly theimportance of metrics.
They know what to look for andtroubleshoot.
You know things and all that.
But folks are very early career.
They don't necessarily knowthat.
They don't know what you know.
Signals you look for, whatleading and lagging indicators
you know would tell them, likehow the channel is performing
and all that.
So there's a lot of coachingand educating and helping them
(41:00):
understand that we're not justchasing vanity metrics but these
metrics are important becausethis is how it contributes to
our weekly goal, whichcontributes to our overall
revenue goal and so forth.
So I don't necessarily assumethat everybody will have that
knowledge and that experiencewhen they come in um, but it is
based on tenure as you get tomore seasoned professionals.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Obviously that's part of any marketer's role, um, and
yeah, so you like, essentially,you set a cultural norm like
even if you don't have thatskill, your the expectation is
that you're going to continue togrow in that skill, if you
don't already have.
It right To be able tounderstand what metrics matter,
and yeah, okay.
(41:45):
I have to say I think that'shighly unusual, sad as it is to
say, but I don't think it's ascommon as I've seen, like I've
I've seen many teams where evenseasoned people, um, I would say
have a hard time, like they'renot very data literate, I think
is the way I would put it.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
So um, I'm sure I'm sure you're you're right when
you say that, but I feel like ifmarketing isn't looking at the
data and looking at itconsistently, if you take our
eye off the ball right, we'regoing to miss that, whatever
that period is the week, themonth, whatever, and it's really
really hard to play catch upafter.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yeah, I mean, I know examples where there's also an
important thing about clarityabout who's responsible for the
outcome of a program.
For example and I know of atleast one example that really
sticks in my mind where it was awebinar my team helped
facilitate getting it set up,turns out, actually there was a
piece that hadn't been testedwell enough, which was the
(42:47):
connection from the registrationform to the webinar platform.
And we're a week.
We've been promoting it for amonth and a week out.
Finally, the person who waslike kind of facilitating the
speakers and all that was like,hey, what's our registration
numbers?
Well, guess what you go to?
In this case it was on 24, butgo to the webinar platform.
We're like zero.
(43:07):
We're like what?
Oh, my goodness, yeah, well, bywe're now like a week out.
Well, the number wasn't reallyzero because it's just the
registrations happened in themarketing platform.
The integration wasn't set upcorrectly, which it's like.
I was like why weren't theyasking like the day?
(43:29):
Because, like to me, the day ortwo after you do your initial
promotions, you're like I'd beon it like a hawk, like I, when
we publish these podcastepisodes, I watch the numbers
immediately, right, like I like,and I'd say like, how, how,
like, how would you not do thatif you were responsible for it?
And go like, cause I want toknow early signals, like if our
(43:51):
promotions off and it's notgenerating the expected kind of
outcomes and what we expect forregistrations, like I want to
course correct quickly um, andlike this is an example.
What I mean, like there's Idon't why I don't think um, what
?
Like I've seen plenty ofscenarios where, like, those
people are like even not, that'snot even being data literate,
(44:13):
that's just not having a focuson those metrics again, because
like, oh, they're vanity metrics, but like knowing that people
are actually registering, that'snot a vanity metric, that's
like fundamental to whether ornot this is going to be
successful.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Exactly, and those are the kind of surprises you
want to avoid, right, Like aweek out and you don't know what
the registration numbers looklike.
So that's why I think having aneye on the metrics on a very
consistent and I mean dailybasis, super, super relevant.
Same thing running events rightwhen you are, if it's your own
hosted event, whether it's asmall dinner event or a user
(44:56):
conference right, Making surewe're looking at those
registration numbers reallyreally closely and knowing where
they're coming from.
Right, what's the mix betweencustomers and prospects, and so
on and so forth.
So, yeah, I can talk about dataall day long.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah Well, so you brought up events.
I'm curious because it feelslike events uh making a bit of a
comeback coming out of covid.
I think there was a lot ofcraving for that like pent-up
demand.
So mopsa blue is a greatexample.
But how, um, how have youthought about the importance of
like?
How do you think about that asthe mix of part of your
(45:31):
go-to-market strategy?
From a budget standpoint, is itlike?
Do you, are you intentionalabout being clear about what the
goal of a particular event is?
Because, like, I think a lot ofcompanies are not like hey, we
are going to be at the, we'regonna exhibit it at this
conference, because it's asignal to the industry that we
are still viable, but we don'treally expect it to generate
leads.
Right, it's more of a for like,a better like, it's a brand
(45:53):
thing, right, versus somethingwhere we go like absolutely
we're expecting to get meetingsout of this.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah, events has actually been a big part of my
remit and I've run eventseverything from like running the
company's user conference,sponsored events right, which
are industry events, to smallclosing events, to online events
, right, which are industryevents, to small closing events,
to online events, right thewhole gamut.
It's really important and a bigpart of my budget usually, and
(46:25):
events have been one of thebiggest opportunity sources
opportunity obviously, thenconverting into revenue.
For most of these, I would saylast few companies where I've
been, for most of these, I wouldsay last few companies where
I've been.
I think it also takes a lot toplan an event well, and I like
(46:46):
to say that running an event isa team sport, right.
It's just not the demand genand growth marketing team, but
it's product marketing, it's ourSDR team, it's a sales team,
it's marketing ops, rep ops.
Everybody needs to worktogether to really make it
successful.
One of the biggest pitfalls thatI've seen is companies will
spend a fair bit of time reallythinking about it pre-event.
(47:09):
What I mean is securing a greatbooth, making sure we think
about the swag, the collateral,even the demos and all of that,
and do outreach and the day ofexecution.
Yes, they're focused to makesure that all of these places
line up, but I think a lot ofthe events where they start to
fall apart is really post-event.
(47:31):
There's no coordinatedfollow-up strategy, there's no
nurtured plan.
We scan people at our booth.
We had some great conversationsand sales will, of course, pick
up on those really deepconversations that they have,
but there's no outreach to thosepotentially hundreds of people
we scan at our booth that are inour ICP.
(47:56):
There's no clear ownership ofwhat is marketing going to move
forward with and what are,except sending, obviously, that
one post follow-up email sayingthank you for coming to the
booth.
But then what is our plan afterthat and what is sales going to
pick up on?
Right?
So there's a ton that goes intoreally making sure that
everybody is on the same page.
We understand our strategy, uh,etc.
And I want to come back tosomething you said about.
(48:16):
You know, is this a brand?
Are we going to the event justbecause you know we'd be missed
if you're not there, or we'regoing there from a brand
perspective or a regionperspective.
I think that is one of thefundamental things that we
really must talk aboutinternally right before we even
decide to sponsor the event, tosay what is our goal?
You know, to go to this event.
(48:38):
If you don't understand thatwell, you'll probably do a
little bit of everything as wego to the event but not any of
it particularly well, which iskind of a waste of, you know,
time and resources.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Well, or again it feeds into the misalignment
right when you have.
This is a brand awareness kindof event, whereas your CEO
thinks it's a lead gen thing,right?
So if you're not explicit,about what?
You believe the purpose is,that leads to, you know, a
misunderstanding and frustration.
(49:11):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
And it's perfectly fine if it is a brand event or
if it is a closing event andit's really like a small, you
know event where we're going to.
We won't get a ton of leads.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Perfectly fine as long as we know what those are
and we communicate that rightthrough the organization yeah, I
always think of it like I haveno problem doing that, as long
as we all are saying, like, weall understand, like the purpose
of this is not to generateleads are going to close in the
next six months.
It's to build a longer termview of the company and we we
(49:45):
all even though we might not beable to point to all the
connection points we all believethat this is going to have a
downstream impact on what wecare about, which is revenue.
Right, but if that's, I thinkgoing in eyes wide open and
agreeing on what the purpose isis often missed.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
That's true and I think something you said it
really resonates with me, whichis a lot of teams actually think
about the impact and measuringthe impact right after the event
, but then they forget that youknow connections we made at the
event.
They may not mature until andmay not be ready to talk to us
right until a month later, threemonths later, whatever.
So we need to measure theimpact of the events not just
(50:29):
right after the event, but on amonthly basis and a quarterly
basis, going forward for areally long time.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
For years I've seen.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Exactly, I was going to say one of the companies
where I was.
One of the biggest deals weclosed happened actually two and
a half years after we got tothat event, right, but I've seen
the same thing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah, so, but like that's, like, that's the.
I think the point right Is likeit's not like that's what we
believe is potential, but likeif the expectation is that's
going to happen in the shorttime period.
I mean a lot of things it canright.
A lot of things have to be sortof serendipitously occurring,
right.
You get somebody who happens tocome by, who happens to be in
(51:13):
the moment where they're lookingto buy in the territory, to
come by, who happens to be inthe moment where they're looking
to buy in the chair and be likeall those things are like the
likelihood is pretty low, um,unless you are doing one that is
specifically targeting peopleat a stage where you believe
they're already there, right,and that's a different kind of
event.
So, um, I have one last thought,and I think we're going to have
(51:35):
to wrap it up, but like yourpoint about like, putting an
event on, like, I have a softspot for all those event
marketing teams because I thinkthey don't get a lot of credit
and it's probably.
I still believe that ops maybeis the most complicated and
difficult role within amarketing organization, but
events is pretty close to.
Second, I think people are notfamiliar with all the little
(51:59):
things that have to go right andall the things that go wrong,
with every event that nobodyknows about because somebody
cleans it up, is incredible.
So I have a ton of respect forpeople out there in the event
marketing space.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
I couldn't agree more , Michael.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
Yeah, and yeah it's, it's anyway.
Well, hey, proud about it.
This has been a lot of fun.
I enjoyed it.
I'm sure we could have gone onfor quite a bit longer, so
anyway.
So, thank you.
If folks want to connect withyou or learn more about what
(52:36):
you're doing, or, uh, what's thebest place for them to do that?
Speaker 2 (52:42):
um, they can reach out to me via linkedin, that's
probably the easiest way forthem to get in touch with me.
But thank you so much, michael.
I've really enjoyed ourconversation.
I'll be touching a lot of greatpoints and a lot of things that
are actually very near and dearto my heart.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
Yeah Well, I think this one is going to be one that
will be beneficial for all ofour audience.
I know I'm walking away with acouple of new ideas and thoughts
myself, so I'd like to say thathappens regularly.
I am fortunate to get a lot ofthat through these, but it
doesn't always happen, so Iappreciate it.
As always, thank you to ourlong time and new listeners and
(53:20):
supporters.
We really appreciate youcontinuing to support us.
We're always looking for newideas for topics and guests, so
if you have one of those or wantto be a guest, you can always
reach out to Naomi, mike or me,and we would be happy to get the
ball rolling on that Until nexttime.
Bye, everybody.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
Thanks again.
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