It’s the most wonderful time of the year. No, not that time. The other one. The time where your startup gets together and starts planning for the upcoming year. Some of you have already finished this process, but with my fiscal year ending in January, I’m currently in the midst of it. That’s why this […]
Tag Archives: SaaS
Predictive Account Based Inbound Agile Marketing Automation
We’ve hit peak Account Based Marketing. I’ve received 5 emails this week from vendors extolling the virtues of ABM. I’ve been invited to one dinner, two lunches, received a $50 Amazon gift card, and was told by Marketo that “According to 97% of marketers, account-based marketing (ABM) achieved a higher ROI than other marketing initiatives.” […]
When Marketing Personas Fail
Marketing personas are those fictional people with the clever names like Statistical Stephen at RapidMiner or Marketing Mary at HubSpot. Personas are formed through extensive quantative and qualitative research, and who represent the ideal prospects for your product. Goofy names aside, complete getting alignment across your target personas and more broadly across your entire customer […]
Stop The Lead Scoring Madness
I recently came across a lead scoring article on the Mattermark blog that reminded me of a post I’ve been wanting to write for a while: the way nearly everyone is doing lead scoring is totally wrong. In the modern era of data-driven marketing where marketers boast about being able to connect every penny of […]
When Sales and Marketing Best Practices Become Average Practices
No one got fired for buying IBM? In the 80s, IBM dominated tech from the desktop to the datacenter. Buyers often picked IBM because they were safe choice, not the right choice. It didn’t matter. Buying IBM became the accepted best practice for CIOs. It was an emotional decision, not a rational one. People generally don’t […]
Before you agree to widening the top of your lead funnel…
Few things cause CMOs to panic more than hearing the dreaded phrase “we need to widen the lead funnel” from the head of sales. Or the CEO. Or maybe even the board. What they all really want is more qualified opportunities and ultimately more ARR. Maybe that means widening the funnel. Maybe not. But the […]
Some Practical Advice for Aspiring Tech CMOs
In no particular order, here are some of the lessons I’ve learned running marketing at three tech companies. Your most important job is to recruit and retain exceptional people Never forget that people are your most important asset. As a CMO, you’ll be in endless meetings: the weekly leadership meeting, the executive offsite, QBRs, territory […]