This episode features an interview with Lauren Vaccarello, CMO of Talend.
Lauren is an award-winning marketing executive with a track record of accelerating revenue growth for some of the fastest-growing SaaS companies in Silicon Valley including Box, AdRoll, and Salesforce.
On this episode, Lauren talks about how to hit your numbers in the short term while working to expand the scope of who you’re selling to in the long term. She also discusses how to leverage your executive team to build brand trust, and shares a couple uncuttable budget items that may surprise you...
Key Takeaways
- Think of demand gen and marketing in both the short term and long term. How are you going to hit your numbers while also expanding the scope of who you’re selling to.
- Demand gen must start with defining who you are, why you matter, and who you’re selling to, then you can determine how you’re going to execute.
- With large enterprise deals, it's about emotional connection as much as it's about your product and your messaging.
- Invest in the backend and the “unsexy” things like tech infrastructure, because they’ll make everything else you do easier and faster.
Quotes
- “Investing in things like executive programs, executive engagement, and building deeper relationships with senior level executives at your target audience is the gift that keeps on giving. You’ll hit your numbers today, and the more they see you as a strategic partner, the more your deal size is going to grow.”
- “Every CMO who comes in has to get points on the board quickly. The shine wears off our penny probably faster than any other function. You have to show momentum, and I find getting those short term wins buys you time to get long term wins as well.”
- “What's going to make or break every single demand gen person in the foreseeable future is your ability to be agile and adapt. If you can't move quickly, you're dead in the water. The world is moving too fast...So invest in the backend, invest in the unsexy things that no one sees or understands why you're doing it, because it's those backend, unsexy, tech infrastructure things that make everything else you do faster and easier.”
- “Our job as leaders is to remove every blocker and every obstacle and to give the people that work for us the ability to be creative.”
- “Because what we do is so visible, every single person in your company will have an opinion about what you do. And you have to listen to every single person and you have to have thick enough skin to not take it personally.”
- “I won't cut PR. I cannot ascribe a dollar return to my PR program, but what I've seen in the past is the anecdotal qualitative that just proves that it works...I've seen it enough times-–you're going to get better candidates, better employees, faster velocity, and your inbound interest and brand awareness just start to tick up.”
Links
Truth Be Known Podcast
www.talend.com
Sponsor
Demand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.