B2B Nation

Operating in a space dominated by large, well-known brands poses a challenge for companies in any sector. In the SaaS software market – and in CRM in particular – the challenge can seem monumental. Clare Dorrian is the CMO of SugarCRM, where she and her team are leading their challenger brand up against heavyweights like Hubspot and Salesforce.  The advantage held by many challenger brands is that they are often more agile and can pivot more quickly than the leading brands. On the other hand, challenger brands have less margin for error, so they need to make well-informed decisions.  RELATED EPISODE: What’s Working in B2B Cybersecurity Marketing? In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we’re talking to Clare about what it’s like to operate as a challenger brand today, which tactics and messaging are working for SugarCRM, and what we think is head in 2024,  Episode Guide 3:20: What is the message Clare and her team want to deliver to CRM buyers? 5:08: Advice for CRM buyers. 9:28: What are the channels and tactics showing results for Clare and her team? 17:14: The role of in-person events in Clare’s strategy.  19:17: Three things that get Clare excited about 2024. 27:23: What is Clare’s favorite tool?

The biggest change in the purchasing process for business technology over the past decade is the role of business users. IT no longer makes all of the decisions about technology. Instead, it’s the business users who use the tech on a daily basis who do much of the work.  The area of low-code development, which allows business users to create workflows and automations for business processes, is a perfect example of this evolution.  Business users and IT both take part in the purchase process for low-code solutions. And each role has its own part in managing the solution once it’s deployed. In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we talk with Mike Donaghey, Chief Commercial Officer at CMW Lab, a workflow software vendor, about the modern buying committee, how vendors market to diverse committees, and Mike’s favorite too. Episode Guide 4:02: How are business and IT teams involved in today’s purchase process? 6:29: How does CMW develop messaging for diverse buying committees? 7:57: How do diverse committees impact the sales cycle? 8:47: Do diverse buying committees require casting a diverse net for prospects? 11:11: What to make of the in-person event channel? 11:48: What should we expect from 2024? 14:29: What is Mike’s favorite tool?

Audience marketing is essentially the practice of building an audience of prospective buyers for your product or service that you inform and educate until such time as they’re ready to buy.  Sounds pretty intuitive, right? It is. But it’s often a tremendous challenge to pull off successfully.  Most marketers work in an environment where it’s difficult to play the long game of audience building because leadership wants revenue now. So while audience building can generate significant returns over time, what’s a marketer under pressure to deliver now to do?   On this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, I’m talking to Bolaji Oyedije, a marketer with 20 years of experience in the B2B sector, about how marketers can combine short-term and long-term activities to meet their immediate needs for leads, opportunities, and pipeline, and revenue. We also discuss how to have the “long-term vs. short-term” conversations with leadership, how to earn the trust of today’s audiences, and Bolaji’s favorite tool. Episode Guide 2:56: What, exactly, is audience marketing? 4:10: Audience marketing takes time many marketers don’t have 8:48: The danger of too much focus on short-term opportunities. 12:10: Goodbye BANT, hello FAINT 14:07: Can you convince someone who isn’t in market to become in market? 18:38: “I want content professionals to make content like a comedian...” 21:00: How does Bolaji recommend marketers have the long-term vs. short-term conversation with leadership? 29:32: What is Bolaji’s favorite tool? 

More than 15 years after it happened, you can still find videos online of Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer chanting “Developers! Developers!” more than a dozen times at a Windows conference in 2006. You can’t blame Ballmer for his excitement. Put the right combination of tools, technology, and ideas in the hands of a developer and you’ve got the foundation for a number of applications and platforms we use every day. RELATED PODCAST: How Business Users Change the Game of B2B Marketing Since Ballmer’s viral developer movement in 2006, the focus on developers has only intensified. The concept of “shift left,” which moved testing, quality assurance, and performance monitoring earlier in the software development lifecycle, meant putting more tools into the hands of dev teams early in the process with the goal of eliminating costly fixes later in the lifecycle. Roee Kriger is the CEO and co-founder of Metis, which creates tools for database observability tools designed to help developers create applications with confidence. His team’s go-to-market strategy focuses on differentiation in a crowded market, meeting developers where they are, and self-service experience. In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we’re talking to Roee about the challenges of marketing to developers, why you won’t see the familiar social media icons on the Metis website, and his favorite tools. Episode Guide 1:58: Rosee identifies the two biggest challenges of marketing to developers . 3:42: How does the GTM strategy at Metis address the challenges of marketing to developers? 5:05: It’s all about marketing and selling to the end user. 6:38: Why it’s important to nail your PLG motion. 7:14: What does Metis do to meet developers where they are? 10:53: Are developers more likely to give feedback to improve products? 12:29: What is Roee’s favorite tool?

How many times, B2B marketers, have you sat on a pipeline call reviewing open opportunities and heard someone comment on how long an opp has been open and what can be done to move it along? Quite a few times, no doubt. Outreach from the sales rep, an open opportunity nurture sequence, and even executive outreach are all possible solutions. But wouldn’t it be better to avoid the problem to begin with? In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we talk with Trinity Nguyen, VP of Marketing at UserGems,about her team’s approach to closing deals faster. And it relies on a rather old tactic from the B2B marketing toolbox – personas. Trinity’s team discovered that when three personas were involved in the buying process,her company closed more sales. The personas were dubbed “The Three Musketeers,” and today Trinity and her team strive to marketo to these roles to get them involved as early in the process as possible. RELATED ARTICLE: How Business Users Change the Game of B2B Marketing Also on this episode, we’ll talk about Trinity’s hopes for the second half of 2023, the most important relationship she has in her organization as a marketer, and Trinity’s favorite tools. Episode Guide 3:03: Trinity explains the “Three Musketeers” her team targets in prospect organizations. 6:27: What has Trinity learned or changed because of the current economic conditions? 8:50: What is Trinity looking forward to in the second half of 2023? 11:50: What’s the most important business relationship Trinity has right now? 13:48: The importance of customer experience in the SaaS space 16:10: What is Trinity’s favorite tool?

Because we live in a world surrounded by technology, we often equate innovation with devices and software. But innovation is about taking a different approach to just about anything. If you can make something faster, more efficient, and more productive, you’re innovating. During times of economic uncertainty, innovation and experimentation are often cast aside in favor of short-term returns. Testing out new systems and approaches carries risk, and companies and their employees have a lower tolerance for risk during a slow economy. If you slow your pace of innovation too much, however, you can find yourself at a disadvantage when things pick up. In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, Jonathan Sedger, DIrector of Innovation and Partnerships at B2B marketing agency Twogether, talks about how B2B marketers can use innovation to improve outcomes for their customers and prospects and help achieve goals quickly and efficiently. RELATED EPISODE: How Economic Conditions Help You Rethink Your Marketing We’ll also touch on creating a culture and frameworks for innovation and experimentation, Jonathan’s favorite tools, and more. Episode Guide 2:37: Where do many businesses go wrong in their approach to innovation? 4:00: What are some strategic approaches to innovation worth trying? 5:47: How do companies approach experimentation today? 8:55: Jonathan shares the framework his team uses for innovation and experimentation 9:43: Which technologies are Jonathan and his team experimenting with right now? 10:49: What are Jonathan’s favorite tools?

Resource constraints are hitting B2B marketers hard. The teams are often smaller than they were two years ago. The tools are fewer. But the goals are often headed in the other direction. Many marketers are tired of hearing “Do more with less.” And a better approach to economic uncertainty might be rethinking what your company is doing to see if it still makes sense. That’s true in both your messaging, where prospects are in a different reality than they were two years ago, and in your tactics. In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we’re talking with Ting Ting Luo, VP of Marketing at Orum, a sales tech company that aims to make sales calls as efficient as email. Among the topics we discuss: Ting Ting’s career journey from management consulting in one economic downturn to VP of marketing in another; building the marketing team at Orum from the ground up, and the challenges her team faces when marketing to prospects whose tech investments are under increasing scrutiny from executives. Episode Guide 2:40: How did beginning her career during the 2008-2009 downturn impact Ting Ting’s career journey? 5:00: Does the volume of information at people’s fingertips help or hamper their outreach efforts? 9:19: How the new dynamics of tech purchases change the sales-marketing dynamic. 12:00: How macroeconomic conditions are affecting the buyers’ journey. 14:49: How Ting Ting built her marketing team at Orum. 17:30: What are the most significant challenges facing Ting Ting and her team? 21:05: What are Ting Ting’s favorite tools?

The modern marketing and sales organization often integrates several platforms to deliver a comprehensive view of prospects and customers. But when it comes to recruiting talent, the systems are often years behind what’s available to marketing and sales. Recruiters, for example, often can’t target potential employees the way their colleagues in marketing can target potential customers. Add all of this up, and it means pain points for recruiters and hiring managers. RELATED EPISODE: Why You Need Brand to Support Demand in B2B Marketing On this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we’re talking to Sam Kuenhle, VP of Marketing at Loxo. We’re going to talk about a different approach to recruiting and hiring talent, his team’s challenges and goals, and the difference between content that matters versus content that converts. Episode Guide 2:28: Sam explains Loxo’s approach to HR tech. 6:41: What are the challenges Sam and his team face at Loxo? 10:18: Creating content that matters vs. content that converts. 14:27: The impotence of messaging around customer needs. 16:23: Sam shares some of the goals he and his team are working on in 2023. 18:39: What is Sam’s favorite tool?

Businesses in the technology sector understand the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) better than most. But the full scope of AI’s potential lies beyond tech, in industries that have been slower to adopt tools that can rapidly analyze data and help manage risk. The construction industry, for example, touches almost everything we do. But it’s an unlikely place to find tools like predictive analytics and artificial intelligence. But like any area of the economy, construction companies and their leaders are interested in tools that will help increase speed, better manage costs, and make more efficient use of resources. And that’s where artificial intelligence can help. Stephanie Seril is VP of Marketing at Avvir, which uses AI to help construction companies and their clients compare projects to digital twins and identify errors long before they become expensive and time-consuming to fix. On this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, Stephanie talks about the challenges Avvir faces in its marketing, how marketing tech to an industry like construction differs from her days in Silicon Valley, and why steel-toed boots are now part of her work attire. Episode Guide 2:10: Stephanie explains what Avvir’s technology does and who uses it 4:08: What are some of the challenges Stephanie and her team face when marketing Avvir’s solutions? 7:51: How does marketing tech outside of the tech industry compare to Stephanie’s roles in tech? 10:07: What are the most effective messages and tactics for Avvir? 14:46: What is Stephanie’s favorite tool?.

ChatGPT and other generative AI tools that create content are capturing a lot of attention. But content is only one application of generative AI. It can generate just about anything in terms of data. Getting AI and machine learning projects off the ground remains a significant hurdle for many businesses. One of the biggest obstacles companies face is access to the datasets they need to properly build and scale their machine learning models.  Let’s say you work at a financial institution and you want to use machine learning to improve customer service or help introduce cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. Because of the sensitive nature of customers’ financial information, training the tech on real data isn’t a good idea. That’s where synthetic data comes into play. MOSTLY AI generates synthetic data that looks and acts just like an organization’s real data. It can be used to train machine learning models, so they can work with seemingly real data without introducing additional risk. On this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we’re talking to Sabine Klisch, VP, Global Marketing at MOSTLY AI about the market for synthetic data, challenges, and goals for the year ahead. Episode Guide 2:13: Sabine explains the concept of synthetic data and why it’s important to MOSTLY’s audience. 4:42: What is the most effective message for MOSTLY’s target audience? 8:08: What are the goals Sabine has set for herself, her team, and her brand in 2023? 10:16: What are the challenges Sabine expects to face as 2023 continues? 12:34: How the popularity of ChatGPT helps raise the profile of all applications of generative AI. 15:23: What is Sabine’s favorite tool?