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20Growth: Hubspot CMO Kipp Bodnar on Why the Best Marketers Think Like VCs | Why the Best Companies Do Not Start with Product Marketing | New Channels; When To Do, How Much To Spend, How To Test, When To Stop

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Sep 28, 2022

Kipp Bodnar, CMO of HubSpot, shares insights from his extensive marketing career. He emphasizes the significance of channel selection and resource allocation for startup founders, offering frameworks to guide their marketing strategies. Kipp discusses the interplay between product marketing and personal branding, advocating for storytelling that resonates with customers. He also reflects on common pitfalls in new channels and the evolving nature of marketing tactics, urging marketers to adapt and focus intensively on areas of expertise for growth.

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ADVICE

Content and Distribution

Founders must address distribution constraints, even if they dislike content creation.
Content and personal brand can offer a low-cost distribution strategy.

ADVICE

Channel Diversification

Focus on maximizing one successful channel before diversifying.
Most successful companies have 1-3 scaled distribution channels, not 10.

INSIGHT

Product Marketing Focus

Effective product marketing starts with the customer's problem, not the product.
Define the category and drive awareness for it, rather than focusing on market share battles.

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Kipp Bodnar is the Chief Marketing Officer of HubSpot, where he sets HubSpot's global inbound marketing strategy. Prior to his role as CMO, Kipp served as VP of Marketing at HubSpot, overseeing all demand generation activity worldwide and building out the EMEA and APAC marketing teams. Kipp serves as a marketing advisor for SimplyMeasured, InsightSquared and Guidebook. Kipp is the co-author of "The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More."

In Today's Episode with Kipp Bodnar We Discuss:

1.) The Journey to CMO @ Hubspot:

How Kipp made his way into the world of marketing and came to be CMO @ Hubspot?
What does Kipp know now that he wishes all CMOs knew when they started?

2.) Choosing The Channel:

How does Kipp advise founders on which channel they should focus on? What is the framework which will tell them which channel is right for them?
How many different channels should they try? How focussed should they be? Should they have independent teams for each channel?
How do the best founders allocate resources to new channels? How do you know when one is not working and you need to stop? When do you just need to keep going and persisting?
What have been some of Kipp's biggest mistakes when entering new channels?

3.) Product Marketing, Brand Marketing and Founders Marketing:

How does Kipp advise founders who say that, "social and personal brand is just not for them"?
In what two ways does Kipp believe that all businesses are constrained?
Does Kipp agree that the state of product marketing has never been worse? What is truly great product marketing to Kipp?
How does Kipp distinguish between good and great brand marketing? How has what it takes to be great at brand marketing changed over time?

4.) The Best Marketing People:

What are signs of clear 10x performers in marketing?
What advice would Kipp give to someone aspiring to be a CMO? What mistakes do 95% make that they should change?
How do the best CMOs manage up and manage their team? Why does Kipp compare the role of the CMO to the general manager in NFL teams?
Why does Kipp believe the role of the CMO is a lonely one? What are the hardest elements?
What framework for learning does Kipp use to learn all new topics? What works? What does not?