Pipeline Visionaries

This episode features an interview with Emma Robinson, B2B Marketing Lead at Canva, a global online visual communications platform on a mission to empower the world to design.In this episode, Emma dives into Canva's shift from individual to enterprise functionality, sharing her thoughts on the inherent value of investing in brand at any stage. She also dives into the increasing importance of word-of-mouth and avoiding the sea of sameness in B2B marketing. Key Takeaways:Brand and creative help you to get potential buyers thinking and feeling, and help you differentiate among a sea of sameness in B2B marketing, and pushes buyers towards action. While analyst relations are still important, word-of-mouth and peer-driven buying are increasingly important, potentially reducing some of the importance of analyst reports. Traditional SEO is changing, and having high-quality, insight rich content with an authentic point of view will be important. Quote:  Traditional SEO is probably changing somewhat. I mean, most of us who have searched something in recent times will not necessarily be searching just in Google. So, finding ways to make sure that our content will be trained by an LLM in the right ways, you know, people still need answers, but they're getting them in a very different way now.  Image search and, you know, tech search  and all these different things that will inevitably change what we know  as traditional SEO. So, I think for that, it's again, back to the point about being grounded in really good quality content, like colored content that has a point of view that does feel less AI oriented and more  really rich in insights insights, for example, like primary research, those types of things, but that's still going to stay. And then I think influencer marketing and things like podcasts and so forth, like all of those sort of authentic moments are going to matter in kind of the new world. So, we're definitely rethinking our search strategy there, and so more to come on that.Episode Timestamps: *(03:33) The Trust Tree: Changing perceptions and moving into enterprise*(23:16) The Playbook: Thinking and feeling to action *(39:53) The Dust Up:  Do you invest in brand equity for the long term? *(43:53) Quick Hits: Emma’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Emma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-robinson-mtkg/Learn more about Canva: https://www.linkedin.com/company/canva/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://www.linkedin.com/company/canva/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Jean-Christophe Pitié, CMO and Chief Partner Officer at Contentsquare, an experience intelligence platform that helps you gain a deep understanding of your customers’ whole online journey.In this episode, Jean-Christophe shares his approach to merging brands while minimizing friction and negative impact. He also discusses the future of SEO and how they are experimenting with influencing LLMs.Key Takeaways:The future of SEO may shift to thinking about how to influence LLMs, and what they say about your brand. While it’s currently unclear how to do this, it will likely become increasingly important in the coming years.When merging multiple brands, move slowly and very carefully monitor your work to look for friction and negative impacts.Investing in the martech stack is uncuttable since data is essential to the modern marketer.Quote: We did two major acquisitions in the last two years, and we had three websites under three brands. So we are going through this major rebranding, combining and merging the three brands and phasing out two of the three brands. And so I would say that's a massive project and experiment too. It's like, how do you merge these brands and which have followers, minimizing the business impact, minimizing customer friction? Break things along the journey, so you have to take things. So this, you can identify what you bring to customer journeys or customer flow you're breaking. And as you shift the traffic, for example, SEO, as you start to rebuild SEO, it takes time. Paid search, you cannot do it all. So we said the main learnings are, we knew that would be things breaking and it's happening. So take it slowly, monitor, monitor, monitor very quickly. And we have a weekly committee where we monitor how it's going and the transition is happening. So yes, be slow and patient. Don't break things, or as little as possible.Episode Timestamps: *(03:04) The Trust Tree: Useful organizational design structures *(08:57) The Playbook: Influencing LLMs*(31:51) The Dust Up The challenge of monetization*(33:54) Quick Hits: JCP’s quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jean-Christophe on LinkedInLearn more about ContentsquareLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Drew Chapin, CMO at Certinia, a platform that connects all aspects of services operations, from services estimation and delivery to customer success management and financial planning and accounting. In this episode, Drew discusses monitoring buying signals and generating the right traffic to your website. He also dives into inheriting a rebrand and some of the nuances of marketing in a private equity owned company. Key Takeaways: Cold calls, cold emails and the days of expecting someone to fill out a form to get content are over. B2B marketers need to stop making friction or blockers.Nothing fails like success. If you just continue to execute what has worked in the past, you're going to miss innovation opportunities. Aspire for a champagne flute funnel over a martini glass funnel. Maybe not as many leads are coming in at the top, but they are higher quality and converting and much higher rates through the funnel. Quote: “85 percent of the time the buyer will go with the first vendor that they contact. So, building that trust with the buyer over time is critically important. And so, you know, in the old days, you put a form in front of every piece of content and we would optimize around the contact information.  And then you'd pass that along to some BDR and they would just be banging their head against the wall, calling people who weren't on the buying committee. They weren't ready to talk to a salesperson, you know, and it just was waste so much waste. And so what we're trying to do now is we're trying to monitor the activity at the target account level and look for buying signals”Episode Timestamps: *(02:51) The Trust Tree: Stretching the dollar in a PE-owned company*(06:28) The Playbook: Generating quality traffic to the website *(24:28) The Dust Up: Proving ROI to the board *(26:59) Quick Hits: Drew’s quit hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Drew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapindrew/Learn more about Certinia: https://www.linkedin.com/company/certinia/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Niloy Sanyal, CMO at LeanTaaS, a growth-stage company that creates software solutions combining lean principles, predictive and prescriptive analytics, and machine learning to transform hospital and infusion center operations.In this conversation, Niloy and Ian debate the merits of last touch versus multitouch attribution models. They also dive into the potential of AI SDRs and the benefits of ungating the content on your website. Key Takeaways:While reporting last touch attribution may help CMOs establish credibility, there are benefits to thinking in terms of multitouch and how to best determine the next best touch. B2B still has a way to go to fully leverage the capacity of our current LLMs, not to mention the new versions coming out. There is immense opportunity in AI SDRs and BDRs. If you may the CEO fill out a form on your website, you’ve lost them. Ungating content allows high level prospects to consume the information they need. Quote: I am absolutely bullish on the impact of generative AI in the tactic of, to start with BDR and AE sales motions as part of our broader ABM execution. But very soon our comms execution, and every part of the marketing execution. But right now, early days, so I don't want to oversell it. But, the promise of what this can do without any improvement on the LLM. Like we were having this debate last night with another thought leader and I don't need chat GPT 5 to come out. I think 4. 0 or 4 is good enough and it's actually great. We just haven't caught up in a B2B environment to take advantage of it. And what I'm seeing from our early experiments, we've been at it now for three, four months, is absolutely astounding in what it can do. It's not going to replace BDRs. Let's be clear, you're in the Bay Area. If you  drive from, you know, Peninsula to the city, I almost feel half the billboards these days are on like AI-automated SDR, BDR type of a thing. Not in my space. It's not going to automate that any, replace rather, but it can supercharge. Those individuals and it can supercharge. So I'm very excited about where we are. Episode Timestamps: *(04:00) The Trust Tree: Last Touch Versus Multi-Touch*(30:07) The Playbook: The Potential of Gen AI SDRs and BDRs*(44:05) Quick Hits: Niloy’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Niloy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niloysanyal/Learn more about LeanTaaS: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leantaas/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Melton Littlepage, the CMO at 1Password, a password manager trusted by businesses and consumers alike. In this episode, Melton shares his thoughts on building big bets into your budget and how the lightning strike strategy can increase awareness, even on a limited budget. He also talks about how he’s structured his team to create harmony with sales and the importance of focusing on expansion marketing. Key Takeaways:The lightning strike strategy, spending a large portion of your marketing budget on a message over a number of weeks, can increase awareness better than spreading your budget evenly across the  year. CMOs can be very focused on acquisition, but they should not forget to focus on expansion marketing and the value they can generate there. One-on-one sales and marketing partnerships can help ensure both teams are on the same page and operating in harmony.Quote:  I'm a huge believer in lightning strikes. Lightning strikes are so important to us. If you're not familiar with the lightning strike concept in marketing, it's when you align the entire business, everything about the business where you could possibly project the message into the market, the website, all digital marketing, organic, social, paid social, the sales behavior, your presence at an event, everything in this tiny period of time says one thing. And you say it in deafeningly loud. You deploy 25 or 30 or 40 percent of your marketing budget into a window of time that could be just one or two weeks. And you absolutely blast your way into awareness inside your target buyer audience. This goes against the nature of the CMO, right? The CMO, like we all have these spreadsheets of targets where I need to deliver exactly this many MQLs consistently month in and month out with a little bit of seasonality built in and I can't afford variability. Like I definitely can't miss a month. And I don't know if a lightning strike is going to move the needle and so I peanut butter spread my budget evenly. But the problem is unless you have a massive budget, and most of us don't have a massive budget, then you're constantly below the visible line. You're just relegating yourself to being below the visible line.”Episode Timestamps: *(06:52) The Trust Tree: Leveraging solution marketing as you move to enterprise selling *(23:05) The Playbook: Lightning strikes and increasing awareness *47:00) The Dust Up: Navigating CEO-decisions *(49:00) Quick Hits: Melton’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Melton on LinkedInLearn more about 1passwordLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Alex Saric, CMO at Ivalua, a company that empowers businesses to effectively manage all categories of spend and all suppliers, increasing profitability, improving ESG performance, lowering risk, and improving employee productivity. In this conversation, Alex shares his insights into pitching to and engaging with analysts, and how Ivalua has lead in reports since he joined the organization. He also dives into the ways he supports his team in building a dynamic website and when events with significant impact aren’t measurable in terms of ROI. Key Takeaways:There is a strategy to sharing your value with analysts in order to lead in their reports. Sharing strategically chosen customer stories and assessing what influences each analyst can go a long way. In addition to the basics of creating a great website and tracking traffic, you need to create a dynamic website. Empowering your team to make minor changes and request major changes can allow you to adjust quickly and improve your website strategy. There is a tendency to focus on fixing problems, but don’t forget to also assess how to improve and scale what is working well. Quote:  Yes, I'll say when I joined,  we at the time were not a leader in almost any of these reports that were out there. I think we had broken into one. In the  7 years, and knock on wood, I don't want to jinx myself, we've been the leader in every single report from Gartner and Forrester since then. And I'd say, you know, what I really did, it was probably one of my first priorities, given how important it is in our industry, I reached out to the analysts, started meeting one-on-one with the key analysts there. And of course, you know, I'm going to tell them my pitch,  but they're smart enough to know take it with a grain of salt. I think the important thing is to start introducing them to customers because that's where you get a lot of credibility, if the customers back up what you're saying. And you can be very strategic. So, you know, I was very careful in, the competitor that was kind of the top competitor at the time, making sure I introduced the analyst to customers that had switched from that competitor, which would privately both talk about us, but also kind of badmouth,  their past vendor and that really helped kind of flip the switch and start building credibility what I was saying was actually true. And also improving the rankings. And besides the rankings, they're also influencing a lot of deals behind the scenes and I think they start recommending us a lot more after that. Episode Timestamps: *(03:27) The Trust Tree: Structuring the team to tap into regional expertise *(09:27) The Playbook: Engaging with analysts and leading in reports *(33:34) The Dust Up: Healthy tension with other functions*(34:42) Quick Hits: Alex’s quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexsaric/Learn more about Ivalua: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ivalua/about/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Liz Carter, CMO at Reputation, a company helping brands understand and improve their reputations. In this conversation, Liz discusses the differences between brand and reputation and the current challenges of building trust with today’s consumers. She also shares her thoughts on experimentation within tight budgets.Key Takeaways:Brand is not synonymous with reputation, Your brand is who you aspire to be, while your reputation reflects how consumers perceive you based on their experiences. Bridging the gap is essential for success.When budgets are tight, think about how you can do small experiments and how you can best leverage them, but keep experimenting.With AI and misinformation, it is a challenging time to to build consumer trust in the marketplace, and brands should be paying special attention to how they are perceived by target audiences.Quote: In an environment where budgets are getting cut and things are being tightened or whatever, you know, you have to think about like, is now a time for experimenting with big dollars or is it time for little experiments and what can you get out of that? And so, I mean, again, it's a balancing act of knowing sort of what's happening in the market or in your business specifically at a given time and how and when to sort of look for those opportunities.Episode Timestamps: *(08:17) The Trust Tree: The difference between brand and reputation *(14:07) The Playbook: Bringing crazy ideas to your CFO *(34:41) The Dust Up: Alignment and clear expectations *(35:57) Quick Hits: Liz’s quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/Connect with Liz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-carter-a9842a2/Learn more about Reputation: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reputation-com/about/Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Calen Holbrooks, VP of Demand Gen at Airtable, the no-code app platform that empowers people closest to the work to accelerate their most critical business processes. In this episode, Calen shares with us how she thinks about “big C and little c community” and why it is important to invest in, even when it is harder to measure. She also dives into her approach to accessible content and how they increased their conversion rates through a homepage refresh.Key Takeaways:We know that people are consuming content in a binge-like format; we should let them binge! While sales’ desire to gate content is understandable, ungating is a no-brainer, especially given all of the data we have now. Investing in community pays dividends and drives intent. While some community investments are more measurable than others, it doesn’t mean you should not invest in those less-measurable communities. The homepage is crucial, and refreshing it to tweak the way Airtable told their story resulted in a 25 percent conversion increase. Quote: “ I'm surprised at how  slow organizations have been to adopt some of this, ungate 80 percent of what you're doing strategy. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, like, I get it. The processes with marketing to BDR to sales handoffs require a lot of this sort of traditional lead flow of things. Not to point fingers, but I do blame a little bit on the sales side and sort of  what they need to be why we can't do that. But it seems like a no-brainer when we have the amount of data that we have today… When we know everybody is scrolling and consuming content in a binge-like format, like, let them binge!”Episode Timestamps: *(03:53) The Trust Tree: The evolution to enterprise selling *(21:26) The Playbook: Investing in community and tracking account propensity *(34:23) The Dust Up: Demand gen versus brand araguments *(41:42) Quick Hits: Calen’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Calen on LinkedInLearn more about AirtableLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Lyndsey Rojas, CMO at IFS Ultimo, a SaaS enterprise asset management solution, focused on maintenance & safety and well known for a rapid deployment, ease of use and an unparalleled time to value. In this episode, Lyndsey dives into leveraging partner marketing to move from a regional to a global player and making sure communication is transparent to maintain 98 percent customer retention. Key Takeaways:Investing in your team, particularly with all the rapid changes in tech and AI, is uncuttable. It’s essential to equip your team to use new technologies and to be strong storytellers.Transparency through the full buyer's journey helps reduce friction in the customer experience by setting accurate expectations, ultimately resulting in high customer retention.Partnerships are especially valuable during times of budget constraints because it allows you to do more with less and helps companies move from regional players to global brands.Quote: Search, paid search and social, they keep changing the game on us. The algorithm changes, cookie lists, all these things keep changing. It keeps us on our toes, and it is like a game you play. You know, you think, oh, I'll pull this lever, and maybe the cost-per-click will go down. And,  it's not something that you can figure out one time and be okay with it.  But, for us, like most B2B tech companies I think, it is the number one traffic generator for our website. It is the top two lead generator for us. So, it is something that we absolutely have to stay on topEpisode Timestamps: *(02:35) The Trust Tree: Authentic communications and creating efficiency for customers *(12:55) The Playbook: Doing more with less through partnerships *(32:40) The Dust  Up: Setting objectives with sales *(33:45) Quick Hits: Lyndsey’s Quick Hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Lyndsey on LinkedInLearn more about IFS Ultimo Learn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features an interview with Louise Clements, CMO at WorkJam, the world leader in the digital frontline workplace, revolutionizing how HQs and their frontline workforces work together.In this episode, Louise discusses why she is no longer looking at attribution and is instead focusing on intent. She also dives into how she is using AI to automate and improve their marketing efforts and managing joint ownership of the funnel with sales. Key Takeaways:AI makes marketing better by giving the team more time to reflect and think. CMOs should be investing in automation. Marketing is increasingly owning go-to-market and jointly owning the funnel with sales. This is a bit of an evolution, and it allows you to focus on influence over attribution. Obsessing over first and last touch attribution is not useful. CMOs should focus on driving intent. Quote: “One thing that we've done is we've sort of stopped worrying about first touch and last touch attribution. I don't care. Is it ultimately working? You can drive yourself insane, worrying about specifics. Instead, it's looking at how all of those channels connect. And I think one of the greatest things in the last couple of years is, we’ve got these fabulous new tools. As B2B marketers, whether you use Sixth Sense or Demandbase or whatever, you can go in and understand intent in a way that we never could. So ,what I'm looking at is, are we driving intent? And then, let's time box that campaign and everybody who came in or who we touched. I want to understand what's the time lag? Are they going to come back? And I'm looking at things like that way more.”Episode Timestamps: *(03:41) The Trust Tree: The power of investing in PR *(15:28) The Playbook: Focus on driving intent *(41:05) The Dust Up: Agencies and fighting over scope*(42:30) Quick Hits: Louise’s quick hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Louise on LinkedInLearn more about WorkJamLearn more about Caspian Studios Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.