CMO Conversations with Tricia Gellman: Recent Episodes
Drift
Welcome to CMO Conversations – a podcast that takes you inside the mind of the modern CMO. Every other week, Drift CMO Tricia Gellman sits down with a different CMO and goes deep on their experience. What did their path to becoming a CMO look like? What advice do they have for up-and-coming marketers? What’s their superpower? And how do they navigate the challenges of a role that's constantly evolving?
Because if there's one thing today's CMO can count on – it's change.
Latané Conant entered her very first marketing position, Vice President of Demand Generation, through a sales role.
Yes, you read that right.
Beginning her career in sales, carrying a bag, and working her way to Area Vice President, Latané leverages her sales background in all parts of her role as Chief Market Officer at 6sense today. In this episode, Latané explains her data-driven approach to marketing, the importance of anchoring oneself in the market, and the value of analyzing the why.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Latané on LinkedIn and follow @DriftPodcasts on Twitter.
Want even more CMO insights? Subscribe to Tricia's newsletter here: https://www.drift.com/chief-marketing-officer/
What does the future of corporate events look like? That’s a question Hopin, an event technology platform, was asking even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Anthony Kennada (Hopin’s CMO), experienced the marketing team go from 5 to 50 employees and reach the coveted unicorn status – all within his first six months.
In this episode, he and Tricia discuss how events foster community, why community is the secret to category creation, and why building an internal community between sales, marketing, and customer success is critical to growing revenue for your business.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Anthony on Twitter at @triciagellman, @akennada, and @DriftPodcasts.
Want even more CMO insights? Subscribe to Tricia's newsletter here: https://www.drift.com/chief-marketing-officer/
Starting out as “the search girl” at Salesforce, Lauren Vaccarello always knew there was more to digital marketing than met the eye 12 years ago. And she was right. Now, Lauren is the CMO at Talend and sees her background in digital not just as a differentiator, but also as a strength. In this episode, Tricia and Lauren talk about what it’s been like growing their marketing careers in the digital age, and how, no matter where you start, there’s always a path to CMO.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Lauren on LinkedIn and follow @DriftPodcasts on Twitter.
Want even more CMO insights? Subscribe to Tricia's newsletter here: https://www.drift.com/chief-marketing-officer/
How do you know what your customers want?
It’s not a guessing game, and Swan Sit knows this best.
Building out digital marketing programs at companies like Estee Lauder, Revlon, and Nike, now known as the “Queen of Clubhouse” and as an independent board director, Swan is no stranger to feedback.
In this exclusive interview that we’re airing before her keynote goes live at Drift’s virtual event, RevGrowth: Personalization at Scale, Tricia and Swan talk about how Swan balances both anecdotal and data-driven feedback and transforms it into powerful stories that resonate with her audience.
To hear Swan’s full keynote, register for Drift’s virtual event summit, RevGrowth: Personalization at Scale: https://www.drift.com/events/revgrowth-personalization/
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Swan on Twitter: @triciagellman @swansit @DriftPodcasts
This week, we’re throwing it back to one of our favorite episodes with First Advantage’s head of global marketing, Katharine Mobley. In this episode, Katharine talks about how she rebuilt the FADV brand (internally AND externally), redefined marketing's relationship with sales, and getting measured on what matters most – revenue. Her hard work has certainly paid off in a big way, as FADV's valuation tripled before it sold in 2020, and most recently IPO'd in June 2021. This episode is required listening for any marketer who wants to get a seat at the revenue table.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Katharine on Twitter @triciagellman @KatharineMobley @DriftPodcasts
Want even more CMO insights? Subscribe to Tricia's newsletter here: https://www.drift.com/chief-marketing-officer/
Dylan Steele is wrapping up his first month as CMO at Coalition. Prior to joining Coalition, Dylan was VP of Brand & Marketing Strategy at Splunk, and before that he was VP of Platform Product Marketing at Salesforce (where he and Tricia met). In this episode, Tricia and Dylan talk about why Dylan wanted to make the jump from VP to CMO, how the roles are different, his approach to his first 30 days on the job, what he's learned so far, and his advice for aspiring CMOs.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and JJ on Twitter @triciagellman @dylanrsteele @DriftPodcasts
If you want even more marketing leadership insights, sign up for Tricia's newsletter: https://www.drift.com/insider/learn/newsletters/chief-marketing-officer/
There are CMOs and then there are founders. But Randy Frisch? He's a CMO AND a co-founder at Uberflip. On this episode, Tricia sits down with Randy to discuss what it's like to do two roles at once and how he helps his team weave storytelling into everything (yes, everything), they do.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Randy on Twitter @triciagellman @randyfrisch @DriftPodcasts
For more learnings from Tricia, check out her quarterly newsletter, The Path to CMO 3.0 https://www.drift.com/insider/learn/newsletters/chief-marketing-officer/
We've talked a lot about the silos that exist between sales and marketing. But what about the silos within your own marketing team? On this episode, Tricia brought in a guest who knows how to tackle this challenge head-on – Archana Agrawal, the CMO of Airtable. Archana shares her advice for creating more alignment, cutting down on task volume, executing with more agility, and dealing with burnout.
And one fun fact before you hit play – Archana started at Airtable the day shelter-in-place began due to COVID-19, so she's got some great learnings to share about how she navigated a new role at a new company during a pandemic.
Sometimes it can seem like the role of the CMO is just an impossible list of expectations for one person to carry out. And sometimes, CMOs find out what is really expected of them AFTER they join a new company. So how do you make sure your next role is right for you...before signing on the dotted line? On this episode of CMO Conversations, Tricia asks four-time CMO Jennifer "JJ" Johnson to come back on the show to share how she has vetted CMO opportunities throughout her career, her perspective on the evolution (and volatility) of the CMO role, how to interview for the role (including what questions to ask the CEO), and the challenges and opportunities of being the "first-ever" CMO at a new company.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and JJ on Twitter @triciagellman @jj_cmo @DriftPodcasts
Whether you have a category or not, you need to have a point of view, you need to be solving a problem, and you need to be solving it in a different way.
☝️ That's what Jennifer Johnson (aka JJ, the CMO of Amplitude) said when Tricia asked her if category design was right for every company. Spoiler alert: it's not. On this episode of CMO Conversations, JJ talks about what happens during each phase of category design, how she got involved with Play Bigger, her advice for working with analysts, and the importance of having a differentiated opinion.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and JJ on Twitter @triciagellman @jj_cmo @DriftPodcasts
People talk a lot about the importance of mentors. But they don't just magically appear in the moment you need them. So how do you find a mentor? For Kirsten Newbold-Knipp, it's not about finding one unicorn of a person to fill that role. Instead, you need to build your own personal board of directors. In this episode, Kirsten shares what her personal board of directors looks like, the happy and sad reasons why she learned to advocate for herself at a young age, and how she's paying it forward by being a mentor to others.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Kirsten on Twitter @triciagellman @kirstenpetra @DriftPodcasts
We all got used to a new way of working in 2020. But Kirsten Newbold-Knipp? She started a brand new job during the pandemic. In this episode, Kirsten walks Tricia through her path to becoming CMO at FullStory – a journey with as many Zoom meetings as you can imagine, but there was also one very unexpected meeting along the way. Now that Kirsten has been at FullStory for a few months, she shares how she's building relationships with her marketing team and driving alignment with the head of sales.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Kirsten on Twitter @triciagellman @kirstenpetra @DriftPodcasts
In 2008, software veteran Lynne Capozzi joined a brand new tech startup called Acquia as its CMO. Fast forward to 2019, and Acquia was bought by Vista Equity Partners for a whopping $1 billion. The Acquia CMO quoted in all the press releases sharing the announcement? Still Lynne Capozzi. On this episode of CMO Conversations, Tricia sits down with Lynne to talk about why she joined Acquia (twice – she left in 2011 to start a nonprofit then boomeranged back in 2016), how to scale marketing at critical growth stages, and how her role has changed over time.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Lynne on Twitter @triciagellman @lcapozzi
At the very beginning of 2021, SalesLoft announced a major funding round – bringing its valuation to a whopping $1.1 billion. We brought CMO Sydney Sloan back on the show to tell us what this funding means for her marketing team, how they planned internal and external activation, and what they learned when they got thrown a big curveball on the day of the announcement.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Sydney on Twitter @triciagellman @sydsloan
When Sydney Sloan joined SalesLoft as CMO, one of the first things she did was a customer journey exercise, zeroing in on new customers’ first 90 days with SalesLoft. Why'd she do it? Sydney says it was the best way to understand the challenges customers were facing and where marketing could provide value.
In this episode, Sydney shares the key metrics she looks at every week, why she thinks marketing should get involved in the post-sale, what she’s learned marketing to different personas throughout her career, and the mantra that helps her stay laser-focused on the customer.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Sydney on Twitter @triciagellman @sydsloan
Tricia Gellman is the host of CMO Conversations, and on this episode, she’s also the guest. At the end of 2020, Tricia went on maternity leave to welcome her daughter into the world. But now she’s back at it and figuring out the balance of being a new mom, wife, and – you guessed it – CMO. She’s joined by Dena Upton, Drift’s Chief People Officer, for a candid discussion about her journey to motherhood, her transition back to work, and what she’s learned so far.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Vidya on Twitter @triciagellman @heydenaupton @DriftPodcasts
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Tricia's Article in Business Insider --> I'm a 3-time CMO and 5-time ironman triathlete, but having a child is the hardest thing I've ever done: https://www.businessinsider.com/drift-cmo-tricia-gellman-motherhood-infertility-ivf-loss-career-2020-10
The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister https://bookshop.org/books/the-rainbow-fish/9781558585362
Big Words for Little People by Jamie Lee Curtis https://bookshop.org/books/big-words-for-little-people/9780061127595
Tricia and Carol Carpenter (CMO of VMware) pick up right where they left off – going even deeper on how being a CEO helped her become a better marketer. Plus Carol shares the three biggest leadership lessons she's learned throughout her career. Trust us, you're going to want to write these down.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Carol on Twitter @triciagellman @carol_carolling
If you want to meet a marketer who has done it all, look no further than Carol Carpenter. In her career, the Apple/Trend Micro/Google alum has been a product manager, a GM, a CEO, and not to mention, a marketing exec many times over. Now as VMware’s CMO, Carol is driving the 22-year-old software company’s digital transformation. In this episode, Carol talks to Tricia about how her non-linear career path helped her become a stronger marketer and recaps some of her biggest learnings from being a CEO.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Carol on Twitter @triciagellman @carol_carolling
Not every CMO has the opportunity to work on both high-impact business issues and social issues, but Nancy Coleman is in a unique position. Nancy and her team at Maxar (a space technology company) have partnered with tier-one media outlets to break powerful new stories with indisputable satellite imagery. But even 2020 threw Nancy a curveball. In this episode, Nancy shares her best advice for taking a stance on social issues – start by examining your brand’s values, listening (really listening) to your team, and avoiding platitudes at all costs.
Plus, hear Nancy’s take on key leadership topics for CMOs going into 2021, like transparency, trust, and internal communications.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Nancy on Twitter @triciagellman @ncoleman_dg @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
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For more on the Maxar News Bureau, visit: https://www.maxar.com/news-bureau To read the Pulitzer Prize-winning report by the Associated Press, visit: https://www.ap.org/explore/seafood-from-slaves/ Video "How Maxar Sees Slavery From Space" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPgth3PgxiE&ab_channel=MaxarTechnologies
There’s using your product to tell a story, and then there’s using your product to tell breaking news stories. In this episode of CMO Conversations, Tricia speaks with Nancy Coleman, CMO of Maxar (a space technology company), about the Maxar News Bureau – a partnership program with top tier media organizations that uses satellite imagery to provide indisputable truth at a time when credibility is critical.
Tricia and Nancy discuss the story that started it all – which involved the Associated Press, three investigative journalists, and smoking gun satellite imagery from Maxar – and resulted in the freeing of more than 2,000 slaves in Southeast Asia’s commercial fishing industry, action from the U.S. government, and a Pulitzer Prize.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Nancy on Twitter @triciagellman @ncoleman_dg @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
For more on the Maxar News Bureau, visit: https://www.maxar.com/news-bureau
To read the Pulitzer Prize-winning report by the Associated Press, visit: https://www.ap.org/explore/seafood-from-slaves/
Video "How Maxar Sees Slavery From Space" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPgth3PgxiE&ab_channel=MaxarTechnologies
Vidya Peters is back on CMO Conversations, this time going even deeper on the importance of hiring and the leadership lessons she's learned building a marketing team from the ground-up. Plus, learn why this role was the first hire Vidya made (before she even joined Marqeta).
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Vidya on Twitter @triciagellman @vidya_peters @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
Sometimes career growth looks like a ladder. But more often than not? It's a jungle gym. In this episode of CMO Conversations, Vidya Peters (CMO of Marqeta) shares her unique path to the world of marketing, the ups and downs she faced along the way, and how her failures have shaped her approach to leadership. Vidya also describes how her background in consulting, engineering, and product management has influenced her approach to hiring, plus the three attributes she looks for when hiring marketers.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Vidya on Twitter @triciagellman @vidya_peters @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
Katharine Mobley (CMO of First Advantage) doesn’t believe in vanity metrics. Everything she does has to be tied back to the bottom line. In this episode, find out how Katharine’s leadership and commitment to driving revenue helped transform the brand, align (and action) GTM teams, and triple FADV’s valuation prior to its sale in Jan 2020.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Katharine on Twitter @triciagellman @KatharineMobley @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
If there's one thing we marketers can count on, it's change. In fact, Harish Peri (CMO of Proxyclick) has made a career out of it. While some people run from change or refuse to it admit it's happening (come on, we've all been in those meetings), Harish is someone who runs toward change. He embraces it. On this episode of CMO Conversations, you'll learn how to drive (and sell) transformation internally, what Harish says is the secret sauce for building trust, how to get endorsements from your detractors, why change is so threatening – and what you can do about it.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia on Twitter @triciagellman @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
One thing we don't talk about enough is the power of partnerships. That changes today, with special guest Scott Brazina, the CMO of Impact. Tricia and Scott talk about the rise of the partnership economy, why partners are a critical third channel for revenue growth, what a successful partnership program looks like, and how partnerships are shaping the future of marketing.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Scott on Twitter @triciagellman @ScottBrazina @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
“If someone sneezed, they were a lead.” ….Can you believe that’s the way marketers used to measure things? Neither can Brandi Starr. She’s the COO of Tegrita and is on a mission to change the way marketers align and action around measurement. On this episode of CMO Conversations, Tricia and Brandi talk about why measuring ROI to lead isn’t measuring ROI at all and how marketers can use metrics to bring the whole revenue team together. Because as we all know – what gets measured is what gets done. Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Brandi on Twitter @triciagellman @ModernMktgStarr @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
Marketers, buckle up. Because on this episode of CMO Conversations, we’re talking all about account-based marketing. No fluff, just honest-to-goodness strategy and best practices from a CMO whose marketing team is talking the talk, walking the walk, and getting serious results from ABM. Scott Holden is back, and this time around he’s spilling (some of) his secrets around the framework, formula, and flywheel behind ThoughtSpot’s impressive ABM program.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Scott on Twitter @triciagellman @scottiholden @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
When it comes to marketing, the message is...everything. At least that's how Scott Holden (CMO of ThoughtSpot) thinks about it. In this episode of CMO Conversations, Tricia and Scott talk about how to get buy-in on your big ideas, what it takes to build a successful (and sustainable) thought leadership program, why great storytelling is the secret to product differentiation, and what it means to be a messaging freak.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Scott on Twitter @triciagellman @scottiholden @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
Ryan Bonnici stopped setting his therapy sessions as 'private' on his work calendar. And he wasn't quite prepared for what happened next. Because by openly sharing his own struggles with mental health in the workplace and being vulnerable, the CMO of G2 showed his team that they could be vulnerable and open with him. On this episode of CMO Conversations, Tricia and Ryan discuss how this simple shift to his calendar served as the catalyst for becoming an outspoken advocate for mental health, building deeper connections with his team, and growing as a leader.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Ryan on Twitter @triciagellman @ryanbonnici @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
At the age of 10, Ryan Bonnici decided he wanted to be a CMO. By the age of 30, he’d joined G2 and turned that dream into reality. In this episode of CMO Conversations, Ryan shares lessons learned from previous roles at Microsoft, Salesforce, and HubSpot and how he applied those learnings to scaling the G2 marketing team. Plus, hear from Ryan on the three things a board wants the CMO to focus on, how to effectively do customer marketing, and the digital strategy his team used to grow traffic from 500,000 to 6 million buyers each month.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Ryan on Twitter @triciagellman @ryanbonnici @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
If you asked 100 people what a CMO does, chances are you’ll get 100 different answers. Kate Bullis knows this struggle all too well. Now Kate may not be a CMO, but as the co-founder and managing partner at SEBA International Executive Search, she dedicates a lot of her time working with clients to define what they need in a CMO – and then finding the right person for the job.
Over the years she’s worked with companies ranging from venture-backed startups to Fortune 500 brands, and across digital, technology, CPG, professional, and financial services. Suffice to say, Kate knows what top companies are looking for in marketing leaders (and she knows the marketing leaders who can get the job done).
In this episode, Kate and Tricia talk about everything a CMO is (and is not), plus why now is the time for CMOs to rally their companies around brand and experience.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia on Twitter @triciagellman @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
For many of us, remote work is a new experience brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. But for Martin Gontovnikas (aka Gonto) it's just another day at the home office. Gonto is Auth0's SVP of Marketing & Growth and manages a fully remote marketing team. In this episode, he shares lessons learned in remote team management – from how he shows up as a leader and builds trust in a remote environment, to how he sets realistic goals and objectives for his team (plus how he re-allocated budget and re-forecasted pipeline targets when the unexpected happened).
And there's one more thing you need to know about Gonto. As a former software engineer, he LOVES experiments. Gonto breaks down how he built a culture of experimentation and testing at Auth0, what makes for a good test, and (you guessed it) how to set goals and measure the success of an experiment.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Gonto on Twitter @triciagellman @mgonto @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
*This episode was recorded prior to recent protests. Drift stands with our Black employees, customers, and community. Read our statement from our CEO here: https://www.drift.com/blog/we-wont-be-silent/
Forget about features. True product marketing is all about value. And to really demonstrate the value you provide to customers, the single best thing you can do is to make customer stories central to your product marketing strategy. In this episode, Tricia calls on Robin Daniels (CMO of Matterport, former CMO of WeWork) to discuss the power of storytelling and the importance of nailing your message early on. Tricia and Robin go deep on all things product marketing – what it is (and isn’t), how it should be structured and measured, and why customer stories help your brand add long-term value.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Robin on Twitter @triciagellman @robin_daniels @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
Gong’s CMO Udi Ledergor will stop at nothing to celebrate employees (even if it means buying 52 different billboards to do it). In this episode, Tricia and Udi discuss the rise of employer branding, why the CMO must be a leader for diversity, inclusion, and belonging, and how come there’s so much title inflation in marketing.
Later on, Udi explains why the coffee test is a key indicator of successful marketing and sales alignment, plus what marketers can do to collaborate with sales to build success (and avoid finger-pointing).
Want to know how Udi’s team uses Gong’s own data to develop content that provides value to buyers (and not to mention press hits)? Listen to the full episode.
*This episode was recorded prior to social distancing measures.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia on Twitter @triciagellman @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
Creating a category is a career-defining moment for any marketer. Some are lucky enough to do it once. Viviana Faga has done it multiple times – having held marketing leadership positions at Salesforce (where she and Tricia met), Jive, Yammer, Microsoft, and Zenefits. She’s since moved onto the VC side of things as an operating partner at Emergence Capital, where she advises category-creating portfolio companies on a daily basis. Tricia and Viviana get together to discuss what it was like to work with Marc Benioff in the early days, why technology has become an equalizer for brands, and how VC's think about marketing today.
*This episode was recorded prior to social distancing measures.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia on Twitter @triciagellman @HYPERGROWTH_Pod
Ever wonder what goes on inside the mind of a CMO? Us too. So we’re making it official and launching a brand new podcast to explore just that. Listen to the trailer to hear everything we’ve got planned for you.
DG sits down with Kate Adams (VP of Demand Generation at Drift) to talk about a big change she recently made to the marketing funnel at Drift.
CMOs have one of the shortest job tenures in the C-suite. What gives? In this episode recorded live at HYPERGROWTH Boston, DG sits down with Leela Srinivasan (CMO of SurveyMonkey) to find out. DG and Leela talk about what career progression looks like for marketers, why she thinks marketers shouldn't get hung up on their title, and the number one thing she's learned from each of her roles at Bain, LinkedIn, OpenTable, Lever, and SurveyMonkey.
Real talk. If you don’t care about internal marketing, you might be missing out on a golden opportunity. Tune into this throwback episode of the Swipe File for a timeless marketing lesson on the importance of internal marketing. You'll learn what it is, how it helps you amplify your message (inside of the company and out), and one thing you can do to take action with internal marketing today.
DG didn't always like public speaking. But that all changed when he stumbled upon a five-part framework that made him think about presenting and storytelling in a whole new light. And it's not just for when you're giving a talk – the framework works for everything from blog posts to landing pages and even emails. Anytime you’re stuck, you can pull this thing out.
Creativity – you're either born with it or you're not. Right? Wrong. In this #throwback episode, DG sits down with Allen Gannett, hot on the heels of the release of his book new book "The Creative Curve: How to Develop the Right Idea, at the Right Time." Together, Allen and DG unpack the lessons in the book (buckle up, it features interviews with over 25 creative geniuses, from the Broadway team behind Dear Evan Hansen, to the founder of Reddit, from the Chief Content Officer of Netflix to Michelin star chefs). Plus, Allen walks DG through the four laws of creative success and the common patterns behind creative achievement (so you can steal them for the next thing you're working on).
Marketers love case studies. As they should. But on this episode of the Swipe File, DG talks about why it might be time to re-think traditional case studies, and the importance of finding "real proof" out in the wild.
Everyone has ideas and feedback. But that doesn't mean you should listen to everyone. Here's why DG says you should avoid consensus at all costs – and why limiting the number of cooks in the marketing "kitchen" will help you streamline decision-making and ship faster.
Talk about a resume. Mike Volpe is the CEO at Lola, where he joined after building HubSpot for eight years (he was one of the five founding team members), and then growing revenue by 500% in two years as the CMO at Cybereason. Mike is one of the best B2B marketers on the planet, and on this episode of the Marketing Swipe File, DG and Mike talk about why your marketing should always try to “date up”, how PR changes as your company grows, why remixing old content ideas is better than finding new ones, why you should hire people who are better than you, and what CMOs need to learn before they can become CEOs.
Are you stuck? Hitting a creative wall? Brain just not working like you want it to? Hey, we've all been there. So on this episode of the Marketing Swipe File, DG shares his four-step formula for getting unstuck and beating writer's block. Give it a listen and you'll be coming up with better ideas in no time.
Great marketing isn't about sending your emails at 2:08pm on a Tuesday because you read somewhere that it's the best time to send an email. Nope. It's about zigging when everyone else is zagging. But what will it take for B2B marketers to really get out of the echo chamber? DG sits down with Brian Kardon to get find out. Brian is the CMO at Fuze, and before that he served in the same role at Lattice Engines, Eloqua, and Forrester. DG and Brian talk about whether marketers put too much stock in technology, why marketing isn’t for the lazy, why you should answer your next cold call, the benefits of the right peer group, and a lot more.
Your job as a marketer is to paint a picture. Because your buyers – real people – are visual learners. And they need a little hand-holding to guide them to your desired outcome. But in B2B marketing you don't always have images or videos to show, so you have to do that with words. The key is to be as specific as possible in your copywriting. Want to know how to apply this to your next campaign? Listen to the full episode.
You know how you get down those Instagram rabbit holes where you suddenly find yourself on some random profile and have no idea how you got there? That's how DG came up with the idea for this episode. He stumbled upon on the profile of some celebrity trainer he had never heard of, and started reading a post they shared on their 10 commandments for training. And DG liked the idea so much that he sat down in that moment to write down the 10 marketing rules that Drift lives by, like using social proof (aka your customer's words) whenever and wherever you can. Want the other nine commandments? Listen to the full episode.
If there's one thing we can all agree on – it's this. There's so much noise in marketing today. No one wants to be sold to. So in this episode of the Marketing Swipe File, DG talks about how to break through the noise and earn trust by being real, authentic, and human. DG shares a real example of how he addressed buyer objections up-front in a live webinar. Uncomfortable? Scary? Sure. But it worked. Listen to the full episode to get more ideas for bringing authenticity back into your marketing.
Welcome to the Swipe File. Here's a quick overview from your host, Dave Gerhardt, and a little bit more about what you can expect on this show.
Ready?
DG sits down with Josh Allen, Drift's Chief Revenue Officer, to go behind the scenes and talk about the sales and marketing teams at Drift, playing the long game, and what's different about marketing in 2019 vs. 2009.
The best marketing today has one thing in common: it's real. DG talks about why the best marketing is real, authentic, and human, and why people don't want marketing that feels "manufactured."
On this episode of the Marketing Swipe File, DG sits down with marketing technology veteran Elle Woulfe, VP of Marketing at PathFactory. Before joining PathFactory, Elle built her career at Lattice Engines, Eloqua, and Backupify where she became well-known for her B2B demand gen and account-based marketing chops. Elle talks to DG about all things ABM, marketing to marketers, setting SEO goals, building and managing remote teams, the secrets to growing your career in marketing, and much more.
On this episode of the Marketing Swipe File, DG talks about how he went from being someone who avoided books like the plague – to someone who loves reading and learning. So what was the catalyst for this change? DG started picking up books about copywriting, direct response marketing, social psychology. Over the last few years, he’s amassed a huge library of marketing books. Want to find out the books that have influenced him the most? Listen to the full episode.
This episode of the Marketing Swipe File was inspired by a tweet our CEO David Cancel got tagged in recently. It hits on two big questions about growing a marketing team. Should you wait to hire a marketer until you've reached product-market fit? How do you know the right time to bring a marketer on board?
So today DG is sharing the story of his marketing journey at Drift – including his first six months where there was no product for him to market and had to grow an audience from nothing. Want to find out what qualities DG says you should look for in your first marketing hire? Listen to the full episode.
On this episode of the Marketing Swipe File, DG sits down with Andy Raskin – who he calls a Silicon Valley storytelling mastermind. Andy Raskin is a highly sought-after consultant who knows a good story when he sees one. Case and point, his post "The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen" has become an internet sensation, with nearly 80k views on Medium. So we got Andy to spill his top five storytelling secrets. The ones he usually only shares with CEOs and CMOs. Secret number 1? State a big, undeniable change happening in the world. Secret number 2? Show that there will be winners and losers. Want the rest? Listen to the full episode.
On this episode of the Marketing Swipe File, DG is sharing the 10 things that have helped make him a better marketer (inspired by this post (https://drift.ly/better-marketer) on LinkedIn). And he's not talking about a better leader or hiring manager. An actual marketer. Want a sneak peek? Dave talks copywriting, the six principles of influence, empathy, learning to sell and how to be real (hint: use audio and video).
On this episode of the Marketing Swipe File, DG shares two of his favorite copywriting tips that you can use to write more effective sales emails, marketing emails, landing pages, video scripts, and more. This 12 minute episode will help you unlock the power of copywriting – even if you think writing isn’t your thing.
Heather Zynczak spent four years as the CMO of Domo, six years as Global VP of Marketing at SAP, and today serves as CMO of Pluralsight.
On this episode of the Swipe File, she talks to DG about building a high performance marketing machine at a public company, brand vs. demand, understanding your career path, the three paths to becoming a CMO, the power of having a user conference, and more.
On this episode of the Swipe File, DG sits down with Billy Gene Shaw, founder and CEO of the agency Billy Gene Is Marketing. Billy Gene has helped some of the world’s top brands and influencers like Gary Vaynerchuk, Lewis Howes, Daymond John, and more supercharge their social media advertising.
In one of the most tactical episodes of the Swipe File yet, DG and Billy Gene dive into: why everything starts with the offer (and how to create an irresistible offer), how Billy uses Google Trends to see the future, why iPhone videos work so well (including when they are shaky), how he measures advertising success and the importance of speed to recover ad spend vs. the total amount, why people are afraid of ads, how he turned a $31 offer into $1,000,000 in sales in a week, why he doesn’t believe in split testing ads, and so much more.
DG talks about the process he uses to create speeches and presentations, the highs and lows of doing big events for your business, and why you shouldn't listen when people say "our customers are not on social media."
On this episode of the Marketing Swipe File, DG sits down with Barney Waters, President of K-Swiss. They discuss the overlap between B2B and B2C marketing. (Is there still a difference?) Plus the key to understanding people, what makes for great writing, Barney's favorite books and how he resurrected the K-Swiss brand to compete with the likes of Nike and Adidas.
We're rebooting our marketing podcast and bringing it back better than ever with Drift VP of Marketing and host Dave Gerhardt and guests including leading CMOs from G2 Crowd, Survey Monkey, Pluralsight and more. But we're not content to just give you the high-level goods. We're going behind the scenes with today's greatest brand builders and marketing leaders to give you tactical advice like how to nail your LinkedIn strategy, generate more leads with webinars and how to run your own killer podcast. Plus we'll be sure to answer all the questions you have about how we do marketing at Drift. Marketing Swipe file is back in full force this March.
Every great marketer has a swipe file – this podcast will be yours.
Struggling to come up with ideas for content? This episode is for you. DG breaks down how to reverse engineer great topics for podcasts, blog posts, videos, and more -- including a list of tools to use, including: Google Keyword Planner, BuzzSumo, Quora, Product Hunt, Amazon Reviews, and more.
Leela Srinivasan is the CMO at SurveyMonkey, a Forbes Top 50 CMO, and previously spent time at Lever, OpenTable, LinkedIn, and Bain. She sat down with DG live at SaaStr Annual 2019 to talk about her career and her seven tips for using customer feedback to build rapid fans and make more money.
The best performing marketing channel might be right in front of you. On this episode of the Swipe File, DG talks about the power of internal marketing and how you can use the people at your company to 10x your marketing results starting this week. Remember: most people inside of your company have no idea what you do as a marketer.
Dan Rogers is the CMO at ServiceNow and was previously CMO at Symantec, VP of Marketing for EMEA at Salesforce, Global Head of Product Marketing and Demand Gen. at Amazon AWS, and Senior Director of Demand Gen. at Microsoft. Whoa.
Dan sits down with DG for this episode of the Swipe File to talk about everything from bringing brand back to B2B to how he runs his team on a daily basis.
Keeping a swipe file has been a game-changer for DG. It helps him come up with ideas and find patterns between ideas. If you don’t have a swipe file, you should definitely consider it. It's so important, we named our show after the concept ;)
In this episode of the Marketing Swipe File recorded live at SaaStr, DG sits down with Gainsight CMO Anthony Kennada to talk about how they built a company, even though there was no clear market to launch into. Anthony shares the five things Gainsight did to create a category in the B2B space – like ignoring analysts and being long-term greedy. Want the rest? Listen to the full episode to learn how they did it (and how they grew their brand to become one of the fastest growing private companies in the world).
Joe Chernov is CMO at Robin, and before that served in the same role at InsightSquared, and was VP of Content at HubSpot and Eloqua. He's often referred to as one of the most influential content marketers in B2B, and on this episode of the Swipe File, DG and Joe talk about micromanaging versus empowerment, why interviewing is an overlooked skill (for marketing), why having no metric is better than having the wrong one, career transitions to serve the business, and why hiring is the only thing that matters.
In this episode of the Marketing Swipe File, Dave chats with Steven Broudy, former Ranger Sniper Team Leader in the U.S. Army and currently Head of Sales at Bevy. Together Dave and Steven talk about how technology has changed the way people buy and why it's important to activate, build, and scale your community around your brand and product – both online and in-person. Want to hear Steven's take on imposter syndrome and the reason why he's worn a Hawaiian shirt every day for more than a year? Listen to the full episode.
"Would I respond to this?" That's the question DG asks himself before he sends an email, makes a deck, writes copy for a landing page, or records a podcast episode. Because when there's so much noise already in the market, the worst thing you can do is forget to treat your buyers like humans. So in this episode, DG talks about how you can take the #1 skill that most B2B marketers are missing, turn it into your advantage, and start having more conversations with buyers.