Huddlers in the News

In the B-to-B community, Forrester has enjoyed strong awareness as a premium purveyor of expertise, but not so much for marketing its own brand. So, when Forrester acquired SiriusDecisions, another B-to-B research and advisory firm beloved for its “demand waterfall,” the executive team decided it was time to get its marketing act together and brought in CMO Shirley Macbeth to do just that.

Since Macbeth began in March 2020, just before lockdown, Forrester introduced a new product portfolio, “Forrester Decisions”; launched an employee orientation campaign, “Bold at Work;” and re-engineered its marketing to mirror the waterfall approach it preached to its customers. It also radically simplified its tech stack, pared down its persona list, re-oriented its employees on the new brand and no longer resemble the cobbler’s shoeless children.

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: How Forrester Began Practicing the Marketing It Preaches

Listen to the Episode: Forrester CMO on Practicing What You Preach

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 248: Climbing from B2B Startup to B2B Scaleup

Transitioning from startup to scaleup sure does come with its growing pains. Marketing teams are stretched as they recruit for new and necessary functions, systemize demand gen efforts, and update their brand story in the market. Add in a global pandemic, a team spread across nine time zones, and a competitive labor market and you’ve got yourself an immense challenge.

For Bynder CMO Andrew Hally, this is not his first rodeo. Bringing in lessons learned from scaling up at Allego, Andrew shares how his team adapted to advance the brand’s growth phase in style. This is a fascinating episode about the marketing strategy behind two different scaleups, as well as why leading starts with listening and how to optimize intent signals in your category. Don’t miss it!

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 245: Perfecting Marketing Metrics 

The perfect B2B marketing metrics dashboard doesn’t exist. Well, not in the way that you’d think. Every organization is at a different growth stage, has different opinions in the C-Suite, and has different strategic priorities, so it only makes sense that there’s no one-size-fits-all measurement standard out there. Savvy CMOs know this—and they also know that not everything marketing contributes can be measured—but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done.

In this episode, we explore which metrics matter to the CMOs at three B2B organizations: Rebecca Stone of Cisco Meraki, Chandar Pattabhiram of Coupa, and Katie Risch of Centro. This insightful discussion is about how to demonstrate the value of marketing to the C-Suite, to your organization, and to the world at large. Tune in to learn about the best “brand-quisition” metrics, the state of attribution modeling today, why employer brand metrics are really important (even if no one thinks so), and more.

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 243: Oh FUD, Say Goodbye to Fear-Based B2B Marketing

FUD, you ever heard of it? No, not Elmer Fudd, the Looney Toon set on hunting that wascally wabbit Bugs. We’re talking about FUD, the acronym for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, a marketing tactic that focuses on the dangers customers face if they don’t adopt a product. In the B2B cybersecurity world, FUD-based marketing is quite popular, and while it’s effective in many cases, the negative approach can have unintended consequences on company culture and brand perception.

Enter Dan Lowden of HUMAN, Kevin Sellers of Ping Identity, and Armen Najarian of RSA, three B2B CMOs in the cybersecurity world set on throwing FUD out the door and selling instead through values-based marketing. Tune in to this fascinating episode to learn how these brands have found ingenious ways to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive market, why B2B brand values are essential to success, and more.

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 242: So You Want to Create a Category?

Category creation is the ultimate form of B2B brand differentiation. Think Salesforce and CRM, HubSpot and inbound marketing—these top-tier brands are the leaders in their category because they were the champions of it from the very beginning. It takes a lot of work to get there, however, and not all brands are made for category creation.

This episode features three expert marketing execs who also happen to be veteran category creators—Chip Rodgers of WorkSpan, Gabi Zijderveld of Affectiva, and Bernd Leger (now at Mimecast). Tune in to learn the ins and outs of category creation, like how to engage with analysts to build credibility, how you know you’re on the right track, and how to manage competitors as a category leader.

For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

Marketing as a discipline does not exist in every company. In smaller companies, the absence is often driven by founders who believe that if they make a great product, the market will find them. In larger companies, the reasons are harder to pinpoint but the result is often the same: Marketing is really an order-taking function for sales. How does a newly arrived marketer correct this situation?

When Johnny Smith, Jr., began as VP of marketing services at Encompass Health in late 2019, those assigned to marketing suffered from low morale and labored to keep up with requests. Taking a methodical approach, Smith transformed the department into one that knew customers, built the brand, drove demand and was unafraid of saying no to sales.

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: How Encompass Health Refocused Marketing to Build the Brand

Listen to the Episode: One Marketer’s Change Management Playbook