Huddlers in the News

At the first hint of the deal to acquire the software division of Pitney Bowes, Syncsort Chief Marketing Officer Kevin Ruane knew he would be playing "Beat the Clock." Once the deal closed in December 2019, Syncsort would have only six months before it had to drop the Pitney Bowes name. And, given that the acquisition would double the data integrity company's revenue and product portfolio, it was also clear that the combined entity needed a new name.

Nonetheless, Ruane was determined to involve the more than 1,400 combined employees in every step of that naming process. “We had an obligation to put our employees at the center of this branding because of the cultural aspects of bringing these businesses together,” he says. By May 2020, the world was intaroduced to Precisely, but not before hundreds of employees had the chance to learn about, influence and embrace the new brand and purpose.

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: How a Data Integrity Company Got Employees Involved in Rebranding Process

Listen to the Episode: Precisely How to Change Your Brand Name

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 227: B2B Virtual Events Done Better

In-person events have always been gold for B2B brands. Accounting for 10-50% of B2B marketing budgets in 2019, B2B marketers relied on physical events as a massive revenue source, effectively filling the funnel with leads, closing deals, and extending customer contracts.

This was not to be so in 2020. We all know the story—as marketers everywhere had to pivot to digital, events and event planning went virtual. Lift and shift was not going to work. Not only did B2B marketing teams face unanticipated technical challenges and a sea of new virtual platforms, they also had to figure out how they could actually engage attendees and nurture leads in a world of Zoom fatigue.

This episode comes from a recent livestream, where CMO Mandy Dhaliwal (Dell Boomi), CMO Paige O’Neill (Sitecore), and CEO David Fischette (Go West Creative Group) shared everything about their virtual event experiences in 2020, both the good and the bad. Tune in for common challenges, creative solutions, and predictions for the future of B2B virtual events. Who knows, they may be here to stay.

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

Like snow blanketing the East Coast, email is relentless. But there is the occasional snowflake—an email so relevant, timely and well-crafted that it moves you to action—and delivers an ROI of, say, $42 for every $1 spent. This kind of email, it turns out, can be found only through testing. One expert in this area is Melissa Sargeant, chief marketing officer of Litmus, a leading provider of email testing software. Sargeant anticipates a bright future for email especially as marketers increase their use of AI and machine learning. These technologies enable marketers to deliver personalized and consistent experiences—trends Sargeant sees converging in 2021.

Litmus CMO discusses AI, machine learning and personalized customer experiences.

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: How a Testing Software Firm Helps Marketers Double Down on Email

Listen to the Episode: Litmus Testing Your B2B Email Marketing Strategy

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 223: How to Get More Women in the C-Suite

There are 50 honorees listed in TopRank’s 2020 installment of Influential Women in B2B Marketing Who Rocked, and in addition to these amazing leaders, we at Renegade know that there are countless others worth celebrating for their contributions to marketing in the B2B world.

This episode comes from our recent livestream show on the subject, featuring LogRhythm CMO Cindy Zhou, Skillsoft CMO Michelle Boockoff-Bajdek, and Charlene Li, the founder of Altimeter, author of The Disruption Mindset, and one of the women on TopRank’s aforementioned list.

Tune in to hear these inspiring leaders and role models share all about what it means to be a woman in the C-Suite, what progress still needs to be made, and how we can all work together to get there.

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

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 219: Powering 2021 B2B Marketing with Conversational AI

In the premiere episode of Renegade Thinkers Live, Drew was joined by CMOs Rashmi Vittal (Conversica) and John McCrea (Amplify.ai), to discuss all things conversational AI. We take stirring things up quite literally here at Renegade, so in this episode, we sipped in the latest AI marketing insights along with Letherbee’s original label gin (which was amazing, by the way).

It was a fun episode, filled with AI conversational marketing use cases, wisdom from Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and a Live audience Q&A. Even Google Chrome makes an appearance! Tune in to hear some incredible use cases, learn why John and Rashmi both say that “bot” is a terrible word, and see just how Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs) can transform B2B marketing in a digital-first world.

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

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 218: Awareness Matters: How One B2B CMO Cuts Through

What happens when you pair an identity security company and Terry Crews? An impressive, wildly successful influencer marketing success story, that’s what. It was the final piece of the “Let’s boost our brand awareness” puzzle that Ping Identity CMO Kevin Sellers was looking for. They had already identified their new brand identity and got internal support, now it was time to go big.

This episode is all about the courageous, artful, thoughtful, and scientific marketing that goes into building brand awareness, all in the service of driving new customer acquisition. As Kevin shares, “You can’t win business if you don’t even get a chance to bid on the deal.” Tune in for an inspiring story about brand differentiation, with ingenious marketing executions and measurable results.

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

Acquiring new customers—so-called "new net logos"—has been the prime directive in the B2B tech realm. From private equity to venture capital, from startup to IPO, value was based on the ability to add customers at an ever-increasing rate. When the pandemic struck, adding customers became increasingly challenging, except for essential sectors including security, cloud or remote work capabilities such as Zoom. Attention turned to existing customers, with retention being Job One and upselling the tactic for stability if not growth.

For Carlos Carvajal—who started at K2 Software as CMO in November 2019—the focus on customers began as a research exercise to identify new messaging. What K2 learned proved to be far more important as the pandemic took hold. Fortuitously, the business process-management and automation company was increasingly delivering software to help automate essential, mission-critical processes. Packaging this insight into a new product, K2 had a powerful story to tell existing customers. It drove engagement and revenue and preceded K2's acquisition by Nintex in October.

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: How App for Mission-Critical Processes Drove Customer Retention for Software Company

Listen to the Episode: B2B Partnerships That Matter

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 217: Precisely How to Change Your Brand Name

Would CMO Kevin Ruane recommend renaming a brand during a pandemic? No, he wouldn’t; but they had to do precisely that when Syncsort acquired the data and software division of Pitney Bowes in December 2019. The company had 6 months to change the Pitney Bowes name—6 months that just so happened to coincide with all of the disruptions of 2020.

In this episode, Kevin shares how Syncsort became Precisely, a global leader in data integrity committed to its “Trust Your Data” message. Tune in for tried-and-true best practices for B2B brands undergoing a name change, like when to get employees involved (hint: early and often) and how to successfully transition old brand equity over to a new, purpose-packed brand.

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

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 215: Litmus Testing Your B2B Email Marketing Strategy

This September, Litmus released the results of its latest state of email survey: 77% of marketers say email is one of their most effective channels, and 78% suggest that it’s been vital to their overall success. This should come as no surprise, especially given that Litmus surveys have also found email has a staggeringly high return on investment: $42 ROI for every $1 spent.

The survey came out with the launch of Litmus’ first-ever Litmus Live Everywhere, a free, virtual event to replace their in-person one (which typically costs ~$1500, by the way), as well as a new product and certification program. Needless to say, Litmus has been busy.

In this episode, CMO Melissa Sargeant joins Drew to discuss all things email marketing, like how Litmus markets to marketers, common mistakes, and why batch and blast is dead. This episode is jam-packed with insights from the CMO of one of the leading email marketing tools of today. Don’t miss it!

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