Huddlers in the News

When IBM sold its marketing software division to investment firm Centerbridge Partners in July 2019, the new owner essentially created a 1,000-person startup. It was given a new name, Acoustic, but lacked a culture, brand equity and a cohesive product offering. With only a few months to maximize the pedigree of IBM Watson Marketing, the clock was ticking.

This was the challenge for Norman Guadagno, Acoustic’s first chief marketing officer. Guadagno, facing a “build the plane while flying it” scenario, luckily started on the same day as the chief human resources officer—giving the pair the opportunity to craft a culture together. This partnership allowed marketing to impact the entire organization, helping Guadagno deliver on Acoustic’s new promise, “Marketing technology reimagined.”

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: How an IBM Spinoff Preserved Culture and Brand Equity on the Fly

Listen to the Episode: Spinning a New B2B Brand Out of IBM

After successive years of double-digit growth, Centro, a digital advertising software company, expected more of the same in 2020. Marketers and their agencies were spending heavily through the Chicago-based company’s digital buying platform and relied on company employees to help execute their buys. The partnerships were fueled by a near-weekly parade of face-to-face industry events.

When COVID hit, the events, travel and entertainment industries stopped spending overnight. Like so many others, Centro’s Chief Marketing Officer Katie Risch was forced to regroup.

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: How Customers Helped a Digital Software Company Navigate the Pandemic

Listen to the Episode: B2B Marketing to the Rescue

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 211: B2B Partnerships That Matter

Like many B2B companies, K2 Software has really zeroed in on what makes its low-code process automation platform mission-critical for its customers. Unlike many B2B companies, K2 had already started shifting its strategy and messaging in 2019, months before the far-reaching effects of COVID were on anybody’s radar. In the scramble to prove that its product or service is essential during a downturn, K2 was ahead of the game.

In this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, K2 CMO Carlos Carvajal shares how the company’s recent brand transformation and various internal and customer partnerships have helped them navigate the challenges of 2020 and transform automation for the better. Be sure to tune in to hear about the success of K2’s virtual event, the launch of a new sub-brand, how K2 celebrates customer success, and more.

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

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, 209: Spinning a New B2B Brand Out of IBM

Imagine a globally recognized brand (say, IBM Watson Marketing) decides to spin out and gets packaged up and purchased by private equity. Imagine said brand not only has big name recognition, but also a handful of acquisitioned companies with some seriously loyal customers. So, you’re a brand-new company with 1,000+ employees, 3,500+ customers in 21 countries, and 5 major products; you need to build an infrastructure, culture, and brand from scratch. Top that all off with a worldwide pandemic, and you’ve got one seriously big challenge ahead of you.

Enter CMO Norman Guadagno. Joining Acoustic in 2019, Norman’s mandate was to create a brand, build a marketing organization, and build a company for the IBM carve-out. Daunting, yes, but in this epic episode, Norman shares how Acoustic has made a name for itself. From partnering with HR to establish a distinct culture to selling the new brand to existing customers, this jam-packed episode is a must for courageous B2B marketers everywhere.

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

For years, B2B marketers have been measured by the quantity of leads they generate for the sales team, whose job is to convert them into revenue. When leads don’t convert, the departments can blame each other for poor leads or bad sales efforts. Without resolution, the standoff can persist.

One chief marketing officer who has systematically diffused the tension between her counterparts in sales is Rashmi Vittal of Conversica, a provider of virtual assistant software. Vittal discusses how a simple but robust nine-square grid fully aligns her team with sales and eliminates potential conflicts before they start. Among the keys to this détente: making sure marketers walk in sales’ shoes, sales enablement playbooks, a commitment to continuous improvement and a shared set of performance metrics. In other words, there is no hand-off.

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: How a Software Company Ended the War between Marketing and Sales

Listen to the Episode: One CMO’s System for Aligning Sales and Marketing

Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 206: B2B Marketing to the Rescue

Businesses need marketing now more than ever if they want to drive top-line growth. Why? Because marketers know how to do more with less. Despite budget cuts and the shift to virtual-only communications, marketers still know how to motivate employees, generate quality leads for sales teams, and gather customer feedback to influence product. As Drew says, “Marketing to the rescue. This is your moment.”

Enter CMO Katie Risch of Centro, a global software provider for digital advertisers that has grown from 3 employees to 700 in 15 years. In this episode, Katie shares how the marketing team at Centro has played a crucial role during COVID—enabling the sales team via high-quality content and enabling the product team to develop a companion product for the platform. As one of the original 3 employees at Centro, Katie also shares her unique path to the CMO role, one that has made her a dynamic leader who really understands what it means to align teams to work towards the company vision. You don’t want to miss it!

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

Marketers targeting enterprise customers traditionally struggle with a long and complex sales process, dealing with buying committees of 10 or more that can deliberate for up to 18 months, putting them through seemingly endless hoops. When the pandemic struck, enterprise sales—with the exception of essential business-continuity services including security, communications and logistics—ground to a halt. This left the rest of the B2B world scrambling for traction.

Chandar Pattabhiram, chief marketing officer of Coupa, a business spend management platform, recognized the need for repositioning. During three weeks in March, Pattabhiram and his team revamped their messaging to place an emphasis on resilience—appealing to chief financial officers who would see the downturn as an opportunity to position their companies for future success. Since then, Coupa has been one of Silicon Valley’s high-flyers, with its stock more than doubling, a result at least partially fueled by its rapid repositioning.

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: How the Pandemic Inspired a Marketing Campaign That Embraces Client Resilience

Listen to the Episode: Today’s Resilience is Tomorrow’s Excellence

Since the early days of the internet, cybersecurity firms have offered complex technical explanations about how their approach thwarts bad actors who can disrupt highly vulnerable computer systems. One company taking a different approach is White Ops, a cybersecurity company that protects brands from sophisticated bot attacks and fraud. 

“People can see right through you if you are talking too much tech, using too many buzzwords, trying to oversell or sell too hard,” says CMO Dan Lowden, whose “Keep it Human” campaign has driven revenue growth and led to a round of funding from Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division and ClearSky Security.

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: How One Cybersecurity Firm Keeps Its Marketing Human

Listen to the Episode: Finding Your Brand’s North Star

Marketing scientists are increasingly the norm in B2B. These individuals know how to stand up a demand generation engine, one that can drive leads into a nurture stream and track them through the sales pipeline. The reward is what many in the industry call “net new logos.” Contribute enough of these new customers at a reasonable acquisition cost and you are a company hero.

One such individual is Joshua Leatherman, the CMO of Service Express, a company that maintains data centers. When Leatherman arrived 8 years ago, it was a traditional sales-driven organization with a limited marketing infrastructure. Today, marketing contributes 70 percent of the new logo pipeline—about as good as it gets. Letterman attributes success to a disciplined process, responsive sales teams and a revenue operations unit that sits between sales and marketing, providing a neutral source of actionable data.

Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: How a Data Center Company Mastered the Science of B2B Marketing

Listen to the Episode: CMO Mathematics with Service Express