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Read Q&As with the top B2B marketers today in Drew's Ad Age column. 

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  • February 28, 2020 10:42 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 177: A CMO's Guide to Cultivating Customer Champions

    How important are your customers to your business? This one should be a no-brainer—the relationships you build with your customers are vital to success. Leaders that actively focus on customer engagement and satisfaction are able to nurture a customer-base that will champion your product on your behalf and help push innovation. With a wealth of experience under his belt, Chip Rodgers, CMO of WorkSpan, knows the quantifiable value of cultivating customer champions and is here to tell us how he nurtured these relationships from WorkSpan’s early startup days to now.

    Chip puts a special emphasis on building and retaining trust, and shared a perfect Bill McDermott quote on the subject: “Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets.” For more gems like this, listen in to this week’s Renegade Thinkers Unite and learn about how cultivating customer champions can boost your business value, shape your product, and bring in new prospects. Plus, for additional material on the subject, take a look at the aptly named 8th chapter of our guide to effective B2B brand strategy, “Cultivate Customer Champions.”

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

  • February 12, 2020 1:14 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 176: Keep Calm and Acquisition On

    It’s tough enough to build a company’s marketing engine from the ground up, but Isabelle Papoulias, CMO of Mediafly, successfully navigated through not just one, but two acquisitions within a six-month period. What did she learn? Not all acquisitions are created equal: it was two weeks before their second acquisition announcement when Isabelle, in conversation with her CEO, realized they had an opportunity to completely pivot their brand messaging for the better and decided to scrap their original plan. While this would be considered risky to most, the decision ultimately elevated Mediafly to a new level within the sales enablement category.

    Join us on this week’s episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite to hear all about Isabelle’s experience during these back-to-back acquisitions, how their campaign brought both expected and unexpected successes, and why ABM goes beyond marketing to give a company a surround-sound approach to targeting valuable prospects. If you’re looking for additional materials on polishing a brand—which can be helpful in scenarios like Isabelle’s—take a look at our comprehensive guide to effective B2B brand strategy!

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

  • February 07, 2020 12:43 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 174: Finding Your Brand's North Star

    Sometimes, the big ideas sort of just happen. That said, some magical brand moment isn’t going to just appear without some planning or effort—but sometimes, some small bit of genuine authenticity can grow into a brand pearl. That’s part of what happened with White Ops, and on this episode, Dan Lowden, CMO, discusses how.

    White Ops is fueled by their purpose-driven mission to disrupt the illicit economy built by cybercriminals; that mission has caught fire and stands as a sterling example of why purpose is a must. Tune in to hear about how they formed their mission, how they show it to the world, why they shun the hard sell, and how an overarching purpose came from a simple t-shirt that just read “human.” 

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

  • November 01, 2019 1:16 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 160: When's the Right Time to Rebrand?

    “When the time is right, you’ll know.” It feels like an almost trope-ish answer to many of life’s questions, or like the vague wisdom from a mentor in a karate movie. Unfortunately, the utility of that phrase really doesn’t extend to executing a rebrand. So, how did Acquia know it was time to rebrand?

    Acquia, an enterprise software company, just topped $200 million in revenue, and has achieved 57% growth in the past three years. Clearly, they’ve been doing some things right, and can feel good about their recent decision to rebrand. So, how did CMO Lynne Capozzi know the timing was right? Well, it took a quite a bit of marketing know-how, a need to stand out in the market, and a desire to really emphasize the company’s purpose: to help people “experience digital freedom.”

    Tune in to this week’s episode to hear more about Lynne’s extensive marketing background, their approach to a successful rebrand, the importance of getting internal buy-in, and more.

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

  • October 11, 2019 1:40 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 157: From Shepherding to CMOing: How Simon Schaffer-Goldman Helps Case Paper Cut Through

    Simon Schaffer-Goldman of Case Paper is really just your run-of-the-mill CMO. Well, except maybe for starting out as a shepherd in New Zealand. Also, maybe his portfolio of stunning photography and his penchant for comedy writing are somewhat uncommon. Oh, and the willingness to lead a bold rebrand with a new approach that strays pretty far from the typical tone of B2B paper companies. Hm. Okay, maybe Simon isn’t so run-of-the-mill after all. Though, run-of-the-mill could make for some pretty decent paper industry puns… We’ll file that one away for now.

    On this week’s RTU, Simon and Drew discuss Case Paper’s recent update to their branding and marketing, including their new commitment to being “On the Case,” how introducing a purpose-driven branding campaign can improve the company culture and operations, agency partnerships (including with yours truly!), and Case’s history—and future—with absurdity, humor, and, generally, having a good time cutting through. Listen in for more!

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

  • September 06, 2019 8:51 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 151: Spurring Company & Category Growth at Brightcove

    If someone ran up to you and said, “Congrats, you’re now the CMO of a $165M tech company with about 500 employees,” what would you do? First, maybe celebrate a bit—that’s a pretty significant achievement—but next, you’ve got to form a plan. Are you pursuing growth? Acquiring companies? Rebranding? Pivoting away from tech and towards producing artisanal hand soaps?

    Granted, Sara Larsen, CMO of Brightcove (a $165M cloud video platform with about 500 employees), didn’t just get her role from some random guy on the street—she’d stepped into it after an extensive career in tech marketing at companies like IBM and SAP—but hopefully, that thought exercise gave you just the slightest glimpse into the sort of decisions that need to get made when you take the helm of a ship like Brightcove.

    Coming into the role, Larsen wanted to aim for growth, but not just for the company; the entire category of online video could be expanded with the right approach. Now, ten months later, the company has grown and is hard at work pushing its category further. Tune in to this interview to hear how they’re approaching that, as well as other insights regarding career management, successful acquisition, customer experience, employee engagement, and more.

    For more about the short-term tactics that can lead to demand generation and growth, check out Renegade’s B2B demand generation guide, here.

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


  • June 21, 2019 10:54 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 139: Digital Superheroes: How Agari Makes a Bold Mission Real

    What do you need to make a big splash? A big ship, one would assume, is a terrific place to start. So that’s exactly what Agari used to launch their new brand, the purpose of which is written loudly and proudly on the walls of their headquarters: “Agari protects digital communications to ensure humanity prevails over evil.”

    That’s a pretty bold way of explaining that your company is an advanced cybersecurity firm for email. But a bold mission statement is exactly what companies need to grow. At Agari, this statement is deeply woven into the community fabric, from the board members down to rank-and-file employees.

    On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Armen Najarian, CMO, discusses how they made the mission real, and how having that meaningful guidance of saving and protecting the world of digital communications, helped drive brand, product development, company growth, and more.

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

  • June 07, 2019 12:54 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 137: Post-Sale Marketing and Keeping the Customer Smiling

    Customers: What are they? Where do they come from, and what do they want? These are some of the great, cosmic questions we humans may never be able to answer. Just kidding, it’s actually (from a high-level, conceptual viewpoint) pretty simple. We’re all doing business with people, and people matter. If you keep your customer happy, great things happen. Going a little further, companies need to spend more time focusing on customer activation. Customers can and should be advocates for your brand, but to achieve that, they have to be treated well. Simple enough concept, but execution will take a little work.

    On this episode of RTU, Kevin Spurway, SVP of Marketing at Appian, an enterprise application development platform, talks about the high level of commitment and effort required to really engage with customers, especially existing ones. He discusses what he calls “post-sale marketing,” which is how Appian has been so successful at developing meaningful relationships with its client base. Tune in to hear about post-sale marketing, celebrating customer success, customer-engagement pitfalls to avoid, and more!

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

  • May 17, 2019 1:22 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 134: Building a Lean, Mean, Lead-Gen Machine

    About 5 years ago, Rebecca Stone joined LiveRamp and the CEO said “I want you to be as sophisticated as possible in advertising, and how you use it.” At the time, the company had two sales development reps, a funnel that wasn’t necessarily feeding leads properly, and a young tech stack and tons of potential, so Rebecca got to work on the company’s digital transformation.

    Now, the company has a tech stack built from roughly 40 different tools, broken into different operating nodes, a marketing team that supports 20 sales development reps, an in-house data lake, and data analytics models that can accurately predict how marketing spend will translate to revenue—a sort of holy grail for marketing analytics.

    On this episode, Rebecca shares her journey at LiveRamp, a platform that helps brands get personalized ads in front of users across the web, and how she helped build the well-oiled marketing machine that her department has become.

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

  • March 06, 2019 11:38 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 122: The Art of the Survey

    Surveys can provide a wealth of data on any sort of topic. But there is an art to crafting the perfect survey, one that invites honest and valuable feedback without steering the respondents, and doesn’t damage the responses by overwhelming the survey takers.

    Leela Srinivasan, CMO of SurveyMonkey, took some time after recording her recent RTU episode to discuss survey creation with Drew. Well-constructed surveys are crucial for informing creative, effective marketing efforts. To learn more about artfully crafting questions, audience selection, getting people to take your survey, making sense of the information, and more, check out this brief, bonus episode!

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

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