Julie Liegl is used to being a part of big things. As EVP of Global Marketing at Salesforce, she helped create and oversee the world-class corporate event that is known as Dreamforce, and she’s currently overseeing a complete transformation in the way that businesses communicate as CMO of Slack.On this episode, Julie unveils some of the plays that have made her so successful across her career. She talks about corporate events and how they can maintain relevance as digital events in the time of COVID, how to create a demand gen team from scratch, and much more.Key TakeawaysDemand Gen needs to be integrated. Every aspect of it needs to be thought of as a part of one single function, rather than separate one-off activities.In order for an event to be successful, you need to help prepare your attendees to make the most of it before they ever arrive.Brand marketing can work hand-in-hand with demand gen. The top of the funnel is still a part of the funnel.Quotes"You have to think of demand gen as a program rather than a set of tactics and how they're going to go along the way. We used to call it lead gen and that very much reflected what it was, which was marketing, throwing leads over the wall, and demand gen is really about being smarter about the entire thing.""I see events as an amplifying effect to demand gen and as a point in the demand gen journey.""Brand is funny because there definitely are ways to measure it. We do a lot of brand studies. We do research on consideration awareness sentiment, and we try to measure it quarterly.""I still think that flashy things can work, but they need to work in a way that makes sense with your product beyond just a clever marketing tagline."SponsorDemand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Tom Butta, Former CMO of SignalFx (acquired by Spunk for $1.05B), discusses the demand-gen mindset that leads to high-dollar acquisitions. On this episode of Demand Gen Visionaries, Tom explains the importance of focusing on marketing fundamentals to see big results, how putting your customers above all will lead to retention and more pipeline, and keeping a company-wide eye to make sure your demand gen leads to more sales. Key TakeawaysThere are three essential elements of demand gen: pipeline creation, revenue metrics, and, often overlooked, customer retention.Customers should be treated as family. They should never find out about a big announcement when the rest of the world does. They should be notified about it before.The most fundamental requirement of demand gen is perspective. Know where marketing is having an impact and make sure customers can find your website.When you spend money on marketing tactics, you need to make sure you’re seeing a return on your investment.Own your content creation. You need to have content that the company can stand behind without question. Quality always starts from within and it needs to be amplified.It’s important to have data to back up your actions. Let your metrics guide your company's strategy, not emotion.Quotes“Demand gen is a function within a function. It's part of a team, but it does not live on its own. It’s reliant upon really good content. It's reliant upon the ability to act appropriately and quickly on opportunities that it creates.”“The validation that you get from customers is just immeasurable.”“Understand that your home is the place that most people will go to and you need that to be your website. You need to be able to ensure that when they get there, they have the best possible experience, but you also need to be sure that they actually can find you.”“You go after the new logos exclusively, and you forget that you can actually have great influence over, building relationships with your existing customers. Those customers are our franchise. They give reason for us to exist.”“My belief (for content) is, it always has to start from within. In terms of turning something over, we did a couple of case studies with external consultants and writers, but for the most part we wrote everything ourselves.”SponsorDemand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Latane Conant is the CMO of 6Sense and author of No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls:  The next generation of account-based sales and marketing. discusses the importance of personalized marketing. On this episode of Demand Gen Visionaries, Latane explains how she generates demand by illuminating “the dark funnel”, why cold outreach is undergoing a fundamental change, and much more.Key TakeawaysThe best demand gen will make people feel something. You need to create a genuine connection with your customer to accelerate their desired results.Contacting a potential customer should be personalized and scaled. Cold emails aren’t going to work anymore. You need to stand out.Shine a light on prospective clients that might be hiding in “the dark funnel”. Dive deeper into client relations to turn prospects into valued customers.Shift your mindset from demand gen to demand capture. Make the experience unique so you organically retain customers.Over time, you earn the right to take risks. Sometimes you have to trust your gut and dismiss outside influences.Quotes“I think the best demand gen makes people feel something. It creates a connection.”“I'm just going to blow this thing up and prove that if we put prospects and their experiences first, we can generate a lot of pipeline and succeed, and do it in this new and different way.”“We decided early on not to have sales ops and marketing ops, but to have revenue ops. As a revenue team, let's always be finding our ‘red’ and always be bringing issues and conversion points forward that aren't performing because that gives us a chance to go and fix them.”“I just always encourage people. If your gut is telling you that it's the right thing to do, it probably is, and sometimes you gotta take those risks.”“I would challenge the new world order to be thinking, not about demand generation, but demand capture. Because if you uncovered ‘the dark funnel’, then you actually see the demand right in front of you.”SponsorDemand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Tracy Eiler, CMO of InsideView Technologies, explains how she has aligned marketing and sales to accelerate pipeline, and shares how optimizing your CRM can drive growth. She also talks about the importance of human interaction with customers to turn buyers into company advocates, and the importance of generating quality vs. quantity leads. Tracy was also a key speaker at the Growth Marketing Conference.Key TakeawaysAlways strive to improve your CRM. Don’t overlook the issues. Cleaning up dirty data can have a significant impact on the company's productivity.Cold calling doesn’t exist anymore. If marketers are doing their job, they’re getting in front of the audience and reaching out to them in a much more productive way.Marketers need to focus on the top of the funnel, but they need to remember to think about their role post-sale to turn customers into advocates.Focus on updating old content into new systems. Just because the platform of the data is outdated doesn’t mean the information within it isn’t relevant.Emphasize diversity in the workplace, and give opportunities to people with unconventional backgrounds to help your company expand.Quotes“I don't use the term ABM anymore. I really think that it’s account-based engagement or account-based pursuit because we’re so integrated between sales, marketing, and customer experience. We go account-based not only for new logo pursuit but also for customer expansion.”“I really think demand marketers should think about, org structure-wise, having sales development report into marketing.”“CRM data quality is something that the ops folks typically own, but it’s at the root of impact to sales and marketing effectiveness.”“Cold calling. I just don't think that exists anymore, right? If marketers are doing their job, we’re warming up an audience and reaching out to them and getting in front of them in a variety of ways.”“Really make sure that sales understands and has buy-in into your strategy. It’s really important—we have to educate them. Wean them off of lead quantity and wean them onto opportunity quality.”“We want more folks who are not white, and we also want diversity of thought, right? Take first-generation college graduates as an example. We don't want everybody to look and sound and come with the same background.”SponsorDemand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Mike Marcellin, CMO of Juniper Networks, explains the benefits of having automated, AI-driven systems that allow marketers to focus on understanding the market and creating organic connections with potential customers.Key TakeawaysCompetition in the marketplace is inevitable. Working smarter than competitors with larger budgets can put you in the same league.The more data, the better the AI. Marketers need to make sure that accurate data informs AI-driven decision-marking.Make the opportunity of demand gen count. When an interested customer comes to you with questions, show them how you can help.Emphasize the importance of digital assets as you think about automating the customer journey.Quotes“If we do our job right, we'll eventually get to a conversation about technology, but the first goal is: Why should I be talking to you? What's in it for me? How's it going to help my business?”“AI is worthless without data. The more data, the better the AI can be, and the more value you can deliver.”“Centralize what you can, and distribute what you must. It’s pretty profound because obviously, we know the benefits of centralization that you can get from efficiency, But you also realize that, at times, you do have to distribute things if there's a strong, compelling reason to do so.”“Many of our competitors are much larger and will outspend us from a marketing perspective. And for that matter, from a sales perspective. They'll have more feet on the street. So we have to be super smart and super-targeted, effectively outsmart them, because we can't outspend them.”“This has become much more of a science over the years, and with the amount of data that we now have at our fingertips, that can be hugely valuable to making demand gen successful. But it's only valuable if you have people that can make sense of that data.”SponsorDemand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Ryan Bonnici discusses why the campaign-based approach to marketing needs to be jettisoned for a new school mindset that constantly tests and adapts, his philosophy for creating useful content that drives value and leads to conversion, how he's driven growth at G2, and much more.Key TakeawaysThe campaign-based approach to marketing needs to be jettisoned for a new school mindset that constantly tests and adaptsDemand gen leaders need to be leveraging intent data in order to increase the efficiency of their demand gen spendCreating interactive content that dramatically increases lead conversionMaking more intentional and digestible content by researching complex topics and simplifying for an easier, more simple user experience results in higher trafficQuotes“I think of demand gen differently than most B2B SaaS marketers. How do I generate as much marketing source pipeline for the business as possible? How do I increase our brand awareness and trust? So that pipeline, whether that was through marketing or through sales, flows through the pipe more efficiently.”“We can't just rely on organic word-of-mouth. We need to really try and improve our technical SEO and prove the breadth and depth of the content on our site.”“Most marketing teams over-index on influence and should over-index more on sourcing revenue for their sales team. You can over-index and they think there's like this holy grail of attribution that I have yet to see any company really have when it comes to influence.”“I just fully believe at my core that inbound marketing and attracting someone to you and giving them value is just a better way of doing business. It's a much longer-term way of doing business. It creates a moat around you that paid can never do.”“I just ultimately look for the team to think about not just creating content for content's sake, but if we're going to write something, how can we write it in a way that's better than everyone else. Can we do more research so that we can simplify this complex topic to make it easier to understand? Can we identify better metaphors? Can we write a catchier headline that increases click-throughs? How do we really do it a little bit better than everyone at each of those different stages of the content creation process?”SponsorDemand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Corinne Sklar, CMO of IBM, shares how demand gen influences their marketing strategies, and vice versa. She dives into the partnership her team shares with sales to ensure seamless execution of their acquisition strategy. On this episode of Demand Gen Visionaries, Corinne talks about growth at IBM and how companies, big and small, can implement consistent marketing strategies to generate a successful sales experience.Key TakeawaysWhen brand marketing and demand gen work closely together to bring awareness to prospects, revenue followsTimeless content is the key to providing a seamless and reliable customer experience that continues to deliver value — even years down the roadTransparency and clear communication with teammates is the secret to a healthy, productive, and conflict-free work environmentQuotes“Content marketing has to stand out. It either has to be provocative, or it has to be super detailed in regards to a problem we know needs to be solved.”“People are people. I have resolved conflicts more by simply picking up the phone and calling someone than any other tactic that I've ever used.”“The company needs to be thought of as a marketing- and sales-driven organization, not just sales.”“Look for digital clues around what products and services customers are interested in — what engagement they're having across your business to be able to tailor outreach to them. Marketing plays a huge role in providing those digital footprints right into the place that sellers work every day. And that should be their CRM or on their mobile device. I think that's a critical aspect of driving demand gen in a B2B world.”“We’d look at the integrated needs of our sellers — whether it was about tools, whether it was about training, whether it was about compensation — and really develop programs together as a team. All of those things are so important for a marketing organization.”SponsorDemand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Fewer demand challenges are greater than driving growth in a mature market. But it’s not impossible, according to Nate Skinner. On this episode of Demand Gen Visionaries, Nate explains how he has been able to help drive growth at Oracle by stepping in and understanding the landscape, identifying opportunities, coordinating with sales, and clearly articulating value.Key Takeaways:In today’s digital environment, it’s impossible to predict the exact journey someone will take toward becoming a customer, so it’s important that every touchpoint reinforce the desired customer experience.There is no shortcut for talking to customers. Great demand gen marketers have to talk to customers and understand their needs.Especially with larger brands, it’s important to be coordinated across functions. Great campaigns are ones where sales, marketing, product, and everything other function are on the same page.Quotes:“The journey your customer follows to get to your brand is nonlinear. They can come in through a case study, an ad, a demo, etc. Every one of those touchpoints is an opportunity to influence that relationship and engage that customer. And now more than ever, we have to bring those things together and really engage that customer on their terms in the way that they want to be engaged.”“I can't be good at my job unless I understand what's working and what's not working. Then we can do more of what works and less of what doesn't. Then you can look for those opportunities to change the game.”“If you go back a few years, we all were learning about or knew about the ideal customer profile. But now it's no longer necessarily a persona that you need to market to and engage with. It's a committee of personas."“You have to make the website as simple and approachable and concise as possible because people have such limited attention spans. And in addition, right now everyone is sitting at their home on their computers, searching the internet. So if you're not doing your best to make sure your website attracts them when they find you, you are losing right now.”“There's no shortcut to talking to customers. Nothing drives me crazier in marketing professionals than those that don't talk to customers all the time.”SponsorDemand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.