Measure Marketing on Outcomes, Not Actions | Scott Berg

Katie Foote: Welcome to Revenue Talks. I'm Katie.

Justin Keller: And I'm Justin. And on this show, we get real about what it takes to build pipeline and successfully scale businesses.

Katie Foote: By having conversations with folks who have been there before, we explore what it takes to create strong cross- functional alignment, how technology factors in, how different teams think about attribution and so much more.

Justin Keller: If you're looking to win in the revenue era, you're in the right place to learn how.

Katie Foote: Hello everyone. And welcome to the next episode of Revenue Talks, our podcast here at Drift. My name is Katie Foote, and I'm the CMO. And I am fortunate enough to be joined by Scott Berg today, who is our Vice President of Global Revenue and Field Marketing at Hitachi Ventara. Scott, welcome to the program.

Scott: Thank you, Katie. I appreciate you having me.

Katie Foote: Can you start by telling us a little bit about your experience and what led you to your current role?

Scott: Yeah, I spent a lot of time in the tech industry back with Compact and HP, having done everything from brand to revenue marketing, database marketing, the whole aspect, actually of marketing, except for PR. And then moved on from there to a company called IHS, which is a provider of information and data. And then from there, I took over as head of marketing at Argos Media, which is a price reporting agency that's used by the commodities market. And then of course then moved to Hitachi Ventara and have been very fortunate to work with some really great people here.

Katie Foote: That's great. The theme of today's talk is all about how marketing attributes revenue and gets credit for contributing to the business and the bottom line. And having been in all of the different functions within marketing, how have you seen marketing's contribution to revenue change over time? And currently at Hitachi, how are you measuring marketing's impact?

Scott: Yeah, I think going back, marketing used to be really the focus, everybody used to say is the brand, right? It was this halo effect of being able to show that the company was out there, it was logo based, et cetera. And then of course, as time moved on, CEOs and boards wanted to actually see revenue coming out of the marketing department. Of course the technology came with that at the same time, so that you had the ability to utilize technology, to measure it, to be able to integrate into a number of your different systems. And so I've seen it grow from that perspective. I always consider marketing to be an investment. I often say that there's no need to spend a dollar in marketing unless it drives revenue. And I think that that's consistent today because if you look at boards and you look at shareholders, they want to see a consistent increase in revenue. And marketing and sales now are really synonymous with one another. When you think about sales, when you think about pipeline, you think about marketing and sales. In the words, marketing and real estate services, don't often collide in the same sentence because we're just not aligned to those types of functions, but we're here to drive pipeline and drive contributed revenue. So it's moving away from the old things that we used to talk about which were clicks and how many views and downloads and all of those types of things, which were more the action oriented types of things when it came to marketing to really now, the outcomes associated with marketing. And that's, I think, grown certainly over time, and technology's really been the thing that's helped do that.

Katie Foote: Yeah. It's interesting. I think when you looked at the role of the CMO in the past, there were really two types. There was the brand marketer, the mad men, era style marketer. Then there was more of the COO all data driven. And I think the best CMOs and leaders of marketing have been able to bring the two streams together. The challenge in many ways is that it's not quite as linear as sales, for example, the measurement of what marketing is contributing. And because it's not quite as linear, it can leave room for debate, right? There can be silos where marketing says," Well, we're contributing this." And sales might question it. Throughout your career. And in your current role, how do you break down those silos? Get everybody on the same page, so that it's really one revenue team between sales and marketing?

Scott: I still deal with that particular situation even today. I wish I could tell you that I've got it completely solved. But here's some things that I've learned along the way. The first thing is, we're all in this for the same thing, right? We're all here to drive pipeline. We're all here to drive revenue. And I think that a lot of times each one of the groups sometimes becomes a little bifurcated in that, and maybe doesn't come together. How I've been able to bring it together successfully to, I think, some degree probably about 80% successful with that, is clearly, one, you've got to get the definitions right. What is revenue? What is sourced pipeline? And what is influenced pipeline? Because a lot of times sales thinks of this completely differently than marketing thinks of it. Number one. Number two is the tracking of course. Probably the most important part of this whole thing is the tracking, to make sure that we're all looking at the same numbers from the same systems and that they're actually being developed the same way. So in other words, if the way that we're measuring attributed revenue through our marketing automation system, is it the same as what they're measuring marketing attributed revenue through their CRM system? We have a problem here, because everybody's going to look at the same numbers. And I had that problem actually over the last month, where a small tweak was made on the Salesforce system and it caused for those two numbers to be completely different than what they had been in the past. I think the other aspect associated with it is understanding that there are two different types of pipeline, but both of them are equally important. Sales tends to think usually that source pipeline is the most important type of pipeline. It's brand new leads that come in. However, I argue that influenced pipeline is actually as important as sourced pipeline, because when you think about it, if a customer comes in and sales may have sourced that particular lead itself, but that customer now has questions about a particular product or anything that's out there. They put that into a search engine. And magically, Hitachi Ventara's information comes up. Well, marketing is paid for that particular type of influenced type of revenue. Now what's our involvement with that? Well, we're an equal partner with the sales department at this point. So it also has the impact of the overall brand. If somebody doesn't even know who you are, they're not even going to put you into the mindset of being able to call. So can that be measured? Nope, a little squishy to be quite honest, right? But it has a huge impact. And so I think that there has to be this appreciation for both of them from the sales side of the house and the appreciation from marketing that they need leads. And if you look at overall, 80% of CEOs don't trust the numbers that are coming out of marketing. Got a problem with that, right? Because when you're sitting around the table and sales is sitting there, marketing is sitting there, and operations are sitting there, everybody looks to sales as being the key area for revenue generation. So when sales says something, it tends to be the thing that everybody focuses in on. So there has to be that appreciation. Again, I think marketing sits at the table, but again, when your numbers are being questioned by the majority of the C level executives, you really have to align those metrics to be able to sit at the table and have a comparable conversation.

Katie Foote: Yeah. Have equal footing and not feel like you're disadvantaged before you've even come to the table.

Scott: Exactly. Exactly.

Katie Foote: Yeah. I think the key there and that I'm really passionate about is that relationship between the CMO and the head of sales or CRO, because you can help support one another and build trust around that table. So when you're live in the room and doubt comes your way, you've got a true partner to help stand shoulder to shoulder with you.

Scott: Exactly. Your goals and my goals actually are aligned to the heads of sales and to the sales organization itself. I don't have a goal that's around how many clicks my team needs to make. I don't have a goal around how many inquiries my team needs to make. That's all the things that actually generate the revenue. So it's the actions that get to the point of the revenue itself. So again, my goals are aligned completely to them in trying to drive the pipeline and trying to make sure that marketing is supporting that. So when we're not doing that, I'm in the middle of that game and it impacts my performance and it impacts the folks that work for me, their performance as well, because their goals are aligned as well to revenue and pipeline's.

Katie Foote: Yeah, that's great. Revenue and pipeline is the rising tie that lifts all boats, and then marketing is, again, the sports reference, but spiking the ball in the end zone and sales is out there struggling from a pipeline and revenue standpoint. Nobody's winning the game.

Scott: Exactly, exactly. You're right. I think we've made a lot of progress marketing to sales, but there's still a lot of that to take place. And of course, sales gets a little more excited about pipeline when revenue is down. And why isn't marketing producing more pipeline? And there's that education aspect for them to understand that marketing typically only generates 20% to 30% of source pipeline for a company.

Katie Foote: Right.

Scott: So there's that aspect as well.

Katie Foote: Yeah. We always called it, from a sales organization, it's an and business, you have to help generate pipeline and close it by doing both at the same time. And marketing can assist in that endeavor through the influence that you talked about, but everyone has to be pulling on the rope in the same direction.

Scott: Absolutely. 100% agree.

Katie Foote: When you came into Hitachi, because you're still relatively new in your tenure within the organization, how did you see that tension playing out? And how have you been able to bring folks together? Not just across sales and marketing, but the entire go to market motion?

Scott: Yeah, I think some of the themes would be marketing sat over here, sales sat over here, but the two never came together. The two ships passed in the night. And I don't know if that was because of the people or if that was just the process or whatever. So that was a big issue there. Two, was the metrics and the measurement and aligning that. The definitions were again, as I mentioned earlier, a big issue. How that's been brought together is frankly, I probably talk more to the sales organization than I do to any part of the company. I probably spend 60% of my day in conversations with sales, about pipeline and where they're at and what we need to do. So the first thing was actually starting to build a trust between both marketing and sales so that they knew exactly what my goals were and where I was aligned. So I think that that was a successful portion of this. Two, is really understanding what their business goals were and understanding what the challenges were. Three, was having a very real conversation with them, which was," Guess what? There's so much money. There's so many people who can't do everything."

Katie Foote: Focus. inaudible.

Scott: I'd love to be able to do everything. But the reality check is, I'm peanut butter in these dollars all over the place. And it's not giving you the actual result that you need. So honestly, it was what I call the stuff syndrome. We were doing a lot of stuff for everybody, but we weren't actually pushing the needle. So we've reduced down the amount of things that we're doing by probably 40%, and that has been painful to some areas.

Katie Foote: Right.

Scott: But is it the right thing to do? Yes. It takes time to build that up. So that was another big portion of this, is to align to that. And then of course, the education of marketing, which is a challenge. Why are leads quote, unquote, bad? I had a sales person say, when I said," Well, what's your definition of a good lead?" The salesperson said," Well, I should pick up the phone and they should just place an order." This is an eCommerce, right? This is about trying build a relationship. I can do so much. You have to pick it up and do your job. So it was really getting to that level of honesty between both organizations.

Katie Foote: Well, it's getting back to aligning on those definitions. What is a good lead? What is a bad lead? What are our rules of engagement with one another? And just consistently revisiting those. Because you can agree in a room, but then it almost feels like you agree, you shake hands, you got into the real world and you can easily drift apart again. So how do you keep coming together and having micro agreements over time?

Scott: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's not a one and done process, which is, of course the reason why I'm constantly meeting with sales to enforce that and understand if we need to make changes to it because the business has changed and that we need to adapt to that particular change within the company itself.

Katie Foote: It's funny you mentioned the focus that your team has brought and not peanut buttering, reducing, and really focusing on not 10 things from a mediocre fashion, but five things really well. We found in our own organization, we were doing a lot of random acts of marketing is what I would call them, that weren't coordinated, that weren't strategic. I think there's a famous quote around don't mistake activity for achievement. That resonates deeply with me. If you can really create focus and do five things incredibly well, it can move the needle more than 20 things mediocre.

Scott: Absolutely. Yeah. My stuff syndrome is, you just got to stop doing stuff and start focusing. So yeah, it's interesting. And I think most marketers actually, and when you're looking at the heads of marketing, I think they all get into that because I believe a lot of times sales is," Let's go do this, this and this." And again, they're more into the activity level versus how do we focus level.

Katie Foote: Well, and it's easier going back to the whole concept of linear, clear data on what's impacting what. Within a sales organization, there can be a lot of forecasting done around," All right, if I put this number of touches on an account or on an individual, it typically yields this amount in pipeline, this amount in revenue." It gets much more formulaic.

Scott: Yeah, exactly.

Katie Foote: And marketing is very much art and a science. So, yes, data is critically important to what we do, but creating that focus can be very helpful.

Scott: Mm- hmm. Absolutely. Completely agree with you. I'm glad to see that other companies and you've experienced that as well. Sometimes I feel like I'm on an island myself, where you're thinking," Gosh, am I the only one going through this?"

Katie Foote: No, and this is Cathar, right?

Scott: Oh yeah. It certainly is.

Katie Foote: Let's talk a little bit about your work around, go to market sales plays and plays in general and how you bring that motion of those three distinct teams. What are we going to build? What are we going to market? What are we going to sell? And then together, creating that go to market motion that's scalable, repeatable. How have plays showed up in your world prior to Hitachi, but also now?

Scott: I think it goes back to, frankly, doing less than more. One of the things that we did at Hitachi was we focused in on basically four campaigns and that was it. And they were global campaigns and they went into market and they included all of the different activities from the e- mail to the advertising, to everything associated with it. And then we put the target audiences within there and kept them fairly consistent so that we didn't have a lot of overlap. Again, that's really how we've kept things focused with the go to market motion, because we're now able to align that across our regions as well as start to align that across the sales organization themselves. So that's allowed us to get a great deal of focus. Now that's your overall top line, big picture stuff that goes in there and it generates revenue. The other challenge though, associated with that, that I found is that, gosh, there's things that we've got to do that are very targeted and quick turn and we've got to move very fast because there happens to be a very unique opportunity within a region. And typically, I found that within each one of the regions that we have. So it was actually being able to then start to get into this fast motion of being able to deal with smaller initiatives, not going crazy, not doing 20 different initiatives, but say five different initiatives during the year to yield results that were completely different from region to region. So that's how we've done a market motion. We were closely with sales and with product to ensure that we're aligned when it comes to the messaging and all the different things that we've done. We've taken actually our product launches and integrated them into the campaigns themselves. So now we're not throwing product launch stuff out there as well. We've now aligned it to all of the different campaigns that we have, so it's seamless in the communication that's going out to our customers and it makes sense to them because the messaging aligns between all of the different communication tactics that we're using.

Katie Foote: Yeah. A way to that I've thought about it in the past is using campaigns as the organizing framework to package up and you need a trigger event. Something needs to be happening for you to create a campaign, to then push out across all channels and reach your audiences. Then you avoid that lack of focus, that random acts of marketing, there's an umbrella that's driving all of this activity.

Scott: I concur. Yeah, absolutely.

Katie Foote: How have you thought about your use of campaigns and that focus? Are you able to plug and play relatively easy across different regions from a language standpoint, localization? What's that process been like?

Scott: It's something that we are actually working on. So it's the rent and put back into the market kind of a thing.

Katie Foote: Yeah.

Scott: We've been successful in some areas. Actually, COVID has made it challenging for us because we do and have done a lot of events in the past. So there's opportunities to do webinars or round tables or whatever they may be. And sometimes you can repeat those. But we've had a challenge with that overall. In addition, some of the use cases that come out of the Americas are completely different than those that are in Asia Pacific, as well as in Amia. So that's been one of the challenges. So what we're trying to do is come up with an overall framework where I would say that 60% of it, it's the same stuff that you should be doing and that we can apply that across the globe itself. We're just in the process of rolling it out right now. I anticipate that it will be successful, but we'll still have some bumps in the road that we're going to have to get to. Now the four campaigns that I mentioned that we have out in the marketplace, those are very consistent. We don't make any changes with those at all. Those go to market in every single region the same way because the messaging is more generalistic. But it's those single hit things that come into each particular region that you've got to hit. Those are the ones that have been the challenge. But again, we're working on that to see if we can make some headway on it.

Katie Foote: It's the tension between that overarching air cover that those four campaigns are generating. And that one to few, one to one motion that's specific to your region, specific to an audience. You have both.

Scott: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And the culture does have an impact.

Katie Foote: Yeah, absolutely.

Scott: As much as I think we may want to think as marketers that we can duplicate things across the globe very easily, and that we should just be able to put it in the market, that's not typically the case. We market Asia pacific. Every single one of those countries is completely different.

Katie Foote: Yeah.

Scott: From Japan at the top, all the way down to New Zealand at the bottom in Asia Pacific, those are completely different cultures, completely different languages, use cases, et cetera. And so when you start to look at the international aspect, it's a lot more challenging. Europe, I've always found is a little bit more homogenous. It's all together. You can play, I think, across Europe a little bit easier. But it is highly challenging across Asia Pacific.

Katie Foote: And if you don't pay respect to that and honor those nuances and differences, it can actually backfire.

Scott: Exactly. Somebody here in the Americas, I can't make a decision that's smart and well thought out about Asia Pacific. That's the reason why I have a head of marketing in Asia Pacific actually tell me," That makes sense," or," That doesn't make sense."

Katie Foote: Right. Yeah. With my experience internationally, I have always thought of this, and you mentioned this in 60%, but the 80/ 20 role, generally speaking, we can put frameworks and reels in place for 80% of the things we do, but we have to leave enough flexibility that 20% to be able to tweak, and be very respectful to regions outside of the Americas, for example.

Scott: That's right. That's right.

Katie Foote: You mentioned earlier that your organization relied pretty heavily on in- person events. How real is this concept of zoom fatigue of getting into a two dimensional world, and how have you overcome that in your go- to market motion?

Scott: When COVID first hit two years ago, it was very easy to get people online. But then all of us started doing Zoom meetings. All of us started doing all of these particular types of online events. And I think that in general, our target audiences are burned out. They don't have the time. And myself, I probably get five to eight different invitations every single week to attend a webinar or to attend some type of a Zoom cast. So has the performance gone down? It has incrementally gone down to some degree, but it's the target audience and the number of people that are attending, which for us, has really been the impact. But the overall sales, when you take a look at it from a per person or per company, has remained relatively stable. It's down a little bit, but not much.

Katie Foote: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott: So yeah, we're feeling that pain, we started to get back into the market with some regional events and that's actually been very refreshing. Gosh, when events get canceled and you're there to be a speaker or to share ideas or products or bring your sales people in, it makes it tough. It makes it really, really difficult. And I was actually talking to somebody the other day and they asked me what my biggest challenges that I saw for 2022. And actually the number one was navigation from the up and down that's occurring with COVID and one minute we're all staying at home and the next minute, okay, start creeping out and that stuff. We're just doing the best that we can. We're putting together the things that we're doing and trying to bring the value back to the customer. And the targeting has been absolutely critical to make sure we're hitting the right people with exactly the right message in these particular meetings or round tables that we're doing.

Katie Foote: That's the ABM motion, right? It's really making sure that you're honoring the customers, preferences, the prospects preferences. And you're going to that show up in pipeline and revenue ultimately.

Scott: Exactly.

Katie Foote: But I think that this area is forcing that focus more than ever before and making it because there's so much noise in the market right now.

Scott: Yep, there really is, and it's a challenge, I know, for all marketers. I think we've all learned a lot through COVID. Certainly, we've been able to identify those channels that actually work for us and those channels that have not been working for us. And as we start to come out and we're moving into 2022, we're actually making changes to those channels based off of that, because then we had events and that stuff that went away. Well, now it put the emphasis on different channels. So now you've been really focused and now you're saying," Well, you know what? That one channel isn't really working for me so I'm going to de- emphasize that. And I'm going to put more of my investment into this particular channel." It comes down to just what we were talking about earlier, peanut buttering your money across things. It was the same thing, peanut buttering are dollars against a variety of different channels and hoping that all of them worked.

Katie Foote: There was never really an easy button before in marketing, of course, but there's definitely not an easy button now. It takes such that marriage of art and science to truly figure out what's moving the needle in this non- linear space. Is there one aha you've taken away from just your channel investments in your mix overall in the COVID era, in the hyper digital area that's so noisy? Like," Oh, we're definitely not going to invest here. We're going to take it and put it here?"

Scott: I would say that the aspects that I've seen have been, one, events are critical for us in driving sourced pipeline. We don't really, I think, have the respect for it until you actually are in those events and you make sure that your sales people are there. And then following up on those events with clients and with the marketing communications and making sure that we've got them in the correct channels, etcetera with the correct messaging. So that was one of the big things that we really realized. Number two, is that digital has become even more important to us than it ever has before. And that has been a big wake up call. And again, I'm giving you more than one, frankly, Katie, but it's all channel oriented. And the e- mail performance is dramatically decreasing. It has not been performing at the level that I think that we anticipated. And I believe that that's because everybody's over extending it on email, given the fact that there's not all of these extra events or opportunities to connect with customers.

Katie Foote: It's interesting because we've been hearing for 15 years that e- mail's dead, e- mail's going away, and the data has always suggested that it's remained the workhorse of the digital marketing motion. But I think you're right, that the marketplace is so noisy. If I look at my own inbox, it's just too much and it's not necessarily what I've asked for and it's not as targeted as it should be. And it maybe represents what used to be the easy. To your point, it's just effective.

Scott: Yeah. We've just seen the response rates with rates drop. And I'd love to see the statistics. Just like when those statistics come out and say that more people are utilizing e- mail when open rates are up and engagement's up. And that's all great, right? Wonderful to share that. But the end deal is how much money did I make.

Katie Foote: Right.

Scott: How much money did it generate from it. Because if it didn't generate any revenue for me, as part of my marketing process and the way that I communicate, then why am I doing it? It's easy. You hit the button. It's like you said, we get out there. But yeah, I think that there's a lot of challenges. And the other one that's now starting, I think, take some challenge with all us, is all the LinkedIn messaging.

Katie Foote: Oh yes. It's hard to keep inaudible.

Scott: Oh my gosh, on a basis.

Katie Foote: I know.

Scott: It's out of control. And I think that that certainly is the new area that's going to see some big challenge and response rates.

Katie Foote: Yeah. That's next. I guess my final question for you is the one that we ask all of our guests here on Revenue Talks, and that is, what is the most important thing that you are focused on this year, you or your team, really hoping to accomplish in 2022?

Scott: If there were one thing, it's targeting and segmentation. With COVID In the last two years and a lot of the changes that have occurred with the great resignation and people moving all over the place. You've got a lot of decision makers that are moving around and the buying units are starting to change. Where is the buying done? Is it now still at the business level? Is it at the IT level? Where is that buying center? So it's really, I think, refining that targeting segmentation. I've always said that 60% of a response rate is based off of the targeting and the segmentation. 20% of it is based off of the offer. And the other 20% is based off of the creative. Right? And again, that's what I've seen through my experience for years is that that's the norm. But that's really the focus for us moving forward into 2022.

Katie Foote: It's interesting you mentioned that the buying center is... What we're seeing in our business too is, it's not one person anymore, it's an entire committee. And so, you need to have better conversations, helpful conversations, fan up and out across an organization. I haven't necessarily read any research on this, but that need for human connection for EQ for building relationships is more important than ever before in a world where we're getting so many e- mails or bombarded by LinkedIn messages. Just again, all that noise, how are you differentiating and building true connection? And technology can help facilitate that. But at the end of the day, especially in a world where we've been so isolated, that human connection just can't be replaced.

Scott: Yeah. And that's, again, the role of those sales people is to get in there and start to have those conversations. I really do feel for the sales teams because it just makes difficult to go through their job. It's an interest I've been actually now for about 11 months now. And I have yet to meet a single Hitachi employee in- person.

Katie Foote: Wow. Yeah.

Scott: And so again, it impacts our employees, but just think about that from a perspective. And I know that customers, they're feeling the same way. They want to actually sit down and have those conversations. So we still have lot of road to cover an I'm interested to see as hopefully we come out of COVID and things get back to whatever this normal state is that we end up with. How does that impact the channel? How does that impact how sales integrates with the customers itself? And then ultimately, what's that impact the pipeline? Is the influence going to be more important than source?

Katie Foote: Yeah. It's a great inaudible. It's so interesting. I don't know how much you've been reading from Forrester lately, but they really believe that in the new world, marketing in particular is much more impactful through an influence model and gets you away from those internal silos and fighting and more towards, okay, what does this actual customer prospect need from us? And how can sales service marketing partner to build those relationships, to build trust and to ultimately deliver on the promise of what we're all trying to do?

Scott: I read that just the other day with some stuff. And I was fascinated by that. And that's got me thinking about just what you said, how does that moving forward?

Katie Foote: Right. And I think that the wild card in all of it, and maybe how quickly we accelerate to that state is, to your point, COVID, and this isolation and the two dimensionality that we've been living in. It will be interesting to see how the three dimensional connections that we can make on the other side of this change the way we think about sales, marketing, and services partnership, and that go-to market motion.

Scott: Yeah. It's going to be fascinating to see. And certainly now with the advent and focusing on the metaverse, right?

Katie Foote: Yes. Yes.

Scott: Coming out of that, how does that impact the sales in the pipeline function? And it's kind of all spurred out of this," Hey, we all need to talk," like you and I are," via video."

Katie Foote: Right.

Scott: inaudible Or that's question that I think is going to be something that all of us are thinking about in 2022.

Katie Foote: We should make our predictions now, put them in a time capsule, see how right or wrong we were in five, 10 years.

Scott: I think it would be fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. It's a great idea, Katie.

Katie Foote: Well, Scott, thank you so much for being here today on Revenue Talks. We just so appreciate your insights and your time, and we wish you and your team the best of luck this year.

Scott: Right. Thank you, Katie. It's been a pleasure to talk to you. And all the best to you and your folks.

Katie Foote: Thank you so much for listening to revenue talks. We'd love it if you left to review wherever you're listening, and hit subscribe so you never miss a new episode. You can connect with us both on Twitter @ Katie J Foote, with an E, and @ Justin Keller. And remember, Revenue, it's everyone's business now.