Welcome to the art of marketing operations, a tailor podcast. Here you can
grow your knowledge about marketing operations, listen to ideas and strategies to help you
scale, grow and optimize your efficiency, drive your speed to market and enrich
your work life. Let's get to it. Welcome to the art of marketing
operations, a tailor podcast. I'm Glenn bottomly and today my guest is Lauren
Tex era, senior manager of demand generation at high spot, the world's number
one sales enablement platform, with more than eight million users connected. Thanks for
joining me today, Lauren. Thank you for having me. Well, Lauren,
that you have been in the marketing discipline for more than ten years now
and I know that you've specifically focused on, you know, lead generation marketing
operations in your background, count based marketing, et Cetera, particularly in the
last seven years. So what would you describe as the common thread that you've
seen that ties through legion marketing operations and a B M all of those?
Yeah, definitely, I would say that, you know, data is definitely
the key to a lot of that, in different ways, but key in
measurement of what's working what's not across those and I think you know, with
Legion you have more of like data with your segmentation across different channels. What
will help drive quality leaves, deliver your sales team and pride them the right
messaging and content and that segmentation depending on what stage they're at. I think
for marketing ops, you know you want to make sure you have clean data,
attribution, tracking, is accurate, reporting, the streamline across the funnel
and across each marketing function. You know, the biggest thing is, like
marketing ops supports every function across marketing, demand generation, partner marketing, customer
marketing, Um Product Marketing, and so they want to sure that everyone is
looking at the data the same way, whether it's like m q ls,
s qls, pipeline source, pipeline influence, that kind of Um Beton metrics.
And then lastly, it is like fo a B M. I would
say like once again, you know your segmentation your account list is really key
of aligning with like sales on that account list by using your frmographic data,
your engagement data, such as you know, marketing engagement and intent, and
on any other like relevant data that will help you prioritize and focus your marketing
sales efforts on those high value accounts that are ultimately your a deal customer profile
and hopefully in market to buy m nice. That's a that's a great way
to kick off. Now let's flip that question around, though, and conversely
now. So what have you found to be sort of the most important or
prominent differences between, you know, Legion marketing operations and a B M?
So obviously have data. is the thread that ties it all together. Um.
What are some of the key differences in terms of how you look at
those three different functions? Yeah, definitely. I think Um for marketing operations,
you know you are definitely more process focused. You know you more of
like streamlining things across the board with Lee Generation Um, I would say,
and even a B M is like, you know, getting a little bit
more creative out of the box, Um, a little bit more closer to
Um, your content team and your calms team. So you're making sure,
you know, your messaging is up, is streamlined across the different stages of
the funnel. Um, you know you're working closely with design, with Legion
aspect and making sure you know your ads are appealing, you know, different
things like that. And then with a B M, um would be like
kind of a good, good mix in the sense of like process and creativity.
Um A B M you layer in more of like the field event aspect
and you're working very close with, you know, your field team and your
events team to create more one to one experiences to those accounts. You're trying
to target great, great distinctions there. Thank you. Now, when you
and I chatted before, one of the things that I know that you had
mentioned that you recently had really enhanced the overall marketing operations uh, particularly over
the last several years, has really been the introduction of lead scoring and uh
and I know that that was sort of in response to some challenges that you
were having in the in the marketing operations team, where you were sending some
unqualified leads over to sales. But then after you had uh, you know,
implemented lead scoring, then you were able to deliver much higher quality leads
to sales. So, in other words, quality over quantity. So can
you first start with a description from your perspective? Okay, what is lead
scoring, but then spend some time, like how you've actually implemented it,
like the pitfalls that you you ran into, like how do you know what's
actually generating value, et cetera. Let's dig in on lead scoring definitely.
So Um, lead scoring for me is like a way to qualify leads based
on who they are and how they're engaging with our company and brand. So
this will allow us to kind of automatically rank and prioritize leads that we deliver.
Sales are like our sales team. That gets US kind of aligned and
it gets us to Um deliver these leads for them to easier, um communicate
with them and drive ultimately drive business. So Um, really for when we
run into the lead scoring. Issue that I found here was that, you
know, I came on in our lead score, Um, m quell,
the essay l conversionary was at like fift which is to me very low industry
standard from what I've experienced in the past. So, Um, what I
did was first is like how to drive awareness internally of this issue and how
then we can kind of go into Um categorize, seen these different leads and
we started focusing on, okay, here's the conversion rates across the funnel and
like here's our goal with the new conversion rates and what we want to get
to. So, you know, with updating our lead scoring by focusing on
the firmographic data that we want of our like I C P, and the
different engagement levels with like, you know, downloaded piece of content, attendive
event, those things. In breaking those two then deliver these high quality leads.
We've increased that to upwards of like eight. So with that, the
main pitfalls that I've I've readne lead scaring probably three or four times. Um,
the main pitfoles that I've come across is really how, Um, you
know, who should be involved in that initial process, and I think if
you don't have that sales alignment and like how they're actually, you know,
outbounding sales to leads, then like who they're targeting and then aligning with how
you're writing those leads, then it won't work out. So getting them on
board and getting them to understand what is lead scoring, what's the importance of
it and why these leads are important and like having them trust you on that
and actually seeing that value of the conversion all the way through, is key.
MM HMM. Yeah, so that alignment to sales and common definitions,
I think, is that I very much would agree with you there. I
think that's key. Um, and I know that. I know that you
have had really good success working closely with sales br teams and things, you
know, customer cadences and you know journeys, pitch templates, messaging, etcetera.
So what have been some of the key ways that you found to effectively
build out things like customer cadences and journeys? Yes, definitely, um I
think in those aspects, you know, the content team and enablement team have
been the key players with this. Um I start off working with our head
of content by like outlining what content to put in these cadence is and really
aligning with our quarterly themes. So each each year for planning, we have
quarterly themes that we have for marketing. And you know how do we get
sales on board with these quarterly themes? By providing, you know, cadences
that show, by Persona, the pain points at each stage of the journey.
So after we create these cadences per persona and all these different eight to
tend touch points, we um I work with our enablement team, who is
kind of like earlson between sales and marketing, to ensure, you know,
my content email templates that we've created not aren't any like marketing, UM,
and we've turned them into more of like sales focus language, because obviously,
you know, they're more of the experts of like how we should be talking
to, say, how we should be talking to buyers, and so,
Um, you know, they're helping with how to kind of make this more
into how a D R s would actually use them with across two different personas.
And then, and then how do you or is there any either a
specific software or tools that you've used over the years, uh, that can
can help create those? Yeah, so, as of right now, we
do do that in high spot and we use sales plays, but we are
eventually looking into a sales game engagement platform, currently like a grow of a
sales loft or outreach, which we're in the process of purchasing, and then
we'll be moving those over into there. That will help us better, you
know, analyze how successful these cancers are. Game. Gotcha. Excellent.
Um. Now here's something that's interesting. When we chatted earlier, Um,
you had mentioned that in the past. Um, you know, some coworkers
would describe what you and in a marketing operations team would do was, quote,
paid media top of funnel. But then I loved something that you shared
with me and you said, but you would always correct them by saying that
you and your team were actually paid media full funnel, and so that's it's
a it's an import distinction. So can you just unpack that a little bit
more? Definitely, I think that traditionally, I feel like demand Gen has
been more focused on like lead generation and acquisition and, like you know,
our job is to provide leads to sales and then their jobs to push them
to get deals. But I think we moved into more of a role of
how we support sales across the whole funnel, through paid and through other channels.
But you know, paid is just an aspect of it and, you
know, really focusing on targeting different personas at these different stages and of the
buier's journey across these page channels. So I think the ultimate goal is really
to provide the right messages at the right time that will really help us increase
these conversion rates. And you know, if that's accelering pipeline, if that's
accelerating Um that new pipeline, acce accelerting deals, like, no matter what
it is, our goal is to align or messaging with what sales are saying
and then to try to target them across different platforms. And then I would
imagine that by shifting this perception and broadening it, not only, I would
imagine, is good for for the marketing team. Obviously, uh, it
certainly helps the relationship with sales, but have you found that it has also
helped you, uh, you know, in other functional areas organizationally or culturally
within the organization? Yes, definitely. I think we've gotten closer to product
marketing even within marketing. I mean, you know, there's so many marketing
functions. Um, product marketing in the sense of aligning, you know,
our scenes that are top of funnel, themes all the way through to how
it relates to actually more of like the bottom of the funnel, when you
get into like consideration, decision and making sure that, you know, our
content kind of has the same consistent messaging, consistent branding all the way through,
and so we want to just make sure we're providing those, you know,
consistent, personalized brand experiences from top to bottom and even when they become
customers. And does that does the with the broadening view of full funnel?
Clearly, I would think. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but clearly
I would think that this would impact your creative it would impact your messaging,
content strategies, etcetera. It's but by shifting it where it's like we're not
just top of funnel, it's the entire funnel, I would think every aspect
of marketing operations and the deployment of it gets impacted. Yeah, Oh,
yes, definitely, I think. I think the heaviest one is obviously design
is the biggest resource, like the most spread thin resource for us, specifically
because of that and because, you know, testing and optimizing and like always
wanting to try different design and stand out from the rest, because that's really
what we're trying to do across the pay channels. So I think definitely design
wise, and then content team learnings from not sharing those learnings and making sure
that everyone knows what what worked what hasn't is also something that we've been trying
more and more to do, so that even sharing them to our enablement team
to say hey, this worked well, I'm paid. You know we should
update some of the message and we have in our pitch timeblooks for emails to
align with that, because you know, it's targeting this stage of the funnel.
Mm Hmm, yeah, excellent. Are you struggling to find ways to
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at Taylor Dot Com. Okay, now let's shift gears here. So,
Um, when we chatted before, one of the things that I asked you
was like what, absolutely is a passion of yours related to marketing operations,
and I loved how you phrased it. You said that a passion of yours
is the importance of delivering customized customer experiences and using the full life cycle of
data to do that. I love that sentence. There is so much to
unpack in that so I want to break it down. So let's first start
with defining what we mean by a customer experience. So first define for us
in your mind, what is the customer experience and the customer journey, Um,
you know, in sort of the differences with them that you've seen throughout
your various jobs. Yeah, definitely. So, Um, I think customer
experience starts from when a prospective comes first, becomes aware, engages with your
company or brand, rather it be, you know, a website, on
your website, at an event, sees a paydadum, and then it continues,
honestly, all the way until they become a customer. And I even
think the customer experience doesn't end because even when they become a customer, you
know, there's so much opportunity with adoption, expansion and making sure your customer
is happy and like customers really fuel your business and will always fill your business.
So I think, you know, just starting from beginning all the way
through, and then as they continue to be a customer, it really never
ends. There's always some sort of personalized experience you want to give your customers.
Well, and that's a that's a good Segua. So from the customer
experience then now let's talk about the customized customer experience. So so, can
you explain, Um, what the customized customer experience is? How do you
maybe uh, you know, not get you know, spooky or creepy with
that, you know, for for for the customer, right, uh,
you know in the various ways that you have found that has been successful,
you know in your career of how you appropriately customize that customer experience for,
you know, for the customers. Yeah, I definitely think obviously, getting
too spooky is something you want to avoid, but I think delivering these like
more personalized messaging and offerings to customer across the buying cycle Um, obviously depends
on, you know, what's your company strategic goals, so really aligning with
the overall strategic goals and, Um, for example, my previous company we
focused on, you top four verticals, you know. We had retail,
e commerce, media and entertainment, travel and financial services, and within those
we identify, you know, what accounts were that we want to target with
these these verticals, and then we really created more of like a strategy across
all these integrated strategy across all these channels and across the funnel that focused on
these verticals. This is just simple changes of like changing messaging and changing,
you know, updating your current content with new titles and new, you know,
new Intros, just small changes that will really hit those counts, pain
points and use cases so that you know you're aligning this across the board.
Um, within this, you know, I think definitely different channels. You
do this with explored website personalization a lot in the last few years in the
sense of targeting these verticals and having when they come to your website and testing
is not making a bigger impact and so forth. Um, and so you
know, depending on the vertical and and each company have been at it has
changed. It's never like this is what you have like you should be doing
to financial services. It's always an ever evolving how do we make this customer
experience better and more personalized across all of these channels. It reminds me of
a data set that I remembered from years ago. Uh, this is maybe
about four or three or four years ago, and it was in the context
of email, not web personalization. Uh, you know from an experience online.
But it was related to reach from sales and the research showed that if
a message is personalized, from zero percent of the message personalized, two up
to thirty percent of the message is personalized. Each percentage point you actually gain
lift in the mind of the customer or the buyer. So from zero to
thirty, so that's good. If you customize a little bit of the message
from thirty percent to eight percent, you really get no more lift from that
thirty eight percent. And again this isn't an email context from sales. Uh.
And then once you go eighty percent customize the messages, percent customize or
greater, you actually get a diminishing return. It actually you know, border
it moves into that area of spooky or or creepy because, and I actually
had this happened to me with an email that I received. This was from
a a a sales representative of a company and uh, they had researched me
on linkedin. They like called the company that I worked for. They I
mean it just was crazy and they included so much information about me that it
was like so far beyond and of course they were probably thinking they were being
super clever and, you know, trying to really engage with me, as
you know, as a buyer and so forth, but it just it went
so far. So so now if we transfer that to a web context,
uh, how much personalization like does that? Is it your experience that that
percentage holds that you know, you want enough personalization but you know, not
too much. What's what's been your experience? Yeah, I think I think
that, like there's more of enough personalization in the sense of delivering what the
are looking trying to deliver what they're trying to sign on your site quicker.
So, like the whole point is obviously to get them to a demo,
right, like when they come to your side, we want to get them
to a demo and when, when there past that fades, we want to
show them product information and get them to be a customer and so forth.
So I think it's figuring out, you know, how to not be explicitly
like Hey, I know you do this, x, Y Z and like
would you wouldn't know in the beginning. Of Yeah, you wanted on the
beginning, but you could, I mean technically, with the information out there,
you could probably get I think there is a good happy medium with personalization
and not being too creepy. And because you may you may know domain or
you may know you know some information or if they of course, if they've
left an email address or something, you know you may have some indication,
you know, in terms of returning visits and so forth. So yeah,
it's it's it's A. It's a it's a good insight and it's just a
good reminder about that. You know, you want to off but not too
much. It's sort of the goldilocks. Think it's the same with brands,
right like when, when, when brands give me really good experiences across the
web and across mobile, I enjoy it. So I don't mind getting ads
from brands that I like and that I'm like, Oh, this is really
geared towards me, but some people don't. So I also think there's more
of like a personal preference aspect in the sense of like what people like or
don't like. Yeah, yeah, there's UH, the the age of surveillance
capitalism by Dr Shoshana Zuboff from Harvard University. It's an incredible book, but
it gets into exactly what you're talking about, which is, you know,
a lot of people just don't want to be followed on the web. They
don't want, you know, they're data to be sold, they don't want
et Cetera. Um. And so to your perspective, that's that's going so
far in one direction. Where like that? And yet I have there's a
friend of mine that I that I that I know who is exactly as you
just did. They're like, I want to receive personalized DADS, you know,
retarget me all the time. You know all you want. I want
a better experience. And so for them it's just absolutely no, no issue
whatsoever. So it's fascinating. Um, okay, so we've talked about then
customer experience, we've talked about customizing the customer experience. Now let's talk about
when you mentioned the full life cycle of data and being able to do that.
So can you expand on some of the best ways that you've used data
in your career, Um, across the full life cycle of the buyer's journey
to sort of maximize the ability of the of that customer experience? Yeah,
definitely. I think data is that is key for that personalization experience, because
if you have bad data and then you're targeting, you're personalizing something, someone
who's in retail, in financial services, they're automatically and be like what.
So so I think clean data, account and personal level data, your Seria
Um like, which is huge obviously for operations, and then making sure you
know you have, um, the different fields within your database that are across
the buyer's journey that they've engaged with. So like what stage they're at in
those things and for previous experiences. Um, you know I mentioned the vertical
stuff. You know we've done that across the funnel. I think customers is
also very interesting. Once they become a customer, you get a lot of
data in the sense of product usage and those things, what products are using
the products and not what opportunity there is there. And so you know,
at high spot we launched our sales training product probably over a year and a
half ago and you know we're working to drive new product adoption with that and
you know that's a whole new go to market plan and, as mentioned before,
it's kind of like these customers have to start from the beginning of the
buyer's journey. You know, they knew us for like our core product content
and guidance and now, you know, we've expanded to have this sales training
one and so they know who high spot is, but like they don't know
the value of having the sales training enablement all on one system and what that
can provide and how that can actually help improving their sales performance. And so
I think using the data to help build out these programs to like target the
specific accounts that we fit for the product and the messaging is very critical and,
like the content, once again, is contented. Messaging is very key
to this. Um, but starting over, sorry, from awareness again and
going all the way through based off of this. So I think there's a
lot of opportunity with customer marketing and like the life cycle there, and it
really just starts all over again and it could, depending on, you know,
the different account from a graphics and what product they're using, you could
go in different directions. Yeah, that's actually a really, really interesting point
there. You talk about in terms of the full life cycle, because the
product level, information how they're utilizing a product or what products or services are
they buying from. You know from your company that you're working at Um and
then feeding that into your marketing initiatives. Not only will that help to refine
to find future customers because now you know your understanding how the product is being
used. Um, you can start to know market that you know in in
other ways to find new customers. But to your point, it also helps
you to penetrate with existing customers, a cross sell, upsell, uh,
in those opportunities. But also, I think it it also, like you
say full circle comes back around now. Are there referral opportunities? Are there
other things that you can cycle back with your existing customers that you can learn
to to to draw in, you know, more like customers? So I
love how you describe that, you know, customized customer experiences using that full
life cycle of data. That's it's a really great description. Um, I
guess the last part there in terms of the delivery of it. Any advice
in terms of what has been some of the best learnings you've gained about how
you actually deliver data driven customer experiences to the buyer? Yeah, I think
obviously there's many different formats, many different channels, you know, email,
website, gifting, direct mailers, wonder on outrage, but I think the
important part is really making sure you know your programs integrated and that you're testing
all of this. You're you're seeing what channels working, what messaging is working,
with contents working, and I think it's definitely different at every company.
Um, different channels work better depending on different personas you're targeting in different industries.
So, Um, to me, testing is key and really part of
the process of figuring you know what's working and what's not. Always great advice.
A number of our guests talk about the value of that, whether it's
an a b test or testing something. What is the result? Modify,
you know, feedback loop, you know check that work, you know,
revise, keep moving forward. So that's great. Um. Last comment here
then would be, is there anything else that we haven't talked about related to
the customized customer experiences? Um, any last minute tips? Uh, you
know that that you can share? Yeah, I mean, I think in
the sense of, you know, related customer I think the biggest thing is
more of like the brand experience, B two, B B Two, see
whatever you're having a consistent, cohesive brand experience across along you channels and having,
you know, messaging content consistent is really key. And then, I
think secondly is go to market alignment, you know, understanding the different pain
points of your departments and really making sure that, Um, you are aligning
across sales, across every marketing function and everyone is kind of aligning to those
company strategic goals. Excellent advice. Well, before we wrap up today's episode,
Laura, what is the main takeaway that you want to leave our audience
with in understanding the challenges facing marketing operations executives today. Definitely. Um,
I think that, as I mentioned, go to market alignment, understanding pain
points and helping to like extreamline and create better processes across all of those departments.
Um, I do think, you know, leaning on your enablement team
to help you drive this alignment so you focus really on what matters most operations,
which is like data process and reporting. M Hm, excellent data process
and reporting. There it is well. That wraps up this episode of the
art of marketing operations. Thank you so much for joining us today, Lauren.
Yes, thank you for having me. Well, until next time,
stay safe, take care and thank you for listening. Thank you for listening
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