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Balancing Brand and Demand to Impact Marketing-led Growth · Sales Pipeline Radio

• 0:16
  Matt Heinz: All right, back live on the show floor.
• 0:18
  We're at B2B Summit from Forrester at the marketplace.
• 0:21
  Just so excited that, Forrester gave me this opportunity to be here today.
• 0:25
  Very excited for the conversations we've had so far, and really excited
• 0:28
  to be talking to Kerry Penny.
• 0:29
  She's the SVP, global Head of Brand and Content at Valtech.
• 0:33
  Kerry, thanks so much for being here.
• 0:34
  Kerry Penny: Awesome.
• 0:34
  Thanks Matt.
• 0:35
  Matt Heinz: I'm excited for this conversation for a lot of reasons.
• 0:37
  We were talking before we started about what are some of the angles we could have?
• 0:40
  And each one of these I think is really important.
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  You were in a session earlier today with someone that we
• 0:44
  had on the show earlier today.
• 0:46
  Oh, funny as well.
• 0:47
  And one of the things he brought up is the concept of the four P's and
• 0:50
  the fact that we're really missing a really critical P as part of marketing's
• 0:54
  prioritization moving forward.
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  And the P is not prioritization.
• 0:57
  It is.
• 0:57
  Kerry Penny: Purpose.
• 0:58
  Matt Heinz: All right.
• 0:58
  Can you talk about what you heard there today?
• 1:00
  Kerry Penny: Yeah.
• 1:00
  There was really one line that just super resonated with me.
• 1:04
  Mm-hmm.
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  It was the purpose of marketing.
• 1:06
  Mm-hmm.
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  Is growth, period.
• 1:09
  Another P period.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And sometimes it's easy to forget that it is that simple when you break it down to
• 1:15
  it, the purpose of marketing is growth.
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  And I loved that.
• 1:18
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 1:19
  Yeah.
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  He was here earlier talking about that as well, and I think that
• 1:22
  can be such a unifying thing.
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  I. If you can say like, what are we really about and how does that manifest?
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  And like every company here has limited money, limited budget, limited resources.
• 1:31
  And so strategy is what it's choosing.
• 1:33
  It's figuring out which of those things you're going to invest in.
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  So if we say our objective is growth, that could be different things at
• 1:38
  different stages of the business as well.
• 1:40
  If you're early stage, net new is where it's at.
• 1:43
  As you get bigger, investing in retention and expansion, it
• 1:47
  becomes more important as well.
• 1:49
  Kerry Penny: Definitely.
• 1:50
  And I think it's also a really good uniter.
• 1:53
  Within teams.
• 1:53
  Yeah, so especially at things like Forrester's B2B Summit, you hear a lot
• 1:57
  about the challenges between working with marketing, between sales, between product,
• 2:01
  but if everybody's aligned that we all have the same goal, which is growth.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  It is so much easier for us to have an aligned vision.
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  We can work together, we can share data.
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  We are all headed in the right direction together.
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  It breaks down those silos.
• 2:16
  Matt Heinz: So what some people will hear that, and what they'll
• 2:18
  hear is that means I need pipeline.
• 2:20
  That means I need leads.
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  So like focusing on a purpose, focus on growth can be a force
• 2:25
  for good and be a force for evil.
• 2:27
  And evil is saying, all we care about is MQLs.
• 2:29
  Mm-hmm.
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  And we're talking here today with someone who owns brand and content for a company.
• 2:34
  So help me understand like that balance we need between brand and
• 2:37
  demand that balanced marketing effort that is really optimized for growth.
• 2:42
  Kerry Penny: Absolutely.
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  If we are really paying attention to the changing buying behaviors.
• 2:47
  If we are going to have growth as the end goal.
• 2:49
  Mm-hmm.
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  There's so much that leads up to that and buying.
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  Behaviors are changing what people want, the preferences they
• 2:55
  have, the options that they have.
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  I mean, we're sitting here on the market floor.
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  There are so many options that exist and so in order for them to choose you.
• 3:04
  You need trust.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  You need credibility, you need a relationship.
• 3:08
  Yeah.
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  And that's where content comes into play.
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  So stop gating your very best content.
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  And it's not just to build relationships with people and
• 3:16
  to build trust and credibility.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  But it is to build trust and credibility with the robots, because AI has to be
• 3:21
  able to crawl your very best content and bring it into their models.
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  I love looking at the reasoning model and opening it up and saying,
• 3:29
  what were all of the different sites that you went to and decided were
• 3:32
  credible to answer my question?
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  And then I can make that decision on whether I think that that
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  was a credible site as well.
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  I want my site to show up on that list and if I've gated all of my best stuff.
• 3:42
  Mm-hmm.
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  Because I think that an MQL is the most important thing.
• 3:45
  I've lost the game.
• 3:46
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 3:47
  Yeah.
• 3:48
  And that is easier said than done in some organizations.
• 3:50
  Totally right.
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  And I get like even talking to people here who have been CMOs and have moved into
• 3:55
  CRO roles that understand the value of marketing the way we're talking about it.
• 4:00
  You start to focus on that monthly number, you start to focus on that quarterly board
• 4:04
  meeting or that quarterly earnings call.
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  And I get it, but if you only focus on the short term, you will continue to pay
• 4:10
  a premium forever to build that level of growth that just isn't sustainable.
• 4:14
  Kerry Penny: Yeah, agreed.
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  A hundred percent.
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  I do understand the struggle of moving past that number.
• 4:20
  I would challenge people that if you are tracking MQLs and you feel committed Yeah.
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  To the MQL Yeah.
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  Do the work to understand what's happening with those MQLs.
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  What is the actual conversion?
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  If we go back to the purpose again, marketing's purpose is growth.
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  We are failing that purpose.
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  If all we're doing is patting ourselves on the back, because
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  our MQL number is really high.
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  We've done our job high five, pass it off.
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  It's not our problem anymore.
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  If you go back to the shared vision of growth, if we aren't growing, if
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  you're not seeing the pipeline grow, if you're not seeing acceleration through
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  the pipeline as fast as it should be happening, we're not doing our jobs.
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  And I would argue that the focus on MQL is what's holding us back
• 5:01
  as a marketing organization.
• 5:02
  Matt Heinz: Oh, preach on that.
• 5:03
  We're talking today on the show floor at Forrester B2B Summit.
• 5:06
  Got Kerry Penny here.
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  She's the senior vice president, global head of brand and content at Valtech.
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  Can we talk about brand a little bit?
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  Yeah.
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  Because I think this conference is as, as great as it is.
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  It very much is a demand centric conference, a lot of the topics,
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  it's about the buying journey, it's about building and managing pipeline.
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  You talk to 10 people in this room and they might have 10 different definitions
• 5:25
  of what brand is and how to define and activate that in an organization.
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  What does that look like for you at Valtech?
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  Kerry Penny: Yeah.
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  I think the easy definition that people go back to is always, how does it look?
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  What is your website like, what is your logo, colors?
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  That is just like the basics of brand.
• 5:41
  Yep.
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  To me, the real definition of brand is how do you feel?
• 5:44
  Mm-hmm.
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  And we work in a services business, and I think this is true for anybody,
• 5:48
  but particularly in services, it's how do the people that work
• 5:52
  at that company make you feel?
• 5:55
  How does the buying process make you feel?
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  There was a really great stat earlier today in the keynote
• 6:00
  address that said 81% of people are disappointed in the purchasing
• 6:07
  process with the winning vendor.
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  I mean, that is, wow.
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  That's a problem.
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  That is a problem.
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  And that's something can it one more
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  Matt Heinz: time for the people in the back?
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  Kerry Penny: Yes.
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  81%. That is wild for me.
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  And so that's something I think that brand comes into play.
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  It's what is the experience that somebody has?
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  Have you focused on buyer enablement?
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  Really understood the buyer and the experience that they'll have with you.
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  That's your brand and your legacy.
• 6:32
  Yeah.
• 6:32
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
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  And that is everything, right?
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  I mean, Ann Handley, who talks a lot about content and writing, 'cause
• 6:37
  everything the light touches is content.
• 6:38
  Mm-hmm.
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  And so every part of the experience someone has with you, it's not just
• 6:42
  the email they send, it's not just the way your booth looks as we're staring
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  out here, across, the marketplace.
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  It's the interactions, right?
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  So think about all the time and attention that goes into the
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  collateral and everything else.
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  What about the conversations?
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  Mm-hmm.
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  What about the roles of people?
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  What are you doing with every one of those moments?
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  Latane from 6sense was talking about this earlier, about like
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  all those little details matter.
• 7:01
  Right, and you have to get the details right so that the overall
• 7:05
  experience comes across as differentiated in dare I say, magical.
• 7:09
  Kerry Penny: And I think this is another great example of brand
• 7:11
  and where it comes into play.
• 7:12
  So the experience you have on this showroom floor, talking to a
• 7:16
  representative from the company, the questions they ask you, the way that
• 7:19
  they understand your journey and your challenges, how they describe the product
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  to you, what you're gonna get out of it.
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  It should be identical to the experience you have when you're reading that
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  same type of content on your website.
• 7:30
  Yeah.
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  When you're interacting with it on social, that is brand,
• 7:33
  Matt Heinz: so this gets harder.
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  If you're a services business,
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  Kerry Penny: it is harder
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  Matt Heinz: because if you're a product company, you can engineer a product
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  experience to be consistent for everybody.
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  But if the product is people, people aren't always as consistent as you want.
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  How do you manage a consistent experience in that kind of an environment?
• 7:53
  Kerry Penny: Yeah.
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  So there's a couple different experiences.
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  There's, at the very top of the funnel, just how do we describe
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  ourselves as an organization.
• 7:59
  Right.
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  So I recently stepped into this role and the very first thing that we did was
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  actually write out the narrative mm-hmm.
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  Which didn't exist, but write it in a way that sellers understand it.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And then.
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  Can help our clients understand it.
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  And we rolled out a growth academy.
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  We just rolled it out.
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  We have everybody go through the training who's on growth or delivery, right?
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  Because it's not just the sellers, it's the people delivering the
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  work, the consultants on the ground.
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  And they have to learn the narrative, put it into their own words, record
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  themselves, giving that presentation.
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  We give them a piece of very exclusive swag.
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  So it's an exciting thing to do, but it's those basic programs to help you control.
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  You do have to put the guardrails in place to teach people about the brand.
• 8:37
  Matt Heinz: Well, and it's understanding the brand and also being able to speak the
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  language that you want them at different stages of the buying journey when you've
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  got a services team that also is in one way or another part of the sales process.
• 8:48
  Mm-hmm.
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  Right.
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  That's a whole nother unique thing to try to manage, and I don't think people
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  always understand how different that is.
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  To manage that in a services business.
• 8:55
  Kerry Penny: Yeah.
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  And a big part of that is understanding the buyer.
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  I was recently at a meeting and was hearing people give their own
• 9:00
  perspectives about the buyer, how long things take, what, people
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  need, where their challenges lie.
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  And it was amazing to me the difference of opinion that existed
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  across groups, across regions, across tenure within the organization.
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  And so I saw it as an opportunity to go out and say, we need to create
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  our own state of the buyer report.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And I think it's important for businesses to step back and even in
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  marketing and brand roles, to have that strategic place to say, I'm not just
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  tactic driven, I'm bringing the voice of the buyer back into the business.
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  Right.
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  Just as I'm bringing the voice of the business out to the buyer.
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  So really document for everybody.
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  These are the facts.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  These are the facts of who we're selling to and what they need from us, and
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  how we need to deliver so that we're all operating in the same direction
• 9:41
  towards that main purpose of growth.
• 9:44
  Matt Heinz: I think it's clear to most people here that robots are gonna
• 9:47
  start doing more and more of the work over time, and I expect that services
• 9:53
  businesses might be at the forefront of teaching all of us how to really lean
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  in and leverage the human condition and the unique human experience that
• 10:03
  can differentiate you versus someone else in the buying experience.
• 10:07
  You mentioned this a little bit before we got going, talk a little bit about
• 10:10
  how important it is to fully optimize the human as part of the experience.
• 10:14
  Kerry Penny: Yeah.
• 10:15
  So especially here where we're hearing about AI and the impact and how fast it's
• 10:19
  all coming, every marketer is going to have this super power behind them, this
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  AI superpower, we are gonna be creating content faster, more personalized,
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  you're gonna have every tool in the world connected, sending everything together.
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  And if all of us have that.
• 10:33
  What is the differentiator in how that content lands, right?
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  And the experience that somebody's having with you.
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  So it's almost like the human EQ, the company EQ, as you are interacting
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  is your differentiator now.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  You can create the very best content in the world, but so is everybody else
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  because they're all using AI to do it.
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  You can be the fastest, but now so is everybody else.
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  They're all using AI to be fast.
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  But can you be the people that understand your buyer the very best and have
• 10:58
  that true, genuine trust, credibility, connection and relationship with them that
• 11:03
  will differentiate you and your brand.
• 11:05
  Matt Heinz: Love it.
• 11:06
  Kerry Penny, SVP and Global Head Brand and Content at Valtech,
• 11:10
  thanks so much for being here.
• 11:11
  Kerry Penny: Thanks, Matt.
• 11:11
  Have a good one.
• 11:12
  Matt Heinz: You too.