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How Data and Storytelling Impacts All of Sales, Brand and Marketing · Sales Pipeline Radio

• 0:17
  Matt: All right.
• 0:17
  Welcome everybody to another episode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
• 0:20
  So happy to have you here.
• 0:21
  I'm your host, Matt Heinz, as we continue to roll along here every week,
• 0:26
  every Thursday, live at 11:30 Pacific, 2:30 Eastern, thank you so much for
• 0:30
  making this part of your day, part of your work day, part of your work week.
• 0:32
  We're here, Mark, almost the end of the month, end of the
• 0:34
  week, end of the quarter.
• 0:36
  So for those of you grinding in and out trying to hit your number, best of
• 0:38
  luck over the next two and a half days.
• 0:40
  Plenty of time, plenty of time to bring in those numbers.
• 0:43
  If you're watching or listening on demand, thank you so much for
• 0:46
  downloading, for subscribing.
• 0:48
  Every episode of Sales Pipeline Radio, always available past, present, and
• 0:51
  future at www.salespipelineradio.com.
• 0:55
  Today, super excited to have Mark Nardone, he's the Chief Marketing
• 0:58
  Officer for Pan Communications.
• 0:59
  And thanks for being here, man.
• 1:01
  Mark: Yeah, no problem.
• 1:02
  I think the hair was probably maybe a little bit darker the last time
• 1:04
  I was on, but that's all right.
• 1:05
  Matt: Mine was probably still non existent.
• 1:07
  So it's all good.
• 1:08
  We continue to age.
• 1:09
  One of my favorite sayings now is the older I get and the more mistakes I
• 1:12
  make and then be able to share something that is kind of an experience share
• 1:16
  or harder and less than that I wish younger Matt would have paid more
• 1:19
  attention to, or realized was a truth.
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  That's a whole other episode, but so many different angles we
• 1:25
  could take together on this...
• 1:26
  But I think this concept of storytelling is super interesting to me.
• 1:29
  And if you think about the different ways we think about storytelling, the
• 1:32
  story we tell around our brand, the story we tell our prospects to have to
• 1:36
  hopefully earn some of their attention...
• 1:38
  It is budget season as we record this so the story we tell when
• 1:42
  we're asking for money, right?
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  Instead of giving a laundry list of like where we're going to go spend money,
• 1:46
  what's the story you're telling about what you are buying for the organization?
• 1:50
  And combine that with increased evidence and research, I'm now seeing that Dems
• 1:54
  indicates that B2B brands are going to reinvest or grow their investment in brand
• 2:00
  in 2025 and what is brand, if not a story?
• 2:05
  So we'd love to hear from your perspective-- first of all, for the
• 2:07
  people that don't know you and don't know Pan, do a quick introduction
• 2:09
  there and then how are you thinking about storytelling and brand as we
• 2:12
  start thinking about next year already?
• 2:14
  Mark: Yeah, yeah, sure.
• 2:15
  So just for the individuals that don't know us, Pan Communications--
• 2:18
  actually Pan now, we rebranded a little while ago to just Pan.
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  Kind of started off in the PR industry as an agency and then moved into the brand
• 2:25
  to demand kind of side of the business.
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  We focus a lot on telling really great stories working with B2B tech comPanies
• 2:31
  and healthcare firms as well on everything at top of funnel to middle of funnel.
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  Starting to get pulled down to the bottom of funnel a little bit more, but.
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  From PR to content marketing to social, a lot of digital activation.
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  So about 240 employees spread across a few different offices globally.
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  So that's who we are in a nutshell.
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  Been around for 30 years.
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  Story.
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  I will tell you it's important and it's interesting because what we're seeing
• 2:57
  on our end being in the services side of the industry as well as representing a
• 3:01
  lot of tech, tech brands is second half of the year, we've seen an absolute kind
• 3:05
  of reverse a pattern and double down on inside of brand and brand awareness.
• 3:10
  Some of that has to do with the fact that I think there was just a lot of kind
• 3:14
  of like hesitation and a little bit of concern in the first half of the year.
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  So I think we're kind of seeing maybe a little bit of the ricochet of second
• 3:20
  half finish strong, set brand up well for kind of beginning parts of 2025.
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  And then I think we're just also seeing just marketers and brands
• 3:30
  moving to decision a lot quicker.
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  I think when you and I last chatted, Matt, earlier this year, there was
• 3:36
  just a lot of issues within pipelines, whether it was the pauses, the delays,
• 3:40
  a lot of movements taking place.
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  And so what comes out of that naturally is the ability for brands to kind of really,
• 3:47
  really hone into story and narrative, what that looks like, how do they begin
• 3:51
  it, what does it all kind of encompass?
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  One of the things that you started talking about was obviously what brand
• 3:56
  means for business, for product, but also from an experience standpoint.
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  And I think that's where we're starting to see more of the brand storytelling
• 4:03
  start to come to the forefront, which is the experience that customers and the
• 4:07
  prospects and that industry has both with your brand and with your executive team.
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  So I think it's a critical component to what's happening right now.
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  So no surprise on, on brand investment.
• 4:16
  Matt: Yeah.
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  It's interesting.
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  Yesterday, I was in Palo Alto for our client's-- what they
• 4:20
  call a marketing therapy session.
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  We had about 70 B2B marketers in for lunch.
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  And we talked about brand and demand together.
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  We talked about this concept of investing in brand.
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  And it was fascinating because a lot of the smaller comPanies in the room said,
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  we can't afford to invest in brand.
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  And the bigger comPanies, including some of the Panelists said,
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  we can't afford not to, right?
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  So I think there's this interesting dichotomy of how different comPanies,
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  perhaps, based on different sizes or even maybe just maturity of the
• 4:45
  comPany, think about and accept the role of brand in driving, not
• 4:49
  awareness, but having a direct impact on pipeline and revenue as well.
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  Mark: No question about it.
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  And I think one of the one of the misperceptions out there is based on
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  size of brand determines obviously the levers of investment, budget aside,
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  percentage of investment that you're making within some of these activities.
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  We started our agency in the emergent growth, moved to mid
• 5:10
  to late stage types of brands.
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  So what we start to see is a lot of the formula that emerging growth package, they
• 5:17
  put a lot of importance on brand, right?
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  They put a ton on top of funnel awareness and what that all means around brand.
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  Mid stage gets a bit more comfortable with that, right?
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  There's a lot of things that go on with regards to storytelling and brand.
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  At the mid stage to late stage, there's a lot of vertical solutions--
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  you might be moving from single product to multiple product.
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  You've got business in the US, you're starting to exPand globally.
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  There's a lot of things your executive team now moves from maybe one single
• 5:42
  subject matter expert to four, five, six different subject matter experts.
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  Just think about all of those things that go on in that kind of equation
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  and now wrap story into that.
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  And you might have multiple stories going at once, but where the biggest concern
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  on our end and from a brand standpoint is the inconsistency in telling story
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  across individuals through product, through purpose, through employees;
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  that becomes a major driving factor in how do you streamline everything?
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  How do you coordinate with teams so that you're all aligned
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  to the focus of the business?
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  And sometimes that goes off rails quickly, Matt.
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  Matt: It does.
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  And I think this is why I think it's important for us to talk about brand
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  in the context of storytelling here.
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  Because if you say you can't afford to invest in brand, what I think some people
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  say is I don't have budget for that.
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  And brand is not billboards on 101 in the valley, but brand is not putting
• 6:34
  your logo on the side of a race car.
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  If you are good at nailing a story, a story that matters to your customer,
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  a story that aligns with and or enhances their narrative, a story
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  you can be consistent about sharing across your comPany and across your
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  channels, a good story can take on a life of its own and can mitigate some
• 6:56
  of the costs of having to buy space.
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  Like you can earn the space in your customer's mind with a better story..
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  And I know I'm preaching to the choir here, I don't know if you got an
• 7:05
  example or two to showcase this is at the heart of building a strong brand.
• 7:08
  Mark: Oh, there's no doubt.
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  So a couple of things I'll kind of address here.
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  One is, brands sometimes make the mistake of going too quickly for the
• 7:17
  growth opportunity and missing the opportunity that's right in front of them.
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  And I get that growth is the number one driving factor behind, of course, business
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  and brand, but there's so much more potential at times sitting in front of
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  them with the market that they're focused in on and they start to dilute their value
• 7:34
  proposition in that market and start to go off into these other growth areas.
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  And sometimes that might be too soon.
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  And sometimes that just might not be the perfect timing, just in general.
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  So, as we get into that, it's become a driving factor around why so many
• 7:47
  clients right now and brands are talking about visiting messaging positioning.
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  I don't know about you, Matt, but we're working with a lot of brands where we're
• 7:56
  either starting to do a refinement message positioning, or we're starting to really
• 7:59
  start from scratch and rebuild the message positioning architecture, which then
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  starts to really drive a lot of different brand narratives coming out of that.
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  And I think that for brands today, and this is a perfect time of year to talk
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  about this, Matt-- as you evaluate pipeline, as you evaluate what's going
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  on within sales, as you think about titles that are impacting decisions and
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  or delaying decisions, as you just think about the committees that are going
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  on and what that all looks like, take the time to start to audit and assess
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  what's happening with the new landscape.
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  What are the competitors doing?
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  What is everybody else looking like from an assessment and an audit?
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  And take some of that research and start to build what could be just
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  a great moment in time for message and positioning beginning in 2025.
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  You know, brands sometimes today just make the mistake that our message is good.
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  You know, it's been in market for a year.
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  We don't need to tweak it.
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  We don't need to adjust it.
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  That's nonsense.
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  It's got to be in real time.
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  Matt: Well, you may be comfortable with your message, but remember
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  that your message does not sit in isolation in the market.
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  Your message is sitting alongside and competing with countless other messages
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  for the finite amount of time that your prospects and your customers and the
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  decision makers of their organizations have, there is no good enough.
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  And I think you got to continue to look for the ways to improve on that.
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  Talking today on Sales Pipeline Radio with Mark Nardone.
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  He's the CMO, Chief Marketing Officer for Pan.
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  And we're talking about the importance of storytelling as a component of
• 9:26
  building and managing a strong brand.
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  One of the other topics we covered yesterday at the Palo Alto event was
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  the balance between brand and demand.
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  And thinking about this sometimes in like just a two by two matrix, right?
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  brand and demand on one axis short term and long term on the other and I tend
• 9:40
  to think like short term maybe three to six months long term six months to two
• 9:43
  years plus-- a lot of comPanies very worried about the short term impact and
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  said, okay, it's the month, end of the quarter, I need to invest in demand.
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  And too often that short term need to drive demand precludes
• 9:56
  people from doing the building blocks of building brand as well.
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  I believe there are things you can do short and long term to build
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  that brand and to tell that story.
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  You mentioned starting with just having a fundamentally better story
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  and better message, but what are some of the things that you see
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  comPanies doing well organically, even short term to start to build the
• 10:16
  foundation of a long term strong brand?
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  Mark: Yeah, that's a great question.
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  As we think through story and from the brand to demand connection that we're
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  talking about here, how to story-aligne everywhere throughout the journey of
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  a customer coming into the pipeline.
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  What does that look like?
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  How do you think of tone, pain point, necessity, and level of importance
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  as they're coming into the pipeline.
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  I think some of the things we're starting to see really, really resonate
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  well is, I mean, this is going to be no surprise to everybody listening,
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  but data-- data and research.
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  I mean we're starting to see some really, really great impact with regards to
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  how story moves through data, how data reverses and tells a really good story.
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  How do you analyze the audience of the prospector or the customer
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  that you're working with?
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  And walk in their shoes with regards to, I know Matt's a major marketer out there.
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  He does a lot of sales.
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  What type of data can I feed you, Matt that kind of gets you to kind
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  of, you know, act with some impact?
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  So we're looking at that through the lens of short term and long term.
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  So when I think about data in particular, if we're pulling out this
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  one example, sometimes it's just, Hey, give me some of the moments
• 11:20
  that matter in market right now.
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  Like what's happening within the next month to two months?
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  How can we jump on a lot of cool trending topics to align data so that
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  we're able to drive a lot of interesting brand awareness, but we're also then
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  able to bring that journey for them to come into an experience on our
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  site or in this section of our data and insight section or hub section
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  that says, ha, now I'm all of a sudden looking at annual research programs.
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  Now I'm looking at quarterly research reports.
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  They're giving me full step In the moment, what's happening this month
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  with regards to the reaction and markets all the way-- give me some more
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  premium research that's driving this.
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  So data and research is really important and how that moves your
• 11:57
  story out to media is important.
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  How that goes across digital channels is really important.
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  How is it sales uses that from an enablement standpoint,
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  decks and everything like that.
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  They just become one of our best options with regards to putting out some
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  conversations and communication to market.
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  Matt: I'd go as far as to say that I think data may be replacing media as
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  the coin of the realm for marketers in terms of creating differentiation
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  and driving, not just a timeliness, but timeliness with context.
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  Can you talk a little bit about how intent signals and the data that you
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  have available to you not only helps you shape the story, but also reach
• 12:28
  the right person at the right time with the story that's relevant to them?
• 12:31
  Mark: Yeah.
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  So let's just use Pan for a quick example, right?
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  We've got a few different reports that we put out, ones around
• 12:37
  the Brand Experience Report.
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  It's all the experience that consumers and customers in general having with brand.
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  That's one angle that we go out with.
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  The other area we look into coming out of that is AI.
• 12:48
  We might look at sector experience around security and, or healthcare, and how do
• 12:52
  we use data to go into specific sectors?
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  And then you look at as we see intent, and we see these triggers of engagement
• 13:00
  we're having and some of just the 360 conversation we've got coming back
• 13:04
  around, many marketers that are coming even and looking at PAN are saying
• 13:08
  how do I know what I'm doing is right?
• 13:10
  Am I measuring the right areas?
• 13:13
  Is my program performing where it should be?
• 13:15
  So now all of a sudden you see this other angle of content we come out with just
• 13:18
  reality check and reality check allows a marketer to look and say here's the
• 13:23
  reality check of what's happening today, both with the skillset that I have in
• 13:26
  my department, as well as the activation programs that I have behind brand.
• 13:31
  And it gives them this really cool connector around brand experience
• 13:34
  then over to the reality check.
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  And then the output for that might be-- five step guide to really
• 13:40
  looking at 2025 planning initiatives.
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  How do you measure appropriately?
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  So you go long term brand experience report.
• 13:47
  Short term, we're looking at a quarter where we know we're recapping a year.
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  Measurement becomes really, really critical because they need to look back
• 13:54
  and look forward around how their programs are performing in market right now.
• 13:58
  And we start to put content that's relevant to the pain point
• 14:02
  that they might be experiencing as they flow through a quarter.
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  That's how we treat a lot of the data and a lot of a lot of the content
• 14:08
  that we're looking at by quarter.
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  Matt: Well, it gets even more interesting as you think about the
• 14:12
  advancement of AI and what that's going to enable to activate some
• 14:16
  of those stories in that content.
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  We've talked for years about building our white papers and our
• 14:20
  ultimate guides to this and that.
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  And we spend a ton of time writing something and then
• 14:24
  producing it for everybody.
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  Well, what if you could take your core story?
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  What if you could take your core data and create a custom ultimate guide
• 14:31
  for each and every individual, let alone account, let alone industry,
• 14:34
  because you can customize the message to them and create something that is
• 14:38
  intensely, highly relevant on a one on one basis with near infinite scale?
• 14:44
  Mark: I have a couple of different point of views on this.
• 14:46
  Right?
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  I think right now from an AI perspective augmenting human to AI capabilities
• 14:52
  is really, really important.
• 14:53
  I think it's really, really important to remain transparent.
• 14:56
  100%.
• 14:57
  I think we're seeing a lot of ricochet around the ethics of AI.
• 15:01
  I was talking to somebody on the brand side last week and a team that they
• 15:06
  were using in a specific region was putting out so much AI that the fact
• 15:11
  checking now came back to them and they started to get hit on reputation.
• 15:14
  So you have to be really careful in our world, especially from creators, right?
• 15:18
  How are we using AI in our everyday function?
• 15:20
  I always like to tell my team just in general, use it as a thought starter
• 15:24
  to think through the ideas, use it as a test bed on how that idea is performing,
• 15:28
  but please make sure that the authentic voice, that typically helps close
• 15:32
  these deals from a personalization standpoint remains relevant and timely.
• 15:36
  And don't be so into the pace game, but rather the quality game.
• 15:41
  Matt, we could go down that hole where the benefit of AI is tremendous.
• 15:44
  Nobody's doubting that, right?
• 15:46
  Nobody is doubting what AI potentially can do, but it's gotta be in a way
• 15:51
  that's balanced, authentic, again, very, very transparent or else
• 15:56
  reputation is going to get hit.
• 15:58
  I think sometimes the decision makers and, or the audiences that
• 16:01
  you're trying to influence might see right through it at times.
• 16:05
  Matt: I would agree with you.
• 16:06
  I saw stats somewhere for a CEO from a tech company, looked and mapped the
• 16:10
  number of sales email she's getting in a week and looked at it before ChatGPT
• 16:15
  and after ChatGPT and she's getting four times as many sales emails now
• 16:20
  because it's easier and faster to write them and your sales target, is
• 16:24
  just getting inundated with stuff.
• 16:26
  Faster and cheaper may solve the seller problem but it
• 16:28
  makes the buyer problem worse.
• 16:30
  How do you break through that?
• 16:32
  It's a relationship, it's a story, it's being relevant.
• 16:36
  Mark: A hundred percent.
• 16:37
  It is 100 percent definitely on the relationship mapping side of things.
• 16:41
  I think right now marketing needs to make sure that sales is doing all they can
• 16:47
  to keep the relationship map in place, bring that data back to marketing so that
• 16:51
  they're understanding what's going on with the relationship mapping that's happening.
• 16:55
  And, I talked to a lot of individuals that run the sales and marketing function.
• 16:59
  And I know BDRs and teams have quotas to make, but the ability to personalize your
• 17:06
  message, to take the time to personalize the message, to understand who you're
• 17:11
  talking to and what they are feeling right now within the market, their pain, what
• 17:16
  solution you have, how you can do it...
• 17:18
  I think AI becomes a nice component to that, but not the full component to that.
• 17:23
  It's not the total solution.
• 17:25
  I'm not all about getting a hundred emails out in a week.
• 17:29
  I'm about getting the 20 emails that are really gonna land and that you're gonna
• 17:34
  learn from because how are you learning from the hundred that you send that out
• 17:37
  if that becomes one of your quarters?
• 17:38
  My kids are in sales, right?
• 17:39
  One's at a really great, large publicly traded tech company and my daughter,
• 17:44
  just left a career in teaching and went over to an app testing partner company.
• 17:49
  So both of them, one manages teams, the other's a BDR.
• 17:52
  I talked to them the other day.
• 17:53
  I'm like, so what's going on in the sales?
• 17:54
  Like what's happening there?
• 17:55
  They're like, you know, sometimes we don't have enough assets from
• 17:58
  marketing to do our job effectively.
• 18:01
  I'm like, well, do you have that stream of communication going
• 18:04
  with marketing where you can effectively help, feed what you need?
• 18:08
  Because you're on the front lines and you've got to be able
• 18:11
  to be agile and react quickly.
• 18:13
  And both of them at the same time said, no.
• 18:15
  Well, there's still a breakdown there, Matt, right?
• 18:17
  There's still this breakdown where you still have to see.
• 18:20
  And the other trend we're starting to see too is marketing reporting to sales.
• 18:26
  Now, some of that is kind of 50-50, right?
• 18:29
  Some of it is CMO still kind of owning the role and think hopefully they got a really
• 18:34
  great relationship going with sales.
• 18:36
  They're using a lot of the triggers and the data that they're seeing on
• 18:39
  the frontline to help kind of course correct what's going on in marketing.
• 18:41
  And then you've got a lot of areas where we're starting to see
• 18:44
  marketing that's reporting the sales.
• 18:45
  I was just on a call earlier today where they're like, yep,
• 18:47
  I got to get this approved.
• 18:48
  It's a brand messaging exercise.
• 18:50
  I got to go to my head of sales.
• 18:52
  Matt: Yep.
• 18:52
  I think there's a lot to unpack there.
• 18:54
  I think as B2B sales processes, as the buying journey becomes more complex,
• 18:59
  as we're required to collaborate across go to market teams, the level of
• 19:04
  communication and participation across lines, not just throwing information
• 19:08
  each other, not just doing jazz hands at sales kickoff, but how do you actually
• 19:12
  do this on a Tuesday morning, right?
• 19:14
  Nailing that orchestration becomes more and more important.
• 19:18
  Need to wrap this up a little bit try to keep these usually within 20 minutes
• 19:20
  so Mark Thank you for being here.
• 19:22
  My last question to you as we head into Q4 here, what makes you optimistic for 2025?
• 19:29
  Mark: It's absolutely very simple.
• 19:31
  What's happened in our business in the last three months, and again, marketing
• 19:33
  is a leading indicator of what happens from an economy standpoint moving
• 19:37
  forward, we've seen a tremendous amount of progress, both in decision making,
• 19:42
  and the amount of investment that's going into a lot of different activation
• 19:46
  strategies across digital, across earned media, across owned properties.
• 19:50
  You know, if you would have talked to me back in June, I'd
• 19:52
  be like, man, Matt, I don't know.
• 19:53
  This is going to be a tough year ahead of us.
• 19:55
  I don't think so.
• 19:56
  I think post election, I think you're going to see a lot happening.
• 19:59
  There's a lot of good indicators, interest rates being dropping down.
• 20:02
  You see Tomo Bravo, you see KKR coming up, these massive funds
• 20:05
  directed right at the mid market.
• 20:07
  I mean, who would have thought that, right?
• 20:09
  I think that's going to fuel a tremendous amount of optimism next year.
• 20:12
  So I'm pretty bullish on next year.
• 20:14
  I think we're getting some good signals right now that next year is going to be
• 20:17
  a really, really good year for marketing.
• 20:18
  Matt: Yeah.
• 20:19
  We are as well starting to see and not just anecdotally, but also seeing
• 20:23
  some data and some research and some optimism from the investors as
• 20:26
  well as other parts of the market.
• 20:27
  So yeah, fingers crossed, but definitely see things moving
• 20:29
  things move in that direction.
• 20:30
  Mark Nardone.
• 20:32
  Thanks for joining us, man.
• 20:34
  I appreciate you being here.
• 20:35
  Mark: Good seeing you, buddy.
• 20:36
  Matt: Great thanks everyone for joining us today.
• 20:38
  We'll see you next week on another episode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
• 20:41
  Until then, take care.
• 20:42
  Happy selling.