B2B Nation

Operating in a space dominated by large, well-known brands poses a challenge for companies in any sector. In the SaaS software market – and in CRM in particular – the challenge can seem monumental.

Clare Dorrian is the CMO of SugarCRM, where she and her team are leading their challenger brand up against heavyweights like Hubspot and Salesforce. 

The advantage held by many challenger brands is that they are often more agile and can pivot more quickly than the leading brands. On the other hand, challenger brands have less margin for error, so they need to make well-informed decisions. 

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In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we’re talking to Clare about what it’s like to operate as a challenger brand today, which tactics and messaging are working for SugarCRM, and what we think is head in 2024, 

Episode Guide

3:20: What is the message Clare and her team want to deliver to CRM buyers?

5:08: Advice for CRM buyers.

9:28: What are the channels and tactics showing results for Clare and her team?

17:14: The role of in-person events in Clare’s strategy. 

19:17: Three things that get Clare excited about 2024.

27:23: What is Clare’s favorite tool?

The biggest change in the purchasing process for business technology over the past decade is the role of business users. IT no longer makes all of the decisions about technology. Instead, it’s the business users who use the tech on a daily basis who do much of the work. 

The area of low-code development, which allows business users to create workflows and automations for business processes, is a perfect example of this evolution. 

Business users and IT both take part in the purchase process for low-code solutions. And each role has its own part in managing the solution once it’s deployed.

In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we talk with Mike Donaghey, Chief Commercial Officer at CMW Lab, a workflow software vendor, about the modern buying committee, how vendors market to diverse committees, and Mike’s favorite too.

Episode Guide

4:02: How are business and IT teams involved in today’s purchase process?

6:29: How does CMW develop messaging for diverse buying committees?

7:57: How do diverse committees impact the sales cycle?

8:47: Do diverse buying committees require casting a diverse net for prospects?

11:11: What to make of the in-person event channel?

11:48: What should we expect from 2024?

14:29: What is Mike’s favorite tool?

Audience marketing is essentially the practice of building an audience of prospective buyers for your product or service that you inform and educate until such time as they’re ready to buy. 

Sounds pretty intuitive, right? It is. But it’s often a tremendous challenge to pull off successfully. 

Most marketers work in an environment where it’s difficult to play the long game of audience building because leadership wants revenue now. So while audience building can generate significant returns over time, what’s a marketer under pressure to deliver now to do?

 

On this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, I’m talking to Bolaji Oyedije, a marketer with 20 years of experience in the B2B sector, about how marketers can combine short-term and long-term activities to meet their immediate needs for leads, opportunities, and pipeline, and revenue.

We also discuss how to have the “long-term vs. short-term” conversations with leadership, how to earn the trust of today’s audiences, and Bolaji’s favorite tool.

Episode Guide

2:56: What, exactly, is audience marketing?

4:10: Audience marketing takes time many marketers don’t have

8:48: The danger of too much focus on short-term opportunities.

12:10: Goodbye BANT, hello FAINT

14:07: Can you convince someone who isn’t in market to become in market?

18:38: “I want content professionals to make content like a comedian...”

21:00: How does Bolaji recommend marketers have the long-term vs. short-term conversation with leadership?

29:32: What is Bolaji’s favorite tool?

More than 15 years after it happened, you can still find videos online of Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer chanting “Developers! Developers!” more than a dozen times at a Windows conference in 2006.

You can’t blame Ballmer for his excitement. Put the right combination of tools, technology, and ideas in the hands of a developer and you’ve got the foundation for a number of applications and platforms we use every day.

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Since Ballmer’s viral developer movement in 2006, the focus on developers has only intensified. The concept of “shift left,” which moved testing, quality assurance, and performance monitoring earlier in the software development lifecycle, meant putting more tools into the hands of dev teams early in the process with the goal of eliminating costly fixes later in the lifecycle.

Roee Kriger is the CEO and co-founder of Metis, which creates tools for database observability tools designed to help developers create applications with confidence.

His team’s go-to-market strategy focuses on differentiation in a crowded market, meeting developers where they are, and self-service experience.

In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we’re talking to Roee about the challenges of marketing to developers, why you won’t see the familiar social media icons on the Metis website, and his favorite tools.

Episode Guide

1:58: Rosee identifies the two biggest challenges of marketing to developers .

3:42: How does the GTM strategy at Metis address the challenges of marketing to developers?

5:05: It’s all about marketing and selling to the end user.

6:38: Why it’s important to nail your PLG motion.

7:14: What does Metis do to meet developers where they are?

10:53: Are developers more likely to give feedback to improve products?

12:29: What is Roee’s favorite tool?

How many times, B2B marketers, have you sat on a pipeline call reviewing open opportunities and heard someone comment on how long an opp has been open and what can be done to move it along? Quite a few times, no doubt.

Outreach from the sales rep, an open opportunity nurture sequence, and even executive outreach are all possible solutions. But wouldn’t it be better to avoid the problem to begin with?

In this episode of the B2B Nation podcast, we talk with Trinity Nguyen, VP of Marketing at UserGems,about her team’s approach to closing deals faster. And it relies on a rather old tactic from the B2B marketing toolbox – personas.

Trinity’s team discovered that when three personas were involved in the buying process,her company closed more sales. The personas were dubbed “The Three Musketeers,” and today Trinity and her team strive to marketo to these roles to get them involved as early in the process as possible.

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Also on this episode, we’ll talk about Trinity’s hopes for the second half of 2023, the most important relationship she has in her organization as a marketer, and Trinity’s favorite tools.

Episode Guide

3:03: Trinity explains the “Three Musketeers” her team targets in prospect organizations.

6:27: What has Trinity learned or changed because of the current economic conditions?

8:50: What is Trinity looking forward to in the second half of 2023?

11:50: What’s the most important business relationship Trinity has right now?

13:48: The importance of customer experience in the SaaS space

16:10: What is Trinity’s favorite tool?