Behind the Marketing Curtain: An Interview with Influencer Marketing Wiz Amisha Gandhi, SAP

From emerging social media channels to the rise of artificial intelligence, the exciting cyclone of change often drops us marketers into unfamiliar territory—and we have to find our way home.

Thankfully, the marketing industry is flush with talented marketers leading the way, and we often look to them for tactical insights to navigate the winding road and avoid fields of deceiving poppies. However, in our thirst more knowledge, we often don’t get to see who these leaders are in full living color.

To bridge the gap between person and marketer, we’re kicking off an exciting new “Behind the Curtain” interview series—which, if you haven’t guessed, is inspired by Dorothy Gale and the classic film, The Wizard of Oz.

In this series, we’ll take a peek behind the curtain to get know some marketing industry wizards on a more personal level, as well as gain insights that can help other marketers use their brains, hearts, courage and creativity to improve their marketing efforts and drive business value in the changing digital landscape.

Our first featured marketer is the brilliant and incredibly nice Amisha Gandhi, Head of Influencer Marketing at SAP.

Enjoy!

The Woman Behind the Curtain

Amisha was born in Bombay, India, grew up in New York, and now lives in San Francisco.

“New York is my Kansas,” Amisha said. “I’m definitely a New Yorker at heart—which is probably where most of my personality comes from.”

But Amisha didn’t always plan on being a marketer. Actually, Amisha studied both theater and biology/pre-med.

“One [degree] was for me and the other was for my parents,” she said. “I’ve always loved theater, and I think that’s where I honed the artistic part of my brain … which I definitely get to bring into marketing, especially influencer marketing.”

Amisha is also a working mom and avid traveler.

“I love to travel,” she said. “But wherever I go, I like to be a local—to be immersed in a different world and see it from a local perspective. When my son is older, I want to go to the Galapagos Islands.”

She’s also a huge Sci-Fi fan. Among some of her favorite films and TV shows are Blade Runner, Star Wars (leaving out Episodes 1, 2 and 3, of course), and Battlestar Galactica.

“Battlestar Galactica is an all-time favorite,” she said. “It’s such a great story.”

Some of her other favorite flicks are Casablanca and anything by Alfred Hitchcock.

Following Her Yellow Brick Road

Amisha has had an interesting career path, starting her professional career working in a research lab for a pharmaceutical company.

“I really didn’t like it, so I quit my job and actually got a temp job as a data entry clerk at MCI,” she said.

Since then, Amisha has worked at startups, PR agencies such as Burson-Marsteller, and been a consultant to companies such as Accenture, Google, Merrill Lynch, GAP, HP and Time-Warner. Today, she’s well-known for bringing her mix of social media, communications and marketing skills together for creative campaigns and elevating executives profiles such as former CIO of SAP, Oliver Bussmann. She joined SAP team in 2010.

What was your Twister event? What moment or event put you on a path to a career in marketing?

While I working at a company that produced local market books, CitySearch.com—an online city guide and community—wanted a partnership. And I thought that was a really cool concept, and just in passing I mentioned that I’d love to work there, and ended up getting an interview.

After the interview, I showed up constantly. I brought the sales team doughnuts one day. Another day I stopped by with thank you notes. Finally, they just said “OK. Come on in and join our team. The other guy wants this job, but you want it more.”

It was a startup at the time, and when you work at a startup you wear many hats. I had a variety of jobs there and learned about marketing, sales operations, advertising, editorial, even movie promotions—you name it. But that’s how I got my start.

Dorothy found dear friends in the Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion and Tinman on her journey down the yellow brick road. Who are some of the people who’ve helped or inspired you during your career?

I have been so fortunate in my career to have worked managers, mentors and clients who’ve pushed me, guided me and inspired me.

While working at a political PR firm, I worked with an incredible PR executive named Barbara French, who taught me so much about storytelling.

Barbara was always pushing me to find that “so what” story. To this day, I still think about that. How do you tell stories that really excite and engage people? How do you find that really compelling, juicy story that people want to know about, read about or even care about? What’s the so what?

Also, one of my clients while working there was Kamala Harris—who is now Sen. Kamala Harris. Back then she was working in the city attorney’s office. She was trying to change the world, and it was so inspiring to watch.

Some others that I have to mention are Jim Dever and Penny Delgadillo Valencia here at SAP, who are great leaders and without whose support I would not have been able to build out the influencer marketing program.

It takes a community to help you build your career. I believe in nurturing talent and I’ve found it fulfilling to give back, especially to those who are early in their careers here at SAP.

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It takes a community to help you build your career. I believe in nurturing talent. - @AmishaGandhi
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Meeting the Wizard

At TopRank Marketing we believe in taking a smart, creative and results-focused approach in everything we do for our clients, as well as our own personal growth. Amisha is someone who certainly exemplifies these qualities in her work as an influencer marketing wizard, being a source of insight and inspiration in the field.

Good witch or bad witch? What’s a bad influencer outreach habit marketers should drop?

I think one of the worst habits is approaching influencers with a “What can you do for me?” attitude. Instead you should be approaching them with a “What can I do for you?” mentality.

If they’re a good influencer, everyone is hitting them up. So you have to be coming from a place that offers real value—and I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about personal and business value.

Influencers are trying to raise issues. They’re working to bring awareness around topics that are important to them. They’re not just there to sell your product. I’m interested in building mutually beneficial relationships for the long-term.

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Influencers are not just there to sell your product. - @AmishaGandhi #influencermarketing
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The Wicked Witch was defeated with a just pail of water. What’s one effective influencer marketing tactic that marketers often overlook?

I think that marketers often overlook the fact that you’re building something together with influencers. Collaboration is key, so I collaborate a lot.

Pick their brain. Ask them what value they see. Ask them what they think their audience wants to see. Ask them if they’ll help you build something amazing. When you treat them as a partner, rather than a participant, you’ll be able to create something more effective and meaningful.

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Treat influencers like partners, not participants. - @AmishaGandhi #influencermarketing
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Dorothy’s ruby slippers were the key to achieving her end goal of returning home. What are a few tools you believe are key for influencer marketing success?

You should absolutely have a good influencer identification tool; it’s worth the investment. We use Traackr, and that not only helps with identification, but also tracking and measurement—which is important for seeing your results beyond social media activity.

We also use VoiceStorm for the employee advocacy, and Sprinklr for social media amplification. Of course, not everyone has the resources to invest in these tools, but there are some good free tools like FollowerWonk, Klout and Hootsuite.

In the end, it’s all about being able to tie all your efforts together to show success and how that contributed to real business value—which is kind of like clicking your heels and getting you home.

What’s one thing you would ask the all-powerful marketing wizard for? (More budget, more resources, better data?)

I’m always looking for ways to drive and find better data. The better the marketing insights we have, the better our results will be. So, I’d ask the marketing wizard for a tool that can bring together influencer data, insights, identification, tracking and measurement linking it back to sales—something that can bring all the external tools together.

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The better the #marketing insights we have, the better our results will be. - @AmishaGandhi
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We’re Off to Meet More Wizards

I’d like to sincerely thank Amisha for taking the time to open up about who she is, where she comes from and how she approaches influencer marketing. Thank you, Amisha.

Of course, TopRank Marketing’s journey to Emerald City is just getting started. In the coming weeks, we’ll be bringing you more exclusive interviews and insights from industry wizards to add some smarts, heart and nerve to your marketing efforts.

Stay tuned for our next installment!

What would you ask the all-powerful marketing wizard for? Tell us in the comments section below.

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Transcript of How to Negotiate As If Your Life Depended On It

Transcript of How to Negotiate As If Your Life Depended On It written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Transcript provided by Verbatim Transcription Services

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Transcript

John: A lot of business is about negotiation, heck, life is about negotiation. We’re going to talk with Christopher Voss, former FBI negotiator and you’re going to learn some incredible negotiation skills.

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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Ducttape Marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Christopher Voss. He is a founder and principle of Black Swan Group, a former FBI top hostage negotiator and the author of a book we’re going to talk about today called Never Split the Different; negotiating as if your life depended on it. So thanks for joining me.

Chris: John it’s my pleasure, thanks for having me in and just a little small correction if I may. It’s the Black Swan Group as opposed to black swan. Black swan almost sounds like we’re black water or something like that, we’re The Black Swan Group.

John: It’s on my piece of paper here but I didn’t get it out then. While we’re on it —

Chris: That’s alright.

John: While we’re correcting this is it Voss or Voss?

Chris: Voss. It’s Voss. Like the water.

John: Great so let’s talk about negotiating. Obviously, the book is filled with stories from your FBI past and I think a big thing you do in the book is to apply those to everyday skills. So really is anyone in business ever taught how to negotiate.

Chris: You know I think there’s this thing that everyone expects people to be great negotiators and I don’t know if people are afraid to get better or whether it’s low on their priority list or what it is, but I mean there’s just such minor tweaks people could make to take such huge leaps forward.

John: Well in your view is it something that — I mean you’re suggesting of course it can be learned. But is there also — do some people just have it as a street skill?

Chris: Umm no, I think some people might pick it up faster than others. But it’s a little like emotional intelligence which is E.Q vs. I.Q. Like your IQ is fixed you know you got a fixed IQ, it’s like your height. You’re only going to get so tall. I drank as much milk as I possibly could my whole life growing up and I’m just barely taller than my dad. I ended up six inches shorter than where I hoped to be, I wanted to be 6,7. So there’s nothing you can do about that, but your E.Q, as soon as you start making an effort to build it, that’s almost limitless. And the data shows us we can continue to build our emotional intelligent, which is what great negotiation is, applied emotional intelligent through our mid-80’s.

John: So obviously this book uses some very dramatic situations. I mean I don’t know that many of us find ourselves in truly life or death situations in business, I mean it may feel like that at times, but you know is negotiation really just human negotiation? Does it really matter where you’re doing it?

Chris: Great question. How could this possibly — how can high stakes, life and death negotiations, how could it possibly apply to what we do everyday. And the short answer is yeah it applies because it is human negotiations, it’s human interactions. And just because we’re upset doesn’t mean the other side is. Or maybe the other side are upset and we’re not. So the level of intensity varies wildly and certainly, some people treat some negotiations as if it’s a life and death deal.

John: One of the most interesting elements for me at least in the book is you like to think, I think a lot of people do think that negotiation is sort of rational, if I let them know what the facts are and I let them know why this is good for them they’ll take it, they’ll understand. And what you talk about is it’s not rational but extremely predictable.

Chris: Yeah and that’s a great distinction I’m really impressed that you picked that up because if negotiation was rational then we’d always make the deal, right? If it was simply rational there would never be anything to disagree about because we’d all be reasoned. But yeah, people are predictable, people repeat their behavior and make the decisions in patterned ways. So the other side may seem completely irrational but you know they’re going to have the tendency to do things to same, they’re going to be driving by what they care about and that’s going to affect what kind of deals they make. Or they’ll get mad at you and tank a deal that they should have taken because they were mad at you. I mean the F bomb in a negotiation and if you’ve read the book you’ll know what the F bomb is right?

John: Yep.

Chris: And “fair” comes up in every negotiation and boy that is a highly charged emotional word, if I say to you, look man, I just want what’s fair, which is really common.

John: Yeah.

Chris: I just levelled a huge accusation against you and the negotiation is going to knock you off balance.

John: Because you’re essentially saying you’re not being fair.

Chris: Exactly. Right I’m implying it, it’s what the NFL owners did to the NFL players in the last lockout. And clearly they came out on top.

John: So in some ways that predictability I mean especially if we’re thinking — and again you may differ on this but you know, if sometimes negotiation is looked at as I win what I want and maybe that means you lose I don’t know. But if people are predictable, and especially if we can learn what their predictable behavior is, doesn’t that become their weakness?

Chris: Certainly it’s a weakness you can exploit if you’re about that. That’s a really great point, Adam Grant, who’s a brilliant guy, I read his stuff, he wrote a book called Originals, he also wrote a piece not that long ago, it was the dark side of emotional intelligent. Because these are powers for good and not evil. The really bad guys, the sociopaths are using this stuff because it works, it’s tremendously powerful stuff once you start to wrap your mind around this and get your ego out of the way. It’s amazing the amount of influence you can have on somebody because yeah, you get to understand what drives them and helps you understand their weaknesses, you make deals, it’s enormously powerful stuff.

John: And it’s really not that — I mean that’s what’s so funny about this. When I read some of the techniques you know, we’re calling it negotiation but a lot of people have realised hey I can sell more if I appeal to people’s egos, things that come out as techniques they’re kind of really how people influence people all the time, or they’ve learned how to.

Chris: Yeah, exactly right. It has a very broad application. It’s not just negotiation. It’s for better interpersonal relationships, it’s for leaders, it’s across the board yeah.

John: And I think a lot of people now — I actually had this as a question, what is negotiation? Because I do think that a negotiate might be talking your wife into having something different for dinner then maybe what she wanted to plan. I mean we probably underestimate how often we’re negotiating.

Chris: Yeah I agree 1000%. The most dangerous negotiation is the one you don’t know you’re in. And anytime somebody’s trying to get somebody to say yes you’re in a negotiate. And the vast majority of them don’t involve money just exactly like the one you pointed out. They want something different for dinner, that’s a negotiation.

John: So in business, there seems to be quite often the negotiate is over price and there are people that seem wired to “I don’t care if that’s the best deal in the world, I don’t care if that’s good for me, I don’t care anything, I want a deal.” Is there a way to negotiate so to speak with that person so you get to a mutual benefit.

Chris: Yeah that’s the easiest guy in the world. Somebody who’s just complete focused on one term and typically it’s the price term. I can make any deal, either a great deal or a lousy deal based on the other terms you know and the really cut-throat negotiators on the planet, Carl Icahn is a famous guy for doing this. He’d be happy to give you his price because he’s going to kill you with the terms and he knows it’s your price focus that you’re really vulnerable, you think you got a deal from Carl Icahn and then you wonder what happened afterwards because he’s just destroyed you. So yeah I mean people think I’ve got to have a deal, that guy’s vulnerable to me. I’ll give you your money and you’re not going to pay any attention to the stuff I’ve put in there that I’m going to walk away with truckloads of value on that I’ll then monetize some other way.

John: Do you find or is your experience and maybe you don’t study lots of negotiators but you’ve certainly encountered other people on the other side of the table when you were negotiating. Do you find that there are men better than women at it? Are there personality types of people that just seem to be better at it, is there any kind of pattern there?

Chris: Well really the quieter people are better at it. I mean you’ve got to shut up to listen, as a hostage negotiator we used to say what’s it going to take to get the other side to come out, he’ll tell you what’s it going to take to make a great deal, he’ll tell you, the other side will tell you. A friend of mine here in Los Angeles when he was negotiating with sports agent he used to always say in the two-hour conversation it’s going to be 90 seconds of solid gold. Well, you’ve got to shut up and listen to get that 90 seconds of solid gold. So the quieter people are the ones who’re predisposed to actually listening for the solid gold. Now in terms of gender base, we actually see women pick this tactical application of empathy much faster than men do.

John: They sort of come to the table sometimes don’t they?

Chris: Yeah. I think the socialization you know, but then they need to assertiveness that men — men are socialized to be assertive and woman are less socialized in that direction. But women are more socialized to listen more. I’m not sure what the gender differences are, I know what the environmental differences are that make it — you know men are less socialized to listen so maybe, I don’t know that men are worse than listening, they’re less socialized to do so. But what it really boils down to the innate talent for being good or bad is not wired into gender.

John: Yeah so there maybe just socially have different things to learn if they’re going to pick up on this? So would you say there is a one killer skill, maybe you’ve already mentioned it. Maybe it’s listening, maybe it’s empathy, is there kind of one bass-line skill that you have to be able to master?

Chris: Yeah you’ve got to be able to shut up.

John: You know it’s funny that’s hard for people right?

Chris: Some people find that utterly impossible. I mean in order to get that point across one time I was working with a woman attorney. And she was the type of person that felt like in order to be in control which of course makes her very vulnerable because the secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is giving the other side the illusion of control, that means she’s vulnerable to feeling she’s in control. She’s got to be in control she’s got to be talking. And I once literally said to her, “Did it ever occur to you to not talk?” And she went dead silent and then she said, “No.”  But I needed her to see the distinction because she felt utterly out of control, she wasn’t speaking. And you walk right by great solutions doing that, you’ve got to shut up and open your eyes and ears to find a better deal.

John: I’ve actually seen salespeople talk themselves out of business doing what you just described, the client was agreed, said great and the person kept talking and eventually the deal fell apart.

Chris: Yeah because then they showed the client that even if they agreed they’re not going to listen to them and no one wants to work with someone who won’t listen to them.

John: So there are probably the most — at least the one I’m the most familiar with I don’t know if it’s the most famous or not or the most popular, a book on negotiation that so many sales people have read is called getting the yes and I know you’re familiar with it, I’ve seen you talking about it. What are the intrinsic differences between never split the difference and getting the yes?

Chris: Well getting to yes is intellectually sound, you know you can’t question the intellectual and academic rigor of the book. And it really doesn’t factor emotional intelligence into it. You know I haven’t seen or heard anybody say wow, five pages into getting to yes I immediately turn around and made a great deal based on what I read. What people will say is I read it and a lot of it made sense, that’s what they’ll say. They won’t say I made a deal because of what I read, my book never split the difference people typically people are out making deals 10 pages into the book.

John: This episode of the Ducttape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Active Campaign. This is really my new go to CRM, ESP, marketing automation, really low cost, any size business can get into it, starting at like $19 a month. You can keep track of your clients, you can see who is visiting your website, you can follow up based on behavior. Check out Active Campaign, there will be a link in the show notes but it’s http://ducttape.me/dtmactive.

So let’s talk about another book. As I was — and this is a two part question I’m asking if you think this particular person is a great negotiator from what you’ve seen. As I was researching your book I found really there was only one book right now that’s ahead of you in sales on Amazon and it is a book called the art of the deal by Donald Trump. Is Donald Trump a good negotiator?

Chris: You know I think I’ve heard of him, I’m trying to place exactly who that guy is…

John: I have kept my show non-political so this is a question about negotiation only.

Chris: Okay if you will, Donald Trump is the best of his type and there are three basic types and if you never adapt, there’s fight, flight and make friends, those are the caveman responses. When we’re walking down a jungle path in the caveman days and we saw something that startled us we thought you know, do I got to run from it because it’s going to kill me, do I kill it make a rug out of it, or do I make friends with it and it becomes either a pet or an ally, fight, flight or make friends. Now the most evolved negotiators learn the strengths of all three types. Donald Trump is in my view the best of his class as a fight negotiator, the aggressive negotiator. He’s always attacking and of that type which can be very — can be enormously effective for short periods of time and if you look at Mr. Trump’s impressive history he put up a bunch of — a number of the greatest construction feats in New York city in the 80’s and hasn’t built anything in New York that comes anywhere near it since. So a very aggressive negotiator will go in a rack up spectacular wins, a number of them in a row and then people will get tired of constantly being in a fight with that person and they’ll just stop cooperating and freeze them out. And Mr. Trump hasn’t put up a building to rival Trump tower in New York in 30 years. He has a building in Chicago, he goes a building here, he has a goal course, he has buildings scattered all over the planet, but he doesn’t have consistent successes in the same environment over a long period of time. I happen to be a natural born assertive and I had to learn to get out of that pattern and then that’s also the prototype of the international kidnapper too. They’re aggressive, assertive, they make threats, they threaten you and that was what I had to learn how to beat as a hostage negotiator. So my tools started out being tailor made to gain the upper hand on that guy and still keep a relationship going with them also you know so they’re happy to deal with you again. The other unfortunate thing about Mr. Trump’s success are after a while people get tired of being punched in the nose and don’t want to deal with him anymore.

John: So let’s dip into a couple of the techniques, tactics. One that I find really interesting and as soon as I read it I was like yeah I can see why that has power and that is the email subject line of have you given up on this project and again you use it in a lot of instances but just that sort of reigning engagement again and talk about the power of that.

Chris: Well you know that’s a killer line and one line communication. Nothing more in of itself for two reasons. First of all, people feel safe when they say no, it protects them you know so we’ve designed an entire strategy around that emotional really that if someone says no, it’s not a word to be overcome it’s just a word to be leveraged in a different fashion. We don’t believe I need 99 no’s to get to my one yes, that looks at no as a word to be avoided or to be overcome, that’s a word to be leveraged and it starts out by leveraging that word, you get somebody to feel safe and they let themselves in for nothing when they say no, they made no commitment whatsoever which calms them down and makes them in a position willing to talk to you because they’ve just protected themselves. Second thing that that does is it triggers the fear of loss and the fear of missing out which is a driving dynamic in today’s society. So much so that there’s actually an entire Nobel prize winning behavioral economic theory called prospect theory, because it’s the way people are driven, the avoidance of loss or the avoidance, fear of missing out is a common term in social media today, FOMO. So that ticks that in, you know that one line email actually punches two really important portions of the emotions in the brain that contribute to decision making and it spurs people and it moves them forward. It’s a really powerful thing it’s one of those things that you know it’s a great stealth weapon to get people to move forward.

John: So my second one and we’ll end on this one because again as you said 10 pages into this book you will find some things that are going to have you really scratching your head and thinking — not necessarily negotiate even, just present yourself I think from the beginner so it’s not — a lot of people look at negotiation and they think okay now I’m in this adversarial position but you put yourself in a better position I think by using some of these techniques before you ever get to that point. Getting people like that first bridge or that first trigger is getting somebody to say that’s right, or maybe it’s stronger and more emotional than that, but talk about that, those two words.

Chris: Yeah well when somebody believes what they just heard is the complete and utter truth they say that’s right, you know whatever side of the isle you’re on, the last presidential debate of the recent election, whichever candidate you like, when the say something you completely believed in you didn’t look at the TV and say you’re right! You said that’s right. So that’s right what we say when we believe something we’ve heard is complete truth and it’s the marker that we’re looking for when we’re everybody in the planet was advised by Steven Cubby to seek first to understand and then be understood. It’s a sequence. It’s knowing when the other side feels heard which then when somebody says that’s right to you, it’s also a signal that now their brain is open to listen and before they said that’s right they’re you know they were closed for business in terms of listening and every time you try and get them to listen to you at that point you were wasting your time because the listening part of their brain was closed for business. You just got him to turn the lights on and unlock the door when you got them to say that’s right. And at that point, that’s when you can begin to sway, that’s your marker that says the other side is ready to listen. And it’s not your right, you have to be able to listen and distinguish because you’re right is what we say to people when we want them to stop talking to us, that’s how we get them to shut up.

John: So I have seen — and that’s what’s interesting about this. Again when I read through the book I was thinking negotiation, negotiation but when I listen to you talk about that when I read about that in the book I’m thinking I’m a public speaker. When I get up there into he first 10 minutes I’ve got to get people saying that’s right about whatever it is I’m presenting or they’re not going to hear me.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

John: So many powerful applications. Great so talking with Christopher Voss the author of never split the difference negotiating as if your life depended on it. You want to tell — obviously the books available everywhere it’s been highly reviewed, tremendous best seller, you want to talk about where people can find out more information about you and your work and the black swan group? Because I know you have some products and services that you offer as well.

Chris: Yeah man I mean I’d love to thank you. The easiest way is for people to send a text message and send the words that right with no punctuation and no spaces, no apostrophe, no spaces, just write it out as if it were all one word, that’s right that right to the number 22828 and again that number’s 22828 and that will sign you up for a complementary AKA also known as free once a month negotiation advisory newsletter plus tell you about where to find other free things that we have and where we’re doing training where they might want to sign up for and also I help you understand where you can get the best price for the book.

John: Awesome. Thanks, Christopher so much and we’ll have that information in the show notes as well. So really great read, really great spending time with you and appreciate you appearing on the Ducttape Marketing podcast.

Chris: Thanks John it was absolutely my pleasure.

Transcription Provided by: Verbatim Transcription Services

 

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The Good News About CMOs and Data Driven Marketing

Before I get to the aforementioned good news allow me to go back in time, be it ever so slightly. 

In January of this year I scribed a post entitled 2017: The Year of the Data Driven CMO. Feel free to click to read the entire piece but until you do here's some highlights from that post.

• I referenced that, despite the fact that is the year 2017, research from Bazaarvoice showed that nearly 70% say surveys are indeed their primary source for customer data.
• Yes surveys. These same marketers are probably still using fax machines. 
• And completely unsurprisingly the same research revealed that only 27% of customers believe surveys are the best way to learn about them.
• I also threw out the obligatory data points i.e. 2.5 quintillion bytes of data generated every single day. But you already knew that, right? Say yes... 

And one last thing from that earlier post: If 2017 is in fact to be the Year of the Data Driven CMO then said CMOs must stop using archaic methods to gather and in turn use that data and to do that they need to use the right marketing technology. 

The Good News About CMOs and Data Driven Marketing 

In a report released by eMarketer of more than 2,000 executives, including C-level and their direct reports, in 21 countries across various industries about their digital transformation, well see for yourself.

As you can see over half (55%) of respondents indicated their decisions are data driven. And...

... more good news as more and more marketers are making data-driven decisions YOY from 2016-2017. 

I've said it before and will it say again: Marketing leaders must create a data-driven marketing culture and organize the required people, processes and systems. Moreover marketing leaders need to eliminate data silos and create a single source of truth and a 360-degree view of customers to reliably and efficiently target the right message, to the right person at the right time.

Enter Martech

Or better still, enter a Data Management Platform to be specific. More eMarketer research reveals that data tools, or more aptly outdated data tools are the #1 time waster. 

To get their message across, Modern Marketers need to connect on a personal level, creating engagement that matters to their customers. Doing so, though, means understanding what matters to their customers, where they are, and what they’re using to engage with a company’s brand—then tailoring experiences to each wherever they are, and whenever they want those communications. And faced with trying to do more with less—as many organizations are today—they need to do all of that more efficiently than ever before.

The key to connecting the dots and achieving all of these objectives is using and applying the right type of data at the right time. By compiling relevant consumer and audience data, marketers can create a more complete picture of target audiences, segmenting and focusing their messaging appropriately, tailored to the right device experience. But operationalizing big data effectively isn’t always an easy progression, and knowing how to apply different sources of data can make or break end results.

A data management initiative—centered around the deployment and operationalization of a data management platform—can help. However, even with the right technology in place, companies need to set proper goals and understand their strengths and weaknesses in order to organize and use data effectively and efficiently, based on their own needs and customer expectations. They must figure out what will work and what won’t in their particular organizational environment. They also need to understand how to continually optimize and scale their program for repeatable success.

Eight Is Enough

I am definitely showing my age and you will show yours if you remember the TV show of that name from 1970s. But in this context 8 is enough as in downloading Eight Questions to Ask as You Introduce a Data Management Strategy to learn which questions to ask to compile relevant audience data, how to segment and focus appropriate messaging, and how to use the right data at the right time to drive real results.

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How ‘Flipping the Funnel’ Helped Calendly Hit Double Digit User Growth for 24 Months Straight

Technical challenges aren’t the problem.

They might be a problem. A hurdle for sure.

But it’s rarely THE biggest problem responsible for traction or flaming out.

Likewise, churn is an issue. It can send you in a negative tail spin.

But again, top line growth masks all. Papers over enough cracks until you can get your head above water. You keep getting people in the door and you can get by with many other ‘leaks’ along the way.

No. The biggest problem is obscurity. Nobody knowing who the hell you are. And therefore not willing to give you the time of day (let alone, their email or credit card info).

Most companies struggle simply because they can’t get enough people in the door.

Not Calendly.

Here’s why, and how they had to ‘flip the funnel’ in order to scale growth to massive heights in only 24 months.

Calendly’s First World Startup Problems

I recently had the privilege to interview Claire Suellentrop with Brian Sun at Autopilot. We talked about her history and story. Where she came from and where she’s going. In my completely unbiased opinion, it’s super interesting. You should read it. ;)

But it was the admission that Calendly had over 10,000 beta users that stood out.

They amassed more users than most mature SaaS companies. While still in beta. (That alone probably deserves it’s own post. Tope, you readin’ this?)

Calendly didn’t struggle with the first pirate metric that most others do. That was more or less taken care of initially. They could open up to paying customers and already see a nice chunk of them convert overnight.

Claire didn’t have to get knee deep in Facebook ads or pray to the SEO Gods at the beginning like most marketers do. Instead, she had to look deeper into the conversion funnel to figure out (a) who their most active customers were and (b) how to better tell their story.

Because that unsexy, unglamorous stuff buried deep at the bottom of the funnel is where the real money is made.

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Calendly’s built-in network effects means that each successful customer should bring in additional customers. So their unique position meant they could switch focus from top of funnel stuff you read about online everyday to the stuff that’s rarely (if ever) addressed: keeping peeps happy.

They spent a lot of time going backwards initially. Re-tracing their customer’s steps and getting a better understanding of who they were (and what they were trying to do).

That started with segmenting their user base by most active customers. They already knew people in sales and revenue-oriented roles loved the product. So those were easy.

But it was the ones they didn’t know about that surprised them.

How Calendly Discovered New Use Cases

Segmentation is one of those boring research things.

Everyone says it’s important. Starts with the basics like vertical/industry/demographics/role. And then stops. Because: MOAR SEOS!

True segmentation actually goes a lot deeper. There’s segmentation by purchasing occasion, for example. Or specific events, like Christmas, that act as a catalyst to buy certain products.

Use cases are similar. Exploring people’s daily lives to see how and when potential uses for your product pop up.

Calendly was already aware of a few obvious use cases.

Claire said that they initially “pictured it being a bunch of sales guys that would add it to their outreach emails”. You know, cold calling 2.0 and all that.

But they knew there was more. They were watching how actions people took in their software lead them to the most profitable customers. So they lined up dozens of customers interviews to uncover how the product was fitting into their day-to-day workflow.

The objective was to uncover the real reasons people used the product (vs. the manufactured reasons everyone internally believes) and use that to better construct landing pages or other site-wide messaging to drive faster Activation and stronger Retention.

Today Claire is doing much of the same work with Love Your Customers. She’s working with companies to find these ways to improve their onboarding flow to drive product adoption faster. Digging into existing customer behaviors and using that data to make Activation shorter or faster. And then coming up with new ways to re-engage those who abandon.

Calendly discovered new use cases they hadn’t even thought of during those initial interviews.

Case in point: marketing automation.

Marketing leaders and sales managers were building marketing funnels that were completely dependent on scheduling through Calendly.

Customer interviews helped Calendly realized that it wasn’t just a sales rep tool, but an essential piece of their ‘marketing stack’.

They were then able to turn around, write new support docs explaining this use case, create content on teaching others how to similarly use Calendly in their own marketing efforts.

Like this one from Sean McVey, Director of Demand Gen at Virtru.

“Only 25–30% of inbound leads were actually scheduling demos— which was a low conversion rate, considering people were clicking very specific CTAs like ‘See a demo.’”

So he decided to rethink the typically boring Thank You confirmation page, instead embedding Calendly directly to remove friction in the signup process while also removing the burden from his salespeople’s backs.

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Sean told Calendly that even after this tiny change, he “saw pretty quickly that our conversion rate was nearing 50% or more.”

So he took it one step further, personalizing the Thank You page (and therefore, sales person + calendar) depending on deal size.

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Then he also set-up Slack notifications to fire every time a new lead filled out their form. And another for when a Calendly appointment was successfully sent.

So he could easily count daily conversions – both the initial form submission and successful appointments booked – for reporting, analysis, and iterating.

The results?

“Within the first month of using Calendly, we jumped to 61% of leads scheduling a call,” said Sean.

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Sounds cool, right?

Here’s how you can do it, too.

How to Create a Calendly-Driven Marketing Automation Sequence

Forms are the backbone of marketing automation.

They’re the springboard to triggering everything else because people are explicitly showing intent in something specific.

Here’s what HubSpot’s form fields look like:

1. 1. The little infinity-looking sign indicates a ‘smart field’. So if someone fills this out once, they don’t need to fill it out again on your site. HubSpot will save the contact’s record and ‘bank’ these answers so that these ‘smart fields’ will disappear if it recognizes an existing contact’s email and IP address.
2. 2. Qualifying questions, like Annual Revenue Range?, can be used to, well, qualify prospects. But as in the example we just saw, they can also be used to determine which funnel this prospect should be placed into. More on this in a second.
3. 3. Biggest Marketing Challenge? is more of the same. Another example that can be used to both qualify a prospect but also determine where to send them (or who to send them to) after submitting.
4. 4. The final hidden field changes this prospects lifecycle stage once they fill out the form. So they now go from being a general contact to a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) or Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) depending on their answers.

Next up, these contacts are added to a ‘smart list’ depending on their answer.

These lists are dynamic (as opposed to static), so they update continuously. And they control how these specific people will be ‘enrolled’ into automation workflows.

For example, here’s one my company uses for new applications we receive. People applying for jobs are then controlled and segmented based on which position they’re interested in.

So now someone who’s interested in a Marketing position can be sent over to the person in charge of Marketing (or, me).

But guess what? You don’t need fancy software to do this. Gravity Forms also works perfectly. They have conditional logic that allows you to determine the ‘thank you’ confirmation message someone sees depending on how they answer a question.

Let’s bring this back to Calendly.

Deal size is one easy answer. Depending on a company’s revenue (or number of employees in Sean’s case), you can usually tell if a customer’s going to sign up for $3,000, $30,000, or $300,000 worth of products and services. Qualifying questions can be used to determine who those people should speak to (or whose Calendly link they should receive).

Referral source is another. The Outbound 2.0 Bible, Predictable Revenue, says to specialize sales roles. So one person qualifies outbound leads while another for inbound.

Here’s how that might looks using Gravity Form’s conditional logic:

If their Source matches Inbound (or personal Referrals), they go to my calendar.

You can also extend this sequence with Zapier. (Here’s a previous article I wrote about hacking automation with Zapier for more background.)

Zapier lets you create filters that will determine whether or not this new submission should go somewhere else (to a new page, a new app like Calendly, etc).

For example, you can have a radio button or drop down that explicitly asks people if they’re interested in a Demo (or not).

So if they answer yes, only filtered contacts get through. And you can instantly add them to a well-oiled workflow that also adds the new prospect to a series of other apps you might be using.

Remember: Processes > hacks.

For example, a new successful form submission leads to:

1. Adding to your CRM
2. Sending a Thank You / Welcome follow up email with Calendly link
3. Sending a message to Slack about the new lead
4. Creating a new deal in your sales pipeline
5. And creating a series of tasks in your project management software to follow up.

And of course, like any good automation sequence, you can build this out depending on a few scenarios.

For example…

✅ Someone filled out a form but did NOT create a new Calendly appointment? Send follow up emails or texts with the appropriate link until they do.

❌ Still no answer after ~30 days? You can safely assume they changed their mind. You can have an automation sequence that will automatically unroll them as a lead.

✅ Appointment go well? Add them to your invoicing software and send it out!

For example, you can use the same info already submitted (like client contact, company name, etc.) to create and send a new Freshbooks invoice. Connect Stripe or PayPal to Freshbooks and you can now not only accept payments online, but also monitor payment status with Slack messages.

The sky is truly the limit.

Conclusion

Traction is the #1 problem for most startup companies.
But not Calendly, who was able to ‘go live’ with thousands of beta users already in the pipeline.

Instead, their major hurdle was in making sure people not only converted but stuck around for the long-term, too. Increasing retention leveraged their network effects; empowering each existing customer to bring in brand new people.

So Calendly dove deeper into understanding what makes their customers tick. They lined up interview after interview. And used each new insight or tidbit of wisdom to better tailor their messaging.

Integrating their product into marketing automation use cases was one powerful example.

User stories, like Sean’s, allowed them to showcase how current customers were solving difficult challenges. How those customers were benefitting in both hard ($$$, %%) and soft (hours saved) terms.

And how their product was the only obvious, viable alternative for other people like Sean.

About the Author: Brad Smith is a marketing writer, agency partner, and creator of Copy Weekly, a free weekly copywriting newsletter for marketers & founders.

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Supercharge Your Marketing at Digital Summit Los Angeles #DSLA

Coming off the supercharged sun, surf and sand themed social media extravaganza of SMMW17 in San Diego last week, I am now literally sitting on a beach. Here on the West coast of Costa Rica, with the waves crashing, birds singing their songs in the trees and the distant sounds of kids laughing as they play in the sand, it's a great time to reflect and look forward. Before I completely check out of the digital world for the week, except for an occasional photo on Instagram of course, I wanted to share some of the things I'm looking forward to most at my next conference April 4-5: Digital Summit Los Angeles. Last month was my first Digital Summit experience in Phoenix. DSPHX was an event of firsts for me: meeting the force of nature that is Beverly Jackson plus the legend and co-founder of Apple Steve Wozniak. I also had a chance to see several really impressive speakers for the first time including Mack Fogelson and Eric Yale. I was impressed! I can imagine Digital Summit Los Angeles being a great experience too. The speaker list for DSLA is an amazing collection of thought leaders including Woz and Beverly, industry experts like Michael King, Jim Boykin and Michael Barber and a huge group brand and publisher speakers from companies that include: Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Adobe, Forbes, IBM, The Economist, BET Network, Inc Magazine, Wells Fargo, GE Digital, BMC Software, BusinessWire and MIT. Over more than 40 sessions, the topics covered include everything from data informed marketing to visual storytelling and purpose driven marketing to content marketing with influencers. Of course, I'm a fan of that last topic since it is what the focus of my closing keynote presentation will be about: How to Supercharge Your Content with Influencer Marketing. Confluence rules. Content Marketing with Influencers is an area of deep focus for me that I've been experimenting with for many years and that our agency has been implementing for clients that range from a $180Bn Fortune 5 company to mid-market companies like ClickSoftware to small companies like Pandora Mall of America. The fundamental message of my keynote presentation is that marketing with content is harder than ever and if your company doesn't do something to break through information overload and distrust of brand content, you'll lose the ability to attract and engage customers. The solution is a content marketing framework for strategically engaging with influencers to increase content quality, quantity, reach and engagement across the customer journey. At the same time, I'll talk about how to build relationships with internal, industry and community influencers to increase advocacy. To back up the best practices, I'll share trends and insights our influencer marketing research that we partnered with Influencer Relationships Marketing platform, Traackr, on. Brian Solis of Altimeter analyzed the findings and wrote up an impressive research report, Influence 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing that attendees will be able to see. The Influence 2.0 report delivers crucial findings and covers important insights about the maturity of influencer marketing within large enterprise companies, budgets, top goals and areas within the organization that are most impacted. Brian also shares the intersection of influencer relations with customer experience and digital transformation. If that wasn't enough, he includes a 10 step framework for implementing an influence 2.0 approach. My keynotes are "inspractical" = Inspiration + Tactical. Overall, I'll touch on the best parts of the research report, include trends, best practices and share successful B2B and B2C examples of influencer driven programs to inspire attendees going forward. If you're a marketer in Southern California, this is a can't miss event! Event Details: Digital Summit Los Angeles April 4-5, 2017 Skirball Cultural Center Registration, Agenda, Speakers and full conference information here.

The post Supercharge Your Marketing at Digital Summit Los Angeles #DSLA appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Why Offering a Free Trial Might Be Dangerous For Your SaaS Product (And How to Figure It Out)

For some reason, people tend to be equating SaaS companies with free trials.

I find this pretty bad indeed.

Here’s why:

It’s true that many software companies see outstanding results with the free trial business model, but it doesn’t imply that everyone should use it. That’s just silly. Every single business is different, and the same strategy never fits all.

Force fitting a free trial system in your business can be really dangerous.

In this post, I’ll cover three of the most common scenarios where a SaaS company should NOT offer a free trial. Take a look through them and see if any describes you.

Scenario #1: The Product Doesn’t Deliver Results in a Reasonable Period of Time

“Do not offer a free trial when your customer can’t get a complete picture of how your product benefits them during a reasonable free trial period.”

– Wayne Mulligan, Co-founder of Crowdability

I couldn’t agree more with Wayne.

Let me explain:

The only purpose of offering a free trial is to remove the risk barrier, right?

Think about it. Companies offer free trials to show their prospective customers the value they’ll get if they decide to buy the product – they just want to alleviate all doubts and help their users make an informed decision. That’s it.

If your product doesn’t show the value within a reasonable time frame, a free trial simply makes no sense.

For example, if the user needs to gather accurate data to measure the value of your software, and he or she can’t get such data within the trial period, then that trial is worthless.

Also, it could be that your customer needs to contribute sensitive data to your system to evaluate it properly. In this case, the free trial won’t be helpful either.

In both examples, the trial period is simply not enough.

Now you might be thinking: “Why not just extend that period?”

Fair question. For some companies, it might be a viable solution. But the truth is there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. It all depends on your current situation and many other factors – like your sales cycle and working capital.

To help you out, I’ve listed below three of the most comprehensive guides on the topic. I’m sure they’ll get you on the right path:

• The Best SaaS Free Trial Length
• How Long Should Your SaaS Free Trial Be? It Depends…
• What’s the optimal free trial duration?

Scenario #2: The Product is Too Complicated

Listen:

NEVER assume that your prospective customer will even attempt learning how to use your product. If the process isn’t obvious or – at the very least – simple, they won’t see the value.

In simpler words, if your product is too complicated, a free trial will probably not work for you. Why? Two main reasons:

1. Without training, enterprise-level software tends to intimidate users, making free trials generally ineffective.
2. Complicated processes tend to cost more money. Unless you have deep pockets, getting people to use your product for free might not be viable.

And when I say “complicated,” I mean your product lies into one of the following categories:

• Your product has a complex integrated process. For example, when you need the help of developers to integrate your product into your client’s website or when people require extensive training to use it.
• Your product involves upfront implementation work.
• Your product needs third party integration to demonstrate a complete flow.

Companies like Marketo and Infusionsoft understand this concept very well. Both companies offer practical solutions, but they understand that people won’t get the most out of their products if they don’t know how to use them properly. So rather than offering a free trial, they offer free demonstrations.

In fact, Infusionsoft goes beyond your “typical” demo. Instead, you can decide whether to explore the product’s key features on your own, reserve a spot for a live webinar and Q & A session, or even schedule a customized tour from a small business expert.

This kind of attention helps you get a clear feeling of the product’s quality and its value.

Anyways, the bottom line is this:

If your product is too complicated or requires extensive training to deliver its full value, try with free demos. This model might work better for you.

Scenario #3: The Free Trial is Giving Away All The Value

Look:

Be careful about measuring results by focusing on user acquisition. I mean, if those users don’t turn into paying customers, they’re worthless. Savvy companies always bear this in mind.

If you want to increase your bottom line through free trials, you need to integrate the process in your sales funnel first and measure results by sales, not users.

The key lies in this simple, yet neglected concept.

Marketing expert and evangelist Trish Bertuzzi has worked with many SaaS companies, and she makes a fascinating point in his article on Why Free Trials Don’t Always Make Sense:

“…for some applications, there’s very little value delivered beyond the free trial period. If it’s a solution that helps manage a task done once per year – for example, arranging the annual user group conference – why would the prospect actually pay for the solution once that task is done?

In this case, the SaaS company is essentially giving away the full value of its solution. A free trial can attract users, but not many paying customers.” – Trish Bertuzzi

Her recommendations include:

• Offer a “sandbox demo” – letting your prospective customers try your product in a controlled environment might increase the effectiveness of the demo.
• Create an explainer video – explainer videos are proven to work extremely well for SaaS companies and – sometimes – a clear video is enough to explain the benefit.
• Money-back guarantees – if the free trial model doesn’t fit your business, you can still offer a money-back guarantee to reduce the risk involved in the purchase.
• No-obligation contracts – if your customer doesn’t get what she or he expected from your product, that customer could end the relationship without any problem. This reduces risk and entices more people to buy.

Many startups tend to imitate what other successful companies are doing, but remember, what works for others might not necessarily work for you. If a free trial model isn’t profitable, better rely on different strategies.

Don’t Take My Word For It – Test It Instead

If your business lies within one of the three categories outlined above, a free trial model will probably make no sense for you, BUT, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it at all.

I mean, there’s no way to know for sure unless you test it. Every business is different, and your results may vary. So please, don’t follow my advice blindly. I’m not trying to stop you, but to “awaken” you – never do things just because “you’re supposed to.”

The fact you’re running a SaaS company doesn’t mean you should offer free trials nor copy what your competitors are doing. Better trust on your own testing.

It’s the only way to figure it out.

What do you think? Are you going to test it? What other tips do you have? Make sure to share your thoughts in the comments! Brutal or otherwise.

About the Author: Josue Valles is a freelance copywriter, professional blogger, and business writing coach. He’s on a lifelong mission to help businesses find their voice and to turn boring ideas into brilliant stories. If you’re interested in working with Josue, you can email him at josuevallesp@gmail.com

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