Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’
042 Marketing Simple | Beware The “Bag Full of Door Knobs”| Marketing PodStorm #4
Podcast (lochheadonmarketing): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:40 — 5.9MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More
Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, where we are trying the first world’s Marketing PodStorm — 30 days of strategies and ideas to help you create the future that you want because we believe that nothing legendary is going to happen, at any kind of scale, without legendary marketing.
Today, let’s talk about marketing simple aka beware the bag full of doorknobs.
Biznobabble
A lot of companies communicate and market in very confusing ways. Christopher says a lot of companies share their marketing messages in a “carnival barker kind of approach.”
“A lot of companies, even if they are a little more sophisticated, they are still barking a lot at people with a lot of stuff, in the tech world, we tend to speak on Biznobabble.” – Christopher Lochhead
One of the things that Christopher likes to do is read on a company’s website, specifically the “About Us” and it does show how messed up their marketing messages are.
“I made this one up and I placed it in Playbigger, as this is illustrative of the problem:
Megatech dingdong corporation is headquartered in San Jose California and as a leading developer and global supplier of innovative highspeed world-class cloud infrastructure platform solutions to global worldwide customers and all industries
Megatech Dingdong big data application infrastructure platform solutions are highly scalable, reliable, flexible, secure and powerful, built by world-class team, with a deep understanding of global communications standards and software and hardware expertise and design architecture development and standard-based social IOT mobile, wireless, container enabled distributed hyper-converged cloud blah blah blah yada yada yada.” – Christopher Lochhead, reading an excerpt of Play Bigger
Communicate Clearly
Christopher shares that today, particularly now is the time to communicate clearly because when people are confused, the chances of them buying is from minimal to zero. It is now, more than ever, that companies have to communicate in clear and powerful ways
“When people are confused, they have to think about it and ‘think about it,’ it is code for ‘I’m not sure’ or ‘I don’t get it’ which is also code for, ‘I’m not buying!’.” – Christopher Lochhead
Getting Super Simple
How could you get super simple? Christopher advises companies to focus on the problem your company is solving and remember that legends market the problem, not the product. Market one simple product or service to solve that problem and use short, simple and powerful words.
To know more about marketing simple and how to avoid a bag full of doorknobs, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
034 Digital Leadership & Why Leaders Over-Communicate
Podcast (lochheadonmarketing): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:45 — 7.4MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More
Extraordinary times call for legendary leadership. Because of the Coronavirus, shit is getting very weird. As Hunter Thompson said, “When the going gets weird, the weird turns pro” which is why it’s time to become a Digital Leader and over-communicate.
Primary Mode of Communication
In times of crisis, people need to both see and hear from their leaders. Former navy seal and former Chief of Staff for 4-star General Stanley McCrystal, Chris Fussell was on FYD episode 38 and he made a comment on digital leadership in an article he wrote on NY Times.
He made a comment on “digital leadership and said “first, don’t hunker down. Second, demonstrate candor.” Christopher thinks this is good advice especially in times like this, the only way people are experiencing their leaders is digital.
“Going forward once we get through this crisis, it is very clear, digital communication will become, if it is not already, the primary way that your employees hear from you and see you.” – Christopher Lochhead
Leaders Are Not Overcommunicating
Christopher observed that CEOs, CMOs or any business leaders at the moment are not communicating much. This to him is a big mistake. He shares that Fussel and McCrystal are right on, from a tactical point of view. He also encourages leaders, not only to improve public speaking skills but to get comfortable with technology such as Zoom.
“I don’t think you can be a leader anymore unless you’re a digital leader.” – Christopher Lochhead
To cite an example, Chris Fussel talked about McChrystal doing daily briefings. He couldn’t take a top-down approach on communications that he needed to be front and center with all of his people and so he started daily briefings using video and audio.
Becoming a Digital Leader
As a CEO, CMO, of business leader the first a-ha here is that you can’t be a leader unless you’re a digital leader. Since its the only way for people to experience you, you must get comfortable with technology. Make the necessary upgrades on your hardware such as microphone, camera, among others.
Consider having daily CEO briefings. Learn how to motivate your employees and ask the tough questions. Be radically candid and keep in mind, LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN.
To hear more about Christopher’s thoughts digital leadership and overcommunicating. download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Links:
What 9/11 Taught Us About Leadership in a Crisis, NY Times
Using the Next Recession to Change the Game
How to Survive a Recession and Thrive Afterward, HBR
Seize Advantage in a Downturn, HBR
Advantage In Adversity: Winning The Next Downturn
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
148 Are You Undervaluing Your Customers? w/ Rob Markey of Bain & Co.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:01 — 28.9MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS | More
We speak with Rob Markey of Bain & Co today about his breakthrough piece for Harvard Business Review “Are You Undervaluing Your Customers?”Rob also leads the Net Promoter Score Loyalty Forum and his Firm, Bain, invented the Net Promoter Score (NPS).
We have a riveting conversation about why companies with high levels of customer loyalty grow 2.5 times as fast as their peers, how companies should re-orient around customers and why Customer Loyalty is a shareholder priority and more. If you care about customers and growth, I think you’re going to love this dialogue.
Pressure To Deliver Earnings
Rob shares how his write up started as a source of frustration and curiosity. He shares that the clients he has worked with over the years still abandoned customer-centric companies. He further shares that companies ultimately face pressure to deliver earnings.
“The investors put pressure on management teams, who then are forced to squeeze out every last dollar in order to make a goal. That is just a short term goal.” – Rob Markey
Rob also says the importance for companies to have a visionary CEO, those who are willing to sacrifice short term earnings for long term gains. Investors should support these kinds of CEOs.
Standardized Metrics
Christopher asked if there should be a standardized metric to look at this matter in the context of a quarterly earnings call. Rob shares that it is one way to do this, however, he also says the world is a much more complicated place and it is hard to put a finger on just one metric that will lead you in the right way.
Net Promoter Score
Christopher asked Rob if NPS is the answer for companies. He shares it was just one of the objective function that they used when they were searching around for the right question to ask
“NPS is the best single question metric we have that enables you to see how an individual customer or a set of customers feel about the business in ways that then align with lifetime value.” – Rob Markey
There are lots of ways to collect a net promoter score. It can be after an interaction with a customer or as part of a relationship. It can even be a mode of market research, where the researcher can conduct double-blind research to acquire very reliable apples-to-apples comparison among different companies.
To hear more about Rob and why customer loyalty is a shareholder priority and more, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Founder and former leader of Bain & Company’s Customer Strategy & Marketing practice. Customer experience podcast host. Architected customer experience transformations, employee engagement improvement, marketing and sales capabilities development for dozens of the world’s largest companies.
Co-authored The Ultimate Question 2.0 (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011), and numerous other publications. Keynote speaker, leader of the NPS Loyalty Forum, and podcaster on customer and employee experience. Creator of the Net Promoter System.
Specialties: Customer experience; customer strategy and marketing; customer loyalty; employee loyalty; customer segmentation; new product development; direct marketing; brand management; service operations; digital transformation
Links:
Are You Undervaluing Your Customers?
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
033 Marketing Is The Leadership Department
Podcast (lochheadonmarketing): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:59 — 8.2MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More
Coronavirus has created and is still creating both horrible human and economic costs, around the world. However, it is during these times, where real leaders stand up and become legendary. Extra-ordinary times, call for legendary leadership.
The difference in marketing can make in these tough times, is incalculable. In this episode, let’s talk about why Marketing is the Leadership Department. The goal is to share ideas but most importantly, to spark dialogue and thinking amongst you and your colleagues,
Let’s Face It
Let’s state the obvious. We are likely heading into a downturn: revenues are likely coming down, as well as budgets and spending. Both private and public enterprises are definitely affected.
“From a human perspective, the coronavirus is going to cause more loss and suffering that’s just where we are at.” – Christopher Lochhead
Marketing as Leaders
As this is the perfect time for marketing leaders to stand up, here are some of Christopher’s thoughts on how to make it legendary.
1) Real leaders stand up
If you’re a CEO, please think about leading your company and your category through marketing. If you’re a CMO, please think about yourself as the personal press secretary for your CEO. In challenging times, the CEO and CMO want to be stapled to each other because marketing sets the tone for the company
“Marketing unifies all communications and spokespeople.” – Christopher Lochhead
On the offensive side, legendary marketing in bad times can drive the agenda for the category and position the company to gain a meaningful category share.
2) Now is a good time to do some good
If you or your company is in a position to help, see if you can. Let’s all try and be kind to each other. This is the right time to ask ourselves if we’re doing all that we can for our people. This epidemic is going to affect us in one way or another.
“I know of several high-profile Silicon Valley tech companies that are donating technology, money and/or resources, of one sort or another to try and help with this situation.” – Christopher Lochhead
3) Look to make smart budget cuts / re-allocations
Use this situation as an excuse to stop doing any activities that don’t give returns to the company. Most marketing plans have at least 20% of stupid in them. Cut more than you think you have to. Measure twice, cut once.
4) Practice radical transparency
Now is the time for clear, plain decisive language with your people, customers, partners, and investors. It is attractive, endearing and it makes people want to help this troubled company because the most legendary leaders are radically transparent.
5) Get thoughtfully aggressive
Research from Firms like McKinsey and Bain, published in places like the HBR suggest that the pathway to success is “Act fast, make changes or cuts if needed, then be thoughtfully aggressive, ahead of the recovery. The research says: Between 9%-14% of companies (depending on the study) actually outperformed competitors by at least 10% in sales and profit growth
Aim to be one of them!
6) Evangelize the category
Evangelize the problem. Most of your competitors will cut big M, marketing and over-focus on “demand generation.” That will open the door for you to grab category, POV leadership, We are all focusing on demand generation right now. That will probably open the door,
“CEOs often say to me, ‘Our problem is we are too much of a vitamin, not enough of an aspirin’ In downtimes, you want to make sure that people think that your category is a must-have, not a nice to have” – Christopher Lochhead
7) Drive short-term revenue
Get your 5 smartest marketers and your 5 smartest salespeople in a room for a day. Brain storm short term campaign ideas. Pick the simplest, quickest to execute ideas and get busy driving the pipeline and the cash register
To hear more about Christopher’s thoughts on why marketing is the leadership department, download and listen this episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Links:
Using the Next Recession to Change the Game
How to Survive a Recession and Thrive Afterward
ADVANTAGE IN ADVERSITY: WINNING THE NEXT DOWNTURN
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
031 8 Stages of Digital Marketing w/ Ryan Deiss
Podcast (lochheadonmarketing): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:08 — 59.3MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More
In this episode, we have a thoughtful conversation about how to turbocharge your pipeline and drive revenue with Ryan Deiss, founder of DigitalMarketer.com. He has some provocative and engaging thoughts around what marketers can and should do to drive revenue today.
We talk about the 8 stages of digital marketing and common mistakes marketers do within these stages.
How To Get Attention
Ryan shares that other than creating substantial and valuable content, companies should advertise. Facebook and Google ads are his recommendations because it represents 86% of the total digital ad spent annually.
He also points out the importance of having the right offer, at the right time.
“You have to do great content marketing and then you have to pay to get this great content, noticed.” – Ryan Deiss
8 Stages of Digital Marketing
One of the biggest problems companies do today is: they take a prospect too quickly from “interest” to “HEY BUY NOW.” Ryan teases out, exactly, what marketers need to do to own the whole process from interest to purchase and beyond.
The 8 stages of digital marketing are as follows:
Stage 1 – Awareness
Stage 2- Engagement
Stage 3 – Subscription
Stage 4 – Conversion
Stage 5 – Excitement
Stage 6 – Ascencion
Stage 7 – Advocacy
Stage 8 – Promotion
He discusses each on this episode with easy to digest, real-life examples.
Playing The Blame Game
Ryan also discusses the importance of owning these stages, as this is similar to the customer value journey. Most of the time, Marketing passes leads to Sales, which expects them to close the deal. Sales, on the other hand, know the importance of diligently following the stages and reverts back to Marketing.
He proposes that every company identifies what stage a certain lead is at and work their way around, encompassing other departments such as Product and Customer Care.
“That is what it takes to win today. The companies that do it, they’re just gonna be the ones who will win and the ones who complain this is hard, they will lose.” – Ryan Deiss
To hear more about the 8 stages of digital marketing, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Ryan Deiss is a best selling author, founder of multiple companies collectively employing hundreds around the globe, and one of the most dynamic speakers on marketing in the United States today.
He is the founder and CEO of DigitalMarketer.com and Founder and Managing Partner of RivalBrands.com and plattr.com. Ryan is the creator of the “Customer Value Optimization” methodology and have introduced and popularized many of the digital selling strategies that modern companies now take for granted.
Additionally, he is also the founder and host of the Traffic & Conversion Summit, the largest digital marketing conversion conference in North America.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
129 How to go from Sales Rep to Chairman of The Board in Silicon Valley w/ Elisa Steele
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:48 — 78.2MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS | More
In this episode, we are taken for a ride on how to go from sales rep to Chairman of the board with the amazing Elisa Steele. We have a powerful conversation about how she went from sales rep to regional sales to CMO, then CEO.
We also talk about what she’s learned from working in massive tech companies like Microsoft and Yahoo and many more, Wait for the part where she gives advice on how women can design legendary careers and have children too.
From Sales Rep to CEO
Elisa Steels is the Chairman of the board of two publicly traded tech companies, Cornerstone on Demand and Namley. She’s also on the Board of $25B Splunk. More of her career background includes former CEO of Namley and Jive and former CMO of Skype, and Yahoo.
She candidly shares what she learned from her career in these huge tech companies and from smaller entrepreneurial companies. From the time she graduated, she had a clear vision of what success looks like and she believes she will achieve it through sales.
“If I went into sales, then its really clear. If I’m successful, I made or overachieve my number. Nobody can be subjective about that. If I go into some of these other fields, that was like, a complete mystery to me, how do I know if I am actually gonna make it? – Elisa Steele
Legendary Career Woman
Initially, Elisa shares the only one thing she wished for her career: to not work with other people. The second thing she wished was to have financial independence. She believes that if women do not build resources for themselves, the critical decisions will be left to other people other than themselves.
“I was motivated by the fact or maybe even terrified by the fact that I wouldn’t have choices in life if I didn’t have resources. If you don’t have resources, then decisions in your life are up to somebody else. Resources equals choice.” – Elisa Steele
For Elisa, resources generally are assets. It is representative of the things that help women make a decision on what they want to do. Creating some wealth will make those choices, especially those that are critical in life.
How to Disagree and Commit
Elisa is a powerful executive and she shares the thought of disagreeing, but still committing. She describes herself as a consensus builder.
“Being the smartest in the room doesn’t actually help anybody. You have to actually make decisions and together, execute, because strategy is nothing without strong execution. Executiion is everything. Even if the strategy is off, you can still win, if you execute. Disagree but commit and be one team.” – Elisa Steele
To hear more information about Elisa Steele and to listen to his tips on how to go from sales rep to chairman of the board, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Elisa Steele is the Chairman of the Board at Cornerstone (CSOD) and Namely; Board Director at Splunk (SPLK) and an advisor to Advisor to Tile and people.ai.
She’s the former CEO of Namely and Jive Software, Inc.,
Ms. Steele served as Chief Marketing Officer and Corporate Vice President, Consumer Apps & Services at Microsoft Corporation, a worldwide provider of software, services and solutions, and Chief Marketing Officer of Skype, an Internet communications company, from 2012-2014.
Ms. Steele also has held executive leadership positions Yahoo! Inc. and NetApp, Inc.
Ms. Steele has served as a member of the board of directors of Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc., a learning and human capital management software company, since 2018.
Ms. Steele holds a B.S. from the University of New Hampshire and an M.B.A. from San Francisco State University.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.
026 Ryan Reynolds Legendary Peloton Trendjack For Gin Brand
Podcast (lochheadonmarketing): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:56 — 15.0MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More
On episode #023 with Paul Maher, we popped the hood on the secret marketing / PR black art of Trendjacking. Recently, actor Ryan Reynolds (aka Marvel’s Deadpool) who also owns the brand, Aviation American Gin, just pulled off the trendjack of the year. Let’s break down the 8 reasons why this was a legendary trend jack.
The Peloton Ad
The Peloton Ad shows a rich couple, with the husband, giving his thin wife an exercise bike. There was a public uproar as reaction to the ad. In fact, Business Insider reported: “Peloton’s nightmare before Christmas: $1.5 billion vanished from its market value in 3 days amid holiday ad backlash.”
Additionally, Busines Insider reported “backlash over a holiday ad that has been widely panned as sexist, tone-deaf, and dystopian.” This forced Peloton to cut the cost of a monthly subscription to its workout apps.
Trendjack of the Year
Actor, celebrity, and owner of Aviation American Gin, Ryan Reynolds, pulled off, what Christopher claims, as the trendjack of the year. What he and his team did was, they inserted themselves into the controversy around the recent Peloton Bike Ad.
For less than $100K, they hired the actor who played the wife and shot a response ad.
“The ad is funny. It captures what it’s like to break up with somebody. It’s a real jab on Peloton and they never even mentioned the name Peloton.” – Christopher Lochhead
8 Reasons Why It’s Legendary
- They found a way to trendjack the biggest Ad flop of the year
- Radically FAST: They acted in a matter of days.
- Aviation’s response is pitch-perfect. People loved their response as opposed to the original, which was way off-pitch.
- Radically creative. In the ad, she has clearly left her husband who bought her the Peloton.
- The ad was built to be viral. It was posted on social media, starting on Ryan Reynolds’s Twitter.
- This was a move that is virtually impossible for their major competitors, such as Beefeater or Tanqueray, to pull off.
- They did it in “less that $100K.” (NY Times)
- This ad made them the good guys. Yahoo reports: “Ryan Reynolds says he hired actress from viral Peloton ad because backlash can be ‘alienating’”
“This example begs the question: how can we be radically smart, radically creative and radically fast to trendjack the news to build our brand and category?” – Christopher Lochhead
To hear more about Ryan Reynolds Legendary Peloton Trendjack For Gin Brand, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Links:
AdWeek: “Greatest Sequel Ever”
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
110 Startup Marketing: Viviana Faga Emergence Capital
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:10 — 58.1MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS | More
We have another riveting and insightful episode today with Viviana Faga, Operating Partner at Emergence Capital. She is in-charge of marketing and helped create over 150B in new market cap. Today she shares some of her amazing experiences working both with startups and VCs.
The Importance of Marketing
Viviana Faga worked in Senior Marketing roles with companies like Salesforce.com and Zoom Communications. She was the Head of Marketing at Yammer and pioneered the enterprise social space.
At the moment, she coaches CEOs and Founders and leads them in finding the importance of marketing in scaling their businesses.
“You just got $5-15M and you’re thinking, ‘where do I want to spend my money? I want to spend money on building my product and I don’t know who to hire? Why should I hire a marketer? It just seems like one big massive waste.’ That’s what I deal with and those are the kind of questions that I get everyday.” – Viviana Faga
The Best Doesn’t Always Win
Viv narrates her current client who has a great product, but is currently in a category that his competition built. Viv find it fascinating to explain that the best products doesn’t always win. If a CEO doesn’t believe in this, the CEO then finds himself in a never ending cycle of “catch-up.”
“There are plenty of cases where it does. The company just sort of takes off, without great marketing. We’ve seen that. But for the most part, in the competitive market, if you don’t define the category, if you don’t create it, you’re going to really struggle because now you’re gonna look like you’re playing catch up.” – Viviana Faga
Viv advises her clients that the company will never be able to catch up if they continue copying the competition’s message.
“You have to change the game. Come up with completely new messaging. You have to go so hard at writing that message — from your press releases, website and sales collateral. Every single piece of content that is external facing has to speak this new language.” – Viviana Faga
CEOs Who Listen
Viviana was proud to say that she embedded herself into her client’s company. Other than this, she believes that she can only help those who are willing to listen. She narrated how she turned down the CEO of Yammer, twice.
“It was hard to turn him down, but obviously he convinced me. I wanted to work for a CEO who understood the value of marketing and after that conversation, I wasn’t so sure but a lot of folks from Salesforce have gone there. It’s our job to convince him Sales & Marketing matter.” – Viviana Faga
To hear more about Startup Marketing: Viviana Faga Emergence Capital and more relevant information about Viviana Faga, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Viviana brings over fifteen years of experience designing and building brand categories for successful cloud/SaaS and enterprise social companies, helping them create scalable growth engines that drive successful exits.
Her particular passions are scaling and structuring go-to-market SaaS teams, messaging and positioning, category creation, freemium product strategy, and sales enablement.
Before joining Emergence, Viviana served as VP of marketing for Yammer, where she defined the enterprise social category. After Yammer’s $1.2B acquisition by Microsoft, she became its head of marketing for enterprise social, which included Office 365, Skype, and Lync. She also spent over six years at Salesforce, where she launched several key product initiatives. Additionally, she was the VP of marketing for Platfora (now Workday) and the CMO of Zenefits.
Links:
Emergence Capital – Viviana Faga
103 The Power of an IPO with Eric Yuen
011 The Perception of your product is your product
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.
014 Don’t Take My Word For It
Podcast (lochheadonmarketing): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:34 — 23.4MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More
In this episode, Christopher Lochhead talks about how marketers strategically use language. Legendary marketers create a new language that educates the world on how they want their product or service perceived. Customer’s adaptation to that language is also a great tool to measure success.
How People Perceive Us
Christopher recently had Lee Hartley Carter on Follow Your Different Episode 099. Lee and her firm specialize in language strategy. We can infer that marketers pay very close attention to the use of words.
Christopher reminds us that the usage of some phrases undermines a person’s credibility. Some examples include phrases such as “don’t take my word for it” or “let me be honest with you.”
“Legendary Marketers and Category Designers know that a demarcation point in language creates a demarcation point in thinking, which creates a demarcation in action, usage, and consumption.” – Christopher Lochhead
Create New, Powerful Language
Christopher discusses how legendary marketers use language to create new thinking that educates the world. This language teaches customers what they do, why it matters and how to value it.
Some important examples are Starbucks and their “Double Grande Latte” instead of medium coffee. Another one is selling “pre-owned vehicles” versus “used cars.” Moreover, cloud-based software benefitted greatly with the usage of “on-premise software”
Indication of Success
It’s far too common to hear at almost every other coffee shop other than Starbucks — customers are asking for Grande or Frappe. Customers adapting to a new language is a great indication of success.
“You know you’re winning when customers start using your language, parrot them back to you, and they use it in the competitor’s stores.” – Christopher Lochhead
Christopher stresses Lee’s point, marketers need a language strategy! Category creators and designers create a new language to create a demarcation point in thinking, action, usage, and consumption.
To hear more about don’t take my word for it and more relevant information about language strategy from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Link:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
