In this episode of Markigy, host Leanne Dow-Weimer sits down with Brian Kotlyar, VP of Marketing and Growth at Hightouch, to explore effective marketing strategies in startups without the luxury of big budgets. Brian shares his wealth of experience, discussing topics such as translating big marketing department practices to startup success, listening to customer needs, debunking data myths, and succeeding in the current market landscape. Tune in for practical insights and awe-inspiring case studies on achieving real, data-backed growth.
In this edition, we're delving into the world of marketing strategies without the safety net of a massive budget. Joining us is the brilliant Brian Kotlyar, VP of Marketing and Growth at Hightouch.
Brian, with a rich background in delivering results for renowned companies, shares his invaluable insights on achieving genuine, research-backed growth. Whether it's leading global demand through the acquisition phase or scaling publicly traded companies, Brian's bold strategies and hard work create awe-inspiring case studies.
In our conversation, we tackle pressing topics, including:
🚀 Translating the needs and abilities of a big marketing department for startup success.
👂 Listening to customers to uncover their unspoken needs.
📊 Avoiding data myths and focusing on real, not perceived, competition.
💡 Succeeding in the current market landscape.
Brian and I dive deep into these areas, providing practical advice and real-world examples. Join us as we navigate the intricacies of strategic marketing without unlimited resources.
Don't miss out—subscribe to Markigy with Leanne Dow-Weimer for more insights and expert conversations. Let's get into it! 🌟
Bonus:
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00:00:00:12 - 00:00:12:26
Leanne
Hi, this is Leanne with Markigy. Today I'm joined by Brian Kotlyar and he is the VP of Marketing and growth at High Touch. Brian, go ahead and tell us about your background.
00:00:13:07 - 00:00:40:24
Brian
Sure. Thanks for having me, Leanne. I guess to be relatively brief. I started my career in market research and things like that, but moved very swiftly into trying to help startups just grow really fast. And I had a very fortunate experience of helping a company scale, which was it acquired by now Public Sprinkler, where I've built teams and led kind of all global demand transition from there to a company called Intercom.
00:00:41:00 - 00:00:58:15
Brian
Famous for the little bubble in the bottom corner of many of your favorite websites and applications where I had a similar journey enroll and spent time there during their hyper growth phase. But from there, a publicly traded company called New Relic was part of a turnaround team that helped that company kind of reactivate and triple revenue growth rate.
00:00:59:03 - 00:01:18:07
Brian
And in only about 18 month period of time, which resulted in a very successful acquisition by a private equity company. And then today, as you mentioned, I'm I lead marketing growth at high touch where we how we help companies kind of activate their data and use it for sophisticated personalization and other marketing tactics. So, yeah, that's me also.
00:01:18:11 - 00:01:24:13
Leanne
I mean, what an interesting journey. And I don't think people give enough credit to what can be done in 18 months.
00:01:25:28 - 00:01:50:00
Brian
It's a long time. Honestly, if you really think about it, it's like, gosh, you can have two kids in 18 months. And so and so, yeah, it's a it takes a very bold strategy and you have to really kind of go for it and work with a lot of intensity and work with a lot of conviction. But yeah, you know, when you think about, you know, you can, you can learn the violin in 18 months.
00:01:50:05 - 00:02:06:02
Brian
You can learn to run a marathon in 18 months. You can turn around a publicly traded company that's struggling in 18 months and triple its market capitalization. And so, yeah, I think people underestimate you overestimate what you can do in a day, but you underestimate what you can do in a year, 18 months.
00:02:06:03 - 00:02:32:10
Leanne
So yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more. So as you were, you know, kind of going through these experiences and your experience is now at high touch, you know, there was I like some of your skills and abilities and, you know, helped you formulate different strategies that you would use. But what were some of the pain points that like inspired you to think differently or that stood out along the way?
00:02:33:11 - 00:03:00:24
Brian
Yeah, I mean, I think a common theme across all the companies I worked for was even though each company in itself is really innovative and had some unique attributes and technology, I kind of use this term like all of those companies were in markets that were kind of a fistfight. You know, there was you know, you sometimes you get really fortunate where you sort of hit strike gold in like a whole new area and you're able to really grow really rapidly.
00:03:01:01 - 00:03:15:08
Brian
I've never been that lucky. It's always been a grind. It's always been a fight to to to achieve what we're trying to achieve. And so a lot of my experience, a lot of the things that, you know, when I counsel people or coach people or whatever, it comes to the perspective of like, nothing's going to get handed to you.
00:03:15:08 - 00:03:39:16
Brian
You have to find ways to stand out. You have to find ways to kind of out market outwork and kind of earn the market share that you want. And so, so yeah, I think a lot of it I'm happy to go into particular details, but I think a lot of sort of my message, a lot of my personal experience really comes from that place of like there's ten companies bigger than you with more money, more budget, more people.
00:03:39:24 - 00:03:59:21
Brian
There's 50 companies your same size all and you're all fighting and probably another 100 that were just founded by Y Combinator or something. And you're all going for the same price. How do you it? You know, and I think a lot of us confront that every day because, you know, the days of sort of these vast blue oceans in most markets are kind of gone, even as I look at what's going on right now.
00:03:59:21 - 00:04:04:18
Brian
Right. New idea. 10 million companies respond in the matter of a week, you know?
00:04:05:11 - 00:04:37:03
Leanne
Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a lot a lot more crowded. And I think that with that crowding, you know, you mentioned something that's really clutch besides the blue ocean because because within the blue ocean or any ocean, you've got to say like this is what what makes me float. But, you know, in in a competitive space, how do you differentiate like how how do you make it so that your company is the one that people know about?
00:04:37:18 - 00:05:03:09
Brian
Mm hmm. Well, I think it. And please guide me toward what you want to focus on, because I think it's it's a really big question, right? It's a lot of the essence of the strategy and the execution of the job. But I think I kind of try and think about this from the perspective of sort of like key insights to help you go to market and then execution of those insights to help you win in the market.
00:05:04:01 - 00:05:23:23
Brian
And sort of the insights part goes back to like I don't in some ways kind of like classic marketing training. Like you go, I send this article to my team all the time with examples of my team all the time with like the famous Ogilvy marketing ad, where it shows the Rolls Royce and it says, the only thing you here at 60 miles at 65 miles an hour is the clock ticking.
00:05:24:17 - 00:05:51:00
Brian
I, for example, of just like world class product marketing of any era, which kind of links capability to value in a really visceral, visceral and emotional way. And the origin of that insight, the origin of this like really deep seeded campaign that like exploded sales for the company was deep, later saying the product, talking to its buyers, spending countless hours reading the brochures, reading the manuals, coming to understand what is special about this car.
00:05:51:06 - 00:06:10:00
Brian
It's its quality, it's its luxury. And how does that actually manifest? Well, it manifests in the thing that especially back in the fifties, was impossible. Cars, which was quiet. Cars were loud, noisy, rattling things, you know. So, you know, you take that idea and you apply it to our products. You know, it's it comes a lot like really listening to customers really sitting.
00:06:10:00 - 00:06:32:29
Brian
And I listen to I can't even tell you how many hours a week of our interactions with our customers because they're all automatically recorded with all of our marvelous technology these days. It's all recorded, it's all transcribed, it's all there. I'm only shocked by how rarely my peers do that, but what I'm hunting for, I'm not trying to hunt for like examples of a sales rep do a good job or a bad job or some secret gossip or dirt about a competitor.
00:06:33:07 - 00:06:53:01
Brian
What I'm hunting for is my version of it's quiet at 65 miles an hour, and I can give you a couple examples, but that's essentially the first part of the process. And the second part of the process is, okay, what do we do with that? You know, in the term we use all the time internally at High Touch, is distribution a good idea?
00:06:53:01 - 00:07:21:28
Brian
Doesn't matter if it's sitting in our desktop. So like how do we get it in front of our people? And especially because we don't have the kind of money our competitors do. You know, we're fighting against many publicly traded companies. Their weekly ad budget is my annual budget. Like, literally. Yeah. Um, and so how will we work through communities, work through social, work through creative that kind of travels, work to our customer champions, work to our network, work through what ad budget we do have to ensure that we the idea moves.
00:07:22:14 - 00:07:36:11
Brian
And if it's the right idea and we do that right, you get just a ten bucks return on what would otherwise be like a mediocre shrug their shoulders campaign. So so yeah I'll pause there because that was a lot but I know that definitely.
00:07:36:18 - 00:07:57:05
Leanne
And that's great. That's great because I think what stood out for me about the about the specific like Royce Rolls-Royce example is that if you're combing the books like the the look that comes with a car like, oh, you got to change the oil, change this option, you got to do this. Nowhere in there is it like all you hear is the sound of the ticking.
00:07:57:15 - 00:08:19:11
Leanne
You have to get to know the people and not just listen to what they're saying, but listen to what they're not saying and the tone that they're saying it with. And that's the difference between listening to the calls and just looking at the transcription. We can use AI to pick up cloud like word clouds and pull out like what it thinks the sentiment is.
00:08:19:11 - 00:08:41:03
Leanne
And we can do all sorts of stuff. But what you can't replace is that like face to face conversation or appearance and being able to read the person's mannerisms, tone of voice, their background, and being like, Oh, when they said, you know, it's the off the record part that you have to find.
00:08:42:18 - 00:09:04:14
Brian
Yeah, I can give you a very specific example that was very important to my car companies, high tech success. So it's not like we're, you know, we're still a startup. I'm not like we want but but a really important moment which was I was listening to these calls and a woman was talking about her struggles, implementing a competitive product for a much bigger company and I was doing something else.
00:09:04:14 - 00:09:36:18
Brian
I was doing the dishes or whatever. But her voice kind of cracked when she was describing this because of the amount of frustration that had come with this very, very expensive, very reputationally, damaging, failed presentation. Like her career had been harmed by this and I regret that really happened. I rewind. I listen again and again and again, and it starts to open up this realization that like that there is this kind of deep seated regret around certain aspects of the product category.
00:09:37:19 - 00:10:03:00
Brian
And that became the underlying idea for a campaign we're ran called Friends Don't Let Friends Buy a CDP, which is like very specific to my industry. But basically CDP is are this legacy way of collecting data for personalization and marketing. And we have an alternative approach that we believe is better and that that became we were running basically the same content with a different monitor for months and it was kind of working.
00:10:03:09 - 00:10:25:28
Brian
We flipped over to the Friends on the Friends inspired by that. That woman's emotional, almost like cry on a on a call and all the performance of all of our ads, all of our blog posts, all of our social characters went up like five x ten x step change improvement. I'm not exactly like literally that. And so yeah, it's like you when you find when you find it, you need to notice it.
00:10:26:10 - 00:10:32:17
Brian
I easily could have skipped that call and then you got to figure out what to do with it. It's like she said, friends don't let friends. Those words that come out of her mouth.
00:10:32:25 - 00:10:33:07
Leanne
Right.
00:10:33:18 - 00:10:38:01
Brian
We interpreted her emotional appeal into it and it became this really successful campaign.
00:10:38:22 - 00:10:59:23
Leanne
Yeah, I love that example because it's just once again reiterating that you can count on written words for so much. But like that, that inflection in her voice really changed it. And it made you like it rang alarm bells. Because we're hardwired to have alarm bells. When we hear someone get very emotional nearby, it's.
00:11:00:19 - 00:11:02:18
Brian
Mostly about like random enterprise software.
00:11:03:09 - 00:11:22:23
Leanne
Right. But but it turns out like very valid feeling and big fear that, you know, in an a B2B or, you know, a large person purchase or transaction, the champion, the people that that are like, hey, this is what we should do. They're putting themselves on a pretty big line. Sometimes and I don't think they get enough credit for it.
00:11:23:03 - 00:11:34:20
Brian
Yeah. I mean, honestly, yeah, you make whatever. I don't know how much money this one maybe she makes $100,000 a year and she's buying a half a million dollar software like this is a big deal, you know? So. So, yeah, I totally agree.
00:11:35:03 - 00:11:59:02
Leanne
Yeah. And I think that if you work at a mature company, you can you can be using a legacy item and you're going to be like thinking it's this and like and the people that maybe that person that implemented it isn't even there anymore. But you're like, this was another one of their ideas and like you're like salty about it, but maybe it wasn't that person's fault.
00:11:59:03 - 00:11:59:16
Leanne
You know?
00:12:01:20 - 00:12:17:07
Leanne
And so, you know, I think that it's really understated how much personal, like professional branding or reputation can be at stake for people.
00:12:17:17 - 00:12:19:17
Brian
For sure.
00:12:19:17 - 00:12:50:11
Leanne
So so there's that kind of like customer into some intimacy aspect of listening to the calls and really hearing what they're saying and then distributing it in a meaningful way. You know, what are what are some things that might be like an obstacle that you've encountered when trying to do that or that you've seen other people? So let's say that someone's listening to the calls and they're like, Yeah, I think that this is what we should do based on that.
00:12:50:12 - 00:12:52:20
Leanne
Like, like where where does it fall apart?
00:12:53:21 - 00:13:15:05
Brian
Sure. Well, just one. There's the obvious water in there, too, which you just don't do. But let's assume you're doing the work. You know, the the next part, I would say, is that we kind of we need to come to this with a certain amount of like you need to have a little bit like the mind of a child, I think is like the phrase they use.
00:13:15:05 - 00:13:30:14
Brian
Like, you know, you really need to be there to absorb it, to learn when you bring when you're hunting for a particular thing, you'll find it. And that's like human pattern recognition stuff. It's like, Oh, I'm thinking of buying a red Volkswagen Jetta. I guess what you're going to see Jetta is everywhere. You know, and they're all getting red.
00:13:30:14 - 00:13:53:12
Brian
It's just how well like our monkey brains work. But when you come to those things just and you honestly are just listening, you listen for what causes people to lean forward, lean back, change their emotion, the timber of their voice, what speeds up the conversation when everyone's really excited because it's going on and what slows down because it's super awkward and weird and bad, you know, like those are if you're there with an agenda you miss.
00:13:54:06 - 00:14:20:00
Brian
And so I think that's really important too. But let's assume you come with it as a child. You do the diligence, you find the notes, you have your good ideas. What I also think can be really challenging is like then honing that idea into something usable because essentially companies ruin everything, committees ruin everything. And so trying to get your idea actually into the world, especially in a bigger company like that, we're relatively small.
00:14:20:00 - 00:14:42:21
Brian
So if I have an idea, I'm really passionate. Also, I'm in charge. So I get to just say things, but like, like I don't need to like filter stuff through that many filters for it to come to the market and get real feedback from the market. But any company of any size, especially if you're not in a really, really senior role like this, takes a lot of persuasion to get an idea actually out in the world and to have it not be ruined in the process.
00:14:43:20 - 00:15:02:10
Brian
And I think that there's a lot to that that can be very affect people's actually career success a lot which is how good are you not only defining the idea, but somehow like protecting this little candle flame from getting blown out before it can actually get out there and not turn into just some piece of junk that you don't even want your name associated with, you know?
00:15:03:05 - 00:15:15:21
Brian
So yeah, I think that that's something I learned working at like larger organizations prior to this one that served me really well, which is, you know, kind of internal selling, I guess, to put like a lame name on it.
00:15:16:14 - 00:15:43:01
Leanne
Yeah. And I mean, and sometimes it's just luck, right? It's very hard to tell when you are interviewing or looking at taking a position, what it's going to be like in the day to day if the person if you're going to be able to establish that type of line of sight from creation to out in the world. And there's some industries where it's it's a lot harder.
00:15:43:01 - 00:16:18:25
Leanne
There's uphill battles, heavily regulated industries. Whether or not it's intentional, it is it's deluded because, you know, and in health care, you got to see why a and in case everyone hasn't heard see why a cover your flank but but that's part of what the personalities of these larger larger organizations can be like. I definitely see that it has fallen apart for a number of people or or things where they really thought they were on to something.
00:16:18:25 - 00:16:39:02
Leanne
And then it got changed just enough to be the antithesis of what they were suggesting. MM Besides that, what about like, what about when like the product might need some work? Have you ever seen that turn into part of it?
00:16:39:15 - 00:17:02:27
Brian
Yeah. I mean, like it is one of the most challenging things that can happen as a marketer is the campaign is good, the product is not, and that that actually is real. Like, you know, sometimes you really have a good insight of the psychology of the market or the person you're marketing towards. You can have a really good message and a good way to deliver it.
00:17:03:14 - 00:17:23:16
Brian
But the the product doesn't live up to the promise. It actually is noisy at 65 miles an hour. So like so the first thing is like you need to like just getting clicks and attention is actually not in service of anybody if it if it can't be paid off. So one thing that I think is a really good mechanic to kind of filter on is I know I talk about this a lot with my team.
00:17:23:16 - 00:17:43:11
Brian
It's kind of a simple heuristic we use is like, is it true? And then is it interesting though those two things don't guarantee success, but the absence of those two things really makes success very unlikely. And the thing that's important about that true point is it might be a campaign that could work for a different company or a different party in your space for whom that point is true.
00:17:43:24 - 00:17:59:09
Brian
But it can't work for you because it's not. And because it's very rare for any product to just like suck universally and be bad in every way. In that case, I would just suggest polishing your resume like. But it just may not be great in the way you want it to be great for the sake of your campaign.
00:17:59:09 - 00:18:25:02
Brian
And so the hard part is you accept that even though you have the insight, you have to actually put it aside. You can give that feedback to your partners who develop the product and your executives and say, look, if this thing did this, I could run this campaign. It would be great, but it doesn't. So I'm going back and I'm going to figure out what is great about this thing, and I'm going to find the insight and the campaign that will work for this product, like almost any product, has something special about it that you can be effective with.
00:18:25:11 - 00:18:41:21
Brian
But if it if that match isn't, there, it's kind of new campaign time or new job is is kind of there's just no real way around it. I hate to be so, so like defeatist a little bit, but you can't market something that that's horseshit basically.
00:18:42:00 - 00:19:09:23
Leanne
I mean yeah there's that that saying like a gold covered piece of like, you know, like you can you can polish it, you can paint it, but it's underneath it all. It's still a problem in in one sense, what I think is missing is the marketing department going through the entire customer journey, start to finish and being familiar of what that experience is really like.
00:19:10:26 - 00:19:38:14
Leanne
If you're new in a job or even periodically, because there's always updates and features that come out is the first thing you should do is go through the customer flow like a real a not like a test one because you know, you should, you see like, hey, are we actually spamming them? Hey, like we say in this email or we said in this ad that you could do X, Y, Z, but then the instructions on how to do it, like where.
00:19:39:24 - 00:19:49:15
Leanne
And, and so I think that that's if you aren't doing that already, you should insist on doing that within your first ten days at an organization.
00:19:49:24 - 00:20:04:02
Brian
I agree completely. And I guess further, you can even you can push the concept even harder. It's something I learned. I had an old leader at a prior role who came from into it and into it. I don't know if they invented this term or they got it somewhere else, but they have this concept, which I just kind of fall in love with.
00:20:04:02 - 00:20:20:24
Brian
They call it a Follow Me Home, and it is exactly what it is. They follow their buyers and they stand in their house and they stand in their office and they watch them work. And for them, it's where a lot of their best product ideas have come from and their deepest insights have come from because, you know, intimate services, small businesses.
00:20:21:01 - 00:20:37:27
Brian
And so, like, they're watching the proprietor of Auto Body Shop in that little corner office in the wave back corner of the of the place, shifting to their papers, managing their bills, dealing with this, that. And that's where they get the spark of insight that, oh, my goodness, the product needs to do this, or we need a whole new product line or whatever.
00:20:38:06 - 00:20:59:12
Brian
And so it starts, of course, with to use the thing you sell the actual user, then you sell. So you have the opportunity to hear the clock ticking or whatever the case may be. And then there's a different thing which is, okay, what, what is the role of your product in their broader life? And that's where a lot of other emotional insights can come from that can really fuel your marketing and help you develop like your tonal approach and things like that.
00:21:00:03 - 00:21:19:18
Leanne
Yeah, definitely. And I mean, I think that that's where people either do it right or completely missed the point with the whole jobs to be done strategy like that, that's where they make a break. If they really like show up at the mechanic's office and they see like in the real world what their service is doing for that person.
00:21:20:08 - 00:21:55:27
Leanne
What job is it doing? Is it just collecting money or is it making it so they can just get to the next car and do blah, blah, blah, blah faster? But then people interpret things however they want to, which is great. You should, but sometimes that means missing the point. So when we think about like staying on the point and in long term value and, and maybe even like some short term values, how, how do we get the attention and stand out and distribute it?
00:21:56:08 - 00:22:01:09
Leanne
What are some like backbone needs to that.
00:22:01:09 - 00:22:26:17
Brian
Yeah. So I think something that is well I was going to say especially smaller but I want to say I think even very large companies struggle with is the the the concept of integrated marketing and also speed. Yes. When you work in a big company, integrated marketing is never easy. But I don't don't don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying it's easy, but you tend to have far fewer like campaign ideas and things.
00:22:26:17 - 00:22:44:03
Brian
So you have more of an opportunity to like coordinate schedule plan. So this is our message for a while. A lot of our tactics are media based, like buying media, and so we can develop our media plan and things like that. And so you can do integrated marketing, but it tends to be slow and you go to a very, very small company.
00:22:44:11 - 00:23:12:20
Brian
They're going to tend to move much more quickly, but their message is change a lot more frequently. There's just a lot more, just like randomness and chaos going on, small company, and that's how small companies work. And so you kind of have these extremes. You have very coordinated and slow, which is kind of bad because you need to move quickly in this market, even as a big company or you have like fairly non integrated and quick, which is also kind of bad because you're not getting on message repetition and message absorption from the audience you're trying to reach.
00:23:12:26 - 00:23:36:27
Brian
And you don't necessarily learn because you're just jumping around from things to think the thing in a very chaotic way. And so I think, like, it can be kind of magical if you can figure out how to be integrated in fast. And that's what I always strive with my team to do both of my roles. And here I touch and I'm not going to I'm not trying to claim that we're masterful at this, you know, in the past or today.
00:23:37:06 - 00:24:06:15
Brian
But I think that being the standard at which we are seeking to operate helps kind of push us to always try to be more integrated and try to move faster at all times. And it really adds up is the thing I would say like that polish and messaging, consistency, it adds up through repetition over time and speed. Just because you get more bites of the apple and you learn faster and you have more opportunities to kind of impress a message upon your audience also adds up.
00:24:06:22 - 00:24:26:09
Brian
So it's like a cumulative benefit. You don't feel the benefit in the first tactic or the eighth. You feel it in the 80th and the hundredth that you've been so on. Message so consistently with so much repetition for so long. You just kind of you can to my point earlier about hyper competitive markets, you can punch way above your weight in a hyper competitive market in that way.
00:24:26:29 - 00:24:44:17
Leanne
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know what, one piece of advice that it brings to mind is that we as marketers, we're going to get bored of what we're saying way before our audience is. We're going to want the new, the shiny new way of saying it, or we're going to be sick of like, oh, why is it always got to be like this?
00:24:44:28 - 00:25:05:09
Leanne
Because you need the repetition. You've got to like, really like dedicated zealously repeat within, you know, within that branding and positioning and you know, the details in the copy need to support that. And it if it pivots, that's great too. But you're going to get sick of it first.
00:25:05:29 - 00:25:18:19
Brian
Yeah. I mean, the best way to prove that yours. I couldn't agree more. I think about it all the time and the best way you would see that again goes by just talking to your customers. The frequency with which I listen to or interact with the customer, and they're like, It would be so awesome if you were a team, just did blog.
00:25:18:28 - 00:25:35:19
Brian
And I'm like, You realize we launched that three months ago. You have it for free and they're like, What? And I like, Pull up the application. I'm like, You see this button you click on 17 times a day, you see this other button one centimeter below it, and like they kind of sheepishly, you know, say, Oh, okay, you know?
00:25:36:06 - 00:25:40:14
Brian
And it's just it's not that there's anything wrong. It's their job to do, their job to drive us in to pay attention to you.
00:25:40:29 - 00:25:41:06
Leanne
Yeah.
00:25:42:05 - 00:25:48:06
Brian
Because like we told them and it's like, well, did you tell them 74 times and did you check it? They heard you. If not, they probably didn't.
00:25:48:27 - 00:26:17:08
Leanne
Yeah. Did you spell it out explicitly or were you trying to be clever? Because clever is not kind. But one of the things that we kind of talked about at one point was using data to reinforce products, market fit and how that helps to not just move forward with the short term kind of campaigns and the getting with speed, but the long term of it all.
00:26:17:08 - 00:26:24:25
Leanne
So what are some kind of ways that you would do that or that you see that?
00:26:24:25 - 00:26:45:08
Brian
Well, I think let me ask you to clarify question to make sure I answer your question. Well, which is do you mean like using data to help inform what's working, what isn't? Or do you kind of mean using data in the context of like actual go to market and marketing to to help kind of validate claims and improve the credibility of the marketing?
00:26:45:22 - 00:26:45:29
Brian
Well.
00:26:46:18 - 00:26:56:07
Leanne
Now I want to do both. Both of those are questions I think we should talk about. So I mean, I guess. Yeah, let's let's let's go for both.
00:26:56:25 - 00:27:23:16
Brian
Okay. So, okay, I'm the former, so I've been very fortunate. I like LED analytics teams. I've worked with a lot of excellent operations teams. And so like though, I don't believe you can find the, you know, the clock ticking or the friendzone, the friends idea in the spreadsheet. I think the spreadsheet is required because it's it's the only real like we need quantitative and qualitative indicators of efficacy.
00:27:23:16 - 00:27:44:21
Brian
And so like on the quantitative side, like the first thing I've done it pretty much every job since I learned this lesson is maybe, maybe the second, maybe the first I'd do it. You said, which is trying to understand the product. The second is, is, is try to understand what my indicators of efficacy going to be and what are like the leading indicators down through what are like the fundamental business driving ones that matter.
00:27:45:02 - 00:28:10:24
Brian
And I usually am trying to figure out like, like the 2 to 4 things that have a disproportionate effect on the business. So for example, at High Touch, it's people that request demos that there's many, many metrics of interest that one is the biggest predictor of future revenue that we're going to make. And then there's things further up funnel that tell me the likelihood that people will request demos like certain kinds of traffic.
00:28:10:24 - 00:28:32:03
Brian
We acquired through certain channels that visit certain pages and so on. And so like if I do that stuff way up, I can more, I can have some semicolons will affect that middle metric, which will then hopefully affect the lagging metric. And I think every business has some version this and one of the first jobs is to understand it because then that's how you're going to rate the efficacy of your your ideas as they as they kind of go in the market.
00:28:32:03 - 00:28:51:22
Brian
The reason I can tell you that the friends of friends was better than the preceding campaign is because all these metrics moved without that knowledge. I might, which I've seen many marketers do, like trying to walk in front of an executive team and say, Oh, it's way better. And they'll say, How do you know? And then you kind of sheepishly say, Well, I got a couple of tweets about it.
00:28:51:27 - 00:29:02:12
Brian
And Jim in sales mentioned that his cousin had seen it and they're like, Jim in sales, cousin doesn't write checks. So like I this, you know, where's the money?
00:29:02:13 - 00:29:03:28
Leanne
Where is the money?
00:29:04:21 - 00:29:26:26
Brian
And so like what's interesting is it might Jim's cousin might be right. It actually may have worked. But the problem is all your evidence is so qualitative in nature that that it's not adequate to really move with confidence and the represent confidence. And so because just as easily could be wrong, like I don't know who Jim's cousin is, they might be Bob Iger, they might be, you know, Bob that works at the coffee shop.
00:29:26:26 - 00:29:52:03
Brian
So who knows? So I think that's kind of my perspective on data and why marketers, it really is beneficial. I say this to Mike all the time. Many very few of us came up through like math degrees and statistics, which I didn't. I studied labor union organizing, you know, very few of us who end up in the marketing disciplines really came through like STEM, some do, and God bless them, but very few do.
00:29:52:18 - 00:30:12:18
Brian
And but I really talk to my team a lot here and in all my past roles is like it kind of doesn't matter. You have to get over the bar of data fluency. You just have to learn how to read a chart, learn how to make a good one, learn. Go take some Excel keyboard shortcut classes if you if possible, go learn school which those are true.
00:30:12:18 - 00:30:30:10
Brian
It's like the simple coding language to interface with big, big data sets inside of a data warehouse if you can. And last company we actually paid anybody on the team for and the companies could go take a class and learn and get certified, which is a thousands of dollars per person decision but was well worth it. Like the other way on that was enormous.
00:30:30:19 - 00:30:48:00
Brian
So I don't mean to like you can see I'm getting excited. I don't mean to be to get too caught up about it, but it's not optional, in my opinion, for marketers to be fluent with data. Even if you don't like it, even if you failed eighth grade algebra five times, it doesn't matter. You kind of have to learn it if you're going to be successful in your career.
00:30:48:10 - 00:30:51:16
Brian
And so that's kind of on the first part of that.
00:30:51:16 - 00:31:36:28
Leanne
Yeah, I mean, I missed a major I started off in, in physics and anatomy labs and chemistry classes and I think that that's part of my competitive advantage. You've got someone like me who is like, Well, that's not what the data says or that's you know, that's not a true experience experiment. You've got too many biases. And I think that even without necessarily going to college for STEM is the way that you interpret the things going on and you problem solve is that you, you know, that you can't just solve a problem for solve for something that's not a problem or that doesn't have any sort of parameters.
00:31:36:28 - 00:32:00:09
Leanne
Right? If it's too nebulous, then like how you mentioned about like which stages of the ones that that matter that moved forward and the revenue if it's too nebulous like you're just going to end up using like, oh yeah, you know, this was a popular campaign because we got extra impressions. Well, that's cool. But like, what do those impressions?
00:32:00:09 - 00:32:04:22
Leanne
Like, I can get you thousands of impressions does not mean it turns into business.
00:32:05:03 - 00:32:12:01
Brian
Yeah. No, actually, yeah. And so I think. Yeah, I see you're not now. Actually, I see your chemistry textbook behind you.
00:32:13:02 - 00:32:23:25
Leanne
But I won't let go of my anatomy textbook every time someone in the house gets sick or injured or, you know, something's going on, I'm like, Look, it's right here. This is what we do next.
00:32:23:25 - 00:32:41:27
Brian
Friends on WebMD, that's for sure. But yeah, so I think I know. But I it's it's a tough it's a little bit of a tough pill to swallow for, I think, a lot of marketers because they kind of got attracted to the field often for the kind of creative side of the role, which as we talked about a lot of them already, it's critical, it's not optional.
00:32:41:27 - 00:32:42:25
Brian
The creative part of the job.
00:32:43:02 - 00:32:44:07
Leanne
Nonetheless is optional.
00:32:44:12 - 00:32:53:03
Brian
Yeah, unfortunately it's all required. Like it's a competitive world, it's a difficult job and you know, to really be credible and successful, you kind of have to do both, in my opinion.
00:32:53:15 - 00:33:20:25
Leanne
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's, that's what the premise of this whole podcast is, is you have to be able to blend creativity, science and strategy. And if you leave one of those behind, you're just not going to get as far as you could. And, you know, I have grown up in in my professional life, you realize there's plenty of people doing a subpar job and still magically operating their businesses.
00:33:21:04 - 00:33:24:03
Leanne
But that's not what we want. We want to be successful.
00:33:25:15 - 00:33:43:25
Brian
With exactly that. Absolutely right. Yeah. And I guess I suppose to that second question, I'll just answer in brief about how to use data in actual to go to market it. It all goes back to my point that I was trying to sharing about like, is it true? And there's a related concept of it might be true, you might know it to be true, you might be able to prove it to yourself.
00:33:43:25 - 00:34:06:24
Brian
But is it credible in the market? And so it's it's really beneficial in our in our market to make bold claims like kind of half ass qualified claims, kind of just they don't get the sufficient attention. They don't kind of break through amidst all the marketing advertising we see every day. So you need to feel comfortable making kind of bold and boldly stated claims.
00:34:07:04 - 00:34:28:22
Brian
The problem is, is that they also need to survive scrutiny through one or two clicks past. And that's like goes back to how we talk early about the product doesn't do that. It's a house of cards and another is like if that our why isn't available or the price isn't actually better or whatever the case may be. And so one of the best ways to overcome that hurdle is using real data.
00:34:28:22 - 00:34:47:17
Brian
So we have this stat we use. So we, we tried really hard to remove all the outliers or whatever and process the actual signups to our product. And how long did it take somebody to get value? And so we have a competitive talking point, which is a typical competitor takes six months, we take 23 minutes, which sounds ludicrous.
00:34:47:17 - 00:35:08:22
Brian
Right? Right. But but if somebody actually wanted to see the data, so we did. I have it. It's true. The average person from when they first signed up to when they first get open, the product is 23 minutes. And so I can make that very, very bold claim with extraordinary confidence, because if I actually had to show the data on like a LinkedIn live cast or something, I could and I'm not like scared to do that if need be.
00:35:09:00 - 00:35:22:10
Brian
So that's kind of a great example of where the data you can make a bold claim, you can back it with something credible. And I and then you build back that with like a genuine willingness to kind of go and have a fight over it if you have to.
00:35:22:16 - 00:36:00:10
Leanne
So well in kind of circling back, which is a cliche phrase, I apologize to the listeners for using, but earlier we talked about the woman whose voice is breaking because she had previously implemented something that blew up in her face. And when you are able to do that, like what the proof and the transparency and the facts, the objective data and facts out there with these claims, then you don't put someone in the position of being the person that regrets your your platform, your service, your widget, your whatever it is you're selling.
00:36:00:21 - 00:36:15:11
Leanne
And that is where I think a true component of being customer centric is that you have to care enough about your product and your customer to not put them in a bad position.
00:36:15:27 - 00:36:27:09
Brian
Yeah, because I mean, God forbid somebody believes one of your lies, thinks a career on one of your lies and then gets fired over one of your lies. Like that's not that's not the world I want to live in and not a responsibility. I want to I want to carry it with me.
00:36:27:18 - 00:36:56:23
Leanne
So exactly. That's not how I want to do business. And I continue really disappointed in my fellow man who does that and women clearly who decide that that's the way that they're going to operate. And I think to to kind of psychoanalyze it a little bit is that whenever I see a business operating like that, it tells me they're not good at what they do because if they were any good, they wouldn't have to be so desperate to get.
00:36:56:23 - 00:37:10:14
Leanne
So we got two questions left. I'm going to kind of shrink them down. But what is the future of marketing and what do you think it should be? Do you think that they're the same, just super high level?
00:37:11:13 - 00:37:33:24
Brian
I mean, I know I need to answer quickly because we're running out of time, but I guess the thing I would say about the future of marketing is that I actually think that this emotional appeal part of it is just durable and it's forever. It's not going to change. I do think that the the tactical mix is is is changing.
00:37:33:24 - 00:37:49:25
Brian
So fast even from like, I'm not that old, but my career is like it's radically different now. You are an effective marketer, not that even even just five, ten years ago. I mean, just look at what's happened to Twitter slash X in a short period of time. Like it's a radically different place than it was five years ago.
00:37:49:25 - 00:38:07:24
Brian
And the tactics you would use if you were going to participate at all a radically different but sort of that the fundamentals I think would be the same. And so I think that that's like one thing that you can go read sexism aside, you can go read David Ogilvy's books from like the fifties and still extract knowledge that is still extremely valuable for marketing today.
00:38:07:29 - 00:38:25:20
Brian
And that gives me some solace and peace about about our discipline and about the future of all of us that are participating in it. But I would pair that with the emphasis that we have to be constantly reskilling, saying to a market that you need to no sequel 510 years ago would have is a bonkers thing. It wouldn't have made any sense for 98% of marketers.
00:38:26:00 - 00:38:44:14
Brian
Now I would say it's the inverse. It's kind of crazy for an episode of marketers not to and so, so I think the technical reskilling and the channel level reskilling is happening faster than ever. And yet somehow the fundamentals have not changed. And I think it's a very interesting thing and a challenging thing for all of us to navigate for the sake of our careers.
00:38:45:06 - 00:39:11:10
Leanne
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. You know, I'm still good at stuff that I don't use anymore for any reason whatsoever because it's just not a needed skill because the requirements changed. No one's expecting me to be the graphic designer. They're expecting me to be in sequel and to be doing everything else. Now, we've asked you a lot of questions, but what is the question someone should ask you?
00:39:11:10 - 00:39:26:12
Leanne
But they don't. Maybe they talk about like they come to you for X, Y and Z. They really need to start way back at ABC. Maybe it's just something that you just want people to know and you feel like you just don't get a chance to talk about it enough.
00:39:27:00 - 00:39:48:28
Brian
Well, I'll tell you, this isn't exactly the answer, but I will tell you like a life hack. I learned from somebody that has just been wildly help me in this vein, which is whenever I'm talking to somebody who a specialist in a discipline that I don't understand, especially if it's like a contractor for my house or something about my car or whatever, I always invariably just ask them, What do smarter people than I ask you at this point in the conversation?
00:39:49:15 - 00:40:05:25
Brian
And I almost always get back some answer, something interesting that I never would have thought to ask. It's like saved my bacon a bunch of times with like hiring people, hiring vendors, dealing with contractors around my house, whatever. So just a good life hack. Ask them what you should have. You should have asked them that you didn't yet.
00:40:06:03 - 00:40:10:26
Leanne
And also you little matter because that's what I just asked.
00:40:10:26 - 00:40:32:06
Brian
I wanted to be sure you asked me if I guess the specifically I might say for when people ask me for advice or whatever is like something I notice a lot. Is that so? I don't mean this. I mean this humbly, as best as I can. It's like I'm pretty successful and I'm pretty good at my work and people I think want to ask me questions cause they want some of that knowledge insight for themselves.
00:40:33:00 - 00:41:01:06
Brian
I think the the problem is that a lot of this is contextual. So I think the thing that they need to what I would really encourage them to go a little step further is to probe more deeply on the fit between my situation and where my advice is coming from in theirs. Because I can answer your questions based on my time working at a big, giant, publicly traded company, I can answer your questions based on my time working at a teeny tiny little company, and the introduction will be very, very different in how you apply them will be very, very different.
00:41:01:19 - 00:41:27:23
Brian
And so I think it's very helpful to whatever how can I increase my lead generation for next quarter? Very reasonable question, one that I can answer for you probably better than many people. But what you but the deeper thing is I need more context from you and you need to qualify my advice for your situation. I think we all kind of want I want some magic, one piece of advice that I can just drop into my life and blow out all of my objectives.
00:41:28:13 - 00:41:45:18
Brian
Doesn't exist. And so I think that asking like, how did you apply that? Where did you learn that and what situation, what was the context? Did that work here in there or only here? That kind of stuff? It it sometimes will ruin what seems like good advice, like, oh, wow. Let me jot that down and go do that.
00:41:46:15 - 00:42:03:27
Brian
But by asking those five questions, maybe you realize, no, I shouldn't do that. That's a Brian when he had you know a budget that numbered in the ten millions suggested not a Brian when he had a budget measured in the thousandth suggestion. And so I think that that that kind of context is often missing from discussions like this.
00:42:04:17 - 00:42:25:09
Leanne
I agree I agree the perfect strategy doesn't exist, just the one that fits the best for your circumstances. And in there couldn't be any worse idea than trying to find some holy of like playbook and then applying it to something that it just was never meant for.
00:42:25:27 - 00:42:28:22
Brian
And yet I think that's what a lot of people are trying to do when they ask for advice.
00:42:29:03 - 00:42:46:14
Leanne
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I wish it would work. I wish I and that's that's where I struggle with asking you for advice. I'm like, but there, you know, their X-Y-Z was different than my X-Y-Z. So like, you know, I could ask them and I'm sure that they had the really right answer for what they did, but that's not what I'm trying to do.
00:42:46:24 - 00:42:47:15
Leanne
Yeah.
00:42:47:15 - 00:43:08:04
Brian
And a lot of it isn't to go back to the same conversation, a lot of it's influenced by survivor bias and things like that. And so yeah, you know, if you understand those concepts, then you kind of understand how to interpret advice because advice is always given freely and given with good intent. But you need to understand and interpret it and you need to seek the other information around it so that you can localize it to your situation.
00:43:08:04 - 00:43:14:03
Brian
Or maybe say it cannot be localized to my situation. I just shouldn't do this thing. That is a good idea. But not for me.
00:43:14:17 - 00:43:20:03
Leanne
Yeah. Or it is a good idea, but it's for everyone and everyone's already doing it.
00:43:20:19 - 00:43:21:13
Brian
Could be very.
00:43:21:13 - 00:43:46:13
Leanne
Poor. Yeah, there's that too. For four people that found our recording of this LinkedIn, where everyone on LinkedIn tells you that they've got the exact playbook for you. But I appreciate you answering all my questions in this conversation. Is someone wanting to follow up and talk to you more? Or maybe they wanted to ask you a question with appropriate context.
00:43:46:13 - 00:43:48:24
Leanne
How would they get a hold of you or where would they look?
00:43:49:03 - 00:44:04:21
Brian
Oh, this is by Millington. I'm fairly responsive there amidst all the sales outreach and things and and happy to answer your questions. And yeah, that's probably the best way to track me down or just email me at Bryant high touch dot com decent on email though I often fall behind so.
00:44:05:10 - 00:44:25:17
Leanne
Right and and that's Brian with a B R I am just because people felt differently and then if anyone has any questions for me or they want to talk more, I'm on LinkedIn or you can email me at info at market air Kaguya dot com. Thank you so much and have a great thank.
00:44:25:24 - 00:44:26:11
Brian
Thank you so much.