Transcript
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Learn how to turbo charge your marketing
results by building repeatable, scalable demand JEN
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systems from Sheila Cleftcorn, CEO of
Keo Marketing and founder of the Business Owners
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Marketing Academy. See if you qualify
for a complementary Marketing Road Map for your
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business at Keo Marketingcom Slash Audit.
You're listening to BB growth, a daily
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podcast for B TOB leaders. We've
interviewed names you've probably heard before, like
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Gary vanner truck and Simon Senek,
but you've probably never heard from the majority
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of our guests. That's because the
bulk of our interviews aren't with professional speakers
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and authors. Most of our guests
are in the trenches leading sales and marketing
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teams. They're implementing strategy, they're
experimenting with tactics, they're building the fastest
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growing BDB companies in the world.
My name is James Carberry. I'm the
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founder of sweetish media, a podcast
agency for BB brands, and I'm also
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one of the CO hosts of this
show. When we're not interviewing sales and
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marketing leaders, you'll hear stories from
behind the scenes of our own business.
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Will share the ups and downs of
our journey as we attempt to take over
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the world. Just getting well?
Maybe let's get into the show. Welcome
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back to be tob growth. I'm
your host for today's episode. I'm Sheila
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cleft corn, CEO of Ko Marketing, and this is the ten episode in
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the Hashtag Demand Jin series. I
am thrilled to be joined today by Tara
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Ryan, Chief Marketing Officer at swerve. So, Tara, you're an expert
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in driving big growth with sales and
marketing, and you've been named one of
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the hundred most influential be tob tech
marketers in North America, which is pretty
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exciting. Would you tell our listeners
a little bit more about your background and
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what you're up to it swerve?
Sure, Sheila. I've been the head
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of marketing for twenty plus years now, mostly here in California, but around
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the globe, mostly enterprise software marketing
and swerve, where I am currently.
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The CMO is a great product or
solution real time relevant customer engagement over multi
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channels, namely mobile. So swerve
became very well known in the past few
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years because of online mobile, mobile
gaining and, as we know today,
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as consumers with banking and airlines and
travel. There really isn't even healthcare and
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fitness. There really isn't a minute
where we all aren't on our mobile device.
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So very relevant customer engagements. So
leveraging machine learning in AI to deliver
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millisecond communications that are hyper personalized for
consumers today. So it's exciting and something
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not a lot of marketers are taken
an advantage of right now. Can you
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give us an example of one of
the situations that you pardon me, yeah,
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sure, a good example would be, you know, leveraging geolocation and
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not just, you know, for
airlines, letting you know when, what
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gate to arrive at or when your
flight might be delayed, but really recognizing
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Okase, Sheila, I see you're
on the one hundred and one and you're
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you know, you're running a bit
late. Here's where parking is, or
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here's where you can click and get
a fast pass through security and, you
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know, looking at the entire customer
journey and, you know, again,
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delivering that relevant experience to each person
one on one. I mean today we
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can capture up to three years of
behavioral data and turn that around into a
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very relevant customer experience. So it's
fascinating for be TOC marketing and I've learned
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a lot because being in beat to
be marketing and the way we automate and
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drive personalized experiences across the sale cycle, it's been neat to be the parallel.
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I can imagine. Yes, well, and that's where the whole world
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is moving, where everything is much
more personalized and in real time. So,
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given that, let me ask you
this question. I work with a
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lot of marketers who just feel overwhelmed. They fill overwhelmed with technology, they
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feel overwhelmed with the pressure to provide
more personalized experiences. How do you recommend
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that they keep focus in a software
as a service stack world with limitless possibilities
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for automation, ABM, analytics and
all kinds of things? Sure, again,
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I think we're all facing this challenge. I know that at least in
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the last ten years, the growth
of the marketing stass stack has you know,
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I think we have thousands of options
now, especially everything that adds value
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to your investment in your main marketing
cloud, and so how to choose and
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how to prioritize? I have meetings. One I I like to meet with
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and stay informed on everything that is
new and I'm continually amazed at some of
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the automation and the tools that we
have at our disposal. That being said,
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limit budgets are limited and being in
companies I've been at the last few
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companies have been pre IPO, so
a lot of pressure on budgets and growth
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at the same time. So my
advice and my experience is to really understand
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what is your product. Is it
a long term consultative sales cycle? Is
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it try INS actional? Are you
leveraging Tele Sales and tell a marketing and
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really recognizing that no, to be
to be sales cycles are alike and as
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well as the marketing automation. So
how does marketing fuse with sales and really
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understand the tools that are necessary,
and example would be right now, Bambara
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is a wonderful vendor that I found
out about four months ago. Our sales
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cycle is probably two weeks in purchasing
and getting that up in live. You
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know, there's a lot of chatbots
that are amazing right now and those are
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tools that have helped me bridge the
gap with my sales organization and shortened sales
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cycles in the early stages of pipeline, and so those become at the top
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of my list and they become a
priority versus the hundreds of opportunities that I
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have with ass applications. Sure,
so you prioritize technology that helps you better
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partner with sales. It sounds like
it does. Yes, so, so
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intendeda from Bombora working with a list
partner like zoom info or ever strapsolutely.
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I work with marketing operations and sales
operations and marketing and and also tell a
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marketing I asked that we all meet
together. We meet weekly. Yeah,
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that's important. Review what tools we're
working, what is in our SASS stack,
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and then I also like to make
sure that it's just not too many.
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When I walked into Kupa, for
example, we had over twenty SASS
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APPS in marketing automation and we sat
down at the table and said, you
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know, what do we really need
and what's making a difference and we put
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some objectives around them and a month
later met again and made some decisions to
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delete a few and further invest with
others. And what was the impact of
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that, of those decisions? Well, reduced cost per lead, because I
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think when we look at marketing operations
and really looking at you know, I
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think today I'm looking at thirteen different
marketing channels I can leverage between, you
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know, social marketing, contents,
indication again, chatbots, webinars, podcast
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etc. So, you know,
looking at that cost per lead and making
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sure that your SASS stack is is
part of that equation. When I'm spending
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all this time automating and analyzing the
lead, you know, if it's a
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fifty dollar lead and I'm spending all
this technology surrounding that lead, sometimes sometimes
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it's slowing me down. When I
look at the nurturing and the tearing of
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some of the nurture streams. My
biggest warrior what keeps me up at night
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is am I stalling my cycle?
Actually be right and hating it? Yes,
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I could be getting in my own
way. So maybe adding a lot
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more complexity than you need to.
Absolutely and I yeah, I think there's
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some wonderful ABM vendors, but for
me, when I have, you know,
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right now I'm in enterprise, we
sell to large brands and so it
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isn't thousands and thousands of leads per
month and so I can look at some
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ABM approaches and make sure that I
have my ideal customer profile. I have
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a strong focus with sales and marketing
and that we're not trying to capture,
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you know, the interest of thousands. So again making sure that you're very
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clear. Are you selling to SMB, mid market or enterprise audiences? And
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then what are those ideal customer profiles
and the tools and the SASS stack that
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compliments that the most. What are
some of your favorite platforms right now?
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For that? I love hub spot. So I think they have spots done
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a wonderful job of late. We
just rebuilt our blog in hube spot and
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it took two weeks and it was
seamless and we're thrilled and I'm looking at
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that for my website. So again, nothing against part odd or Marquetto or
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others, but cost effectiveness, easy
Ui and, you know, ramp time.
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I'm thrilled with that vendor. I
think drifts are anger full as well.
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I'm just a great experience with them
and again, it's just a great
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time to be a be to be
marketer. It is we have so many
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options. I mean the innovation and
I was just speaking at a B Toc
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CMO conference a couple months ago and
I got on the plane to come home
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and I thought, you know,
B Toc marketers don't you know, just
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have the same technology surrounding us and
I think we're very fortunate right now to
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be be to be marketers. I
think so too. You talked a little
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bit about how marketing should partner with
sales in terms of the SASTACK, but
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are there other things that you think
are really important in terms of marketing partnering
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with Sales for Growth? Sure,
I think in the last few years,
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my experience at proof point, which
was a security company that I went into,
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pre IPO and then Coupa as well. When you have the foresighter the
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futuring, of knowing that you will
have earnings calls in a matter of quarters
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and that the pressure is on,
you know how much revenue marketing can contribute
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to. So I've really judged my
performance on closed new revenue at the last
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few growth companies and that requires an
all bound approach. So instead of inbound
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and outbound, I've combined it to
call it an all bound marketing and sales
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approach, where we look at conversion
rates and stages of the sales cycle and
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what marketing programs, campaigns, mediums, offers fulfillment are contributing to the closed
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deal. And and I think that
partnership between sales and marketing has been,
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or has become more fused than ever
before. Absolutely, and you absolutely need
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that in order to get growth fast. You need sales and marketing to be
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on the same page, the systems
to be working together and the campaigns to
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be working together right. Absolutely so. I've been fortunate in the last couple
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companies to either have telemarketing in the
marketing department more that's nice. Again a
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very close partnership. I think more
and more CMOS are looking at that again
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as a bridge between sales and the
marketing organization. That can be shorter and
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shorter, shorter and shorter bridge.
Yes, it really looking at that all
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bound approach and saying you know,
what is converting from stage one to two,
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to three, to four and ultimately
to closed revenue and making those tough
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choices. Sometimes that means that you
know a medium like a trade show may
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not be may have diminished return year
over year and you know you may have
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to make that tough decision out in
the field with sales that it's not something
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that you'll do a second or third
time and instead digital marketing may be proving
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to convert stronger and some of our
preconceived notions around marketing mediums. You know,
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we need to be flexible on that
in both the marketing and sales roles.
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It sounds like you've had some great
success. If you were to give
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just one or two tips for be
tob marketers today on the things they should
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be thinking about more than anything else, what would they be? Yeah,
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sure, I think, you know, keep it simple really, you know,
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keep your eye on the and the
focus on revenue and growth, and
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that really comes from sales, that
comes from contracts that get signed and put
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back into sales force. And then, I also think the discipline of your
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your main system of record, so
not to get distracted, as we talked
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about earlier, from you know,
one SASS APP APP that may give you
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some wonderful analytics, but making sure
that with sales force or Marquetto or your
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marketing cloud, that you're really looking
at that main investment and making sure that
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that's the system of record that everyone
judges your success in your performance by.
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Hm. Well, Tara, this
has been a really great conversation. I
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loved your in sites. I know
our audience is going to be thrilled to
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hear what you have to say and
if anyone listening has any follow up questions
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or would just like to connect with
you, what would be the best way
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for them to find you? Sure
on linkedin connect with me and just love
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to have ongoing conversations with all be
tob marketers, so I think linkedin is
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probably the easiest way and would look
absolutely love that. That's great. Well.
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Thank you, Tara, and for
our listeners, this channel is sponsored
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by Kaeo Marketing. If you're interested
in a complementary marketing audit, you can
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00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:26.190
do that at Kaeo Marketing and we
look forward to seeing you next time.
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Tara, thanks for again for being
on the show. It's been great to
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spend the time with you and get
to know you a little bit better.
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Fantastic. Thank you, Sheila.
I hate it when podcasts incessantly ask their
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listeners for reviews, but I get
why they do it, because reviews are
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enormously helpful when you're trying to grow
a podcast audience. So here's what we
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00:14:46.500 --> 00:14:50.379
decided to do. If you leave
a review for me to be growth and
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00:14:50.419 --> 00:14:54.009
apple podcasts and email me a screenshot
of the review to James at Sweet Fish
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00:14:54.049 --> 00:14:58.889
Mediacom, I'll send you a signed
copy of my new book. Content based
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00:14:58.929 --> 00:15:01.570
networking, how to instantly connect with
anyone you want to know. We get
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00:15:01.570 --> 00:15:05.129
a review, you get a free
book. We both win.