Differences in Marketing Strategy From Enterprise to Start-Up
#CMO2020 Series — Q&A with Scott Holden, VP of Marketing at ThoughtSpot
As part of our CMO2020 program, we were interested in learning more about the responsibilities and roles that shift when moving from a large enterprise company to a start-up. What’s the same? Different?
Last week, we held a discussion with Scott Holden, VP of Marketing at ThoughtSpot, to share his experience transitioning from his Senior Director role at Salesforce to his role as VP of Marketing at ThoughtSpot.
Below are his insights on enterprise marketing, event strategy, and marketing technologies.
What is the biggest difference in moving from a large company to a smaller startup?
At ThoughtSpot, interestingly, all the functions and capabilities feel just like Salesforce. I am still doing I am doing tactically all the same things. I have a much smaller budget, and a much smaller team. But I also have a much bigger path to impact because when I go to do something there is less of a committee involved.
I started at Salesforce when it was 1,500 employees and when I left they were around 15,000, so I saw it through a ton of change … One of the big reasons I decided to change was the lack of insight and say I had over different departments. I had a dozen product marketers working for me, then some corporate & marketing operations I indirectly managed, but they reported elsewhere.
ThoughtSpot lets me run those functions across all the different capabilities. At Salesforce, I couldn’t control the marketing operations part of it. At a small company you can reinvent quickly because of the connection between the teams. In a company of 80, there are only 80 people that can ask me for things. That is a luxury for now.
What about the difference in budget? What does the spread of budget look like in line items?
It is pretty similar, but I am seeing some changes. I think the largest line item in both is events. Salesforce does events very well, as I saw many success Dreamforce events in my time there, and the event formula expanded a lot over time. They started events for certain user groups, and roll out that way.
There is a lot of temptation for marketers not to do events because they are very expensive, and there is this idea that digital and online is replacing everything. That was something that I was challenging at Salesforce, and still do at ThoughtSpot, but I keep getting proven wrong. Events are a huge lever. It is the largest line item in my budget — 35 percent is spent on events. Part of that is because when you are talking about how your technology works, and how it is different, it is hard to get a grasp of it looking at a home page. At ThoughtSpot, we are trying to reinvent BI with search, and that is a struggle to position. You need brand presence, and that 1:1 opportunity to explain.
But with a smaller budget, we are always looking for ways to be a little bit creative, and do a lot more with guerrilla marketing. At some events, we would just get a little table in a nearby restaurant with flyers.
The key to success is our work with big, memorable stunts. We had someone dress up like our branded superhero, SpotGirl, which really made an impression on people. You were remembered a lot more when you could call after and say “Hey, nice to meet you at the event, I was dressed as SpotGirl.” You want people to think “Whoa, I have never seen this before.”
How do you leverage your presence beyond the event (before, during, after) with other communications disciplines?
There was a big change from Salesforce to ThoughtSpot. Dealing with smaller volumes we can coddle every lead. At a larger company we didn’t have the luxury of looking at all leads, and in a smaller company, we don’t have the luxury of showing up and hoping it will go well.
With our latest event, eight weeks beforehand it was full-on let’s go. But, we got 650 leads out of the event, and threw a nice party. What I was most proud of is we scheduled onsite meetings — 70 meetings. Our goal was 25, which was a stretch. I have never done that before. Sales guys were booked solid. It’s very much a sales/ marketing partnership.
What about after the event? How do you give it legs throughout the rest of the year?
Most people don’t realize you have to create a cadence of communication beforehand. There are a lot of tools that help you figure out who is going to be at the event. You can guess using a lot of different technologies who to reach out with a quick note saying, “Hey, if you are going to this event, we’d love to meet with you.”
With a smaller company, I won’t do it if I don’t have at least a month to prep beforehand. It is all about having a regular cadence, trying different messages, and following up after.
Our character of SpotGirl has been very cool, and we have been getting a lot of traction. We are designing T-shirts this year with all the different villains. The event thing we can do it. At a larger company I didn’t have as high of a touch, so this is more hands-on in the branding and I love it.
How do you choose the events?
Mostly trial and error. For example, Strata is coming up in September. We start by asking, “Should we go to this? We are not a technical solution … but we can place our technology on it to get more access out of it.” We did a lot of research to ask people what they think, and we found out it is becoming more of a business event. Ten percent of attendees will be CXOs, and many people will be managers and our target audience. This could help jumpstart the pipeline, which is especially great 3–4 months before end of fiscal year. With the relative price this looks like something we could get a good value out of.
Regional events are a good way to get some reach if you are smaller and don’t have as much budget. There are a lot, and so I am trying to figure out where are the best ones. We are currently running an SEM program with turbo charged targeting.
What marketing technology products do you use?
We use our own product ThoughtSpot — as it puts all the data in one dashboard — Salesforce, Marketo, Google Analytics, etc. The granularity helps you be able to go and play with these applications.
The technology involved in marketing right now is just crazy. The Slack CMO, Bill Macaitis, said that when he was working at Zendesk they had about 25 pieces of technology running just their marketing. With smaller companies it is just like, let’s see what the best product is.
One place it is blurring is direct sales rep campaigns. There are new upstarts doing it. We just bought [the product] SalesLoft, and we have been using it for a month now, and everyone has loved it. But two months later we demoed another product that seems to be doing it better. This is indicative of the changing pace of marketing technologies.
It is a little bit of the Wild West and the CMO has a lot of data sources from a lot of technologies. It all comes down to who can actually back it up, and can access them without custom IT work.
Outside of events, what communication activities have the biggest ROI?
I have a strong bend on content. Every piece of content I create needs to go from top to bottom of the funnel. I have a bend toward creating things that people have an emotional response to. I put a disproportionate amount of effort into making things pop.
It drives me crazy when an eBook is just a book report with a pretty cover on it that serves as clickbait. An eBook should be like a magazine, engaging, interactive, maybe even a video. It takes a lot more calories to do that, but when you download a piece of content like that and when you read it, it says miles about the brand and about the product. I think of content as appetizers and meals; you need a healthy balance of both small digestible pieces and longer informative papers.
