Brand & Revenue Marketing: A Delicate Balance

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Mark Evans: Welcome to Marketing Spark, the podcast that delivers insight, tools, and tips from marketers and entrepreneurs in small doses. By small doses, I'm talking about conversations that are fifteen minutes or less with marketers about their successes, failures, and what they've learned along the way. Today, I'm speaking with Steve Watt, an experienced b to b marketing leader whose expertise ranges from messaging and strategy to ABM. Steve is currently VP marketing with Grapevine six. Welcome to Marketing Spark, Steve.

Steve Watt: I'm thrilled to be here, Mark. Thanks for having me on the show.

Mark Evans: One of the things that you've been writing a lot about on LinkedIn recent LinkedIn recently and that I've been commenting on your on your on your post is the balancing act or the yin and yang between brand and revenue marketing or performance marketing. You know, on one side of the on the on the house, you've got the people who are about the brand experience and about brand awareness and about building a brand aura, and then you got people who are it's all about revenue. It's all about driving revenue, and brand is less important. So how do you balance the two? As a as a marketing leader, how do you make sure that what you're doing at Grapevine six straddles both camps?

Steve Watt: Yeah. It's it's great question because a lot of people do think of it as, this versus that scenario, and and I really don't. I I think it's a false dichotomy, really, this idea of brand marketing versus revenue marketing. Because I actually think when you do brand right, it drives revenue. It's it's like the rising tide that floats all boats. You know, brand is the tide that floats all your revenue metrics. So I don't see it as this or that. You know, I I I see it as you've got to nail brand or else you are trapped forever in high volume, low quality, transactional sales and marketing, and it's not a good place to be. So I I guess, fundamentally, I say it's not one or the other. It's not even so much about the balance. It's about get brand really, really strong such that it drives revenue.

Mark Evans: You know what I find interesting is that right now, people are very distracted as you can imagine. They've got different priorities. They're probably doing a lot more with fewer resources, and so it's tough to get their attention. And from where I come from, brand is important because brand makes an impact. Brand makes a difference. So even if you've got a great product, you're gonna struggle if you've got a weak brand. Do you see brands maybe having one one hand tied behind their backs because they've they're trying to they're trying to sell on the strength of their product. Meanwhile, they're being handicapped by the fact that their brand is not as strong?

Steve Watt: I do. And I think they're they're handicapped in many cases by senior leadership that has a very short time horizon. You know, they want they wanna measure tangible outcomes from every piece of content. They wanna know every activity you do. How many leads is that driving? How many MQLs is that driving? And the result of that pressure coming down into the marketing organization is that you just say, alright. Forget about anything that's not just a quick transactional win. So we're not gonna do that big rock content that's gonna change people's mindsets and get people to see the world in a different way because it's gonna take too long. It's too much of a lift. Let's just pound out a whole lot of little things and try to capture some email addresses and get a pat on the back. And we're not gonna write that book, or we're not gonna do that podcast, or we're not gonna do that series of videos because they're hard to gate. We gotta gate everything. Everything's capture a lead, capture an MQL, and you get this race to the bottom of crappy marketing. And and I don't blame the marketers. I I blame those who set up the measurements and the expectations and the incentives that drive them to do that, drive them to to feel that that is necessary. So, yeah, I do think that a lot of marketers have one arm tied behind their back.

Mark Evans: Yeah. One of the things I wrote recently is that being a marketer is kinda like being the, is kinda like being a professional sports coach is that you're hired to be fired. And I think right now, because of the focus on metrics and MQLs, is that a lot of marketers, they don't perform, then they're under the gun right away. And there's so much pressure, I believe, on marketers because they're being assessed with a with with a very focused lens as opposed to all the other things that make a brand powerful that drive your sales and marketing, which is about brand affinity and brand loyalty and building an army of advocates out there. And it's it's really unfair to a lot of marketers because, you know, it's it's a different set of rules, and maybe they're not fair.

Steve Watt: More importantly I mean, fairness is important, but more importantly, let's face it. They don't drive the right outcomes for the business over time. They drive short term outcomes. I I was in one role a number of years back where it was all about MQLs. There's like 200 MQLs a month or or we'll fire you and get someone else who will get us 200 MQLs a month. And it's like, well, hang on a second. I mean, these things we're calling MQLs are are crap. I mean, they're not turning into revenue. They're creating busy work for SDRs to harass these people, and everybody feels like they're doing something because they're busy, but they're not actually driving revenue. Meanwhile, how about we do this over here? You know, we we have opportunities to work on things that are going to save customers that are in jeopardy of churning and other things we can do to grow advocacy and expand our share of wallet in some of our best customers. I mean, that will that will put money in the bank. I was like, what part of MQLs aren't you understanding? Go get us MQLs. And it was it was a really demoralizing situation to be in, and it just drove a lot of low quality short term behavior. Okay. I guess we're doing content syndication, because we can capture some MQLs. I guess we're gating everything even though we know 90% of people are gonna bounce when they see that form. Well, but we're gonna get a few MQLs out of it, so we have no choice. And we were doing the wrong things for the business, but we were doing the right things for the metrics that were hung around our necks.

Mark Evans: Yeah. That's what I find really interesting is this whole idea of MQLs and whether, in fact, MQLs and I I say this a little bit tongue in cheek are irrelevant these days or maybe they're anachronism because when you think about it, downloading an ebook or signing up for a webinar or giving your email address so you can see a case study, it doesn't suggest that you're necessarily interested in a product. It means that maybe you want that ebook. Maybe, you know, you're curious about whether it's gonna deliver some value. Maybe that webinar is interesting, but you may or may not go. But as organizations, we look at MQLs as gold. The more you get, the better you are. And it's almost made us it's almost distracted us in a sense. It's it's distracted us from the things that matter. What do you think the future is of the MQL? And as important, what do you think the future is of gated content? Whether in fact we should gate content.

Steve Watt: Kill the MQL and free your content. I mean, seriously. If you're making quality content that really tells the story of your successful customers, tells the story of your amazing products, really tells the story of how you see the world differently and how you're making your client's world a better place. Don't you want maximum number of people reading that and hearing that and watching that and sharing that? Why are we doing something that is cutting off 90% of our traffic? And then we're pissing off the 10 that fill out the gate in most cases. It it only makes sense to me if your content is garbage. If your content is an excuse to capture an email. If there's no real nutritional value to your content, well, I guess you may as well gate it and then play the numbers game of of cadencing the hell out of people who are, you know, foolish enough to give you their email address and their phone number. But I'd really rather create amazing content that really inspires and really helps champions advocate and and really get maximum number of the right people reading that and not artificially restrict that through gating them. So, you know, let's let's create better content. Let's promote it into the right industries and the right roles through the right channels, and let's measure our success on the consumption of that content because we know that it's really, really good.

Mark Evans: Yeah. It's a great point. In fact, it's ironic that I was I'm working with a client and we're doing, account based marketing, and I wanted to improve my knowledge, get some more insight. So I did what you do as I went on to Google and I searched for ABM. And I came across this content from this I believe they're a UK agency called Alias Partners, and their content is completely ungated and it is fantastic. It is probably some of the best content, best design content, best written content that I've seen. And it sort of reminded me of the fact that content for the sake of content is a waste of time. But if you can create content that delivers value, that delivers insight, that provides perspective, then that's gonna drive your sales and marketing forward. And so I'm I'm curious to get your take on how you're approaching content and how brands in general should approach content to to really embrace the whole notion of content marketing?

Steve Watt: I am doing my very best to walk the walk or of what I'm talking about here. I'm I'm really trying to put into action exactly what I'm saying. Now I have the benefit of working in a 60 person scale up where we are figuring out a lot of things as we go, and we don't have a whole bunch of legacy metrics and expectations. We don't have a big team of SDRs to feed. We are very much an enterprise sales motion, and we also have really superior product. I mean, we have fantastic product, and I've heard time and time again from our sales team that when we get in a serious head to head due diligence process, we win. The problem is it's hard to get there, And that says to me loud and clear, alright. We we need to get ourselves into the consideration set of all of the all of the deals in play in the industries that matter to us. But a tremendous number of those people in those roles, in those companies, in those industries don't know who we are. So we need to we need to create compelling content that is signal from the noise, that disrupts their sleepwalk into renewing with the incumbent, disrupts their sleepwalk into looking at a couple of big brands and saying that they've done their job. We need to disrupt that sleepwalk and make damn sure that we are in their consideration set. So I'm not trying to capture email addresses and MQLs. I'm trying to change the way our core industries see their world and and see their options and recognize that there is a really strong contender here that they don't know about. So I wanna create the best possible content, and I wanna get it into the hands and into the minds and into the hearts of the people we need it to. So I'm not gonna gate it or do other things that's gonna cut down my ability to do that.

Mark Evans: But here's the question though, and here's the and here's the this is the tough questions. Everybody says that. Everybody says that I'm gonna create high quality, high value content. And believe me, I'm a I'm an advocate for all that that kind of thing. But how do you actually do it? How do you create content that makes an impact? Because there's a there's so much content these days and there's a lot of good content. There's a lot of like an awful lot of crappy content. So walk me through how you would put together content that's gonna resonate with the people that matter to you.

Steve Watt: I think the key is you need to lead to your product, not lead with your product. Mhmm.

Mark Evans: And

Steve Watt: and to me, the litmus test of whether content is any good is whether it's actually valuable to someone even if they choose not to buy your product. You look at engage. And demand base and Terminus and others. They create content that is educating a generation of b to b marketers about account based marketing, about how to flip the funnel and think differently about their entire go to market motion. And whether they ever buy that product or not, they are better for having read that content, attended that webinar, listened to that podcast. That is quality content. That's the kind of content you share with your peers. That's the kind of content you go back and you start binge consuming multiple things they do. And then when you move into a buying motion, they are a 100% in your consideration set. How could they not be? You know, they like I'm not saying you're gonna immediately buy them, but they're in your top two or three or four for sure. And that's a huge part of the battle. So I think where marketers go wrong is, oh, yeah. We're gonna create great content. And then you look at what they actually created, and it's just a sales pitch with a thin veneer of value. And if you strip out the buy our product aspect of it, there's nothing left. There's there's fumes. Right? So so does the content have real value even if they don't shop with you? That's the litmus test.

Mark Evans: I've been there, done that, and I've I've been in situations where senior executives have said, we're gonna do an ebook and it's a sales brochure, and that's a killer. For a marketer and a storyteller like me, that's a sales that's that's a killer because you're so deflated. You go, that's that's not about the customer. It's about you. We've got a a few minutes left because I promised people that I would I would keep this to fifteen minutes or less. One of the things that I'm and I think this is one of the reasons we reconnected is that you in the as the pandemic this global pandemic became front and center in everyone's lives, you got a new job. And it was like, hold on a second. You become the VP marketing at Grapevine six in was it March or April when everyone else is sort of losing their jobs and you're stepping up and getting a new job? Tell me about that journey and and what it's been like to be a new employee when I suspect you're never going to the office or you've ever been to the office.

Steve Watt: Haven't been there yet. Yeah. Started in April. There there's this whole cohort of people out there, and and I'm one of them who onboarded into a new company entirely remotely in in the midst of a pandemic. And I think we're we're kindred spirits in many ways, and it's been, it's been challenging, and it's been fun, and it it's been it's been great in some ways. And and I I look at so many of my coworkers who I feel this really strong bond with, and I feel like I know them really well. And then I sit back and reflect and go, yeah. I've never met that person. I've never met them in my life. It's so weird for me to realize that the great majority of my colleagues who I work with every day and, you know, I will I will consider friends forever. I have never met them. So, yeah, it's it's been really interesting in that regard. But I mean, sure has proved that, I mean, I think tech companies by and large are pretty good at work from home, work remote. We all traveled a lot. We all worked from hotels and conference lobbies and airports and Ubers and everything anyways. So I don't think it's been a huge stretch for a lot of tech companies. But I think it's really cool how a lot of companies in other industries that were were quite convinced that they couldn't work remotely have learned that, you know, with with necessity comes what is it? Necessity is the mother of invention.

Mark Evans: Invention.

Steve Watt: And here they are. Absolutely. Working remotely in a lot of cases more productively and more successfully than ever before. So it's been a really it's been a really interesting time. I mean, I'm I'm loving the ride. I'm loving the opportunity. Grapevine six is a is a extremely high potential organization with amazing big brands as clients and tons of white space yet to conquer and and really strong product and amazing people and amazing passion for for what we do and who we do it for. So I I consider myself extremely lucky.

Mark Evans: Let me ask you the most difficult question of this entire podcast. Uh-oh. You gotta you're gonna answer it really quickly. Here we go. Explain to me in very simple terms what Grapevine six does.

Steve Watt: That's the test. You know? That's what we've we've all gotta get better at, including me. And that's actually been a big focus of my time there is distilling down to the real core message. Mean, at the heart of it, we are a enterprise social engagement platform. We help people engage effectively and confidently on social media, on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter in particular. And we focus on regulated industries like wealth management and banking and insurance where that's really hard. They don't on one hand, they want to empower their people to leverage social media to build their personal brands, build the corporate brand, and grow their book of business. But two things hold them back, a lack of content, a lack of knowing what to share and what to talk about is one thing, and compliance is the other thing. There are so many regulatory hurdles and and fears, legitimate fears about falling on the wrong side of regulatory compliance. And we solve for both of those, the right content to share and, done in a compliant way. And it enables large banks and and wealth managers and insurance companies and others to activate their people in social media, which can be really transformative for the organization.

Mark Evans: That was terrific, Steve. You know, I really appreciate your insight. We covered a lot of ground in a relatively short period of time. This is an amazing marketing landscape right now. It's terrifying and exciting at the same time. It's great to have you on Marketing Spark. Your energy and your enthusiasm is palpable, and I'm sure you're you're gonna be doing some amazing things at Grapevine six. Thanks for listening to another episode of Marketing Spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, please leave a review as well as subscribe via iTunes or your favorite podcast app. If you have questions, feedback, would like to suggest a guest, or you're looking for help with b to b marketing, send an email to mark@markevans.ca. See you next time.