Do More With Less! B2B Marketers Can Stop Falling Behind!

0:00My big challenge for all the B2B marketers out there is try SMS. If you think about how much business do you conduct over your phone? I mean, all of it. Like all of it, right? We all do it. I still see companies trying to capture like business phone number in their forms. I'm like, why are you doing that? Like no one's doing that. Even if you're in an office, there's no more phones. B2B is always like five years behind B2C. And I get to see all these B2C brands. They're already very advanced. And B2B is just starting. It's not like email because everybody's seen very rapid declines on conversion rates.

0:37So we have to start to experiment with these new channels for us to really get that engagement that we need in this digital era.

0:49Hey, everybody. Welcome to Marketing Trends. This is your host, Stephanie Postles. And today I am so excited because I'm joined by Adriana Gilminer, who's currently the Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at Iterable. Adri, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me today. Yeah, I'm really excited. I've been looking forward to this interview since we had our prep call and you had some fire ideas about the future of marketing and the things that you were thinking about right now. And I was like, oh, I've just been looking forward to it for the past week. So thank you for taking the time. Of course, my pleasure.

1:21So I'd love to first just quickly dive a bit into your background because I think you have a unique one. And so I would love for you just to go through the places that you've been over the years and where you're at now? Well, I will say, you know, first and foremost, I'm Venezuelan and half Argentinian. So I'm a third generation immigrant, actually. And I came here to the US 25 years ago. And that's when I kickstarted my marketing career. So I divide my journey in three, three chapters, try to try to make it easy. You know, three is always such a great number, right? We can remember. So first 10 years, I was pretty focused on digital marketing.

1:58And I've had the great joy of being actually on the agency side when I thought all my clients were idiots. And then I've also been in-house and I thought all my agencies were idiots. So it turns out we're all idiots together, just trying to do something new. But yeah, those first 10 years, I started actually at Digitas before it was Digitas and then went public with them and then went to American Express. And I really dedicated those 10 years to all about data. I actually started my first job was a data analyst. We're called New Media Analyst because new media was the internet back then. And went on to Amex, like I said, and was part of really the team that helped with digital transformation, everything from helping building the email system for the company to manage the website, to bring in all kinds of analytics and building the online dispute system.

2:52So, So when you have a charge that you don't like, you put it into the MyCard logged in environment. That was one of the big projects I helped drive. So really a fantastic time and really a great schooling for me about how to do things at scale that are technically driven, product led and very digital forward in an incredible world class brand like American Express. And then we moved out to the West Coast here with my husband. And the second chapter of my career started, I joined Weber Shamwick, which is one of the top three PR agencies in the world. And in there started what I call my storytelling era.

3:33Right. And I discovered the power of story. I had no idea anything about PR, but they were looking at the time. People that had digital background because social media was just kind of coming out as a real commerce force. And, you know, all clients were trying to understand them. Well, how do we communicate? How do we behave in this digital era way where everybody has a voice? And so in Weber Shamwick, one of my clients was this little tiny startup called Tableau. And there were just 100 people when I started working with them in 2009. And eventually, I ended up joining them as an employee. And I was there for almost seven years as a full-time employee, but worked with them for about 10 years in total.

4:19And it really had the incredible luck and just amazing opportunity to ride a wave from a tiny startup to over a billion dollars. And then we sold it to Salesforce and was on the ground with so many different aspects of the build and under the leadership of my incredible mentor. And she was my kind, my friend, fantastic Lisa Fink. If you ever want to know about how to build a brand community with heart and soul and that changes the world, please talk to Elisa. I've learned a lot from her, so I'm one of her mentees. And then, well, with the pandemic came time also for me to initiate the third chapter of my career after Salesforce had acquired a Tableau.

5:11And that's in my CMO era. And really, I am all about bringing together data and stories. I think most CMOs are either really, really focused on the demand gen side of the house or other ones are very focused more on the product marketing or storytelling or brand building. To me, it's really about integrating those two. Of course, you have to be really mindful of where your company stages, but that's what I think I do best now. It's about integrating both sides of the house. So good. Amazing. Okay, so now you're the CMO of Iterable. What led you to this company? Why are you so excited about it?

5:48Iterable is such a great fit for me, honestly. Like the first thing is it's a martech company. And, you know, as I mentioned, I started my career, really, a lot of the big stuff I did was building communication systems for American Express, both at the agency and there. there. So to me, it felt like a big opportunity to market something that I, as a practitioner, have done myself. And you don't have a lot of those opportunities in your career where you can represent a company, you can stand behind a product with your whole self and really get to get together with friends and people that I admire, brands, some of the top brands in the world over customers.

6:31So I have this front row seat to be able to understand marketing strategies and what's behind some of these incredible brands, many of them that I use myself as a consumer. So the affinity and the technology itself, I also think there's another point of inflection now, of course, with AI that really attracted me because I think that I've built my career of being sort of at the cutting edge of every single technological inflection that we've had. And so being in a provider, a technology company that is AI-centered gave me the opportunity again to be, hey, let me be in the front lines of how I adopt it for my team, but also how I market, sell, support our customers in that transformation.

7:19So to me, it's honestly just a great intersection of values, experience, and an opportunity to drive growth at a brand that is helping people like me, that are lifetime marketers like myself. Okay. So we're going to dive into AI, the intersection of it with marketing, more about what you're up to right now. But I want to start this interview actually with where we're at now, which when this episode airs, we are in 2025, in the beginning stages of it. And I know that when you and I spoke last, we talked about the theme continuing of marketing needing to continue to do more with less and having the efficiencies that, you know, have been asked of the marketing leader for, I think, the past couple years.

8:07But now we're in a different environment. It's a better, you know, financial environment, most likely. And you're still being asked to do more with less. So I would love to hear how you're thinking about 2025 and, you know, what your marketing plans look like. Yeah. Okay. So it's 2025. And guess what is the headline for all of us marketers? It is do more with less, like you said, right? But what's interesting is that that is happening in the context of the economy being more hopeful. I'm not going to say that it's getting better yet. We don't know yet. But there's definitely more confidence and more hope in the air.

8:46And I don't know how you're seeing others, but we're definitely seeing a bit of a pickup. I would say a meaningful pickup in Q4 that gives us a lot of excitement for going into the next year. To me, yes, it is always challenging, but I think I center my strategy on how to do more with less. One is to really realizing what is that AI promise? You know, like I'm starting to think about how do I organize my team to really leverage it? Right. Like last year we did a lot of experiments, you know, different people have done like maybe like most mostly like copy generation. But I think there's like now some real proof that it can help.

9:29We're like, we've used it extensively in demand gen, for example, in analytics. And so this year we actually kicked off formally. We're bringing in Grammarly as a communication tool to augment all of our go to market. And this is a project, a cross-frontal project that our marketing team, actually my chief of staff is leading to bring that intelligence and that efficiency gain to all of go-to-market in a scaled way. So I'm excited about the efficiencies, the productivity gains, and also the intelligence because think about like with a tool like Grammarly, if you're like me and B2B, like, you know, we're always updating the product.

10:10We have new use cases like that. All that stuff takes a ton of work to actually update in your knowledge share and then train and enable. But what if you had a tool that you're just consistently updating and then the next time an SDR needs to write an email, it pops in the latest use cases that you can cite for that specific case. I mean, it's a huge gain of training people right at the point of communication, not in the monthly whatever marketing training they get. You know, so I think like there's there's excitement and innovation there. I also think that it's very interesting where we have my second big pillar is really about community.

10:54Very clearly, we've gone through, hey, everything was digital to like, OK, what do we do with events again? But what I'm really seeing the most success at is community, like people want to get together, talk real shop. They want to learn from each other. And so informal events in a way, like user groups, like our user groups are packed. We have industry councils. We have a lot of community programs that get together in formal and informal ways. And those costs of events are cheaper, but they're more meaningful. And you put more of your community driving the agenda rather than us just talking at them.

11:34And I think that really scaling that is to me a way to be more efficient against from a cost perspective, but more meaningful for our audiences. So that to me is like super important. And then the third, the third one is like, you know, it is optimizing our digital spend, which I'm sure for many B2B marketers that you interview and talk to is, you know, a huge expense. There is so much data and so much ability to experiment. It's really interesting because search marketing obviously is like biggest channel for everybody, but we are definitely starting to see some uptick with some new channels like social influencer, you know, things that B2C is way ahead of us of all the B2B.

12:16I think we're starting to see. And my big challenge for all the B2B marketers out there is try SMS. mess. If you think about like, how much business do you do you conduct over your phone, your mobile phone? All of it. Like all of it, right? We all do it. Like nobody has like, I still see companies trying to capture like business phone number in their forms. I'm like, why are you doing that? Like no one's doing that. Even if you're in an office, there's no more phones. So really, I think like, you know, B2B is always like five years behind B2C and I get to see all these B2C brands And they're already like SMS and text and mobile marketing is like very advanced.

12:59They're already, you know, and B2B is just starting. And there's some companies, you know, like some of our customers like GitLab, who've already started to use it. Now, we all have to learn. We have to be very mindful of restrictions and, you know, privacy. So it's not like, let's just go at it like email, because email, which is our workforce, everybody's seen very rapid declines on conversion rates. So we have to start to experiment with these new channels in product messaging, as well as text and mobile messaging for us to really get that engagement that we need in this digital era. So I think, you know, the way I see it all in all is like, yes, we're being asked again, another year of do more with less, but we have the opportunity to innovate with like with new things.

13:49And so that I hope I can give my team to to get excited about that. It excites me because what is marketing if it's not always like creative problem solving? You can't do the same thing year over year. Okay. So I want to dive into those three pillars because I think every marketing leader is probably resonating with what you're saying. So I want to start with the world of AI first, because I feel like we are in an era now, and we also kind of talked about this a bit, is like, you have to be talking to your cross-functional leaders. Like when it comes to AI, it's not just a marketing decision. It's also, you know, your CTO, your CIO, your CISO, like they're going to want to know what you're wanting to purchase and how it integrates into the org.

14:28And your CFO is going to want to know, does this tool overlap with another tool? And so it feels like we're now moving into this cross-functional era where everyone has to talk more now than ever because these tools are all overlapping. And so I would love to hear your take on like, what is the future of collaborating with your other executive leaders look like? The cat's out of the bag in collaboration. It's been like that for a few years. And in fact, it is the number one skill to be a successful CMO is your ability to not just cross-collaborate, but lead by influence. You know, like you really are there.

15:03I see marketing as a as a ability to synthesize what a company is, what a brand is. And so if you think about go to market, like what are your routes to sell something? Your marketing channels are like a small, well, it depends on if you have PLG or not, but it's a percentage, right? It's not the totality. For example, I often tell marketers, especially B2B marketers, guess what is your branding channel most utilized, most seen? It's a sales deck. It's not your website or your emails or your events. It's actually what most prospects will see and customers will see in their life cycle with you is going to be some kind of sales deck.

15:48So how much attention are you putting into the message, the format, the look and feel, the actual thing that gets developed by an employee. So the amount of effort that you put in enablement, and that's usually not something that marketing owns, is really, really big. So with AI, I see it as no different. To your point, yes, we are seeing from a technology perspective, we're seeing a convergence. You see CS, for example, you know, the CS tools are converging with lifecycle tools, and they're converging also with sales tools, you know, Everything from gong to outreach, all of these things are really converging together because they all have the same purpose, which is to communicate and engage with a customer or prospect.

16:32So while that's all happening on the technology side, the human side, the leadership side of things has to follow and in ways stay ahead of it. And the way you stay ahead of it is to really understand that you are a CMO not to make marketing great, but you're there to make the company great. And so if that takes you, yeah, I'm going to deeply collaborate with product. I'm going to deeply collaborate with my CRO, deeply collaborate with my CS leader and the departments and deeply understand it with empathy. I think, again, that that is what it takes to be a modern CMO today. And what about the financial aspect of it?

17:10I, you know, it seems like it's hard to translate marketing language sometimes to the CFO. and I say this with a finance background where I had a lot of marketers pitching me budget ideas and maybe I'm like, yes, no, but the no's probably were good. They just didn't know how to tell the story to me in a way that resonated. So how do you think about speaking that lingo? Yeah, I mean, I feel lucky that I, both in American Express and also in Tableau supporting the investor relations function, it allowed me to learn and gain a lot of empathy for what the finance side of the house is and talking to investors and stuff.

17:49And so I consider that one of my greatest advantages as becoming a CMO that I've had the background and the opportunity to, again, learn the language so that I could bridge what is an MQL. You don't care what an MQL is and what, but why should you care, right? Now, it is funny because the best thing I've heard from CFO partners I've had over the years is that you need to stop thinking about them as your budget approvers. That is the wrong way to talk to a FB &A person or a CFO. You need to think about them as your business partner. They own the strategy just as much as every other executive. So I would say, first and foremost, make sure that you're changing your perspective on how you want that relationship to be.

18:38And so I think that the best way to bridge that is to start with a true collaborative relationship where you understand where they're coming from. I mean, the reality of marketing is that in an organization, you have to think about this, right? In an organization, marketing is the most variable and most unpredictable cost that you have. Every other department is like 80%, 90 % headcount, which is pretty manageable, right? But marketing is very bearable. And so you have a huge responsibility, like a corporate responsibility in you to be accurate, to be on top of your forecast, your expenses, your vendors, billing, all of that stuff matters.

19:22So I find that a way to the heart of a CFO is start by having like financial responsibility and being on top of your numbers and your expenses, because that is risk to the company. So when they feel like, hey, you're someone that, you know, says they're going to come in at blah and you come in at exactly that or within, you know, 5 % or within the variability of that, that's how you first earn trust. Second, then you can start putting into, hey, let's because there's no there's no CFO that's out there. Just let's just cut, you know, kill the business like that's not that's not the point. But you do want to have it's always a balance of top line growth and and efficiency or cost and bottom line.

20:06So when you talk that talk and you can demonstrate, hey, sometimes, you know, you have to invest in things that are not going to pay off immediately. every CFO can understand that marketing is like an investment portfolio. You have some areas that are very direct, very rapid, and then there's some investments that are going to take a while. And so in the balance of things, you want to start with that. So I think that, and then the third one, which is my trick, and I want to give out all my tricks. I hope no CFOs are listening to this. I doubt they are. It's like bring your CFO to your events, or bring them into, you know who can understand digital?

20:49A numbers driven person. You're like, bring them in, show them your funnel, show them your whole acquisition. There's so much data, like any FDNA person would like love that. And so I think the mistake is to try to like keep them at bay. I'm like, I'm only going to update them, you know, on my quarterly review type of thing or like budget planning. This is like the worst time to like if they're all stressed out because they got to get, you know, numbers to the board and all that stuff. So do it in a regular basis, like bring them in like an event. Honestly, you don't get the magic of your event until you experience it.

21:24So why not make sure you have your CFO come in with you, FNA, they have a work track, that they have their part of the experience and they can get to actually see them. To me, that's my trick is make them experience it and make them your, you know, see the business, bring them into the fold. Yeah, that's so good. I mean, this trick worked exactly on me back when I was at Google. The marketing teams and the product teams, they would bring me in to see, like they would take me to Japan with them, show me what they were doing with these street view cards, show me why they needed the technology. And like, they would show it, like let me experience it.

21:57And they would give me all the details, like totally transparent, where I even saw the issues, like the areas of issues. But because I saw everything, I had full trust. Like I knew the good, I knew the risk, but I didn't feel like there was areas that I even had to explore on my own because they like opened the kimono and showed me everything. And then I was part of the culture too of like cheering them on. So that's such a good strategy and I can definitely verify it works. Yep, good to know. Yeah, and I love too the, like what kind of energy do you bring to any of these, whether it be the CTO, the COO, your CX leader, like what energy do you bring to them?

22:32Because it's just like life, like they will feel that if you feel like they're just going to cut something of yours, or they're going to tell you no, it's like, if you bring that to the conversation, you're probably going to get what you're expecting, like you're going to create that reality. And so how can you shift that and treat it, you know, like any other friendship you would want or collaborative partner that you're trying to pull them in instead of like, keep them away? Yeah. And I feel like, I think too, is to know where are you in your life cycle with your job. I find it very hard. This is my second startup as CMO.

23:04And I find it really, really tough to be like, you're one, like, oh, give me all this money because we're going to go and invest on brand. I was like, it's so wrong. Like, that's just not going to hit. And also understanding the context, you know, like, look, in the last 10 years before, like, up until what, 2021, 2022, we went through 10 years of free money. So, like, it's a very different context than now. And so, and that's what a CFO. So, I think it doesn't go just for the CFO. Like in cross collaboration for me, it's like you need to start by understanding just like you understand deeply your customers.

23:45You need to understand the perspective of your of your peer, you know, your CFO, your chief product officer, your CTO, like your CEO. Like they all have the worldviews and pressures and needs that are different than yours. And so if we apply, you know, one of the great things about marketing is that we spend a lot of time understanding the market and our audience and, you know, so that we can do the right message, the right, you know, the right channel, the right time. So what if you apply that same skills that you put into your marketing strategy, but into your internal stakeholders and start there, understand and then bridge, then bridge, and then you can adapt to what you need.

24:25So good. Okay, so you mentioned your part two pillar was around community building. So the first one was around like integrating AI into the company. Part two was community building. And it sounded like you're going for more like decentralized a bit, not as big events, but like more scrappy community led ones. And I think I've heard this theme a couple of times from a few different CMOs. So I would love to hear why you're putting an importance on that style of like community led events in the coming year. Yeah, because honestly, like in the world where there's so much noise, I don't know if my inbox, I'm pretty sure actually my inbox is pretty typical.

25:05I have, I don't know, 50 ,000 unread email. I'm not even exaggerating. That's a low number. And I'd say about 70 % of that is like vendors trying to, you know, get my attention in some way. So the reality is like we have an increasing noisy world. It's very hard to break through. And the more of that we as buyers, as decision makers, we rely more on word of mouth on our peers. So and I see it, I'm a member of many marketing communities and I see it more and more even when hiring, you know, like every job now has 500, 700 ,000 applicants. So you rely more heavily on references because it's become pretty impossible to kind of cull through the noise to find the real things.

25:56So when you have an environment like that, and on top of that, you have, I would say, a thirst of connection because as much return to the offices, the majority of us still spend most of our time in isolation. We're all trying to figure out like new things to do with AI, for example, right? you kind of like look into your neighbor and like, what are you doing? You know, what are you doing? Right? Like we all having to learn from each other. So you have all that context. It makes it, I would say imperative to say, Hey, how do I activate? How do I facilitate? How do I support my community led marketing?

26:32Right? So like that activation of a word mouth, my philosophy to do that is you, you sort of have to combine three elements. So you're correct about being like the decentralized. One is you have to give up control. And that is very hard to do as a marketer. You know, like I say, like, you know, you have a real good community when they're creating t-shirts for you or content, right? Like when they are, but when you cross that, that means you have to give up control, right? You have to be like, I'm going to set up a user group and I'm not going to be the one setting up what we're going to talk about.