Critical Events Management & B2B marketing lessons: a conversation with David Alexander, of Everbridge

Speaker A: Um, you are listening to Power Marketing with Kevin Lee.

Speaker B: Kevin and his agency did it have

Speaker A: helped thousands of businesses win through superior marketing. As have his books, articles, speaking engagements and the E Marketing Association Power marketing podcasts.

Speaker B: Here's Kevin. Super excited to be chatting with David Alexander today because he wears a couple of hats as well. Uh, the primary hat is the CMO at Everbridge, but he also uh, sometimes wears the educator hat teaching um, as an executive professor at Texas A and M. So uh, let's start with Everbridge because critical uh, event management, it's a B2B. I always love to talk to B2B people because the sales cycle is much more complex and it's not like just add to cart. Right. So you have to think a lot more about the sales cycle. But you in your role as an educator, I'm sure you're, you're teaching both B, Uh2B and B2C marketing. So we can, we can get into some of the nuances there, how they're different. But uh, first of all, so for critical event management, you know, I'm sure that almost nobody knows what that is. So why don't we start with, you know, what, what is Everbridge and what is Critical Event Management?

Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's a great question. And Kevin, thank you so much for having me here today. I'm excited to join you. Um, you know it's, it's a question that we do get is what is critical event management? And I like to explain, um, it as uh, you know, Everbridge really here to help organizations, whether that be a government entity or an enterprise or even a mid sized business mitigate, respond to and recover from critical events. And so we know in our world and seems like we're seeing these happening almost every day now, uh, we know there's all kinds of critical events that are happening in the space and that could be either a, um, a weather event like a hurricane or a tornado. It could be a geopolitical event, uh, as well or it could be uh, event like an active shooter inside of a workplace or school, that kind of thing. And so, um, so our organization provides technology that helps companies, helps organizations, helps government entities, um, keep their people safe and their organization running when those critical event, uh, critical events, uh, happen.

Speaker B: Cool. So I'd imagine given that it's a pretty complex uh, sales cycle that you know, you've got not just one super simple decision maker that your sales team can chat with and it's all, you know, done. Um, so how does that, you know, pose some challenges As a marketer of how you deal with a uh, longer sales cycle, more complex decision making, et cetera.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know the um, product and I've worked in tech for my entire career. For the most part I worked at Microsoft and SAP, Concur and a company called F5 most recently before coming to Everbridge about 18 months ago. And, and never before while I've worked with these amazing technology companies in the past, never before have I seen technology quote sell itself. Uh, right. Because our technology truly is life saving technology that organizations are seeking. Whether you're a government, you want to go and protect your constituents. If you are a enterprise you have a duty um, to focus on that duty of care for your, for your people and make sure that they stay uh, that they stay safe. Because not only is there an impact to your organization if something happens, those people, they are entrusted in your care and you have to protect them. And so um, you know uh, it is a long sales cycle, it often is a uh, group purchase decision. But our primary audience is the chief Security Officer. And um, I think the complexity happens when you start to look at the differences of the organization, whether that organization has ah, what we call a GSOC Global Security Operations center or whether they're managing that safety and their organizational resilience outside of a GSOC type of environment. And so that's where the complexity really happens. Uh, the solution actually helps to break down complexity and that's why I think it quote sells itself because you've got thousands, hundreds of thousands uh, of data points coming in and, and we're helping organizations basically distill those down into very, very clear, actionable uh, responses that they can provide to their individuals, um, and to help run their business and keep their businesses online. Um, so in some ways again it does kind of help reduce that complexity. And that's why I think a lot of people are coming after our products and coming uh, to us. And um, in some ways it makes it easy as a marketer, in some ways it makes it difficult as well because honing in on those special use cases makes it unique um, whether our products are being used to uh, you know, keep uh, global distributors, their, their trucking systems running or you know, oil pipelines in other parts of the world running or keeping individuals in the state of Florida safe as a hurricane is coming during hurricane season. And so uh, so the use cases are very, very complex and very um, diverse. And so that's uh, that's largely the, the challenge with marketers is from a marketing perspective is just really Honing in and understanding those use cases, um, as well.

Speaker B: When you look at the, the overall TAM for your ecosystem, I would imagine that all of these organizations are at different stages of their digital transformation. And so in some cases they may be sort of halfway to nirvana. You guys may be nirvana, right? But so that they may be a quarter of the way halfway there. Maybe you're replacing an existing system that was kind homegrown or something like that. And so does that factor into your marcom strategy? And I would imagine in your kind of area of B2B that sales and marketing are more tightly intertwined.

Speaker A: Sales and marketing have to work hand in hand here. Right. Um, especially given the audience that we're targeting, um, and uh, given the, again, complexity of the use cases that we're trying to address with, uh, the solutions now, I would argue, um, that the customers that we deal with and prospects that we deal with are at various stages in their digital transformation. But that resiliency component is a key aspect of their um, digital transformation. So many of them, many boards are now seeing this, uh, organizational and operational resilience as a key component to the duty that the board has, um, to their shareholders as well. And so, um, the way that we see that, the way that we track that within our organizations, we have what's called the best in resilience certification. And so we've uh, studied thousands of different organizations and um, you know, looked at various ways that we can help them enhance their resilience posture to, you know, keep their people safe, to maintain business continuity, to optimize supply chain and uh, supply routing. So for example, when the bridge collapsed in Baltimore just a couple of weeks ago, our technology was helping a local distributor keep their trucks online and reroute them based on, um, you know, where the, where their uh, delivery routes were based on the bridge collapse. And so we helped a local supplier keep their business continuity from the, you know, the um, supply chain that they had between themselves and their, and their customers. And so, so those are some of the kinds of things that we do in addition to just keeping people safe. It is a lot of this, uh, supply chain organizational and operational resilience that we, that we provide as well.

Speaker B: So, uh, wearing both your, your you know, CMO hat and your teacher hat or your professor hat. Yeah, Um, a lot of what we've been hearing from B2B clients, um, wearing me, wearing my did it hat is that they're sort of in this age of marketing austerity in that they have to do more with less. Right? Which Requires you really sort of have a stacked, ranked. How well is everything performing and how influential is it in the final sale? And that's harder in B2B. It's easier in B2C because you've got your shopping cart and you can predict out your LTV and look at your AOV numbers. And, but, but B2B is A. You know, it's a lot more challenging when you're, when your CFO comes to you and says, we have to do more with less, it really requires you have a pretty good understanding of what's working best in case you need to cut budget. So how do you, how do you work within that framework? If your cfo, maybe you're lucky and your CFO has not ever had that conversation with you. But I certainly hear it from a lot of folks, uh, that we chat with. And so if you put your professor hat on and say, okay, here's how you should deal with that as a cmo.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you know, maybe Kevin, I see it a little bit on the opposite actually. I think the cfo, uh, is my friend, uh, because when I can go and show the returns for every dollar that I receive, the, uh, CFO is very eager to give me more of those dollars to go put into market. And so, um, from that perspective, I see the CFO as my friend. So I don't mind him or her, uh, you know, often working closely with me. And that's been the case throughout my career. What's also been the case throughout my career is that, um, I have been asked to do less, uh, or do more with less. Never let do less, do more with less. Um, you know, everywhere that I've, I've worked and um, sometimes it was do more with the same. Right. Uh, but often it is do more, uh, with less. And so, uh, when I, uh, the way I kind of manage my business is I look in three core areas, right? And I spent, spend time making sure we have a lot of data visibility. So that's the, the first thing, because that data visibility ultimately drives my ability to budget effectively, uh, do good decision making and to optimize the investments that I am making. So that's kind of the first one. The second is, um, uh, data automation. So an automation of my systems. So the more that I can streamline workflow in the organization, the more I can streamline how a dollar gets into market and gets in front of my customers and minimize the administrative tasks of my marketers, the more that I can take advantage of the resources that I have in the form of headcount and marketers to go and get things done on behalf of our customers and on behalf of our business. And so that's kind of the second one is that automation piece. The third, which is the big umbrella behind all of these things, is the customer experience. We focus a lot on what does the customer experience look like end to end, what does that first touch look like? What is our messaging? It's the old adage of right customer, right message or experience, right time. Uh, we take that to heart and we spend a lot of time making sure that we provide our customers with a great experience. Oftentimes, uh, in this, uh, moments that matter kind of environment. Because in our business that's, that's, that's key. So you want to get ahead of hurricane season, for example, and provide those great experiences for our customers when they know that's, that's happening. It happens the same time every year. Uh, and then, um, also if the customer is engaging with me, either that's digitally with a bdr, if they're engaging with, uh, one of my sellers or someone at an event, um, I want to make sure that that's a great experience for the customer as well and very, very seamless for them. We're answering their questions, et cetera. So I really think of the business in those three ways. The first thing that I always do if I joining a new team, uh, is really getting that data visibility though I could tell you inside and out inside of my organization, if you give me a dollar, where would I put in what it would give me in return, give the business in return, and at what stage, like, how long is that going to take? Is that going to take 100 days? Is it going to take 87 days? Uh, how long does that dollar turn into revenue? And the important part of all of that, right, and this is what I stress not only in the business, but also to the students, uh, that I do teach, is you have to go and share that information with clarity. Um, we marketers fall into this pattern of communicating to ourselves in language that the rest of the company just doesn't understand. You talk in terms and acronyms and all of these things. And frankly, the organization doesn't get. So very often you'll see me put things like at the bottom of a slide or at the bottom of a presentation that says, what does this mean? Right? It's like what this means is you give me a dollar and it turns into $12 in pipeline and that turns into $6 or $7, whatever that is enclosed one. Right. Closed bookings. And so that's the language that the organization can speak. And so while those three things that I mentioned, data, visibility, automation, experience, are so key, being able to effectively communicate those things within the organization is what builds relationships. It builds trust and confidence and actually builds a lot of clarity. So that when the CFO comes to me to say, I got $1 million for you, I could say let me go put that into market and let me tell you what I'm going to go, go do with that. So that's why I think that the relationship with the cfo, the Chief Revenue Officer and the CEO are very, very strong because we're able to provide that visibility in the areas that they care about.

Speaker B: Right, right. Well, I love your perspective of understanding the marginal impact of all of your channels and even within channels, perhaps even sub segments of that channel.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker B: So that if you're given bigger budget, you know where to put it and if you have to cut budget, you know where to cut. So that's absolutely key. Um, now I'm sure you've, or maybe you haven't, uh, but some of your students have had this situation where they show up in a marketing role at an organization that does not have the backend BI or, or CRM to understand, you know, the difference between the great customer and the average customer. The different LTVs, you know, they're trying to calculate CAC to LTV ratios but they don't, they don't have, you know, they're trying to understand but they, they weren't given the, the data framework yet. So are uh, there like temporary band aids you can put in place, perhaps some leading indicators that you can use by scoring leads or otherwise sort of starting to optimize while you build the long term data warehouse.

Speaker A: For sure. And I think um, the way to think about this couple things. Number one, I've never walked into a job and I was just handed the data in the way that I wanted it to be. It just has never happened. Maybe one day, at some point in the future it will happen. I feel like I'm always building toward that no matter which role I've ever been in as a junior market or even in current role. So that's kind of first. So you never given. The second thing is, is you take what you have, right? And, and when I say you take what you have, what is that one source of truth that we can all agree to. Right. And so you seek the places where marketing and sales and finance all see one version of the Truth, right? And sometimes that's going to be very, very minimal amounts of data. But you hopefully you have some kind of a threat. If you don't, then that's where you go. And you, you, you invest obviously. Um, but you know, then you start to take the data that you have and make the most informed possible decisions you have, you can based on the data you have. And I think sometimes marketers try to get too scientific. Um, look, we've got, we've got mountains of data and we can slice and dice our stuff here with the best of them, I promise you. Um, and we use that, we use that informed decisions. But so many times I can see people getting, you know, marketers specifically getting paralyzed by either one having too little data or, or feeling like they have too little data or uh, similarly having way too much. Right. And so I think we have to make some decisions inside of our organization and say, do I have enough to make a decision? Right. I'm not launching rockets over here, right. I'm not doing surgery. I'm putting mark money into market to hopefully drive demand. Right. And based on the tooling that I have, even if it's very, very rudimentary, I should be able to very quickly start to see what's driving a quick impact, what's driving, um, you know, things to close. And if, you know, I'm going to get some data out and then I'm going to go and talk to my bdrs, right? I'm going to say, what are you hearing? What are you learning? Then I'm going to go talk to sales. Where did these leads originate? What are you seeing that's working? And so until you get to the point where you really are kind of coin operated and can pull all the data levers to make decisions, I think you've got all of these things around you that you can use to go make good enough decisions, may not be the best decisions, but good enough decisions to go. Say I can go put my money here and I can go and make an impact. And so that's what I would encourage people to do. That's kind of how I do it. Uh, until I get to the point. Sometimes it can take 6, 9, 12 months, 15 months to go and build the data practice that you're looking for where you have all of the needs at the disposal and doesn't take, you know, 40 days to go and do an analysis where you've got it, you know, within a matter of hours or a matter of, you know, days and um, but until you get to that point, use the data you got. Use good enough. Test and learn, test and learn, test and learn. And you'll figure it out. Until you can, you have the point, um, where you've got uh, all the data. And even when I have all the data, I still have to go and test and learn. I still have to go talk to the bdrs, I still have to go talk to Sellers. Right. Because the data is not going to give me all the contextual feedback and components that those people will give me. So that's how I approach that, uh, it is a, ah, crawl, walk, run, um, kind of scenario, um, that you're almost always dealt when you walk into a new role.

Speaker B: Right, right. Yeah. What I really like about that is as long as you feel confident that you're directionally accurate in your new thing versus the old thing, you can get there over time. Right. As you build the data case, as you collect more information, as long as you're always directionally, more often than not going the right way, you'll end up where you want to go.

Speaker A: That's right. I seek a bias for action. So let's get. Good enough, make a decision. Good enough, make a decision. And um, you know, if we don't have the perfect full view of everything that we need.

Speaker B: Right, right. Well, you know, the buzzword this year obviously is AI, which is often ingesting big data. So the intersection of AI and big data has uh, opened up uh, a lot of opportunity. But I'm not sure that the people necessarily trust the AI quite yet. So I'm curious how AI has changed your thinking or is changing your thinking and how you're using combinations of sort of AI and big data or maybe independently the big data and the AI.

Speaker A: Yeah, there's two ways that I kind of think about that, uh, in my current role and then maybe even a third way I think about it as an executive professor. Um, you know, the first is uh, our products at Everbridge. Right. And we've been using AI for um, a long time actually to distill a lot of the risk intelligence data that we get. So we get and monitor more than 100 different types of threats data. Right. That has uh, 25,000 unique risk intelligent feeds that we are monitoring and distilling down and we push based on that up to six mil. Six, uh, billion, I'm sorry, six billion, um, critical interactions on an annual basis. So we've, we've been kind of in this data science, um, you know, machine learning, artificial intelligence kind of structure with our risk Intelligence for a number of years. And so. And that is absolutely, you know, big data, right? To distill that down into actionable insights for our customers they can distribute to their um, constituents and organization. The second way I think about this, ah, and we only get better, we're continuing to get better on the product side and that's super exciting for our business and tons of opportunities opening up there for AI. The second way I think about it as a marketer and what does this mean? And in addition to my marketing role too, I don't know if this came through but I also have a sales team so I'm respons, the general manager, our digital operations team uh, as well, which is our X Matters product essentially that uh, I'm responsible for the sales organization there. And um, so I'm thinking about how can market or how can AI enhance my go to market ultimately. And so a few ways that I'm looking at this every day is how can it enhance our worker productivity? You know number one, right. And uh, and I, and a lot of people think that and you go look at a lot of the headlines out there and it's like AI is going to replace marketers. It's absolutely not going to place any of my marketers. But what it's going to do is take those marketers that I have and make them that much more effective hopefully by reducing the administrative things that they do. Whether they're writing emails, whether they're writing uh, nurture sequences, whether they're writing white papers or one pagers or web content. I see this as a way to help them get 60, 70, 80% of the way there. It can also help um, with our brand team and also with our creative organization to create um, new ways of engaging with our customers visually with uh, language that we may not have been able to do uh, in the past. And so I think it's opening up this creative side that we've not had uh, in the past because it's getting you 70 or 80% of the way there. And then you get to be really creative, the humans do and we get to use their brains uh, on those things. Um, and then also it's helping us to get smarter with our uh, decision making. Right. And so um, we can put a lot of the analytics and have AI, um, uh, process the analytics on our behalf and see trending that maybe we're not seeing as well in the data which is really, really uh, important. And then um, the last piece of that is um, we see that as helping us to Identify and find better customers, um, and do better um, identification of uh, propensity modeling, ah, and interest uh, within our customer set and with our prospects. And so those are some of the key ways that we're using it. Today. We are on a bit of a, I think we're kind of getting through crawl, we're kind of in a walk run um, pattern on use of AI as marketers in that go to market. Um, and then the third way is the professor. How do I see this? Well you know a lot of um, discussion in university uh, has been about oh my gosh, this is taking away the students requirements, um, to think and to write and all of these things. Right. And so a lot of um, you'll find that universities have been very, very nervous about it. I actually see it a little bit differently and probably because I'm in the industry and uh, and I encourage the students to use it up to a point. Right. And um, because I still, still want their unique thoughts. But when they go out into the business world they're going to need to know AI. Especially you know, if they're two or three years away from being in, in their careers, they're going to need to know how to use this effectively. Right. So hopefully they're learning how to use better prompts, hopefully they're learning how to use AI to write better LinkedIn profiles for themselves so that they get you know, better visibility from future um, employers. And so, so I'm encouraging them to think about new and exciting ways to use AI, um, and I think it's going to make them better when they graduate and go out into the business world in the future. So I'm less, less fearful maybe than some and more encouraged by what I see happening um, with the younger generation, um, in the university setting.

Speaker B: Great, great. That's uh, um, it's exciting one way or the other for sure. Um, now the, you know, Covid sort of changed the way marketers have been marketing and I think in B2B perhaps more so even in B2C pre and post Covid. So I'd love to hear how you're approaching your, you know, marketing uh, as far as strategically and how you're reaching out to prospects and customers differently now versus pre Covid.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean the market, you know, marketing changes so quickly. Um, I barely even think about it as post Covid anymore. Right. And uh, it's just, just because our industry changes so much over six, six months. Right. Like the post Covid was like two or three cycles ago. Right. Um, and so now it's kind of like our new norm that on how we, how we drive, uh, engagement. And so I think um, what have we learned and so how has the job changed over the last four or five years? Maybe is a way I can answer is number one is far less reliant on in person events. Right. Um, and I think what we've found is um, smaller, more intimate settings, uh, work very, very well. Um, especially. And you can do those digitally, you can do those in person, um, digitally. Actually people really appreciate because it's not time away from the office, it's not time away from family, etc. It's less burden to go and join a roundtable for two hours on a Thursday afternoon, uh, with a group of your peers across the industry than it may be to go and get on a plane and fly somewhere. Especially with all the travel problems now we see in the world. That's kind of, that is kind of real. Um, and then um, we're finding that works. Digital. Reliance on digital is really, really important. Right. Digital experiences clarity of message when I'm not communicating it to my customer with my own mouth and my own face. Right. So the written clarity is absolutely key. Uh, and giving them um, self help tools, right? So, um, tools like uh, ROI calculators that they can do themselves, very, very easy, uh, for them to do themselves, um, providing um, self run demos. These are all very, very important things that customers want. And we used to say customers were what, 70% of the way through their journey before they talked to anyone. Um, and I bet you it's probably close, I haven't seen the latest, but I bet you it's closer to 80 or 90% of the way through now just because we're providing them with so much information that they almost have made a decision or they've definitely identified, you know, this, the consideration set by the time you're talking to that customer. Right. In almost every instance. And so, um, so that's more of what I see is customers are more um, more educated because we've been giving them all this information. Um, and I just think it's changed the engagement just a little bit. But again, I don't know that I see it post Covid anymore, um, in that kind of language. But um, uh, certainly the marketing role has changed substantially. I'd add one more piece to that just because of uh, how far along the customer is in their journey. It used to be okay, let's call it 10 years ago, it used to be okay for you know, sales to sit over in their chairs and say, those marketing guys are terrible. They're doing nothing for me. And it used to be okay for the marketers to sit over. I don't know what sellers are doing. Those guys can't close anything. And that's just not okay anymore. Right. And, um, in today's world, there has to be, and you mentioned it earlier, it's like there has to be that handshake, that agreement, because in the customer's eyes, it has to be as seamless as possible. And, uh, you've got to have one message, one voice, uh, on behalf of the customer and on behalf of the company to the customer, uh, to make sure, um, that you're taking all those hops out of the system. Because as soon as a customer starts running into, or prospect starts running into, uh, challenges with, you know, getting to close or in the buying cycle, they're up. Ah, they're. They're opting out. They're opting out very, very quickly. So, um, that handshake between sales and marketing is probably even more important than it used to be.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's interesting because at a lot of companies, um, CMO would not necessarily, uh, manage, uh, or have that level of interaction with the sales team, but there would be maybe a CRO, which would either be a peer or whatever. So one interesting takeaway from your description of that, uh, consistent flow for the buyer is that, you know, the marketing team needs to really think about it. Full funnel. Right. And that often ends up that the sales team is the tiebreaker. Right. If you have a competitor in the market or a substitute in the market, if they show up really, really educated, and they may even have a preconceived notion about how they're going by the time they talk to a human. Yeah, no, that human better be really good at breaking the tie. Right. Between yourself and whatever the status quo is or the alternative.

Speaker A: Yeah, I, I think that's right. Yeah. And we do have a chief revenue officer as well. Um, and I, I manage this, this sales team on, on his path in partnership with him. Um, and, you know, it's kind of a natural extension of my role as well. I would argue that, um, I probably spend, if I just cut my time, I probably spend more time thinking about the win rate and the opportunity to close than I do thinking about filling the top of the funnel. And um, so I, my. And I, you know, I've got my team fully focused on down funnel metrics because it really isn't about filling the top anymore. It's that, you Know, am I getting high quality leads in the top? And how quickly are those, um, you know, converting into a opportunity? And then how quickly are those and at what rate are those converting, uh, into closed revenue? And so it really is, you know, this concept of revenue marketing that's been around for, you know, 10 or 15 years. And Dr. Debbie Gagesh, uh, wrote the book Rise the Revenue Marketer. You know, I read that probably 15 years ago. And even where we are today is so much farther along even than that early stage concept of revenue marketing. And now, you know, we really are spending a lot of time. You know, I had half of my meetings today were talking about win rates, for example. Right. How do we get opportunities to close? And so, um, uh, a lot of that dynamic has changed. It's no longer just stuff in the top.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, um, when you look at it from that perspective, depending, uh, on the industry you're in, and again, you can wear either your hat, your CMO hat, or your professor hat. Uh, it's always super important that marketers think about harvesting existing demand before they start creating new. Right. Because upper funnel is expensive on a relative basis. And if there's a whole bunch of people raising their hand, either due to the fact that they're doing heavy research into the category or looking at all the competitors in the category, like if you, you know, don't worry about that if you're not harvesting this. Right, that's right. So it really sounds like your focus is on grabbing those people where intent is particularly high or market fit is particularly high.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know, we do spend a lot of time thinking about SEO and organic and when, you know, and a good portion of our leads do come through our web, uh, experience. Um, and so, you know, it's. So we make sure the customers do have a good top of funnel experience. So don't get me wrong, it's important, uh, we do have a portion of the team that is thinking about that every day. But, um, just like you said, if I've got someone in, um, I want to make sure that they're closing at a high rate. And it's exactly what you just said. And that requires the marketing organization and the sales organization to really shake hands on that experience and making sure that the customer's needs are met.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. One interesting twist that we're seeing on the SEO side just in the last year or so is as more and more people are asking chatbots for recommendations to solve any variety of problems. Right. You're Having sort of a surplus engagement, meaning there's no search engine results page anymore, except maybe in perplexity. But as far as Gemini goes, and as far as ChatGPT goes, if, if they're going to break if, if that LLM is going to make a single recommendation, people are asking me how do I do SEO? That also future proofs against a single answer. And how do I increase the odds that, that I'm the single answer?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, and uh, we're doing a whole lot of consulting around that and explaining to people, you know, how the LLMs work and how uh, LLMs make a decision about what to recommend to solve a particular problem.

Speaker A: Totally. And what, what you're talking about right here is again how the industry is changing. Right. And you know, I mentioned just a few minutes ago, it's like how every six months it's like a different, you know, environment. The, the, the environment of the future is going to be completely different than what it is today. Right, we know that. And you're, you're right on the cutting edge of how we have to think about continuing to adjust our marketing, uh, focus, um, who we're marketing to and how we're marketing and how we're uh, getting the right information in the right places and um, how it resonates with our audience. And our audience actually might be, might be a bot in the future. Right. We might have a uh, bot that is our quote, um, target audience for some of our campaigns in the future as well.

Speaker B: Sure, sure. So, uh, do you have any, uh, must have tools as part of your marketing strategy or competitive intelligence strategy or something that you feel is indispensable?

Speaker A: Yeah, there's um, we have a, you know, a great uh, tech stack that we've invested um, in. Are you, do you want me to say company names or product names?

Speaker B: You're welcome to.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know we've, we've built um, and this is probably not just the ones we've used, but over a course of a couple of different roles, um, found a lot of success with um, Marketo, obviously connected up to um, uh, Salesforce. And so we've got um, a great um, kind of engine there if you will. Uh, and then Tableau. Um, and also we're using a company now called orm, which has actually uh, been very helpful for um, data consolidation and visualization, uh, as well. And so it's been really helpful in analytics and still big fan of Tableau and also Power BI as well. So those are also great, great tools that are must haves uh, for our organization the next piece would be um, Sixth Sense for intent signals, uh, very, very important uh, for us. Um, and then um, we use a product called Integrate as well. That's been very helpful with some of our ad and um, simplifying and streamlining our investments. And so um, that's been a great product that I've used for. This is the third company um, that I've used that one. And then also uh, technology called Outreach and um, that empowers our BDRs and our sellers um, to make better decisions. And then lastly, um, you know, a product called ZoomInfo. Um, it also is very, very, very helpful for our organization. So it's a conglomeration of you know, a number of different tools have stitched together to make really good informed decisions for us and help my marketers, um, you know, make better decisions but also put things into market more quickly and effectively. And I probably missed a couple of tools in there. We've stripped a bunch out by the way, um, just to try to you know, hone in on more platform play. Um, so it's, it's, we have removed a few best of breed kind of solutions in there but those are the majority of the solutions that we use on a, on a regular basis and that I'd say my team is actively engaged with on a regular basis.

Speaker B: So uh, you mentioned earlier that you guys like to work around a single source of truth, right? Uh, for whatever KPIs you're using. And in B2B KPIs are always a little bit fuzzy uh, because sort of people fall through the cracks especially when it's a multi person sale and there's a person who influences a sale or a person who could block a sale. And so I'm sort of curious, sort of where does the single source source dashboard live? Right? The single source of truth dashboard.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it's in a couple of places, right? And we make sure that it lives in those places. So ORM is one of them, Salesforce is the other. And then the third kind of is, is tableau. Um, these are kind of the places. But again if those, if that data doesn't tie, we're going back and we're checking it, uh, to make sure that it's, it, you know, it's all tying out. And so um, so we do have one source of data and it gets scrutinized and checked and balanced over and over and over again. And so, and it's not just my team, but the sales team and sales ops teams as well as finance are constantly working together. So I think that's a piece of the magic there is that marketing ops, sales ops and finance actually have a very, very strong and it have a very strong relationship. And so we've been able to all get clear that we need one source of truth, um, of the data. So now when my CEO gets a report, or the CRO gets a report, or the CFO gets a report, or the CMO myself gets a report, it all ties uh, together. So we've got again one, one version of the truth, no matter which system I might be looking at. Ah. And so that's um, that's been really important. We also use an OKR system here that's um, important for us to make sure that we all have the right KPIs that we're focused on. You know, you'll find I've got four, you know, core um, okrs for the marketing organization. The first one is around revenue, right? It's not about, not about MQLs, it's about revenue. The second one is about gaining share. The third one is about automation and customer experience. The fourth one is around data driven culture for the organization. Right? So those are my four okrs. And those flow right up into um, the needs of the CRO. Those flow right into the OKRs of uh, the chief, uh, financial officer. They're right in line with our chief product officer, right, because we're, we're meeting his product needs, um, as well and marketing those. And then lastly they, they plug right into The C, uh, CEOs, uh, OKRs as well. So we've done a really nice job of kind of um, you know, creating that decision tree or that tree of our uh, cascade, whatever you want to call it, of our okrs so that we know what we're measuring, we know what success looks like for the organization. And um, that's been really important actually for us.

Speaker B: Cool. There's one thing I've noticed in that we've done an increasing amount of uh, on my team when it comes to the B2B marketer, which is, is this sort of understanding that you're still marketing to the individuals, right? So you get your signal data from sixth sense, or maybe it's uh, you know, as a result of a lead gen form that came from search or whatever. And um, that you know, these days that it's work from home for a lot of folks or in some cases work from home 100% of the time, right, where you're remote. You know, this idea that you Know you're exclusively reaching out to the person at their place of work. Work is no longer, you know, the, the standard. So indirect mail. For example, we started to append on the home addresses of people when we're doing B2B marketing and not exclusively their work address because even if they show up like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: You know they're going to show up on Tuesday and if there's a stack of mail that's that thick, you know you're not going to make it through the clutter.

Speaker A: Right, right.

Speaker B: How do you break through the clutter in other ways but in other places and, and start to almost like it use uh, the identity graph of the individual as opposed to just thinking about them in their office environment. I'm curious if you guys have done anything fun to sort of think through. It's the individual we want to talk to, not just the organization.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. And some of the tactics have been really helpful for us are um, well obviously digital because digital helps us find um, the individual. And you know our primary audience is a ciso. But we also with the digital operations products we have, we have a very strong DevOps community um, that love and you know, use our product on a regular basis, our X Matters products. And so um, we have this varied um, audience that we go after depending on which product that we're um, using. And again you know about you know a large portion of our customer base is enterprise and then we've got a smaller portion which is going to be more, more your state and local government uh, and education. And so um, so that does make it very hard to go out to the enterprise because then your conversations are going to be massively different. Now when they don't have to be massively different is when I'm going out to the CISO. So by and large CISOs care about the same thing. You know, mid sized enterprise CISO cares about the same things, although his structure or his or her structure might be slightly different than a large enterprise ciso. But at the same time we're addressing the needs um, that they have same in state and local and federal government. Um, and then when you go into kind of this digital operations world, the buyer, the buying group changes just a little bit. Right. And so um, it's actually helping us to be more structured in how we go after the individual. And so what we'll do is, is be where that individual is right first and foremost. So we know what the um, you know, whether it's events or whether it's digital online marketplaces, or digital places, um, or our partners, you know, we're able to go and hone in and find those, those individuals and then we bring them in. Right. And so we'll bring them into a one, one to one, one to few or in sometimes some instances one to many environment where um, we're able to go and talk to them about the value of our solution, talk to them about their challenges and how our solutions might meet them and then also listen to them because that's the best place where we learn more about what our audience needs and how they're changing. Because gosh, in this world of uh, critical event management, because the world is changing. It's like the world's on fire every day it seems like.

Speaker B: I think literally actually.

Speaker A: Well, yeah, literally. Right. And uh, our customers needs are changing and so that's how we also get information that uh, influences our product roadmap as well. So um, that voice of the individual is very, very important. We know there are buying centers that we have to go and sell into, but identifying who is the right individual, the right decision maker, who are the people that um, are dealing with the challenges in the organization as well. Uh, and building relationships with those has been really key for us. And there's way that we're finding them in person digitally through our partners, you know, and we kind of have a multi, multi threaded way that we go out to those, to those individuals.

Speaker B: Uh, well, final question. One area and this, you can wear either hat that you'd like on this one. But one area that we see sometimes ignored within the B2B ecosystem is the idea of the influencer, right? Because they think of the Kardashians as influencers, right. They don't think about it in a hyper niche B2B world. But the reality is that these people there, there are people that are very knowledgeable in the space and, and uh, they could be analysts, but they could be separate within, within the ecosystem. And the reason we've like floated it to the surface for our B2B clients is because that kind of co created content uh, ends up informing the LLMs, right? It just feeds it, it feeds your future proofs, your SEO. Plus it has a little bit of what we used to call the, the barnacle SEO effect, which is, yeah, their content may end up showing up number three in the serp, even if you're number one in the SERP and having that additional positive touch point is very positive. So do, do you feel like there's an underinvestment in, in influences and B2B, uh, in general,

Speaker A: yes and no. Right. I think, I think so much of our, so much of our focus, um, goes to that. I look at it in three kind of buckets, right? There's, there's awareness, there's demand gen, and then there's not influencer. I call it thought leadership. Right. So it's kind of, uh, that's kind of how I would classify that in a B2B world. Um, and so often, you know, the demand gen budget gets, gets filled, right? Like. Yep. Because you can, you know, there's hard ROI associated with that. And then sometimes it's really hard to make the case for awareness. Right. Dollars. Um, you have to be able to show a tangible roi. And oftentimes times you find awareness and demand gen dollars kind of back up to one another. Right. They kind of influence one another and work together. Um, this third, uh, piece around thought leadership is uh, very, very key, very important and very relevant. And I think you have to take, um, more of a customer experience lens on that. You can't be looking for that hard roi, um, necessarily on your thought leadership because we may do, I'm making it up here, but we might do a, um, webinar on enabling organizations to learn more about how to do CPR for their employees. Now that is completely unrelated to the products that we sell, but it is related to our mission of keeping people safe in organizations running. And it would be really good thing for organizations to know that. And those kinds of things, um, can actually be very important to the softer side of relationship building and customer experience building. Um, uh, we do focus and we're focusing more on these thought, uh, leadership components because we find that our customers see a lot of value here. And they also say, ah, thank you, you're actually adding value to me. You're not selling anything to me. Um, and it's been very effective in uh, driving better engagement and kind of galvanizing those relationships. And you know, I mentioned earlier about our best in resilience, uh, certification that we have. And so, you know, we've got uh, over 100 organizations that are certified best in resilience. And so, um, as we move them on their resilience journey, a lot of this thought leadership content and information that we can provide to them helps with their resilience posture beyond, again, just what our technology provides. While we fill a majority of the steps in getting to best and resilience, we don't fill them all. Uh, and so some of that thought leadership components lets us bring in, uh, partners, lets us bring in, um, professionals in the industry that helps to fill that full resilience posture so that they can meet their best and resilience certification. And so again, we see it as um, galvanizing of relationships and helping our customers. Um, and so it's really, really key and we've been focusing a lot more there. But I think you've got to go in with the right intent there, um, that it's not going to be to drive your hard ROI metric. Right. But um, it's going to be there to strengthen and embolden and build those customer relationships over time.

Speaker B: A. Ah, quick follow up. When you're doing, uh, building thought leadership as a brand, uh, typically what people do is they only have the sort of, of founder slash product leader do it and that's the only person that ever makes it out there as a subject matter expert. Building, building themselves up as a thought leader. Do you recommend that they go deeper and include other folks in the ecosystem to do that?

Speaker A: 100%. And we've got people throughout the organization who are doing this. Right. Um, so, um, we've got, you know, people that are, you know, even at individual contributor levels in the company that are providing thought leadership because they may have 20 years of public safety experience and now they're, you know, an Everbridge product manager. I'm making it up. Right. But, but we do have a lot of those people with those, you know, state and local government, public safety, um, chief security officer, types of backgrounds, um, in our organization. And so they're the perfect people to go provide thought leadership. And it's not, not just our, you know, chief product officer, our CISO and our CEO, even though those guys are all great, um, we rely on a number of voices inside of the company to go and provide that information because they've been there and they understand the needs of what our customers are. Um, and that's the real key. Right? It's like you want to market, you want to speak to, you want to communicate in the voice of your audience. Right. And uh, it's not always going to be a CEO or chief security officer. It's going to be multiple places inside of the organization because the needs and what they care about can be dramatically different sometimes. So we, we use people throughout the organization for thought leadership.

Speaker B: Yeah, that, that's great advice. Uh, thanks so much for joining me, David. Lots of stuff for people to uh, add to their to do list or change their strategy based on, on what you shared. So I appreciate you sharing it.

Speaker A: Awesome. Thanks so much, Kevin. I really enjoyed speaking with you today and really appreciate you having. Thank you. Kevin Lee's Power Marketing is available on

Speaker B: all your favorite podcast networks. Kevin loves helping businesses excel at marketing, having marketing challenges just like Santa in the miracle on 34th Street.

Speaker A: If Kevin can't help you, he'll know someone who can. Find him on LinkedIn, subscribe or follow.