Marketing to Sellers Before Customers (with Gillian Hinkle) | Ep. 249

Episode notes

Mason Cosby sits down with Gillian Hinkle to discuss the complexities of marketing within a portfolio company. When an organization moves from a single product to a suite of services, marketers often struggle to build intentional sequencing. Gillian shares her approach to identifying customer behaviors and mapping the overlap between different buying committees. ㅤ She explains why you cannot go it alone: you must work with other teams to find commonalities in lead information and problem sets. A critical part of her strategy is to market to the internal sales team first. If sellers do not understand the deal cycle or how a new product addresses a specific pain point, they will not present it to their customers. ㅤ Gillian also details how to protect the customer relationship by validating data with product managers before launching a campaign. She emphasizes the importance of "small measures"—tracking observable behaviors and engagement rates in internal channels like Slack—to understand program success before revenue numbers come in.