Renegade Marketers Unite

214: How CMOs Can Hire Smarter in 2021

13 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Any B2B or B2C organization is only as good as its team, so it may be surprising to hear that the hiring process hasn’t really changed for the last ...

213: Marketing a Complete B2B Transformation

06 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Shifting an entire B2B organization from a traditional to a cloud-based selling motion is no walk in the park. Throw in a global pandemic and a sweepi...

212: Making B2B Marketing More Social

30 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As a multi-disciplined, multi-functional channel, social deserves a seat at every B2B brand’s strategic table. A robust social strategy does more th...

211: B2B Partnerships That Matter

23 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Like many B2B companies, K2 Software has really zeroed in on what makes its low-code process automation platform mission-critical for its customers. U...

210: Bold, Creative B2B Marketing

16 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Citing a recent virtual event she attended, CMO Latané Conant of 6sense truly believes that, for marketers, “The more things change, the more thing...

209: Spinning a New B2B Brand Out of IBM

09 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine a globally recognized brand (say, IBM Watson Marketing) decides to spin out and gets packaged up and purchased by private equity. Imagine said...

208: Building a Marketing-Driven B2B Organization

02 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

“So, a brand walks into a bar…What drink does it order?” And no, it’s not the start of a joke, instead, it’s a question that CMO Paz Macdona...

207: How B2B CMOs Can Prepare for 2021

25 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The challenges of 2020 have set the stage for big changes in 2021 (and beyond). For optimistic marketers, this means that 2020 is the fertilizer for a...

206: B2B Marketing to the Rescue

18 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Businesses need marketing now more than ever if they want to drive top-line growth. Why? Because marketers know how to do more with less. Despite budg...

205: Rebranding Without Losing Your Past

11 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

2020 was going to be the year of the brand refresh for the data and analytics company, Information Builders. CMO Carol McNerney came on board in Janua...

204: Creating Your Own B2B Category

04 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It’s not easy to create your own category. It takes vision, it takes competition, and it requires the analysts’ blessings. But, if done right, cat...

203: Abundant Generosity Begets Abundant B2B Sales

28 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

At the beginning of 2020, Pluralsight decided it was going to give away all of its online tech courses for an entire month. The education company knew...

202: The Ins and Outs of B2B Demand Generation

21 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In case you haven’t heard, it’s time to rev up your demand generation tactics. With budgets cut and in-person lead nurturing opportunities out of ...

201: One CMO’s System for Aligning Sales and Marketing

14 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

With 25 years in the tech industry, Conversica CMO Rashmi Vittal knows a thing or two about sales and marketing alignment. She knows that it’s about...

200: The Original Renegade Marketer: Dr. Benjamin Franklin

07 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If you could go back in time and meet one historical figure, who would it be? For Drew, the answer is obvious: Dr. Benjamin Franklin. This should come...

199: Today’s Resilience is Tomorrow’s Excellence

31 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What does B2B excellence look like in a downturn? When faced with this question, the software company Coupa quickly adopted a story of resilience. The...

198: The Art of the Strategic Shortcut

24 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

While California went into shelter-in-place in early March, Talend CMO Lauren Vaccarello read an article about a popular bubble tea franchise laying o...

197: Rethinking Your Brand Promise…In a Hurry

17 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Right around mid-March 2020, every brand, B2B or B2C, had to take a cold hard look at their brand promise and consider its relevance. Was the brand pr...

196: Raising the Bar with Virtual Events

10 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If you’re looking for an example of a high-quality virtual event, you’ve got to check out Skillsoft’s Perspectives 2020. Drew did, and he was ab...

195: Generating Demand with Content Marketing

03 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

With physical events and direct sales canceled, the idea of filling the pipeline with valuable leads may seem daunting. However, many CMOs see this ch...

194: Collaborating Creatively in the Zoom Economy

26 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

“Zoom, Zoom, Zoom” may seem like the title of a children’s song, but for many of us, it’s the reality of the workday—a string of Zoom meetin...

193: How National Instruments Became NI

19 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A rebrand is not a campaign, it’s a new direction. That’s why NI (previously known as National Instruments) brought on their first-ever CMO, Carla...

192: Decoding Your Company’s True Brand Purpose

12 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Brands must be handled with care. They are emotional, enduring, and convey everything a business stands for, so it behooves CMOs to ensure that their ...

191: B2B Values to Solve Any Marketing Challenge

05 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When do company values matter? Just ask today’s guest Peter Finter, the SVP and CMO at Couchbase: “It's when you have to make a hard decision, tha...

190: The Logistics of Purpose-Driven Marketing

29 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Enter overused marketing advice: Be authentic. Understand your customers. Helping is the new selling. Clichés, yes, but they are as true today as whe...

189: Keywords and Cocktails: SEO Recipes for B2B Success

22 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

With budget cuts looming (or already made), CMOs are suddenly being asked to do even more with even less. Many are stirring up their inbound marketing...

188: How RSA’s CMO Navigated Stormy Waters

15 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What does leading through a crisis look like? Drew covered the subject in-depth in a recent episode, but if you want a real-life example of leadership...

187: Why B2B Storytelling (Still) Matters

08 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How can a business discover its brand story? The first step, according to David Altschul of Character LLC, is to identify the story’s conflict. Now,...

186: Rebranding in a Pandemic — An Amazing CMO Story

01 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine you’ve spent the past year preparing to rebrand your organization. You’ve ticked off all the boxes—strategized with a cross-functional t...

185: What a CEO Wants in Their CMO

24 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: no CMO can succeed without the backing of their CEO. Countless CMO guests on the show have talked abo...

184: Why CMOs Should Be CXOs Too

17 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Now more than ever, people want simplicity. They’re looking for simple solutions to complex problems, simple language to describe complex ideas, and...

183: Why Purpose Matters Even More in the Post-COVID Era

10 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Where do you go when you’re a guest on Renegade Thinkers Unite but can’t find a quiet place in the house? To the RV, of course! That’s where Ed ...

182: How Talkdesk Led the "Business Continuity" Curve

03 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It's impossible to have business continuity during a crisis if your contact center software is only designed to run on-premises (on-prem for short) an...

181: Collaboration in a #WFH World

27 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Stack Overflow, an online Q&A community for developers, has a clear #WFH advantage—they’ve operated with a largely remote workforce for over a dec...

180: Leadership During a Crisis

20 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As our CEO & host Drew Neisser so aptly puts it, “this an unusual episode for an unusual time.” There has been a lot to think about in recent week...

179: CMO Mathematics with Service Express

13 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Joshua Leatherman has been CMO at Service Express for 9 years now—during that tenure, revenue has grown from 30 million to 130 million, marketing ef...

178: Why Dell Boomi is Booming

06 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

According to a Gartner Report, Dell Boomi leads the way as an innovative strategic partner for its clients in the Enterprise iPaaS category, with over...

177: A CMO’s Guide to Cultivating Customer Champions

28 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How important are your customers to your business? This one should be a no-brainer—the relationships you build with your customers are vital to succ...

176: Keep Calm and Acquisition On

21 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It’s tough enough to build a company’s marketing engine from the ground up, but Isabelle Papoulias, CMO of Mediafly, successfully navigated throug...

175: Digging Deep into Corporate Purpose

14 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When purpose moves front and center, a company can attract better talent and better customers. This is not conjecture. Dov Baron, via his leadership c...

174: Finding Your Brand’s North Star

07 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Sometimes, the big ideas sort of just happen. That said, some magical brand moment isn’t going to just appear without some planning or effort—but ...

173: Turning Obstacles into Opportunity

31 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

“It’s not if—it’s how.” That’s how Karen Jones, CMO of Ryder, a supply chain management and logistics company, started wrapping up our int...

172: Effective B2B Brand Strategy: The Appetizer Version

24 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this interview, host & Renegade CEO Drew Neisser actually sits down with, well, Drew Neisser. Maybe it’s half interview, half monologue. Either w...

171: Unlocking Employee Optimism

17 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 2017, Jeff Perkins was champing at the bit to get started as CMO of ParkMobile, a parking assistance app based out of Atlanta. He saw the 7.5 milli...

170: Scaling “Scrappy” and Growing Your Audience

10 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

One of the integral questions most marketers face is: How do I expand my audience? Well, you could draw up a new campaign, make a new product—heck, ...

169: Small Tests, Giant Leaps

03 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As a veteran of Silicon Valley with tenures at multiple massive, industry-leading tech companies, Carl Tsukahara has developed a serious taste for adv...

168: Building A Challenger Brand with Matrixx Software

27 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When Matrixx started out in 2008, they were a David among Goliaths. People thought they were crazy to even try cracking a pretty crowded SaaS market f...

167: Big, Dirty, Greasy Marketing With Purple Wave

20 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ask most senior marketing executives to describe their company, and you’ll often hear words like “workflow,” “optimization,” or “disruptio...

166: B2B Marketers Talking Turkey in Taxis

13 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when you put an incredibly articulate CMO in a cab with the host of Renegade Thinkers Unite? Genuine fast-paced goodness, that’s what! ...

165: The Art of Changing Your Brand Name

06 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There is probably nothing more fundamental to marketing than your brand name. It usually takes years to build awareness and equity, especially the kin...

164: “Feline” Groovy—Building Nala Cat’s 4.3-million-follower Brand

29 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, world-famous influencer Nala Cat—who is, in fact, a cat—joins RTU to meow her thoughts on brand buildi...

163: Ambushing Goliath (The True Art of Challenger Branding)

22 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If you’re a fan of renegade thinking, then you’ll probably be a fan of David Thompson, CMO of Freshworks, and serial bold marketer. His marketing ...

162: Working Like a Spartan

15 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What comes to mind when you hear “Spartan?” Probably some version of the imagery found in 2006’s blockbuster, 300. Scenes of great battle, troop...

161: Hitting the Books: Smartling’s Story-based Marketing

08 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How many languages do you speak? No judgements here—just curious. But, a safe bet would say that the majority of people reading this have a primary ...

160: When’s the Right Time to Rebrand?

01 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

 “When the time is right, you’ll know.” It feels like an almost trope-ish answer to many of life’s questions, or like the vague wisdom from a...

159: Canna-tech: CRM for a “Budding” Industry

25 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A major CRM company, Springbig, is blazing a trail. They’ve become a go-to provider in the industry they focus on, they’ve got a 98% customer rete...

158: Why Avid is Powering Greater Creators

17 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Most CMOs “only” have to focus on businesses or consumers as their primary target. Avid, a multimedia tech company, actually markets products to b...

157: From Shepherding to CMOing: How Simon Schaffer-Goldman Helps Case Paper Cut Through

11 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Simon Schaffer-Goldman, of Case Paper, is really just your run-of-the-mill CMO. Well, except maybe for starting out as a shepherd in New Zealand. Als...

156: Guidelines for Effective CMOs: A Conversation With 6 B2B Marketing Leaders

08 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On last week's RTU episode 155, Kim Whitler and Drew dove into a wide range of marketing topics, including exploring the CMO/CEO relationship in deta...

155: Why CMO Troubles Start with the CEO

04 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What do you get when you combine a dash of academic rigor, a hint a marketing obsession (in the best way possible), a few critiques of modern CMO tend...

154: The B2B Persona Problem

27 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the age of 1:1 personalization, it might be considered heresy to suggest that persona-based marketing is a false idol. But hey, we’re renegades, ...

153: Mild to Wild: CPG to Software (Intuit)

20 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When Intuit’s Mary-Ann Somers took over as SVP & Chief Growth Officer of the Consumer Group business unit, she wanted to build upon the success of h...

152: What B2B Marketers Can Learn From Drinking (and It’s Marketing)

13 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

At Drugstore Publicis, a luxury shop on Champs-Élysées, you’ll find more than a typical pharmacy. You’ll find Joel Robuchon’s L’Atelier Etoi...

151: Spurring Company & Category Growth at Brightcove

06 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If someone ran up to you and said, “Congrats, you’re now the CMO of a $165M tech company with about 500 employees,” what would you do? First, ma...

150: What Makes a Marketing Leader

30 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What’s it take to be a marketing leader? Well, you can have boundless knowledge of metrics, have a mind for strategy somewhere in the neighborhood o...

149: Women in Marketing: Hard-Earned Lessons

23 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this special episode, three accomplished CMOs share their experiences as women in the marketing world. The featured guests include Kathy Button-Bel...

148: Making Leadership Connections (in Foreign Places)

16 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Bon jour, and welcome to the first-ever overseas RTU! This episode was recorded from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport. Why? This beautiful airport, ...

147: Redefining ADP

09 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lorraine Barber-Miller, CMO of ADP, has a tough mission: make ADP a category of one. That means helping push her legacy brand past its perception of j...

146: Percolate Founder’s Best Practices for Content Marketing

06 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In last week’s episode, we traced the career of Noah Brier from a copywriter who didn’t know what copy was, all the way to co-founder of an immens...

145: The Unlikely Path of Percolate’s Founder

02 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Percolate, a software company, has received north of $100M in funding. Not a number to be scoffed at. In this episode—a fairly atypical one—Noah B...

144: How to Be A Data Visionary & NetApp's CMO

26 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Millions of data points. A singular vision. Those are at the core of the new NetApp campaign, and the results were pretty significant. Over 70% of fol...

143: Building a Culture Around an “Open” Purpose

19 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How do you become a $4-billion company by selling free software? It almost sounds like a trick question, but it’s been done. Just ask Tim Yeaton, CM...

142: Catching Waves and Going Carbon Neutral with the World Surf League

12 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How can a brand save the world? They could do something flashy, like repel an alien invasion or topple Godzilla, or they could do something real and s...

141: B2B Brands Can Beat “Boring” and Bad Bounce Rates

05 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What does a B2B brand’s website have in common with a SuperBall? A significant bounce rate! Okay, maybe not the funniest joke, but it does transitio...

140: Navigating Modern B2B Media

28 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Email is still innovative...right? One might argue that email marketing has become the Facebook of marketing strategies— It was cool at first, it ha...

139: Digital Superheroes: How Agari Makes a Bold Mission Real

21 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What do you need to make a big splash? A big ship, one would assume, is a terrific place to start. So that’s exactly what Agari used to launch their...

138: Marketing Adobe: How Ann Lewnes Plants Flags and Inspires

14 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How do you effectively lead the marketing efforts of a 20,000+ employee tech giant well enough to make it into the American Marketing Association’s ...

137: Post-Sale Marketing and Keeping the Customer Smiling

07 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Customers: What are they? Where do they come from, and what do they want? These are some of the great, cosmic questions we humans may never be able to...

136: How Research Can Supercharge Your B2B Marketing

31 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When you order a pizza, you want it delivered quickly. It should prepared, placed in one of those fancy heat-retaining delivery bags, and be at your d...

135: How the Control Freaks at UTAK Are Cutting Through

24 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What’s your brand truth? Actually—let’s pull back a bit: what is a brand truth? You could give it a few different names, but in essence, your br...

134: Building a Lean, Mean, Lead-Gen Machine

17 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

About 5 years ago, Rebecca Stone joined LiveRamp and the CEO said, “I want you to be as sophisticated as possible in advertising, and how you use it...

133: Why B2B CMOs Should Mine Asteroids

10 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

You might think the first step to asteroid mining is get a rocket ship. Usually you would be right. But on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Se...

132: How SAP Hopes to Make the World Run Better

03 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If you were constructing a bingo board based on the lingo in tech company discussions, you’d have “disrupt” right in the middle square, as it’...

131: Turning Employees Into Brand Advocates

26 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the utopian holster of magical marketing bullets, employee advocacy is right up there with viral videos (think Ice Bucket Challenge) and real-time ...

130: The Power of a Purpose-Driven Story Statement

23 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What the heck is a purpose-driven story statement and why are they so critical to successful marketing? These are the question Drew answers on the fir...

129: How Purpose Drives Bank of the West

19 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A true, purpose-driven brand doesn't happen overnight. What it really takes is a goal, specific actions, and at times, a bit of sacrifice. For Bank ...

128: Brand Tracking and B2B Demand Gen with Gusto

12 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Payroll tends to be a purely transactional moment between employer and employee, but Gusto is working to shift that to being a "life moment," potentia...

127: How Outdoor Propelled a B2B Startup

05 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Silicon Valley is home to thousands of B2B startups—and one of the the newest B2B  unicorns. Brex offers a corporate credit card more built around ...

126: How Emerson’s Long-Time CMO Reduces Complexity

29 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Perhaps Kathy Button Bell’s title should change from “Chief Marketing Officer” to “Chief Complexity Reduction Officer”—after all, she’s ...

125: Keep It Human with Your Bots!

22 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Call an Uber, order from Amazon, book a hotel… You can do all of these things instantly—even at 4 AM. People today want commodities quickly and wi...

124: Gartner's Expert on Making B2B Buying Easier

15 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Nothing like a live audience to keep you on your toes! Third-time guest Brent Adamson, Distinguished Vice President, Gartner, joins Drew for a live co...

123: Why Uberflip Says "F*** Content Marketing"

08 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If a tree falls in the forest... You know the rest. But, if Randy Frisch doesn't attend a conference, did people there still talk about content market...

122: The Art of the Survey (Special Episode)

06 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Surveys can provide a wealth of data on any sort of topic. But there is an art to crafting the perfect survey, one that invites honest and valuable fe...

121: How SurveyMonkey Powers The Curious Internally and Externally

01 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“Eating your own dog food” didn’t sound so appetizing, so folks started “drinking their own champagne.” SurveyMonkey didn’t want people th...

120: What Modern Banking Can Teach Us About Marketing

22 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Whether you're a small business catering to a consumer, or an enterprise tech company targeting fortune 500 giants—the changes in how banks are appr...

119: Be the Big Fish in Many Small Ponds

15 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

You’ve heard it said, “be the big fish in a small pond.” But have you ever considered being the big fish in many small ponds? Sage Intacct, a pr...

118: Spotting Terrorist Plots and Rental Car Scratches - How This Startup Stays Flexible

08 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

UVeye is putting together technology that has an immense range of uses, is wildly innovative, and is—putting it plain and simple—cool! The company...

117: A Former CMO, Turned CEO’s Approach to Strategic Marketing

01 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When you have to reach out to someone quickly, what do you usually do? Exactly! Send a text. So why aren't more businesses text-enabling their phone l...

116: The Need to Fail, Cars That See, and Defining Market Needs

25 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

CES never fails to be a revelatory experience, but this year marked a significant step closer to one of humanity's longest-held dreams (or at least, o...

115: How to Market and Succeed at Employee Communication

18 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever read through healthcare plans in an effort to sign-up? They're generally pretty important, but given how jargonistic and dense they are,...