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As B2B SaaS sales become more challenging, demand gen can be an important way for companies to attract, educate, encourage, and nurture prospects. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Chris Roche talks about the benefits of demand gen and how companies can get started or ramp up their efforts. We also talk about how B2B SaaS brands can leverage LinkedIn and experiment with TikTok.

Over the last couple of years, the fractional CMO (FCMO) has been gaining momentum as companies look for marketing leadership without hiring a full-time and expensive resource. As a fractional CMO, I've been seeing more interest and more people embracing the title. In this episode of Marketing Spark, I talk with David Poulos, a fractional CMO, about why there is growing interest, when and why to hire a FCMO, how to establish the rules of engagement, and how long a FCMO should stick around. 

What's it like to operate a red-hot startup? What's it like to raise $56-million in venture capital in a relatively short period of time? In this episode of Marketing Spark, Walnut.io CEO Yoav Vilner talks about the interactive demo software company's rapid growth and how it raised major venture capital, including a $35 million Series B round in January. Yoav and I also talked about: - How B2B SaaS companies can attract their first 100 customers - When sales teams should be scaled. - When to hire your first full-time marketer and what type of marketer to hire - The new world of networking.

When should a B2B SaaS company change its pricing and how often should it happen? How do free trials and freemium play within the pricing equation? In this episode of Marketing Spark, Dan Balcauski and I explore the pricing landscape. We look at who should be responsible for pricing, know when prices have to be increased and know when your pricing is working. Pricing may not get the attention it deserves so Dan has great insight into its role and how to think about it. 

Most emails from salespeople are terrible. They're impersonal, irrelevant, and ineffective. They often don't reflect a prospect's interests or needs. Lavender wants to change that with AI-powered technology that lets salespeopole write better emails. On this episode of Marketing Spark, Lavender co-founder Will Allred talks about why salespeople struggle with email and how they can be more successful. We also explore the new sales landscape and the adjustments that salespeople needed to make during COVID when they couldn't meet with prospects of attend conferences. And we talk about Lavender's use of LinkedIn and TikTok to connect with customers.

PizzaTime's business exploded during the pandemic as companies looked for ways to engage remote employees. The company, which offers catering to remote teams, reaped the benefits and transformed itself into a high-growth entity. But as more people start going back to the office, PizzaTime has to re-strategize. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Matthew Carnevale talks about the different marketing growth tools being applied. This includes doubling down on customers and referrals, leveraging a blog and newsletter, and talking to customers on a regular basis.

TikTok is the world's sixth-largest social media platform with one billion users. Slowly but surely, B2B brands are establishing a presence, although it's far from bandwagon jumping. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Sales Feed's Will Aitken talks about why now is the time for B2B brands to embrace TikTok and the power of video. From insight into attracting 39,500 followers Sales Feed's TikTok channel, Will offers advice on how companies can get started and the keys to success.

Many B2B SaaS companies are aggressively leveraging content marketing to attract and engage prospects. One of the ways to generate content is to hire freelancers and contractors. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Brooklin Nash and I talk about: - The pros and cons of in-house content marketers and outsourced. - How to hire contractors and freelancers. - Gated vs. ungated content, and  - Long-form content vs. short-term. We also talk about Brooklin's approach to Twitter and how he's increased his follower count to 7,000 from 600 in the past year.

Marketers will tell you the importance of really knowing their customers but how many marketers actually understand their customers inside out? Long-time marketer Mike Birt talks about the differnet approaches that marketers can take to gain customer insight. In this episode of Marketing Spark, we talk about the importance of rewarding and nurturing customers rather than simply focusing on customer acquisition. And Mike offers some suggestions on how to identify customer intentions and signals.

While marketers are obsessed with all things digital, direct mail marketing is alive and well. There's huge value in being able to target people by their physical addresses. As important, brands that leverage direct mail marketing are seeing impressive ROI. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Postie CEO Dave Fink talks about why direct mail is viable option for many brands and how it liberates marketers from dealing with tech giants like Facebook and Google. Dave also talk about his experiences as one of the first investors in Dollar Shave Club and what it was like to work with founder Michael Dubin.

Many companies develop great products. The problem is few people know about them. These companies struggle with a lack of money to do marketing. There's too much competition, or they're product-based. Andrew Grubb is experiencing this first-hand.  As the CEO of ThinkSound, which makes earphones and headphones, Andrew heads up a company that has loyal customers....but not enough of them. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Andrew talks about the challenges of attracting the spotlight and how Think Sounds plans to leverage community and influencers to drive sales.

Many B2B SaaS companies are started by engineers with no marketing expertise. They build the product but struggle to spread the word so people can discover and use it. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Verb Data's Dave Hurt talks about the steps he and his co-founder took to dip their toes in the marketing waters and some of the experiments they conducted along the way. It's great insight into how, in many respects, marketing involves taking a deep dive into what your customers want and how they articulate their needs.

In a fast-moving marketing landscape, it's a challenge to break through and attract the spotlight. Kacy Maxwell is taking a different and effective approach with a concept called sketchnotes that combines notetaking, doodling, and drawing. It's a user-friendly and quick way to communicate ideas at a time when multi-tasking people scan rather than read. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Kacy and I talked about: - Why he embraced sketchnotes - How B2B companies can embrace brand storytelling - The marketing outlook for 2022 - Gated content - His annual solitude trips.

Some companies aim to stand out from the crowd. They want to differentiate themselves from companies that walk, talk, and sound the same. Some companies want to go a step further. They want to compete in a new category. They embrace a concept called category design in which they define and lead a new market. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Josh Lowman offers insight into the definition of category design and how one of his clients embraced the concept.

xtensio is a classic story of how a service-based company turned a problem into a product. The company was working with startups and needed better ways to support buyer personas and other marketing activities It launched a few templates that resonated and then realized that there was more than enough demand to pivot the business. In this episode of Marketing Spark, xtensio CEO Alper Cakir talks about the journey and how it has leveraged content marketing to drive brand awareness and inbound traffic. It is interesting that xtensio doesn't have a marketing department. Instead, it relies on Cakir and in-house employees to create most of the content.

It's the wild west when it comes to building a personal brand.  There's no lack of advice, guidance, content, and coaches to establish a personal brand within a competitive landscape.  Michelle Griffin has some great insight into creating a strategic plan for personal branding. We talk about why personal branding is important for entrepreneurs and CEOs, and how to get started on platforms like LinkedIn.

Many B2B marketers are throttled by the need to generate MQLs. Their campaigns and activities are measured by how many email addresses are collected and fed to an army of business development and sales reps. Nelson Gilliat believes there's a better way. The "Buyer-centric revenue" model allows marketers to do good and creative marketing that drives brand awareness and generates customer interest in your products. At the same time, the buyer-centric revenue model eliminates a lot of the prospecting done by B2B SaaS companies. It's cold outreach and cold-calling that bother prospects rather than engage and educate. Nelson is the author of "Death of the SDR: Birth of Buyer Centric Revenue" 

Building a content marketing strategy is a lot like building a house, says Visme's Farzad Rashidi . You need a good foundation and infrastructure and a nice facade. You need to have a clear understanding of the best keywords that will attract readers to content and determine the most relevant channels to publish content. But creation should only account for 20% of your time. 80% should be devoted to promotion and distribution, as well as updating and refreshing existing content. That's the formula for content marketing success.

Hiring a marketing consultant is often a leap of faith. You’re hoping their expertise and experience fills gaps and make things happen. But a lot of consulting engagements don’t work as well as expected. - There’s misalignment on expectations. - A lack of engagement and collaboration (no partnership) - Not enough clarity about what success looks like. - A lack of commitment to actually do marketing (more talk than walk) When I lost a client recently, some of these issues reared their ugly heads. To get some more perspective, I talked to Kevin Whelan, who helps marketing consultants improve their businesses. A key theme was how companies need to hire consultant and, as important, how and when consultants should take on clients. Consulting is a two-way street. Both parties need to agree to work together. It’s there’s a good fit, that’s a great start.

In simple terms, account-based marketing (ABM) is about targeting the prospects that really matter. It's about a laser-focused approach to marketing and sales. Behind the scenes, however, a lot needs to happen. It includes ensuring that marketing and sales work together to attract, engage, and nurture prospects. On this episode of Marketing Spark, Andrei Zinkevich also points out that ABM also involves determining the customers that you don't want as much as the customers you do want. Andrei goes into depth about how his company, Full Funnel, helps B2B SaaS companies leverage ABM to drive leads and revenue growth.