[00:00:00] Phil: there's obviously a lot of confusion around the path. To leveling up as a marketer when it comes to ai [00:00:05] Alison: I've changed all my one-on-one templates. And now one of the top five things we check in on is how is your team using AI this week? [00:00:13] It often kicks off natural threads where people people will do little show and shares. [00:00:17] Phil: how do you like SPOT AI literacy when you're thinking of hiring [00:00:21] Alison: you can't really hire for this experience, right? [00:00:24] This is a, a really interesting, paradoxical moment. It reminds me of when I worked in mobile technology. iPhone apps flew up and everyone was looking for like three years of iPhone app development when the apps store had been in market for 18 months. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't work that way. So you're going to have to give people experience and with that comes this sort of humility to know that some of that experience is going to be throwaway. [00:00:47] [00:00:50] In This Episode --- [00:00:50] Phil: What's up everyone? Today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Allison Albe. Lindland, CMO at Movable Inc. Allison's been at Movable Inc for a whopping 13 [00:01:00] years, rising through customer success. Founding the company's now influential customer strategy team and stepping into the CMO role nearly three years ago. [00:01:09] In this episode, we explore how to build AI literacy in your marketing teams and how to spot AI literacy when you're hiring marketers. We also cover AI point solutions versus platforms, how to measure and maximize the ROI of video podcasts and why a customer strategy team can drive enterprise growth. [00:01:29] All that and a more stuff Super quick from one of our awesome partners. [00:01:34] [00:02:39] Phil: Allison, thank you so much for your time today. Really excited to chat. [00:02:42] Alison: It's a gorgeous day here in New York City and I'm thrilled to be here. [00:02:47] Phil: Awesome. Gorgeous day in, in Ottawa here as well. Can't complain. Um, I, I wanted to let you kind of like set the stage a little bit here. [00:02:55] Alison. Um, [00:02:56] 1. Movable Ink's Platform Evolution --- [00:03:01] Phil: I wanted to get caught up on the product a little bit when I first discovered Movable Ink. It was a way to allow marketers to change emails after they had actually been sent out. [00:03:06] But I know the product has changed and expanded a ton now, right? [00:03:10] Alison: Yeah, so that's a great, I think early definition of what we did and kind of what we got to be known for by a lot of people. But we're an almost 15-year-old company now, which is pretty exciting. And essentially what we are is, uh, a SaaS platform that combines AI powered content decisioning, and then automated content generation. [00:03:28] And what people at home might know us for is through co-creating emails like the Spotify wrapped. But what they don't know is that we're powering hundreds of the world's leading brands, emails and mobile messages, and we're essentially automating that production process that is really a vestige of the print production process. [00:03:46] And then we're creating those hyper personalized one-to-one emails, whether they're year in review or uh, new arrivals. And yes, like you said, we're changing the content after it's been deployed. All of that is significantly improving the [00:04:00] performance of these email and mobile marketing programs, uh, and driving a lot of, uh, revenue and growth for these companies. [00:04:06] 2. Alison's 3 Stage Journey at Movable Ink --- [00:04:06] Phil: 13 years that you've been at Movable Inc. Now, [00:04:09] right? [00:04:09] Alison: Yes, it's been such an exciting ride. [00:04:13] Phil: You're like the anti-thesis for a lot of folks that say like the CMO is the shortest tenure and the C-suite. [00:04:19] Alison: Well, I've had sort of three key phases to my time here, and I've only been in the CMO role for a little under three years. Uh, and that's, I think just a, a whole separate experience coming up through customer success, creating the strategy team, which is now more and more prevalent at SaaS companies, which I'm really proud that we were very early on. [00:04:39] And then moving over to marketing and it, you know, it's not been the same company for more than six months at a time. And then I've had all these different roles along the way, so that's made it really interesting. [00:04:51] Darrell: I love that. I love that. So, um, let's get into the questions. [00:04:55] 3. Using Customer Relationships to Future Proof a Marketing Career --- [00:04:55] Darrell: So Allison, you're, you're the CMO of an AI MarTech [00:04:58] company, which is super [00:05:00] trending and like very hot. It's also kind of meta. [00:05:02] Alison: It's very, very meta. Yes. [00:05:06] Darrell: so what advice do you have for up and coming marketers, CMOs, that might want a job like yours in the future? And what advice do you have for marketers to help future proof their careers? [00:05:16] Alison: Yes. So my first thought is pretty AI agnostic, which is that you just have to know your customers. And when I say that, I don't mean on a spreadsheet or via Tableau. You have to know them actually personally and pretty intimately because you've got to be constantly advocating for their perspective around the table and on this front. [00:05:37] Product marketing is gonna be a really good ally in this, but at the end of the day, you are bringing those campaigns to market and you should be the one who can stay with authority. This isn't gonna land and here's why. And alternately, you should be able to pick up the phone or start a text thread late at night. [00:05:54] And validate ideas or thesis before you go to market and get that input from those clients [00:06:00] who you have those direct relationships with Pretty quickly. [00:06:03] Darrell: I almost wonder too, if it's not a good idea. To do marketing at a company that maybe you're not interested in the product and you're not interested in the customers, I think you're gonna do a disservice to both. Um. [00:06:17] Alison: I, I do think there has to be that authentic connection where you're either very enamored with the problem that you're trying to solve or. The, uh, industry that you're serving, that I do think that there has to be more than just a sort of academic curiosity about it, or it's gonna read as such. You know, we spend a lot of time now trying to bring our team members in close contact with our customers in more than just a servicing capacity, where they're just hosting events. [00:06:45] Uh, I host quarterly fireside chats where CMOs come and talk. We have a customer advisory board that meets and that it's hybrid, so it's easy for us to kind of rotate in people who are just sort of. Taking notes and lurking. We're constantly hosting events in this beautiful office here. [00:07:00] We've got events all around the country and we're, we're very strategic about placing people in those events. [00:07:04] Not just to support the actual program, but to really develop like, personal relationships with people, uh, that will inform the work that they're doing, whether it's content marketing, events, uh, you know, a, BM, et cetera. But these can't just be abstract ICPs. These need to be individuals because. The secret to our success has been how we drive marketers careers forward by using our, our software. [00:07:29] And then as they've progressed in their careers, they've taken us with them. And as they've changed companies, they've taken us with them. So it's really important that we just stay close to the issues that they're struggling with, uh, as things have evolved and continue to evolve so quickly. [00:07:44] Phil: I love your answer, Alison. ' cause it's like, it's refreshing in a sense. Everyone has like a take on how AI is displacing and there's a lot of fear and uncertainty and doubt with marketers in, in their careers. When we ask this question of like, how do you future. Improve your career and I like that you [00:08:00] kind of grounded it in the foundations of like understanding your customers and understanding the product regardless of how crazy AI is gonna be. [00:08:08] It feels like there's always going to be that like foundational element to understanding. The customers and the product. And I feel like, um, pmms are a really interesting spot in there. Like Daryl and I had an episode about what roles are really well positioned for this future of AI wave, what roles are a bit more kind of at risk? [00:08:27] And, and one of the ones that we highlighted was pmms and Customer Marketing Pros, lifecycle Pros that are like spending their time understanding the pain points of customers, bringing that back to the marketing team and just like improving campaigns and stuff like [00:08:41] that. [00:08:41] Alison: Totally. And I love that episode by the way. It was great. Uh, so our PMM team, which I've had the pleasure of leading in prior years, is just incredibly well-oiled machine. And they do a lot of things like win-loss interviews, uh, working on different archetypes, and the win-loss program has been. [00:09:00] Just so illuminating for us on a regular basis with the things that we're being sort of lauded for, and then the things that we're maybe falling down on and could, could improve on pretty quickly if we just focused on them. [00:09:09] So, but it's so interesting. It's not data that shows up in surveys. We do do surveys of course, as well. Uh, and then we're constantly surveying people after they attend our events. But getting in and having a really honest, long form, free and open conversation with a marketer. Can, can absolutely change your perspective very quickly. [00:09:30] Phil: Super cool. [00:09:31] 4. Building AI Literacy in Marketing Teams --- [00:09:31] Phil: So I've got this one idea that's kind of percolating in my head a little bit about this pyramid of AI literacy and, and we've got the CMO of an AI company here. So I feel like it's a really cool opportunity to have you, like, poke holes here and, and maybe kind of improve that. So there's obviously a lot of confusion around the path. [00:09:50] To leveling up as a marketer when it comes to ai and this idea of AI literacy. Like where do we start? When do we know that we're kind of, you know, in the 10% or whatever. So I [00:10:00] took a first stab at it, uh, for the folks watching on YouTube. We'll just like, put it up on the screen. Um, but I'd love to just like, go through it and, and have you kinda like poke holes at it. [00:10:09] Let me know what you think about [00:10:10] it. So the first level is, you know, basic exposure to LLMs. Like you've used a couple of AI tools, you don't really have a grasp of what's under the hood, but you kind of played around with it. The second one is prompting and tool proficiency. So you're starting to, you know, get a bit more dangerous in understanding, um, how do you improve the results, the output by structuring your prompts across different use cases. [00:10:32] Um, level three is you're starting to understand, um, like model literacy. Maybe a good way to put it. What are LLMs, like, what is it that I'm actually using here? How do they work? Um, how are they different from, um, machine learning? What's the difference between ML and NLP? And then maybe level four is machine learning and systems fluency. [00:10:53] So you're kind of taking a bit of a higher level grasp on how AI can connect to data [00:11:00] workflows, uh, broadening ML concepts. And then maybe like level five. I was kinda like not sure what to put for level five, but. There's like this thing about strategic and ethical applications when it comes to being the person who's leading AI discussions, not just like suggesting tools and um, you know, being the person that just like suggests stuff versus leading those discussions with like clarity, challenging the hype, not being like shiny object syndrome type person, but like guiding responsible adoption. [00:11:30] What do you think of those four levels? Is there another one in there? Poke holes at [00:11:33] Alison: No, I, I think, I think those are really intuitive. I would suggest maybe that that. Fifth piece come a little bit earlier. Uh, you know, first of all, I think one thing that we're seeing so often at our client organizations who are primarily B2C marketers, some of whom have been your guests on the show, like Angela Meta, uh, that they are working within these really complex organizations. [00:11:57] And so having that [00:12:00] shared organizational perspective around the strategy and the ethics and the data. Um, and to a certain extent also, the tools themselves is, is so foundational, right? That you need to have that enablement to make sure that you're all singing from the same songbook and that you don't have these pocketed, different teams approaching AI separately either in ways that are just straight up non-compliant. [00:12:25] And you're gonna find out pretty shortly that after a lot of investment in training, you're gonna get that thing taken away from you or. They're just oppositional to, you know, broader, uh, goals of the organization. So I do think that that enablement piece is so, so foundational and that it has to be like across the entire enterprise. [00:12:45] And we're only a 600 person company, but we've done a great job of that from our GCO to our CFO, uh, to operations, making sure that we're all using the same tools. And that's the second piece, which is tools, you know, making sure that you've got [00:13:00] enterprise procured tools. So I think you have that in there sort of within like two to four. [00:13:06] Uh, but that you're all using the same tools and that you're not building these little fiefdoms of knowledge on tools that might be, you know, fun to use at a individual level, like GPT Chey. BT is great. Who doesn't love open ai, but, uh, we as a company are using elvex, which is essentially a r Have you, have you heard of them? [00:13:26] Yeah, they're great and they give you access to plot and dini all in one place, but you can build a lot more institutional knowledge. And so I think that is, is also really fundamental. And then of course, the last thing is what you duly noted it's experience. You know, you, you can't really hire for this experience, right? [00:13:45] This is a, a really interesting, paradoxical moment. It reminds me of when I worked in mobile technology. iPhone apps flew up and everyone was looking for like three years of iPhone app development when the apps store had been in market for 18 months. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't work that way. So [00:14:00] you're going to have to give people experience and with that comes this sort of humility to know that some of that experience is going to be throwaway. [00:14:08] It's just going to be to give people that muscle to talk about the failures they've had and to know. How they're gonna iterate and to share those learnings, you have to have a forum to share those learnings regularly. So the way that we use elvex is really, I, I think, pretty impressive for a company of our size. [00:14:28] We have two business analysts, uh, on our ops team who are dedicated to building custom apps to support our business goals. And we've got apps on the marketing team that we've got built that really help us on a daily basis. So, for example, um, Mave is our archetype. She's our, our dream. ICP. She's a, you know, mid forties, SVP of marketing and a B2C brand. [00:14:52] And we have a lot of content around who she is, what her brand voice is, a lot of documents that sort of inform that, that otherwise the [00:15:00] team would go to manually to check their content against. So we built a MVE app. And now every piece of content that you're seeing, whether it's on social media, whether it's the session, uh, you know, sort of blurbs that you're seeing on the Think Summit website, they've all been run through that app to make sure that it's a really consistent brand voice. [00:15:21] We've got other cool apps that are meant for the rest of the organization, like a content marketing search bot. So instead of going out, just searching our blog for the most relevant content, if you're working with a financial services prospect or a OTA prospect, you can just go in and natural language talk to it like you're talking to someone on the content marketing team and say like, Hey, what's the latest short form content that I can send us on for top of funnel to get them to attend? [00:15:47] Think Summit. And it's right there. So it's been really. A game changer for how we work, and shocking how quickly it's become a part of our day to day. [00:15:57] Phil: Super cool. [00:15:58] 5. How to Spot AI Literacy in Marketing Hires --- [00:16:02] Phil: How do you like SPOT AI literacy in? Your team, like from a performance standpoint maybe, or when you're thinking of hiring, like, like you just said, it's, it's hard to say we want someone with like five years of experience using LLMs for marketing use cases. So how do you kinda like ask that in in interview questions? [00:16:16] Alison: I think first of all, you just have to look for curiosity and people who are happy to jump in and try new things without knowing that they've got years and years of experience, but they're inspired by that. So I often ask people like, what are you personally trying out on the side? What are you advocating for internally? [00:16:36] And then we have adjusted, I've changed all my one-on-one templates. I started this at the top of the year. To include, you know, not just the sort of standard things that I have in there, which is like, what can I unblock? What's going well? What do you know? What do you need help on? And now one of the top five things we check in on is how is your team using AI this week? [00:16:55] And then we start our weeks with a really nice ritual that I've used [00:17:00] for teams that I've managed for probably 10 years, which is we share our top three to five goals for the week. And then we also put in something fun that we did this weekend, just, just a little personal, uh, you know, connection. But then we've added to that how have you been using AI recently? [00:17:14] And then from that it often kicks off natural threads where people are saying, oh, you know what? I've been meaning to try that L vax a I was thinking about trying that tool. And then we'll pull items from those discussions into our marketing team weekly meeting and people will do little show and shares. [00:17:32] And we really try and have a culture on the marketing team and at with length where we can be honest about dead ends. Things that didn't work out, just interesting lessons. We once did a really fun team building exercise with a coach that we've worked with as a company called Jeff Flowers. He's terrific. [00:17:48] And one of the exercises he did had us do this like fun on our feet exercise where we're like remembering all this choreography and passing a ball around. And every time you sort of made a mistake with your choreography, you had to say like. I [00:18:00] made a mistake and everyone applauded for you. So instead of that feeling of like your prickly, you know, like embarrassment taking over your body, you, you knew that if you made a mistake, you were going to be applauded by your whole team and everyone was gonna cheer for you. [00:18:14] And so we even do that, we mimic that on Slack when people will share things. And now we really try and encourage our Q bs to talk about like, what are your made of mistake moments? So when we share out in our team meetings about how we're experimenting with ai, we encourage people to share those things that really didn't work out. [00:18:30] Was there anything in there that you can use and extract as you're going forward? [00:18:34] Darrell: So cool, so cool. Yeah. I think we're in an interesting time now because so much is changing and I, I think that in the past it used to be like, you know what's, how can we be more strategic? What's the ultimate mission? You know, how can we map out the next five to 10 years? And now it really seems like the best teams are, um, focusing on agility.[00:19:00] [00:19:00] You know, how can, like what if in the next three months another big change happens? What happens in, in another six months if the company goals change? Like we have to be ready. And I think that, um, you know, some folks have have trouble with, with that sort of uncertainty, but I think though it sounds like your team is, is really embracing. [00:19:18] New technology and, and I think that that's, um, I love that question. You know, how are you using AI this week? [00:19:25] Alison: No, I think I was just gonna say that agility is, is really something that is so key because I think when you are in the business that we are, the sort of core asset that we're delivering to our prospects at any given time is. Value. Where's the value in our piece of content in this event, uh, in this, you know, website that you're gonna inter interact with? [00:19:47] And we have to be very closely attuned to the issues of the day. And those are evolving faster than ever for a multitude of reasons. And so it can't be about our agenda. We [00:20:00] can't be saying, gosh, you know what, on October 25th, we're launching this product and we wanna talk about it. And that's our priority. [00:20:07] You know, if, if things change with tariffs, if other exogenous events happen, like with iOS 18, we are going to be there to respond to the things that we're hearing our clients and our prospects talking about in the field. But you have to have a feedback loop internally to capture that. And that's a role that our strategy team has played, uh, so, so masterfully. [00:20:31] Darrell: Yeah. [00:20:31] And that's why I like that, you know, the Mave avatar that you have, you know, because I think so many companies, you know, and you can see these countless examples, you know, in strategy meetings of like, this is what we want to tell customers, this is what we want the customers to do. And, but it's like the reverse question of like what the customers want to learn about what value do they want to have? [00:20:52] And, and you know, if, if you have this sort of avatar that you're thinking about all the time, you know, and I, I do the same thing when I, when I, when I. Think [00:21:00] about my content, I think about, you know, the marketing ops manager that's hands on keyboard and what do they wanna do and what struggles do they have, you know, and it's not like what I want to tell them. [00:21:09] It's like what they want to learn. Um, but a anyway, I, [00:21:13] 6. Fostering AI Experimentation Across Your Team --- [00:21:13] Darrell: I'd love to get into like, some of this, like talking about AI testing tools and you mentioned your team's doing that. How do you think about, you know, because there's a variety, I know you mentioned lx. Um. You know, can you give us like another example of AI testing and like what's your mental model around making sure you're all, your team is always like, experimenting with new tools, always learning. [00:21:34] Is there a certain, is there like 20% time or something? Like how do you, how do you think about that? [00:21:38] Alison: Yeah, I wish it was that prescribed, but we're really trying to foster a culture where people just think as you approach any new task, how is AI going to enable me to get this done better and faster? And potentially make it a little more enjoyable to do so. One of the tools that we're playing with now is called Spark. [00:21:55] It's a concierge like event marketing tool, and essentially [00:22:00] it includes a whole uh, host of different templates for different types of events that you're creating and events that are really part important, part of our go to market motion. And so we're constantly coming up with concepts for different formats, uh, different targeting rules. [00:22:15] Uh, and then there's all of the documentation that comes out of, you know, each of them, whether they're executive events or broad scale enablement events or round table forums. And this essentially prompts you once you create a, uh, a little bit of a summary, it kind of creates a lot of those documents automatically. [00:22:34] And then it will help you iterate on them. Like, okay, this is actually for the C-suite, so here's how the language is going to change, and this is the date. So now we're gonna cascade the, uh, project management tools. So we're not ready to turn our entire process over to them by any means. But it's just a, a huge unlock in terms of thinking about the things that we can automate and get their faster with. [00:22:54] [00:23:49] [00:24:55] Phil: I feel like you could argue that a lot of the AI apps that are coming out, especially the [00:25:00] newer ones, are like a bit more point solutions kind of. Uh, a lot of them are like vendor agnostic in a way. [00:25:07] Like they're not part of a platform suite, so to speak. Maybe one day they will as like. The cycle of innovation happens in MarTech, but I have this, this question related to this, like [00:25:16] 7. AI Point Solutions vs Platforms --- [00:25:16] Phil: Movable Inc often integrates with like big platforms like Salesforce, Adobe, and ing, engages of the world. Um, but it's like not really a point solution. [00:25:26] Maybe it was at first, but with like 150 million in revenue and, uh, unicorn val evaluation there, you've proven that this idea of a. Platform agnostic approach focused on personalization and automation can be super successful. Like you guys are, are kinda proof of that. How do you address this perception that only all in one platforms can solve marketer biggest problems and that anything else is just kind of extra noise and distracting marketers from what's most important? [00:25:58] I feel like movable in seems to like [00:26:00] challenge that assumption entirely. [00:26:01] Right. [00:26:02] Alison: I mean, I think the reason that we exist is because the other solutions in your stack were really built to solve different problems. So either they were built to focus on the data side of the house, like the CRM, the data warehouse, the CDPs, which people have invested like untold billions into over the past, probably, let's call it a decade or so, or they're just pure play delivery. [00:26:23] So they're like an ESP, uh, MSP or like, um, like a CMS system or something. None of those were designed to automatically generate personalized content at scale, which is in fact a really critical piece in that value chain. Like if you're going to activate all that data to create one-to-one experiences, you need to have the content. [00:26:45] And we've got tons of research that shows, I think something like 90% of marketers think that they just don't have the content to get the, sort of the investment of in their data, uh, infrastructure. And that it takes them something like [00:27:00] close to six hours to create every individual piece of content. [00:27:02] Because if you think about the large enterprise, uh, approval value chain. It's not just the designer touching this stuff, it's, you know, gotta be then the marketer, and then probably a lawyer, and then maybe somebody in compliance. And that's even if you're not in, in a regulated industry. So the ability to take pre-approved assets and combine them automatically in the end users either inbox or on their mobile device. [00:27:25] Using the guardrails that the brand has set forth is just totally transformational to these enterprise marketers who are, again, really looking to activate that data that they've invested those, maybe not personally billions, but collectively, billions in and see that benefit to their end user so that they feel really seen by that brand. [00:27:45] And that's where you get the loyalty that brands are really focused on unlocking these days. [00:27:50] Darrell: Can, can you expand a little bit on the like, legal approval part? Because that's actually a, a challenge for us. You know, every, everything has to go through legal, so you're saying like [00:28:00] pre-approved like modules. That make it so that they can just approve all of them in one at all camp. All the different parts of the flavors of a [00:28:10] Alison: exactly. Like essentially creating layered images using pre-approved, totally on brand created by that. Wonderful partner agency, taking those elements and then creating that one-to-one content. So it might be in the form of, um, sort of a image lockup of new arrival items just from the website. [00:28:30] Or it could be that beautiful Spotify wrapped, or if you wanna translate that to other brands like Deltas or your review or American Express. It's, you know, your first year with the card and it's showcasing. All those beautiful elements in a very on-brand stylized not, you know, merged in horrible like web say fonts, uh, expression of that brand where it feels like it's a coffee table book of the brand that's just been created for you. [00:28:57] And you would never know that this was [00:29:00] automatically created and that there are millions of iterations of this now out in the wild that all tell a different story because of the way that it looks and feels. [00:29:10] Darrell: Got it. Got it. Love that. And I think that that's gonna be really helpful in terms of, I, I, I think that especially for enterprise companies, people underestimate how long the approvals take and. [00:29:19] Alison: Um, I mean our biggest challenge in the first few years was helping people understand that the opportunity to change the email after it was launched was a huge benefit and to limit the anxiety around that and how to sell it in within their own organizations and. As B2B marketers, you're not just selling to your signatory, you're selling to everybody that they need to convince, right? [00:29:44] So you need to create materials for their legal counsel, for their risk teams, and help them understand how the evolution of this technology is not creating more risk, but it's essentially helping meet their business needs and their [00:30:00] goals and do so faster, more efficiently, and that there are, uh, guardrails to make sure that nothing goes wrong in the process. [00:30:07] Darrell: I love that. Oh, that. Very cool. Um, [00:30:10] 8. Align CMOs and Boards on Long Term Marketing Goals --- [00:30:10] Darrell: So let's shift gears here a little bit and, uh, let's talk about, you know, kind of like the CMOs role. Um, so, you know, CMOs, I I, I forget the tenure now. It's like every two years, 18 months, you know, it's, it's the cmo like is, it's like a revolving door. And, um, you know, one possibility is that, uh, companies are expecting CMOs to deliver results really quickly. [00:30:35] Um, and do you believe that's true? And when A CMO is challenged to, Hey, we want, you know, a direct response type results, we want to drive, you know, top line revenue, you know, quarter over quarter, how do you kind of shift, how should CMOs think about. Explaining or or sharing with their board and their, and the rest of the C-suite, [00:31:00] that, there's a longer term play here and that relationship with customers is actually what's more valuable. [00:31:06] Is it a balance? Like what? Could you riff on that for us a little bit? [00:31:08] Alison: So I think that, you know, the first piece is that you have to have partnership from the entire go to market organization because. Selling is a team sport. And when you're in a marketing role in a B2B company, you are effectively, you know, the front of house for the sales team, right? And you need to have trusts and open lines of communication with all of those stakeholders, whether it's the outbounding team, product, marketing, product itself, even. [00:31:40] Make sure that you are all aligned on what the goals are. We have a really clear mandate on our team. We're gold on pipeline and opportunities and obviously sort of calls booked, so mq, ls and make sure that there's a scorecard that everybody believes and, um, has that kind of like trust in [00:32:00] that no one's trying to throw anybody under the bus, make anybody look bad that you're just tracking the metrics so that you can. [00:32:06] Make sure you're understanding your contribution to the business and you're all working towards the same goals. Then I think the next piece is having the opportunity to tell bigger stories. Like I mentioned, we've had a lot of clients take us with them from multiple jobs, so putting some data behind that and then saying. [00:32:26] Where's the opportunity here to really double down on this and can we, uh, you know, prove that there's some delta in performance if we really invest in these clients and in them personally. Because, you know, I'm always of the opinion that companies don't buy software, people do. Uh, and that has been, again, really successful approach overall for us. [00:32:48] Phil: I, I've got a fun question related to that, um, kind of idea that, you know, we sell to people. Um, I know you're really big on, you know, having thoughts about. [00:33:00] Building direct human relationships and thinking long term versus that like direct response kind of angle that Darrell kind of teased out with, like maybe why the CMO uh, tenure is a little short. Um, [00:33:11] 9. How to Measure and Maximize the ROI of Video Podcasts --- [00:33:20] Phil: in 2020, your team launched Ink Tank, uh, a podcast, uh, video podcast series for marketers. And, you mentioned that it was super gratifying, but ultimately after 21 episodes, the call was to shut it down because you couldn't assign or associate pipeline with it. I feel like that decision might go a little bit against like some of your thoughts on building human relationships, thinking more long term versus just direct response. [00:33:37] Like do you think that after just 21 episodes, it was a bit premature to say that like none of that is gonna lead to pipeline at some. Just curious your thoughts there. [00:33:46] Alison: and and you know, I think that notionally, we all believed it was a great thing to do and it was certainly, like you mentioned, it was gratifying. It was fun. It was so wonderful to celebrate the careers and the stories of these marketers, but. You know, [00:34:00] you sort of have to look at that unit of effort that you have within your team and, and 2021 versus now was a little bit of a different ball game in terms of the technology that's available and how quickly and easily we could get these to market and probably assign some sort of tracking measurement to it. [00:34:18] Um, you know, whether with a code or, or something. But we felt like we could have similar outcomes with other types of video content. We have since really had an explosion in our testimonial motion, and that has been another great forum for us to tell those stories in a shorter format that is viewed by exponentially more people, many of whom we can track. [00:34:45] We also do something that we call like hero videos, where we go on site and we film them in their headquarters. We often incorporate B-roll into that. And these are the types of videos that then get played internally at their, their town halls, their [00:35:00] global town halls, right? Because it's telling usually the story of a tech transformation and a huge, uh, company milestone. [00:35:07] Something that everybody is really excited about. So video as a medium is very impactful in our selling motion. Whether a video podcast where we were filming these sort of long form and doing tremendous amount of research, you guys know this is not something you can do with margins. Uh, it, it just took a lot more work than, uh, we felt we had the capacity to manage. [00:35:30] It's absolutely something we might revisit, revisit again in the future, but for now, uh, video continues to be like the, the thing that we learned from that. And, um, I, you know, I'm so glad we have such a great in-house video team. I'm so grateful. It's Levi, Lindy, Gerber, and, uh, we continue to kind of outdo ourselves. [00:35:47] We've got some great ones coming up at Think Summit Europe, so stay tuned. They'll be online soon. [00:35:52] Phil: Awesome. I really appreciate your answer. Feel like most teams, mostly corporate teams that are just like, you know what? Everyone's launching a podcast. We're just gonna launch [00:35:59] [00:36:00] a podcast. Let's do it. Like if they can do it, we can do it. a couple episodes in, they're just like, [00:36:04] this is like a couple of people's full-time [00:36:06] Alison: It's, It's, a, it's a whole separate business. And again, I think that we just were not assured that we were getting the right eyeballs on it, almost to, to merit the level of the content we were producing. We had some incredible guests and, um, I'm still so proud of that work, but we continue to showcase these people just in a different channel. [00:36:28] Phil: And, and there's also like a long tail to like these investments, right? And, and like I, I like the customer and testimonial pivot there because those live on YouTube. YouTube has a wild, crazy algorithm and it changes all the time. And I'm in analytics on our show all the time and, um, I, I just like recently saw that one of the episodes that we did like a couple months ago with trade AI just. [00:36:53] Blew up, it got caught in the algorithm or a couple people watched it to the FO's legs and started showing up. And it, like, there's [00:37:00] more views on that video now. Two months after it was like published than like the first, first two months. And, and most of the videos you kind of see like a spike at first and then kind of nothing [00:37:10] Alison: Do you know why it took off? [00:37:12] Phil: Um, I, I just, well, I started playing around with like, some of the titles and [00:37:15] and [00:37:16] Alison: Ah, [00:37:16] Phil: thumbnails on some of it, but honestly, like, I, I think it was shared in a LinkedIn conversation and comment. Couple people watched it long enough that YouTube was just like, Hey, we're gonna surface this up to a couple more people. [00:37:29] Those people watched it and I, I'm, I'm not a YouTube expert, I'm still learning every day. But like when I get those questions from people, it's just like, hey, like we're thinking of starting a corporate podcast and you know, it's gonna be like the Movable Inc podcast. And it's like, all right, like if you're gonna do that decision, like there's, this is such a time commitment there because even though you're a brand and you have like a presence and maybe, you know, like some of the people in the company have a following on LinkedIn, whatever. [00:37:56] It's like a brand new content. [00:37:57] You're like screaming into the void for [00:38:00] so long at first, and I think of our show, like if we had given up 21 episodes in and now, like it took us five years to get to like we're hovering on 20 K monthly listeners. But like, man, it, what's the journey getting there? It's a long tail effort. [00:38:14] Alison: I, I, I totally agree, and it's just something that you cannot go into kind of frivolously. 'cause we have a really strong connection to our users. They love our content and I, I think they trust us. And if we were to start something and abandon it, that trust would sort of be fractured a little bit. [00:38:31] And, you know, whatever it is, like our next research report or, um, you know, round table event that we're inviting them to, I think that they would think we were kind of not as committed to and serious about the work that we're doing, which we are very, very committed to. And a, a lot of that comes from the core of our strategy team. [00:38:47] And that they are working, first of all, their former clients, and then they're working day in, day out with our clients, and they're constantly surfacing their insights with the team so that we are [00:39:00] able to synthesize them and transform them into deliverables and content is the kernel of everything that we do, whether it's. [00:39:08] Um, display advertising or an in-person event, a hospitality event. You know, we're, we do have a field marketing program that's just straight off hospitality events. We're gonna get a box at a game or something, or do go to a concert or something fun like that. But I'd say like 95% of our con of our events and our go-to market effort is much more meaningful than that, and we're bringing people. [00:39:34] Real hard one insights that come directly from the front lines recently. They're credible. And then we're also going to put you in a format where you're going to be able to talk about this with your peers and that is what people know move Link for. And it's done great things for us overall. [00:39:52] Phil: So cool. Yeah. I feel like you've teased it out enough. Like let, [00:39:55] 10. Building a Customer Strategy Team That Drives Enterprise Growth --- [00:39:55] Phil: let's have you unpack that, that former customer strategy [00:39:58] team, Darrell. [00:39:59] Alison: of [00:39:59] Phil: to ask that. [00:40:00] [00:40:00] Darrell: Yeah, I mean, I see in the notes that it's a, it's a strategy team of former customers. Like are there, they're also employees [00:40:07] or they are they [00:40:08] Alison: yeah, yeah, [00:40:09] Darrell: Like how did this whole thing start? [00:40:11] Alison: yeah. That's a great question. So I, as I mentioned, I had sort of three phases to my career movable. I started on the customer success team, and I ultimately led our US customer success team. And obviously I, I, first of all, I think that CX all credit to them, it's the best place to really cut your teeth at any. [00:40:29] SaaS company because you are where the rubber hits the road and you're just like living in it with the clients and you're the face of the company, so you've gotta really be able to understand the product, et cetera. So it's just an invaluable experience. But, uh, probably about six years into that experience, I, I saw that there was a. [00:40:46] Uh, sort of a delta originating between the way that some clients were using our technology. And there'd be firmo graphically identical companies, like large national airlines, for example. And one of them [00:41:00] would have put us at the center of their MarTech stack. They'd be bringing us into multi-year planning efforts. [00:41:04] They'd be talking to us, uh, you know, pulling us into meetings with the CMO. Our programs would be showing up on earnings calls. You know, it was just like a dream. And then you'd have a company that was exactly the same. Sometimes spending more doing nothing with us. It was really in Congress and you're just like, okay, well we can wait for somebody from airline A to go to airline B, which might happen, and they'll kind of flip a switch and uh, great things will happen or we can take our destiny into our own hands. [00:41:30] And that's what we did. And with the support of my leader, Adam Bla, who's now the president, I made a case to the board to create this team. I went from leading a team of 60 customer success reps to one strategist who was our, our retail strategist, and Julio Lopez, who's still with us today. And from there we created engagement models to work with clients. [00:41:53] And the gambit was we would come in and say. Free added value, really strategic [00:42:00] support above and beyond what you're applying with link to today. And the net effect is going to be top line growth or you know, whatever it is that you're gold on. Everyone's gold on top line growth. And we'll also come with solutions engineering support. [00:42:13] And it was probably that, that come people excited. They're like, you've got tech resources, let's go. And now the team is verticalized across all of the major industries that we support. Such, uh, retail, travel, hospitality, financial services, media and tech, which also includes online, uh, gambling, which is huge in the uk and increasingly so in the us And they are, uh, international. [00:42:36] We've got, uh, team leads in the UK as well, and they probably spend about 60% of their time. Working with clients, we've actually now got, I think, six different product types that you can, that they can engage on. Some of them are things like a multi-day innovation forum where they'll come in and they'll lead that for the company. [00:42:53] And our favorite spec for that is if it's a, a. Really, uh, large organization with [00:43:00] different business units that we're working across. And you'll find that they themselves don't have agency to create this kind of event and bring everybody together in the way that we do. So those are a lot of fun. And then there's more sort of tactical where they kind of come in and come out in one meeting, um, and we answer, you know. [00:43:16] Over a thousand of these tickets for the organization, uh, a year. And they've just been hugely impactful. We have a lot of data to show the outcomes for the clients that we support versus those that we don't support, um, on retention and growth and NPS. Uh, but then what they also do a really important function internally, which is they provide enablement to the entire organization. [00:43:37] So again, we've hired this very, very skilled customer success team, and they're hired for being. Operational gurus at what they do. They're looking at throughput times. They're looking at, uh, reduction in errors. They're looking at, again, NPS, but they are not marketing leaders who came from financial services or travel or a media company. [00:43:58] Right. They have not [00:44:00] necessarily sat on the other side of the table where the clients have. And so, you know, what we've seen in the market is that since COVID the. What you might've referred to before as swim lanes between industries have become high brick walls, right? And where you might have been before able to kind of borrow from retail and borrow from media and tech. [00:44:21] If you're in, I don't know, financial services. Now, the way that customers view you, the way that the markets operate, you cannot. Borrow from them. You need to live within the operating reality of your own vertical. You can be inspired by like the use cases and the customer experience and things like that, but the day-to-day is just not the same. [00:44:41] And so we bring that fundamental understanding of like, what do tariffs mean for financial services, for travel hospitality, for, you know, for media and tech? And how does Move Blank solve that? And the team actually creates quarterly enablement that is mandatory for everybody on the go-to-market team to attend. [00:44:58] And it's a [00:45:00] customized deck with realtime insights. They're working on it to like the minute they present it and then it's got talk tracks in it that anybody on the go to market team is equipped to then present without the assistance of that team. So that's given us a lot more credibility in the market, and again, a lot more, uh, flexibility to respond to just the forces at large. [00:45:23] And that's the, again, that's the operating reality for all of our marketing clients right now. They're under so much pressure to just keep their eye on the ball and it's enough to just be able to execute these programs. So to have to be constantly pivoting your strategy without any support, and they don't necessarily have strategy support themselves in their organization. [00:45:41] So it's been a real game changer. [00:45:43] Phil: It's so cool. Fascinating to hear. Alison. I. [00:45:47] I think like one of the coolest parts of this, uh, the strategy team of former customers is your, or their ability to kinda stay on top of customer problems of the day, if you will. Like how, um. [00:46:00] They're able to, like, especially vertical specific, like the problems of the day, are very specific to, to those verticals, even like the size of company and kind of stage that they're at. [00:46:10] Right. So, um, like, Yeah. Talk to us about like, the problems of the day. Like I, how have you seen these kind of evolve over the last few years? Kind of tease that out a little bit with, with COVID, but like, [00:46:20] what do you think is fundamental to problems of the day that maybe are. Kind of the same or similar across all [00:46:28] verticals and, and what hasn't changed there. [00:46:32] But like, you know, AI is obviously like changing a lot of stuff there. You mentioned tariffs, like what is new? Aside from that and, and interesting. [00:46:39] Alison: Totally. I think, you know, uh, so. Just to first explain like where do we get this insight from? It's obviously the strategy team and then the work that we're doing with our clients. I personally also do onboarding interviews for our customer advisory board, and we've got a 50 person global customer advisory board, so I'm onboarding everyone there. [00:46:57] Then we've got a 20 person executive customer advisory board that's made of [00:47:00] CMOs, and then I also ask to do an onboarded call with every new client, CMO. And it follows a very structured format and we, you know, get a right outta that. And then I'm constantly sort of re aggregating it to pull out the recent trends. [00:47:16] And this year, more than ever, the charge for these marketing leaders has been on efficiency and they have not being given additional heads, they're not being given additional investment dollars, which is also incongruous with these AI mandates that they're being given. So, um, you know, kind of underpinning that I always dig in and say, what's the AI enablement strategy at your company? [00:47:40] You know, are you guys being given. Wonderful courses and tools and it's like, no, I'm being sent LinkedIn videos by my CEO, you know? So, um, so I think that's indexing, but it's been a huge opportunity for us to provide that enablement without real strings attached. I mean, obviously we hope that then [00:48:00] when they are ready to make a move that they're gonna turn to us. [00:48:03] But it starts with enablement and understanding and even. Sometimes for their own leadership team, right? And so we're being asked, we'll present something, and then they're like, can you guys come in and present this to our leadership team? We'd be thrilled, right? Uh, and that's not necessarily with like a straight line to an opportunity, but eventually it will be. [00:48:21] Right? Or maybe that person goes somewhere else and they take you with them, but we're happy to help. Uh, and then I think one other thing that's been really salient is that this is the first year I've ever remembered marketing leaders saying that they're on the hook for margin. Right, and it just goes to the fact that that transformation from your kind of prototypical brand leading CMO B2C CMO to someone who is very tied to the motions of the business, that they're sort of like A-A-C-R-O-C-F-O agent, and that they're really just hooked to demand. [00:48:57] You know, that pendulum is swung, that that's not in [00:49:00] process like that is, that motion is complete. [00:49:02] Darrell: Totally agree. Totally agree. Um, so yeah, let's, uh, [00:49:05] 11. How To Build Lasting Influence With B2B Buyers --- [00:49:05] Darrell: let's talk about this, this concept of B2B versus B2C versus, you know, I, I, it was, it was a common term like, like B two human [00:49:15] before [00:49:16] Alison: Oh, oh, okay. Oh, [00:49:18] Darrell: Yeah. It, it was a thing that, like people don't talk about that anymore, but it was this whole concept of, Hey, B2B is boring, but it doesn't have to be. [00:49:26] And you, um, when you're selling to a business, you're still selling to humans. And, um, [00:49:32] Alison: For now. [00:49:34] Darrell: that's true. We might be selling to [00:49:36] Alison: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. [00:49:38] Yeah. [00:49:38] Darrell: Um, [00:49:39] Phil: be selling [00:49:39] to [00:49:40] Alison: Agents will sell to agents exactly. [00:49:42] Darrell: yeah, I do you agree with that? And I think the, the, the, you know, problem that a lot of, that a lot of people have with this is, it is kind of tough to pull off, you know, especially if you're selling, I don't know, things that are not as sexy as maybe some B2C stuff. And a lot of companies [00:50:00] still to this day, like B2B companies, you go on a standard SaaS website and it's, it kind of looks the same, kinda looks like most SaaS companies look the same. [00:50:07] Like, we'll help you, you know, intelligence for your business or drive impact or save money or something like that. Um, how do you think that this can, like, come to life in a way? Like, first of all, do you agree with the whole B2B can be as cool and if it, if it can be, like, how, how do you, how does that come to life in, in actual [00:50:25] practice? [00:50:26] Alison: mean, guys, first of all, we're like the most pink company you've ever met, and we live that. People come to our events in pink, they bring pink Stanley's, you know, they're like living that brand and that sort of happens spontaneously. So. I definitely think you can have as much fun and as much affinity for a B2B brand, and I, I just personally think that the stakes are so much higher than, uh, I mean, obviously there's large scale investments you make as a consumer, right? [00:50:54] Whether it's, you know, like your mortgage provider, like healthcare, you know, the, like your [00:51:00] affinity to something like Apple, right? The, you know, where it sort of feels like a part of your identity. But the decisions that enterprise buyers are making tend to be Bet your job decisions, right? Certainly at our price point and for the utility that we play in their marketing stack. [00:51:15] So it's, it's a really important transaction and it's very, very multifaceted and you know, at the end of the day, every uh, sale in Move Link is going to lead to a human because you can't procure our software any other way. So having that relationship and contributing to that relationship is such a critical part of what we're doing. [00:51:38] Uh, in, in really every part of our go-to market motion. Uh, and actually one of the themes that I introduced to the team this year was around, uh, the concepts from the book Influence. I dunno if you guys are familiar with that book. Yes. Okay. So I'm a huge acolyte of influence. I've. Basically mandated that my teams read and reread that book like almost every other year. [00:51:58] And this, this is, this is a [00:52:00] big influence here. And you know, whether you are A BDR or a product marketer or a sales rep, how can you cultivate influence with our ICP strategically using the resources the marketing team gives you and. That's been a really fun challenge. But you know, at its core a lot of it is about like utility and usefulness and how can you be useful to your buyers? [00:52:22] And that draws from all the other things I mentioned about like the relevant content and bringing you in connection with your peers and giving you a forum to talk about the issues of the day. Things like that, which are also inherently pretty. Um. Altruistic, you know, like no one's trying to like pull anyone, uh, anything over on anybody. [00:52:39] Uh, and they're, they're enlivening and they're, and they're fun. But again, you, that does start with a kernel of interest in the vertical and in the problem that we're trying to solve. Right? [00:52:50] Darrell: Yeah, and I, I think too, a lot of people, just from like my, my experience, the, the B2B buying process is actually quite emotional. There's a, there's a [00:53:00] ton of psychology and fear and, um, you know, this whole keeping up with the Joneses [00:53:08] Alison: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. [00:53:09] Darrell: Like, oh, my colleague at another company has this tool. [00:53:12] We we need [00:53:12] it [00:53:13] Alison: Yeah. [00:53:13] Or I [00:53:13] Darrell: And then later on, yeah, or you, you go to a conference. [00:53:17] and then later on you justify with like business logic. You know, like, like many, many, um, many business buyers like me included sometimes will like make a decision. Like right on the spot. We're like, I want this. Let's figure out how through business logic can we [00:53:34] actually [00:53:35] Alison: Back into that. [00:53:35] Darrell: Yeah. [00:53:36] We back into it. So I, I think that, um, it's, uh, I love how you're, you're, you're requiring that your team read influence because that's what you're doing, like at every stage, you know. [00:53:47] Alison: And, and I think also that piece about, you know, your accountability to the buyer, right? We wanna have, and we have successfully done this hundreds of times. Long-term relationships with these buyers, right? Where as their [00:54:00] careers progress, you are part of their toolkit because look, they can't bring people with them. [00:54:06] ' cause most people have a non-compete or a non-solicit and what can they bring with them? And our, at our price point for studio, it's, you know, usually average starting price is around a hundred k. People can find that money in their budget and so within their first 90 days, or sometimes even before starting, they're negotiating to get us. [00:54:25] In their stack because they're saying, I don't wanna work here without move link. And I also know that this is going to be how I'm going to get numbers on the board to impress whoever, it's my leader, the CMO, the board, the CEO, very quickly. And then I'll be able to do the other stuff that I wanna do that is golden. [00:54:43] And that's something that we really aspire to day in, day out. [00:54:46] Phil: Yeah. [00:54:47] Awesome. Love hearing how, like your team is AI first obviously, but I feel like your customer obsessed way before your AI first and uh, like my favorite quote from uh, Kalani's book [00:55:00] influence is that people don't ask if something is true. They ask who else believes it, and that kinda like. Brings us all the way back to your customer testimonial focus, the video series there. [00:55:12] I think you guys are doing a, a fantastic job around that. Allison, uh, interviews flown by. We're, we're getting close on time. [00:55:19] 12. Creating Energy and Balance as a CMO --- [00:55:19] Phil: We got one last question for you. Uh, you're obviously a CMO, you're a team leader, frequent speaker. You're also a mom of two and you're your family's CEO. You're also a big tennis player. [00:55:29] You got a ton of stuff going on in your life. One question we ask everyone on the show is, how do you remain happy and successful in your career, and how do you find balance between all the stuff you're working on while staying [00:55:39] Alison: Yeah. I think, you know, I have been so lucky to first of all work with such incredible people and I am so thankful for that. When people look at my tenure at Move Link, it's really about people. I always say software is people, by the way. It's made by people for people and you know, so you think you're just like working [00:56:00] in. [00:56:00] You know, ones and zeros and stuff. It's actually very relationship, uh, oriented role. And so, no surprise, my answer is outside of work, I try and spend a lot of time with people and I find, you know, when I'm spending time with old friends from college or you know, whether it's other, uh, school parents who I really love, uh, or a lot of clients who become very close friends over the years, that's where I get my energy and have a release. [00:56:27] And, um, but again. You know, having the privilege of really enjoying the people that I work with gives you energy like nothing else, and helps you also get through busy periods and, and unexpected surprises and, and all those, oops, I made, uh, mistakes, you know? Uh, and that sort of really recharges you as well. [00:56:47] Phil: Awesome. Love the answer. Really appreciate your time today, Allison. Thank you so much for, for joining us. Anything you wanna plug about move blank. Uh, anything exciting going on? Uh, it. [00:56:57] is gonna be dropping around like August, end of [00:57:00] August, September. [00:57:00] Alison: so we've got things Summit Europe coming up in October. So go check out, uh, move link.com for more information about that and sign up for our newsletter because you're gonna get the most interesting information, all that juicy content that I was talking about. And of course, we always use a lot of Move Link Studio in there as well. [00:57:18] Phil: Awesome. And yeah, we'll, we'll link it to the, the YouTube series on the, the video customer testimonials there. Actually checked out a couple and when I was like, I thinking of the question, I was like, you sunset the podcast, but you kind of didn't really, because a. Lot of the same content is just in clip formats. [00:57:33] And so, yeah. Uh, love your marketing, uh, love the company. Really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for joining us. [00:57:40] Alison: Thank you so much guys. [00:57:41] ​ [00:57:41]