Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to The B2B CMO Podcast, a show for marketing executives who are redefining what it means to be a strategic leader. Join Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan every week as they talk with the very best Chief Marketing Officers who are navigating the modern marketing playbook and positioning themselves as strategic leaders.
Each episode, we unpack what it really takes to lead through complexity, earn trust at the strategy table, and shape the future of growth.
We’re building the community, research, and frameworks CMOs need to reclaim their strategic role and drive sustainable growth.
For more marketing leadership resources, visit [b2bcmoproject.com](http://b2bcmoproject.com/).
Jon Miller (00:00):
Welcome to the B2B CMO Podcast, a show for marketing executives who are redefining what it means to be a strategic leader. I'm Jon Miller.
Sydney Sloan (00:08):
And I'm Sydney Sloan. Between us, we've led marketing orgs at companies like Marketo, which Jon founded, Demandbase, G2, and SalesLoft. For more marketing leadership resources, you can visit b2bcmoproject.com, and now let's get into the show. Hello and welcome everybody to the B2B CMO Project Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Jon Miller. And today our guest is Jamie Domenici. She is the chief marketing officer at Klaviyo, the autonomous B2C CRM. Funny story, the last call I was on, we were specifically the presenter talked about Klaviyo and how you transitioned to B2B CRM, so I might have to pull a question out from there. So the ears must have been ringing. So Jamie leads global marketing brand strategy and revenue growth at Klaviyo. She joined in 2023 and guided the company through their IPO and championed positioning Klaviyo as the CRM built specifically for B2C brands. They're a recognized category leader in Adweek AI Power 50.
(01:13):
She previously served as the CMO at GoTo and led the company's rebrand from LogMeIn and evolved its go-to-market strategies. Before then, she spent a decade at Salesforce in marketing and customer success leadership. She's a passionate advocate for women in technology and inclusive leadership. We're going to have so much to talk about. Welcome, Jamie.
Jamie Domenici (01:34):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's very exciting and very nice intro. Thank you for all the kind words about my background. I appreciate it. Dinner homework. Good, good,
Jon Miller (01:42):
Good. Well, I'm thrilled to have you here as a fellow marketing technology traveler. And just also say I've been a little bit of a Klaviyo fanboy just because my wife uses you in her business. So just kind of thinking, I've been fan for different directions for a while, so glad to have you here. I want to just kick things off a little bit, just kind of hearing your story. We've had different guests on the podcast who come to their role in marketing and CMO from so many different places. What's your origin? How did you get into doing marketing and becoming a CMO?
Jamie Domenici (02:16):
That is a good question. It wasn't by design, so I like many took a
Jon Miller (02:19):
Different outfit.
Jamie Domenici (02:21):
That's often the case. Yeah. I thought I was going to be a politician, so who knows? But then there was no money, so I went into tech, which was a great move. And I would say I started out in operations, but I had a great CFO, a female leader who told me, "You know what? Try every job and see what you like and what you don't like." And on that journey in operations, I'd done sales ops, I'd done marketing ops, and then in the marketing ops role I was like, "Oh, I really like marketing." So from there, I spent the next 10 years doing every job in marketing, demand gen, paid media, product marketing, a little bit of everything, which I think helped me on my journey to becoming a CMO. I've done every role in marketing. I love them. I think it's a great place to be, a great job.
(03:02):
And now I have love for some parts and some parts I know I'll never want to do again. So it's
Jon Miller (03:06):
Been
Jamie Domenici (03:07):
A good journey.
Jon Miller (03:08):
Did you want to do something different when you were growing up? Did you think you would go in a different direction?
Jamie Domenici (03:13):
Yeah, I really did think I was going to be a politician. I modeled UN. I had the big, big desire. Like I said, there was no money there, so I didn't. I also at one point though I was going to be an NBA star, so that also didn't work out, but marketing is a close third.
Sydney Sloan (03:31):
Have you done anything then with the WNBA now that you're at Klaviyo?
Jamie Domenici (03:34):
You know what? I just went to my first game, Valkyries game, and we've done some different media buys with them, and I thought it was fantastic. I have two daughters myself, so I got to bring them and got to experience this whole new world of female sports, which it was awesome.
Sydney Sloan (03:52):
That mixes all your interests in terms of female empowerment and then being able to support that and is such a rising opportunity for brand ambassadorship too. And the Valkyries is right there. That's great. What else would we find you doing other than going to WNBA events with your daughters in your five to
Jamie Domenici (04:16):
Nine? Yeah, a five to nine. Isn't that a funny new trend?
Sydney Sloan (04:20):
I don't know. The nine, nine, six thing too. I'm not sure if I'm really into it, but yeah.
Jamie Domenici (04:24):
Yeah. I like it. I like it or if I could apply it 100% of the time because I think that's the reality is I still think with work, it's this world of big work, work for you. So I'm working all crazy hours. But yeah, right now I'm in the height of life. I have two teenagers and a puppy, and they have a lot of things. So when I'm not working, I'm either at a volleyball game, at a cheerleading game, I'm walking my dog. And between that, I was like, do I have any hobbies? No, but I do really like to watch Bravo. So in my secret time. Nice. Bravo.
Sydney Sloan (04:54):
I am a total Bravo nerd.
Jamie Domenici (04:56):
Oh gosh, me too.
Sydney Sloan (04:57):
You just need that entertaining, take your brain off things.
Jon Miller (05:02):
It's important, I think, to have that downtime. But back to marketing, it's interesting you mentioned there's parts you love, you parts you hate, or maybe don't love as much.
Jamie Domenici (05:14):
Yes.
Jon Miller (05:15):
Yeah. I've talked to a lot of CMOs who are struggling with parts of it because there's this perception from a lot of other sources that marketing is not strategic, it's tactical. And I think the parts that we love, at least for me, is when we can be strategic and really impact the business. I'm curious if you agree with that. And if so, what does being a strategic CMO mean to you? That's
Jamie Domenici (05:40):
A great question. And you're right. I still think there's a perception that sometimes that CMOs or marketing in general is like, we're just doing events and picking colors and not that strategic. I think it's so far from the truth. I think marketing, good marketers, great CMOs, they sit at the middle of the business, in the middle of everything. And whenever I start a couple, I would say my best friends are my head of sales because I feel joint accountability for our revenue numbers. And I think that's really important. And two is the head of product.Because what they're building, my responsibility is to bring that to the world, to communicate who we are, how we show up and translate that vision. That's really important. And the heart of it, you know the market, you know the customer, and you're bringing your company to life. So I find that to be incredibly strategic.
(06:30):
Sometimes you touch so many things that it feels like you don't own anything, but in fact you're the glue that brings it all together. And so I think great CEOs and good companies appreciate and seek that out in great CMOs and recognize that it's way more than paid media and pretty dollars.
Sydney Sloan (06:49):
In the role that you have too in supporting B2C marketers, we get to ask you different questions. And so when you think about being strategic and truthfully just the mental availability of our audience, how do you think of strategic efforts in the B2C world of how to help your customers get their brands bound?
Jamie Domenici (07:13):
Well, I do. I feel like I have one of the best jobs because I am a marketer who markets to marketers. So I talk about marketing all day long, which is awesome. Two, the world of B2B and B2C are really different. And I think B2C, what they do, which is incredible, head of marketing is typically like your CRO. There's no sales team. You are the sales team. You are the marketing team, you are the brand team. And usually those organizations are really lean. So they lean heavily on technology, which I think is impressive with small team. And their job is to get you to buy, whether it's makeup, it's a seat at a stadium, or it's the next prom dress you buy. You have to be really strategic about every single customer interaction at scale and you have the revenue sitting on your shoulder. So I think B2C, I think all CMOs are strategic.
(08:02):
I'm making my own B2B CMO sounds secondary, but I think they have a broad remit and they have to show immediate results. That is incredibly strategic for any and all companies.
Sydney Sloan (08:14):
So it sounds like there's something maybe that we can learn as B2B CMOs in the incorporation of commerce and revenue further into the way that we talk and what we feel responsibility for.
Jamie Domenici (08:28):
Well, I always try and own a number. So you had mentioned I own growth. I do own our PLG business. I always try and take a number. And I think that's really important. You shouldn't ever not have something that you're account. Well, even if it's pipeline numbers, which I feel B2B typically own or you have some type of target is really important. And I think from B2C marketers, I think we can learn that. One is own a number. And two, they do personalization at scale so well. And I think I take that often, the right message to the right customer at the right time. I mean, that's the whole job. Follow your customer everywhere, capture all that information and get the right offer to them. Which B2B we do too, but they do it at scale. So I'm always learning. I'm learning a lot from the B2C world that I bring to B2B.
Jon Miller (09:15):
Why do you think B2B doesn't do personalization at scale as well? Or why do you think B2C is ahead?
Jamie Domenici (09:21):
I think one, they don't have a choice. They don't have that sales rep. So I think in B2C, you have a rep, and I think two, you have longer sales cycles. So most B2C purchases, especially in retail, you have one moment, one interaction. So I think they've really perfected that. And that's what Klaviyo does, so I'm probably biased, but Klaviyo is a tool that's built to help with that. We capture every single interaction we have across every site. But the scale of how you do it, I think that's what B2B aspires to, but we have a little bit more complexity in our sales cycle.
Sydney Sloan (09:54):
That makes sense. The dreaded buying committee and the complexities associated around that and the orchestration of all that within that longer window. But certain elements of brand building and awareness and that still plays in. I'm curious, going back to strategic and given the breadth of your responsibility, could you pick a current strategic initiative that you are working on right now and what would keep you from doing more of it doubling down?
Jamie Domenici (10:23):
One, we have our upcoming user conference, which is a big deal for any company. It's a big deal for us. It's in Boston. But again, that goes back to the question you asked earlier. The people are like, oh, you just throw the event, you have dinners, giveaway swag. But no, actually we're building the keynote. And the keynote is where we bring our message to the world, which is sort of the next era, the next generation, the next year. So for me, I'm working with the CEO I just met with my CEO and we were sitting down really mapping out the message that we want to get across to our users and prospects and customers in the world, which I would find very strategic. What's the next phase of Klaviyo and what does that look like? So I'm not working on that. And if anybody comes on here and so they aren't doing something with AI, then we're all silly.
(11:09):
But yeah, I'm thinking also about how do I reshape my marketing organization in this new world of AI? That doesn't mean I'm replacing people and jobs are going away, but I am thinking about how do I evolve our team and what we do with AI now at our disposable, which is different. I'm writing a new playbook. So both can be strategic.
Jon Miller (11:29):
I'd love to double click into the work you're doing on that keynote for a second. Because I have been in the room when the marketer is working with the CEO on the keynote and the marketer is expected to just somehow take all the CEO's ideas and somehow make them pretty. And that's not strategic. What are you bringing to bring the strategic role of marketing to that conversation?
Jamie Domenici (11:56):
I don't like when people think we just make nice slides. That's the worst. I hate that bot, but it can make nice slides. But for me, it's what goes into the slides. So I have spent a lot of time researching, listening to our customers. So I just came off of a tour where I met with hundreds of customers, just what is top of mind? What are you thinking about? What are your problems? So really starting outside in. And then too, I go look. I mean, I watched 10 keynotes across from Apple, the consumer's face to Anthropic, which is kind of new and how are they thinking about things to HubSpot, who's also in marketing but adjacent to just understand how are people talking and thinking about their own world and what are they doing in keynotes so you can learn? And then I look at our product, I look at our roadmap and I look at where we're going.
(12:43):
And so I came to him with, I want to hear his feelings. So no, come on, he's a CEO. I want to not his feelings. I'm like, where do you want to go? But I also come to the table with, here's what I'm hearing outside in. Here's where I think our theme should be. Here's our big innovations. Can we push it? You mentioned we were the CRM. We were an ESP provider not so long ago. And by branding the company to CRM, we also pushed our roadmap. These were things that weren't on there necessarily. And we defined that messaging first and then the roadmap followed, which was a partnership with the CEO and the CPO.
Sydney Sloan (13:25):
I've always loved this idea and I share it so people understand what we're doing. Our job as marketers is to talk about where the market is going so we get the credit for the innovation. But then we have to give sales messaging to sell what's on the truck. And I want engineering to always be a little bit nervous on their ability to deliver and the vision that we set forward and the customer event is the perfect time to do that. One other shift that you had, let's go back a couple steps because you've had the experience of taking a company public. And so when you came in and were looking at, and it's marketing's job generally to write that strategic narrative, how did you take control of that and partner across the organization? What role did you play and how did you work with the rest of the C-suite as you went through that really important time?
Jamie Domenici (14:14):
Gosh, I feel like it's so fun, but it is a really heavy lift for a CMO. And I tell anyone who's going on that journey buckle up because your job here is huge. This is going to be the biggest event in your company's history or one of the biggest events. But also as a marketer, you're going to have so many eyeballs on you and so much attention. You have to get this moment right. And I always think, well, I always like to steal thread and simplify down. I have this exercise, what does the T-shirt say? Because if your theme can sit on your T-shirt with a small space, that should be that easy to interpret. It's the same when you IPO, but it's the New York Stock Exchange or whoever you're on public with. So I remember when I started, it was kind of late in the game, on the journey to IPO.
(14:57):
And I remember my CEO called me up and was like, "Okay, what are we going to put on the banner?" And I'm like, "What do you mean? What's on the banner on the side of the New York Stock Exchange?" I was like, "Okay, we don't have that. Okay." So we had to distill down our message, write that message, and then put it everywhere. We like to say we painted the town poppy because our brand color is poppy. So we painted all New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco, bought up every billboard, put Klaviyo across it, put our tagline that we co-created together and distilled down -
Sydney Sloan (15:30):
What was it? What was the tagline?
Jamie Domenici (15:32):
Power smarter digital relationships, which was much bigger than just being an ESP or SMS or a loyalty technology provider. We powered smarter digital relationships, which is what we do. And so that line became a mantra that was much bigger than just IPO, but it was a really great experience. But marketing plays a huge role in that.
Sydney Sloan (15:56):
I'm trying to connect the thread because you were 700 plus million at the time you guys went IPO, I think, right? Already at scale. And that was what you went public on, but then you transitioned to becoming a CRM. How did that work out? Who was looking into the future and saying, this is who we ultimately want to be? And what was the decision process for when do we claim it? Is the product ready or not? How do we help our customers go through this transition as we evolve what we can deliver? Walk us through that.
Jamie Domenici (16:27):
Well, so I think this is what CMOs do really, really well or what I like to do. This is my favorite part of email CMOs. We're the storytellers. And I think that's why they hired me. And when I came in, our story was hard to tell. I went to go buy a billboard, it's a true story. And it was like Klaviyo, we do email SMS, CDP, analytics. And I'm like, well, I'm Puerto Rico. That's a
Jon Miller (16:47):
Great one. Yeah.
Jamie Domenici (16:49):
It was a terrible billboard. And I remember that I was like, okay, we have to define who we are. So this is where we went on the journey of category creation because there was nobody who was really doing this across marketing and service. The journey did start with me because of that billboard, but it was really important for Klaviyo's future that we'll help explain to the market who we were. We were just struggling with it, even at 700 million. And that's not that uncommon. I've done it a couple times now. So the journey though was category creation's very hard. You have to have a lot of conviction and confidence in order to go on that journey. It's my two cents. So I did a lot of work externally. It was a board level decision, partnered with a CEO, talked to hundreds of customers, analysts, people in the space.
(17:35):
And that's where we realized we were category adjacent. CRM was a category that existed, but there really wasn't a company that was built purely for B2C from conception focusing on that CRM market. So that's where we launched, we repositioned, and where we are today.
Jon Miller (17:54):
Having come from the marketing automation space, and I see the kind of exit that a Marketo had versus HubSpot, which ended up being worth seven times as much. And I think a lot of that is because HubSpot moved from just being marketing automation to being CRM in the full platform. So when I saw you make that move, I was like, yeah, that makes total sense. It's brilliant. And for you, it was Blue Ocean because there weren't other people who were tackling that. Anyway, besides just being a fanboy of the decision, it's a good segue into, all right, but how do you measure if it's working? So how do you think about just, let's focus specifically on the B2C CRM metrics and then you do that, and then maybe we'll talk about brand metrics more broadly.
Jamie Domenici (18:45):
Oh, okay. I love both topics. But around CRM in particular, we had your standard mentions on calls and would an analyst put this on a quadrant? And the answer is yes, they will, but there isn't really. We don't mean to go in the quadrant. We know what I'm saying. But I think one of the ultimate tests for me beyond just hard metrics was when customers say it to you. So our customers, it's consistently are comfortable saying B2C CRM. They call us a CRM, they operate in CRM, they hire roles at our CRM. So for me, that's the ultimate test when the market accepts it is when customer inside and outside of the walls are using that language, which is what has happened. So I would consider it a success.
Jon Miller (19:30):
Have you operationalized that as a metric using your call recording system or something?
Jamie Domenici (19:35):
Yeah, we have Gong calls. We tracked because we're almost 18 months in. But yes, every week we're reporting out on Gong metrics, mentions externally. And then we have a brand awareness, so we measure our brand awareness.
Jon Miller (19:51):
So let's talk about that a little bit more generally. I mean, five years ago, CMOs were afraid to go into the boardroom and talk about brand. All they wanted to hear about was the MQLs. Did your board understand the importance of brand? If not, how did you convince them? Either way, what are you actually presenting in terms of measuring this?
Jamie Domenici (20:14):
I will say it depends on the board. On my current board, a very lucky one of our board members was a CMO of Dunkin Donuts. He actually was the one who made it Dunkin. So he loves brand and really sees the value in it.
(20:29):
But I will say my last board where you mentioned GoTo, it was originally named LogMeIn. So I had to go into a private equity board and pitch them on rebranding. They did not care about brands. They did not care about brand metrics. They did not care about unaided awareness. So I think that's actually where I learned some of the things that I've taken with me about how to talk about brand and quantify it. I think we measure probably in our brand tracker aided unaided awareness. But for me, I talk about it through the lens of organic traffic. Because if you invest in brand, if you do it right, you should see a direct increase in your organic traffic. So I try and use that as my main metric when I'm talking about brand, and then that travels pretty cleanly down the funnel. Traffic to signups, to try off, to MQLs, to ARR.
(21:19):
So I tend to lean more into that as a measurement when speaking about brand or brand investment.
Jon Miller (21:27):
Which is an interesting segue into AI stuff, which I'll let Sydney run with, right?
Sydney Sloan (21:32):
Yeah, I was just going to ask.
Jon Miller (21:33):
But as soon as you say organic traffic, I immediately worry is everybody's seeing drops in organic traffic.
Jamie Domenici (21:39):
How I talk about my traffic has changed. My sources has changed. My tools I invest in to talk about it has changed. So I agree with you, but I still am looking at traffic, whether it's organic through an LLM now or different capacities. It's still a good measurement. How does somebody find you? How does someone buy from you? So still holds through, but the input look a little bit different, I would
Jon Miller (22:01):
Say. Can you share that next level detail? How are you actually doing it today?
Jamie Domenici (22:04):
How you have your sources, which we've always looked at, but now AEO is a new source line. So I'm looking at traffic that's coming direct from LLMs and measuring my direct traffic to my website. And so that definitely shifted, totally. And SEO, so it's kind of those new three line items.
Sydney Sloan (22:21):
So I had the pleasure of talking to the head of AEO and I think he called it Agentic Influence for Expedia last week. Oh,
Jon Miller (22:30):
Cool. And
Sydney Sloan (22:31):
I talk AEO all day long. I came from G2, and he was talking at things at a next level. And you can imagine being a travel website and how much your business has been disrupted by the LLMs and agents. Are you learning things from your B2C customers, the hundreds of customers you talk to every day about how they're doing AEO? And has that influenced how you're thinking about it as well?
Jamie Domenici (22:55):
Well, it's definitely on every one of my customers' mind, because especially in B2C, when they're talking about agentic commerce and you can buy somewhere else, that is a game changer. So I would say there's a lot that we're talking about. And yes, I learn from my peers, but I'm also bringing my own point of view to the table, which has always been the same as
(23:14):
True to Klaviyo's core is you have to capture every interaction with your customer everywhere. So what I think my team has done well is we have good tracking, so we actually have pretty good visibility of where and what people are doing. So investing in the right tools was a good move. And then two, understanding how you shift that mix. So we, I will say my head of SEO, now AEO, but we have to rebrand that title. He did a really good job of shifting our mix earlier. So I know you probably talk about this for hours, but video, we moved to Reddit, YouTube, so really diversified where and how we were investing early on. And then we built out a lot of internal tools to build content faster and optimize faster and using 100% an AI funnel. So we did that a year ago. So I feel like, gosh, I'm not going to sit here and say I've solved this because I think it's a journey that everyone's learning and there's a lot of information, stuff changes daily, but I think setting up the right foundation helped us.
(24:12):
And I'm sorry, I'm watching that line item and it didn't fall off a cliff, which I was grateful for because I think we did a good job with
Sydney Sloan (24:18):
That. Probably because you did that. Yeah. Yeah. And even people starting to test out the ad platform now within GPT as well. And so the next wave is coming. And it likely will hit B2C first. Yeah.
Jamie Domenici (24:33):
Yeah. We were one of the early adopters there, so we've been in our pilot, so it's interesting. But for my customers that I work with, they have to treat that as a new channel. And how do you capture it? How do you ensure that you're bringing that into your data profile, knowing if someone looked over here at this, at this? That's the fundamentals of that business. So we're helping make sure that they can do that, track that, act on it, and store that into their customer data profile and bring that to all of our workflows. And I think that's the first of many new channels and new ways that people can buy and learn. It'll be interesting.
Sydney Sloan (25:08):
So you made that change a year ago, so you definitely were on the forefront in terms of the folks that we talked to. How have you also then thought about the shape of your team? So one of the other things that comes up in our research is at scale CMOs really trying to figure out what the future of the org looks like. Everybody's got pressure to have, first of all, it was like, make sure your team is enabled to use the tools. And then does everybody get an agent where everybody did it and now everybody's like, "I don't know if that was the right strategy." How are you thinking about your organization and building what the next generation of marketing looks like?
Jamie Domenici (25:47):
Well, and I think this other fear is AI is going to take my job. Will there be marketing? Will you have entry level folks? So I think that there's many, many parts of this. But back to that example of AEO, so we used to have content writers, a whole team who wrote long form content. I'm sure I'm not alone. And as we started to build out new tooling that would actually build the content for us, I didn't want to eliminate that team, but I did have to re-skill them up. So now we don't hire content editors, we hire content engineers so that we've hired our first content engineer and they own the workflow and they're still starting the prompt. They own the workflow and they check the output. And I'm not oversimplifying, there's a lot of steps that go in there, but it's a shift.
(26:34):
So we've picked a couple key areas, content being one, vocalization being another, release marketing. So we've kind of created, we've picked some bigger parts of the org that had density where AI has already unlocked a lot of opportunity, and we've shifted some of the roles and skills to be able to operate the system, not just own and create the system.
Sydney Sloan (26:57):
I think too, sometimes the content people, I mean, they're on the pulse of really understanding what's happening with the customer. And so I've been playing around the idea, yes, you have content engineers, but you still need to have tastemakers on your team that manage the influencers and that whole piece of it, which is not social media. It incorporates it, but I think that role could evolve as well.
Jamie Domenici (27:19):
Yeah. And as I say, the input. And it's not just like, "Hey, write this article," but they're kind of keeping a pulse on what's going on. And of course, AI's surveying the market, they're giving you a lot of input, but I still feel that that's where the human in the loop or the human oversight I think is still really important. And people who say, oh, brand, oh, AI is going to democratize all creative. And it's like actually that is why brand is even more important because it's going to be what differentiates you. And I think humans play a huge part in that. So that's why I try and give my team the skills and help skill them up, help build this next level of where we're going. It's not for everyone too. I'm like, okay, you're either on the boat or you're not. So it has driven some change within my organizational shape.
(28:04):
But I think that there's still a really important part that marketers and humans will play in the future. It just looks a little different. Is
Jon Miller (28:11):
There anything else you've done to upscale the team across the board?
Jamie Domenici (28:15):
Yeah. Well, one, we have access to a lot. So I think that just having access to Claude versus Gemini and a lot of different tooling that's coming out, those are just the LLMs, but I would say 11 labs, we have a lot of access. I think that's been great. And then two, we have brought in outside leaders. And at my offsite, for example, everyone had to create their own agent. And we sat in a room, we brought in engineers, and then we kind of put hands on keyboard. And it was kind of uncomfortable. I remember my field events leader from Europe was like, "Why are you making me do this? You're nervous to do it and you don't have the time, but if you can actually sit and take the time to do it and learn, it can really unlock a lot." So from there, I have people go off and create a lot of different.
(29:06):
A great example, someone created a workflow where you could take a customer's website, train the agent, and it will create a full micro site that our sales reps using our messaging, our positioning, our competitive intel, and then they can go on site with a really customized micro site versus an old-fashioned PowerPoint deck, which would, again, people think we just made decks dough. We actually gave hardware and the tools to make a great story catered down to the individual customer. And now that's fully automated end-to-end coming out of that session that we did.
Jon Miller (29:38):
It's interesting that everybody in a room build an agent is, I think, something that I've heard other great CMOs also doing. One thing that you didn't mention that I've also heard is assigning an owner to driving AI into the organization. I'm curious, were you able to get away with not doing that?
Jamie Domenici (29:59):
No. No, but I think what was, I'm sure a lot of people, I had a friction of, does IT own this or do I own this? And there's a partnership, which is great, but our head of ops, she also took on our AI strategy. And there was a couple people in the room who, my head of content, another person, our head of AEO, who were on the forefront. So we do have an AI kind of council. She runs it. She still does her day job too. So it wasn't like we carved out just an AI team. And then we looked across our entire workflow, everything. We took every Slack channel, every PMOs output, every Monday board. We loaded that into an LLM and we kind of analyzed, here's every single thing that we could use AI for. Now we've prioritized it, we manage it. We build some internally.
(30:50):
We partner with our IT organization to co-create some of these things. We're coding. We're coding here in marketing now. Who would've thought?
Jon Miller (30:59):
Awesome.
Sydney Sloan (31:00):
I think we've always been builders and for a lot of AI adoption, I think because our jobs are so unique that there's more opportunities to use AI across the team than sales are selling, and so there's less use cases. So it actually helps us out a little bit more. Before we go into our gratitude, which is how we always like to end, your big event is coming up. And so when you're starting to think about what the future of B2B CRM is, do you want us to give an insight into what you're thinking and what people might be able to see by attending your event?
Jamie Domenici (31:36):
I would love to. So we talk a lot about the autonomous CRM, which isn't what does that mean? Does that mean there's no humans? I think the next phase is actually what I like to call invisible AI. So I think we're going to be building a lot more of systems that work on their own and I'll orchestrate for you. So if you put that in the world of marketing, we've already automated creating a campaign. You could type a prompt, campaign will be built for you. But now the campaign should be optimizing on your behalf. So we're going to be talking a lot about that, where the AI is doing the work for you, improving, self-improving, but more importantly, it's embedded where you work. And I think as marketers, that's really important. I'm sure you've seen AI slop or bad creative or a crappy email or had a bad experience.
(32:25):
And so the other thing is we feel like AI should be embedded in your workflow and you shouldn't know it. Your consumer shouldn't see it. So we'll be talking a lot about both how the system is sort of operating on its own, and then two, how it becomes invisible to your customers and just part of your day-to-day.
Sydney Sloan (32:39):
It makes total sense. It makes total sense.
Jon Miller (32:42):
And as somebody who's building similar things prefer the B2B market, I can't wait to see it. Jamie, we'd love to finish. None of us got to where we are today in our success on our own. Anybody you want to shout out to mentors or people who helped you get to where you are today?
Jamie Domenici (32:58):
Yeah, I mentioned Betty Hung, who was the first leader ever. I had strong female reader who told me to go try everything. And I think because of her, I went on a great journey. I've had the pleasure of working with a lot of great marketers. Stephanie Buscemi was a great marketer that I worked for, CMO. I learned a lot from her. A gentleman named by the name of Thimaya Subaiya. He taught me a lot about becoming a great leader, which was not about marketing, but again, how to operate in the boardroom and in a different level. And last, I have great peers. So they weren't my mentors, but my peers, my friends who I grew up with in particular at Salesforce, Sara Varni and Shannon Duffy and Sarah Franklin, Emma Chalwin, a lot of great CMOs who were my peers. And I think because of them, I think I've become a good marketer, a great marketer, but it's like that peer group that I think we've been able to grow up in the industry and I think it's really helped shape my career.
Sydney Sloan (33:54):
That's amazing. Well, we have come to the end very quickly. This went so fast and there are a couple of things that I am definitely taking away from this conversation that are learnings from you. And one of the most important ones that you reiterated was talking to your customers. And you've done it at multiple times, not just in onboarding, getting to the IPO, but you continue to do that. There is a benefit that we sell to marketers, but still the importance of spending time understanding your audience so you can build the right narrative. And in as much as you can get it down to a phrase on a t-shirt that people can understand that's simple enough, so we'll be looking forward to your next billboard. And then when you talk about the strategic aspects of how you lead the team and being innovative and still bringing that into the organization and making your teams more effective at what they do, especially in giving those extra insights into the B2C world, I really enjoyed hearing that.
(34:53):
And then of course what you just said, the network. That is why we do this. I am sure those fantastic ladies that you mentioned and peers, we are the boat that rises together and giving back to that is important too. So we thank you for taking the time to spend with us at the B2B CMO Project. If the folks that are listening are enjoying what you're hearing and learning, you can go to theb2bcmoproject.com, our website. We have all our podcasts there, custom research. We're putting best practice content in there for the enterprise B2B CMOs. So I want to thank you so much, Jamie, for spending time. Thank you, Jon, my co-host, and I hope everybody has a pleasant day.
Jon Miller (35:34):
Thanks for listening to the B2B CMO Podcast. Head on over to B2BCMOproject.com for more episodes, plus the latest research and framework CMOs need, not just to survive, but actually thrive as AI and the new playbook reshape how we go to market. And if this episode sparks something for you, please follow the show, leave a rating, and share it with a marketing leader who could use a little inspiration. Special thanks to our wonderful partners, OneMind, 2X, Cheq, Demandbase, G2, Goldcast, LinkedIn, Phave, Sendoso, and Webflow for making this podcast possible. Until next time, be safe out there.