There are threads of commonality woven through all high-performance marketing teams. Here's a glimpse into how the marketing leaders at HubSpot, Grado Labs, and Bitly drive their marketing strategies forward. To read the original article where this appeared, visit: getflow.com/blog/how-high-performance-marketing-teams-work-together

1. HIGH-PERFORMANCE MARKETING TEAMS
Insights on Strategy & Leadership
from HubSpot, Grado Labs, and Bitly

2. ➤ Question 1:
You’re driving the marketing efforts at successful,
respected companies. Each company is different, of
course, but do you see threads of commonality that run
throughout marketing efforts? What would you say
separates a high-performing marketing team from one
that can’t find its stride?

3. ➤ Answer 1:
“The best marketing teams I’ve seen are those that manage to balance
long-term, disciplined strategies with experimentation. It’s pretty easy
to get mired down in the same marketing playbook as everyone else or
the same strategies you’ve used for years because they’ve worked in the
past, but that’s a recipe for mediocrity. On the flip side there’s risk in
too distractedly hopping from one short-term experiment to the next
without a real investment in a long-term asset or strategy like a blog or
search engine optimization. The best teams balance both and use data as
a prioritization mechanism for everything.”
Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at HubSpot:

4. ➤ Answer 1:
“The common thread has been a constant need for growth. In startups
there's no inherent momentum, you have to create it every day. That's
the key difference between established and new companies, and it falls
on marketing to create it. Not an easy thing to do, which is why I think
startup experience is so undervalued.
“The high-performing marketing teams I've been a part of have all been
highly-specialized and fairly autonomous. We hired the best people in
their respective areas of expertise and gave them the freedom to fail.
Marketing is so dependent on testing and iterating. Another key trend
was dedicated design and engineering resources, such a critical part of
the modern marketing organization.”
Andrew Dumont, VP of Marketing at Bitly:

5. ➤ Answer 1:
“Thank you for those kind words! I can’t really speak for any other
company than our own; Grado hasn’t advertised since 1964, so all we
have is our family’s product and our story. There should be passion and
substance in all marketing efforts. People can tell when there’s no
passion behind what you do, while having little substance just leaves a
pretty picture to stare at.”
Jonathan Grado, VP of Marketing at Grado Labs:

6. ➤ Question 2:
What misconceptions do companies often have about
their own internal marketing efforts? How do these
form? What can marketing leaders do to avoid them /
make sure they aren’t embraced in the first place?

7. ➤ Answer 2:
“In the tech-space, I often see companies think of marketing as something that
happens after the launch of a product. It’s looked upon as polish or window
dressing to a finished product. I think that’s a mistake. The product and its
marketing strategy should grow up together. You should build marketing into the
product from the very beginning. This doesn’t mean throw a bunch of ads inside
your product. Bad idea. Instead, what it means is you should think about how this
product will spread from person to person as you build it and create pathways
within the product that make it easier to do so.
“You should also make sure that the product is giving you enough data about its
usage to make relevant targeting possible. By growing up side-by-side your
product and your marketing strategy can complement each other and create better
communications for your customers.”
Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at HubSpot:

8. ➤ Answer 2:
“It really depends on the organization, but marketing has historically been
seen as a ‘soft’ organization, in terms of business impact. Less so as the
world has moved digital and every activity and action taken by a marketing
organization can be measured. Still, this is the general feeling when you
enter an organization across departments. It's important for marketing
leaders to measure business impact from the get-go. It sets the stage. When
you align marketing to impact, and not just brand awareness, you're putting
the right foot forward and letting the organization know that you're on board
with the greater goal. From my experience, this prevents the silos from
forming that can cripple the effectiveness of marketing.”
Andrew Dumont, VP of Marketing at Bitly:

9. ➤ Answer 2:
“Throwing money at a problem doesn’t (always) work. Grado has
had a $0 ad budget and we’ve been able to accomplish some pretty
amazing things, amazing to us at least. The company or product
needs to provide something that will resonate with their audience
first and foremost. Marketing efforts just build upon an already great
product.”
Jonathan Grado, VP of Marketing at Grado Labs:

10. ➤ Question 3:
Results are what matter, but what are some
foundational elements marketing teams need to
have in place before they race to achieve that
agreed-upon goal?

11. ➤ Answer 3:
“Years ago we created a sales and marketing service level agreement
(SLA) to help our sales team and marketing team get aligned around
goals and what they could commit to each other. Working back from the
revenue goals of the sales team, the marketing team committed to a
certain value of leads we could deliver each month. The sales team
committed to working the leads we generated. It was a quantitative
agreement which included a bunch of inherent shared values. Putting an
SLA together brought our teams closer together and gave us a shared
starting point from which to assess priorities.”
Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at HubSpot:

12. ➤ Answer 3:
“In the world of SaaS, and B2B in general, which is where I've generally played—
revenue from inbound (marketing activity) is what matters. It's tough to generalize
here though, so let me walk you through my progression at Bitly.
“When I came on, the marketing machine was pretty immature, so I couldn't start at
inbound revenue as the result that we tracked. First, we started with a lead goal—
the number of leads that marketing drove. Next, we moved to a lead quality goal—
the number of leads that hit a certain quality threshold. After that, we moved to a
SQO (Sales Qualified Opportunity) goal—leads that became an opportunity from
marketing activity. And finally, we're now at an inbound revenue goal—what I
believe to be the most impactful metric a SaaS marketing organization can strive
toward.”
Andrew Dumont, VP of Marketing at Bitly:

13. ➤ Answer 3:
“I would say organization is key. Not the perception of some corporate
organization with harsh deadlines and such either. Give yourself some
flexibility and know what you have to get done. I tend to get better work
done when I think, ‘Ok, I can get all this done by tomorrow’ rather than,
‘I’m not sure of everything I have to do, but I have to get it done in the
next hour.’ Sometimes that happens and you can’t help it, but giving
yourself some time can help.”
Jonathan Grado, VP of Marketing at Grado Labs:

14. ➤ Question 4:
The term “innovation” is thrown around so
much these days. What does it mean to you in
the context of marketing?
Can you share an example of what innovation (or
innovative thinking) looked like for one of your
marketing team’s initiatives?

15. ➤ Answer 4:
“Innovation is about discovering points of leverage that previously went
unexplored in your marketing. In any marketing strategy there are
activities that will lead to incremental gains (in traffic, in leads, in any
stated goal), and there are innovative tactics that will help you amplify
those gains. Most innovation becomes the standard playbook after
awhile and new experiments designed to find new points of leverage will
replace them.”
Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at HubSpot:

16. ➤ Answer 4:
“Not a big fan of the term, to be honest. It just feels meaningless today.
But I look at innovation in marketing as skating to where things are
going, not playing where things were. Marketing is very cyclical—new
tech comes out, it becomes adopted and broadly used, then marketing
ruins it. My goal is always to get there before marketing ruins it. :)
“I'd look at my time at Moz and that organization as the best example of
innovative marketing. Moz was ahead of its time on inbound marketing
and content marketing as a whole. Something like The Beginner’s Guide to
SEO was one of those brilliant pieces that everyone is trying to emulate
today. Was fortunate to be a part of that team.”
Andrew Dumont, VP of Marketing at Bitly:

17. ➤ Answer 4:
“Creating a story and following my family’s long history of tradition is
my main goal most days. Last summer we built the first headphone out
of a Brooklyn tree. Not only that, but it was from a tree (that had fallen)
a few blocks away from Grado’s building. We’ve been in that same
apartment building since 1953, and have owned it since 1918. We
wouldn’t have gone through with it if it didn’t sound up to our
standards, but luckily it did and we loved the story behind it. We sold
out of them in a day without advertising. It combined our story with a
great product, exactly what we aim for.”
Jonathan Grado, VP of Marketing at Grado Labs:

18. ➤ Question 5:
What makes a marketing team different than,
say, one from even a decade ago?

19. ➤ Answer 5:
“Modern marketers have significantly more data than our predecessors by
which to make decisions. It’s incredible how much can be measured today
and how much more agile and effective those metrics make your strategies. A
decade ago there was more waste and more irrelevant marketing than there is
today. That’s not to say that irrelevant marketing has gone away, but data has
made it easier for companies to do the right thing.”
Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at HubSpot:

20. ➤ Answer 5:
“End-to-end measurement—the guesswork has been
completely removed. There's no excuse for a marketing
team to invest in channels that aren't performing or not
knowing which channels are performing. Too much great
tech out there.”
Andrew Dumont, VP of Marketing at Bitly:

21. ➤ Answer 5:
“A decade ago you might’ve focused on TV, radio, and print. Now it’s
that plus every social network out there. Do you personalize the content
for each social channel? Do your Twitter followers care for what you
might put on Facebook? You might have a photo-shoot to capture that
one perfect image. Great. You posted it to Instagram, so now what do
you post tomorrow? You need to constantly be creating something to
push out there. With so much needed, one hurdle is keeping it all
genuine. There’s a lot more ways to reach people today, but with that
comes a lot more work.”
Jonathan Grado, VP of Marketing at Grado Labs:

22. ➤ Question 6:
When you moved into your current leadership
role, what were the first steps you took? Do you
have any advice on what newly-minted marketing
leaders should focus on during their first few
weeks with a new company?

23. ➤ Answer 6:
“Not long after I had been promoted into a new role, Brad Coffey,
HubSpot's Chief Strategy Officer caught me at the right moment and
advised: ‘There's a natural tendency when you're in a new role and don't
quite know what you're doing yet to try to stay the course, keep things
steady and status quo. Fight that urge. In your first 90 days you have a
window to set the tone for the type of team you want to build and the
type of leader you want to be. Use every moment of it. Talk with your
team and set a unique vision. Discontinue things that aren't working.
Start things that could. It's not a rocky sea that upsets teams, it's a lack
of direction.’ I'm paraphrasing, but it was an important jumpstart at a
critical time for me. And it meant a lot.”
Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at HubSpot:

24. ➤ Answer 6:
“I did a presentation a few months back at The Small
Business Web in NYC that covered my first 6-months at
Bitly and the steps I took. Video here.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS3JNs1Phew
“[That was] probably the best distillation of the what and
why of first steps for me.”
Andrew Dumont, VP of Marketing at Bitly:

25. ➤ Answer 6:
“Lay everything out and give roles and tasks
accordingly. You might find someone is better
suited for another job too which is a blessing to
realize early on.”
Jonathan Grado, VP of Marketing at Grado Labs:

26. ➤ Question 7:
Details: How many employees at your
company? Any goals you’d like to share?
What compelled you to take the position?

27. ➤ Answer 7:
“HubSpot is the world’s leading inbound marketing and sales platform. Since 2006,
HubSpot has been on a mission to make the world more inbound. Today, over 19,000
customers in more than 90 countries use HubSpot’s software, services, and support to
transform the way they attract, engage, and delight customers. HubSpot’s inbound
marketing software includes social media publishing and monitoring, blogging, SEO,
website content management, email marketing, marketing automation, and reporting
and analytics, all in one integrated platform. Award-winning HubSpot Sales enables
sales and service teams to have more effective conversations with leads, prospects, and
customers. HubSpot is headquartered in Cambridge, MA with offices in Singapore;
Dublin, Ireland; Sydney, Australia; Tokyo, Japan and Portsmouth, NH. HubSpot has
more than 1,300 employees globally.”
Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at HubSpot:

28. ➤ Answer 7:
“We're just under 100 employees at Bitly across New York, Denver and San
Francisco offices. I took the opportunity because I love the brand—I grew
up on the internet with Bitly. It's a staple of web 2.0. I ended up having the
discussion with Bitly after a stint as an Entrepreneur in Residence at
betaworks, the studio that built Bitly back in 2008.
“Along with that, I think there's a ton of potential in the business if we can
figure out some key items, and I love a good challenge. Our progress from
free link shortener to a real business has been trending in the right
direction. Still a lot of work ahead, but I love building.”
Andrew Dumont, VP of Marketing at Bitly:

29. ➤ Answer 7:
“There are around 20 people at Grado, we’ve purposely
kept it at that size since the mid-90s. Not much else to add,
I’m just continuing the six-decade family tradition of sound
coming first.”
Jonathan Grado, VP of Marketing at Grado Labs:

30. THIS SLIDESHARE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT:
How High-Performance Marketing Teams Work Together
Full URL: getflow.com/blog/how-high-performance-marketing-teams-work-together