MarTech Interview with Colleen Stauffer, Chief Marketing Officer @ HoneyBook

Colleen Stauffer, Chief Marketing Officer at HoneyBook highlights more on why modern day CMOs need to be full funnel marketers to drive actual results:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, Colleen, take us through your marketing journey and biggest marketing moments through the years?

During my sophomore year of college I landed an internship at ABC in Washington, DC, and my boss there taught me how to be a thoughtfully direct leader. After college, I interned at several advertising agencies in Chicago. I was lucky to work at Cramer-Krasselt which has an incredible culture and I was able to make an impact even as an intern. While there I discovered my passion for innovation and building, and my proudest accomplishment was founding the social media team. It was the beginning of the digital media revolution and I helped the company expand into this emerging space.

Seven years later, I moved to San Francisco to work at Clorox, which became another formative moment in my career. This was my first in-house role where I learned how a business operates end-to-end, launched award-winning TV spots, designed packaging, and unlocked new social media channels. Learning how to sell routine everyday items was a great lesson in creative marketing—let’s just say I know a lot about garbage bags!

From there I had the opportunity to join the Pinterest team and fell in love with the company. It was pre-IPO, high growth, and in the middle of a reinvention—my favorite combination. As an avid Pinterest user, I felt connected to the brand and could see the potential to evolve the product. I launched and scaled the Creator Marketing team from one to 70 people globally and led the most complex marketing campaign in the company’s history where we established a new Pinterest audience and debuted a renewed platform for creators and consumers.

That brings me to today and my new role as CMO at HoneyBook, the leading business management platform for independent professionals. I can’t wait to be a part of the product journey and bring this amazing brand to a broader market.

How are you seeing the role of the typical modern CMO across industries change today?

Today’s CMOs have to be full-funnel marketers, with a clear understanding and perspective on the entire user journey. It’s no longer about specialization in areas like brand or performance. Today’s CMOs are technologists, analysts, creatives, and, in particular, product marketers.

For tech companies especially, the art of product marketing is becoming a more critical skill for a CMO. Rather than simply bringing a product roadmap to market, the CMO works hand-in-hand with product leadership to represent the voice of the customer and inform product development. In my career, I’ve learned that, when done right, product marketing experience in leadership can change the trajectory of a company.

Seeing how modern digital marketing is evolving at a rapid pace, there are a plethora of skills that today’s marketers need to hone in on. Can you tell us about those that are becoming more prominent in today’s market?

There are several key skills that I feel are important for marketers today. The first is adopting a full-funnel approach. Understanding your company’s funnel so you can discern what messages are and are not working, where customers are dropping off, and when there’s inconsistency in the funnel. A leaky funnel is an inefficient business. Product marketing is a similarly important skill. It benefits every kind of marketer to understand their ideal customer profile and positioning in the market. Lastly, I think it’s important for marketers today to also be futurists. It’s important to be curious about technological advancements and emerging surfaces so they can be leveraged to remain competitive. It’s the job of a marketer not only meet your customers where they are today but also think about where they might be in the future.

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If you had to change five things about the modern state of marketing; what would they be?

1. Better brand campaign measurement: we know intuitively how important brand campaigns are but they’ve always been hard to measure.
2. More respect for generalists: the versatility and adaptability of generalist marketers make them an invaluable asset to growing teams, especially late-stage startups and early IPO companies.
3. The typical agency structure: every marketing team is going to work with an agency of some kind and this relationship would benefit from more flexible agency structures that adapt to the needs of the company they’re working with.
4. Template marketplace for marketing professionals: some professions, like engineering, have a strong culture of knowledge sharing and I’d love to see that happen more among marketers. Something as simple as a template marketplace would be a powerful resource for teams big and small.
5. The idea that AI will render marketers obsolete: the best marketing campaigns speak to our shared understanding and experiences, which require human ingenuity to craft. We should embrace AI to help us do great work but not forget that people are the engine of creativity and connection.

Can you talk about the state of modern B2B marketing and martech and what trends will dominate the space in 2024?  

Several trends will influence B2B marketing tactics in 2024:

1. Human-to-human marketing: at the end of the day, there’s a person behind the business and they want to understand the value of your product without getting lost in the jargon. I think we’ll see more companies adopt consumer-focused creative and tactics. It’s about respecting the expertise of the business owner without overcomplicating the messaging. This is especially relevant for B2SMB companies.
2. The reinvention of events and conferences: the appetite to gather and share learnings is high and I think we’ll see more companies reinvigorate their approach to in-person events. I expect the size of events will shrink to facilitate deeper connection and hybrid options will remain.
3. Influencers and creators as spokespeople: we see this work well for consumer brands but I believe there’s untapped potential in B2B marketing. We know that people turn to social media for learning and discovery, whether that’s consumer goods or technology, and I expect more B2B companies will begin leveraging the influential players in this space to evangelize their products.

Tell us about the leading B2B or B2C tech brands you feel have a robust digital marketing and digital ad presence: what key takeaways from these picks/choices? 

The three brands I’ve chosen each have a strong POV in their industry, unique voice and tone, and have demonstrated their ability to evolve and make strong partnerships to drive scale.

1. Roblox: a great example of putting your customers at the center of your marketing strategy. They were quick to recognize their users as their most valuable advocates and put them out front to champion the product.
2. Spotify: the Spotify Wrapped campaign became a viral sensation that customers now look forward to each year. Countless companies have also successfully copied this tactic for their audience—a testament to the impact of the original campaign. The Spotify team tapped into the universal truth that people are always looking for insights about themselves, and did so in a delightful and engaging way that has created an enduring legacy for the brand.
3. L.F: though not traditionally tech, I think it’s important that we expand our understanding of “tech” companies. E.L.F. is an e-commerce juggernaut with an adept and clever digital marketing presence that includes unexpected brand partnerships, like Liquid Death, and successful micro-influencer campaigns that have allowed them to build a loyal and vocal customer base.

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