MarTech Interview with Mona Popli, Vice President of Product Marketing at Heap

Mona Popli, Vice President of Product Marketing at Heap has a few thoughts on how marketers can align better on their core marketing plans and strategies:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, Mona, tell us about yourself and your marketing journey, we’d love to hear more about your role at Heap…

I am an accomplished product strategy and marketing professional with 17 years experience working across financial technology, capital markets, investor relations, and B2B SaaS. Prior to Heap I was in product marketing with Tier 1 Financial Solutions in which I was responsible for product positioning and go-to-market strategy and execution. I had a heavy focus on the expansion of the CRM platform for all firms across capital markets and the integrations of products. Additionally, preceding that position, I led product strategy and marketing at Ipreo starting as a senior product manager and then leading product strategy and marketing. I joined Heap in 2021, and in addition to my current position I served as interim CMO from July to November 2022, and soon I will be leading the public relations initiative alongside our new CMO, Micha Hershman.

What would you say about the current state of B2B marketing and the top trends that will dominate this segment through 2023?

This past year has brought unprecedented volatility to the tech landscape. As of mid-November, more than 73,000 US tech workers have been laid off in mass job cuts. Although the pressure to innovate continues to mount, tech can no longer risk big bets based on gut instinct alone. To survive 2023, companies will need analytics to navigate these stormy waters.

Only with analytics can teams ensure they’re making the right strategic investments to grow their business, support their customers, and drive the bottom line. One missed opportunity or unexpected result could be the iceberg that sinks the ship. In the coming year, teams that invest in a strong analytics foundation will have the power to not only survive, but thrive.

Take us through some of your core marketing processes/strategies at Heap – and some of the martech that helps drive all of it? When integrating martech to marketing processes: what do you feel B2B marketing leaders need to pay more attention to?

Marketing strategy at Heap is very much an integrated program not only across all verticals within marketing but across the organization. There is no bigger missed opportunity than not aligning on strategies across an organization to ensure consistency in your brand, messaging, and customer engagement/experience. We also are big believers as it is shown in our Heap values of tasting the soup. We use what we call Heap on Heap to truly understand what our users are going through. We use quantitative data to also give us quick access to qualitative data to truly understand the why behind the what.

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Given the constant talk of a recession through 2023; what do you feel marketers can do to drive true value and business growth? A few tips you’d share when it comes to optimizing how teams measure their marketing output?

Having a data driven culture and not relying on guesswork from utilizing the highest paid person’s opinion can support marketing initiatives as any actions will be backed by data. Having this data will point to where customer’s want to go on their journey, and strengthen and direct the goals for marketing teams. Having a data driven culture means having both qualitative and quantitative data to get the full picture.

Teams also must have a true understanding of the evolution of their customers & prospects, their jobs to be done, what their challenges are, and to really walk a mile in their shoes. Understanding the personas and being vertical specific if your market is less niche is important.

What do you feel about the future of the B2B martech and marketing industry?  

Smart investments in PLG motions will continue to advance ROI. Over the next year, we’ll see more and more companies reinforce their PLG strategies with tech that supports real-time segmentation and experience customization at scale. By building differentiated experiences that anticipate each individual customer’s needs, companies will see accelerated time to value and more efficient growth. But accomplishing this level of personalization requires a complete understanding of the entire customer journey, in all its complexity. Identifying the right optimizations for an audience requires an understanding of not only what users are doing, but why they are doing it.

The most successful PLG motions will be built by the teams that fully harness the why behind the what. Additionally, in distressed times, while companies invest in PLG motions they also need to use their product to support their sales led motions. Product led sales are keeping companies thriving while they work on having a PLG motion.

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