Prediction Series 2019: Interview with Baxter Denney, Chief Marketing Officer, Red Points

Tell us about your journey into technology and how you arrived at Red Points?

My route into Marketing came through technology. I moved from a product-oriented role at my first company to a role on the marketing team helping launch our first marketing automation platform, Eloqua. That drove my interest in marketing measurement and operations and I’ve been in it ever since!

What opportunities and challenges did you and/or Red Points identify at the start of 2018 and have things gone according to the plan?

Red Points is a fast-growing technology company, so many of our opportunities are relating to scaling the business. In Marketing that means making sure our investments in demand generation, in technology, in events, in all of our programs and campaigns are efficient and generating the best returns possible.

As an online MarTech platform, how does Red Points build on its expertise to eliminate infringements?

At Red Points, we offer a unique cloud-based SaaS solution for IP infringement detection and removal. Our system looks for counterfeit products online on behalf of customers and automates the process of having any fake goods (and/or pirated content) removed. To do so, we use keyword monitoring and image recognition to identify clients IP assets online. We also apply learning tech to derive insights from clients’ enforcement history — suggesting new detection rules and validation opportunities, which decreases the amount of time analysts need to spend identifying infringements. In some instances, we can also automate removals to speed up enforcement procedures around brand protection.

What are your predictions on the “Role of CMOs” and the closing gap between Sales-Marketing functions?

The modern CMO sees himself as less of a ‘marketing’ person and more as a leader driving the overall go-to-market strategy for the business. This means they have to be super aligned with their sales counterparts and play a larger role in hitting revenue targets. The best CMOs teams are operating on two timelines simultaneously — delivering on the immediate needs of the business (qualified lead and opportunity targets) while working on ways to drive growth in future quarters (new channels, partnerships, brand positioning, competitive landscape, etc)

Do you think AI-as-a-Service and Experience-as-a-Service could be the new destination for MarTech companies?

Potentially, if these new technological trends are very customer focused.

How do you train your Marketing and Sales ops team to justify the use of Automation and Reporting tools? What feedback do you often get from this user-set?

We try to stay focused on a small set of aligned core metrics, vs having 1000 different reports. My goal is to keep most of our reporting in CRM so it can be easily shared with sales colleagues.

What was the most impactful lesson you had learned from 2018? How do you plan to implement the lesson in 2019?

In 2018, it was clear that an integrated approach to campaign generation and execution yields better overall results. It takes more time and effort but it’s worth it to get everyone aligned on major campaigns. To improve on this in 2019 we need to do more advanced planning, using a quarterly calendar approach with clear campaign goals and milestones.

Which leaders in the industry do you closely work with? How do they help you stay close to the business actions?

I stay in touch with many of the marketing leaders I’ve worked with over the years via email and professional networking events like conferences. Having recently changed locations for work, I need to make sure to spend time connecting with local marketing leaders here as well. I love getting a coffee with smart leaders and picking their brains about new ideas!

One advice to all the CMOs and leaders in your community –

Stay close to your customer. If you are ever stuck on a challenge or idea don’t be afraid to ask a friendly customer what they think — you’d be surprised at how often clients appreciate their feedback being solicited and are willing to participate. Also, be careful about what you measure, making sure that the metrics you monitor and focus on aren’t just numbers but are really reflective of your team’s contribution to the business.

Thank you, Baxter! Hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.