10 CMOs From High Growth StartUps Talking Market Strategy

Developing and executing a marketing strategy is no easy task. There are a million ways to develop and design a marketing campaign and even more ways to manage a whole marketing strategy.

For instance, I believe it is vital to center your marketing strategy around making data accessible, providing customers with more than just advertising. I see great value in inserting marketing content with valuable information and actionable insights customers can benefit from.

Marketing is a dynamic and ever-changing field. This is especially true in these tumultuous times, with the COVID-19 pandemic creating global economic and social shifts and changes.

So, now more than ever, it is worthwhile to listen and learn from other marketers’ experiences.

Hoping to collect more valuable insights, I’ve reached out to some of my colleagues. So here is what 10 Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) from top Israeli Tech companies had to say about their marketing strategies.

Foster Emotional Connections

“B2B brands talk value, benefits, and features – but mostly leave feelings off the table. The truth is? Our audience still consists of people,” says Annie Reiss, CMO at Cloudshare. Establishing an emotional connection with customers is the key to successful marketing. This kind of connection can be made by associating the brand with a certain feeling or rewarding loyal customers.

As Chen Guter, VP Marketing at Lusha, explains, “An authentic purpose, combined with emotional qualities have the potential to transform your brand from being fully functional, into a love brand that feels authentic and human –  which is the holy grail.”

Hence, your marketing strategy should find and define a way to connect with your customers on an emotional level, strengthening relationships and fostering customer loyalty.

Follow Brand Identity

In order to develop a successful marketing strategy, you need to decide what a brand wants to be known for, what is the message and feelings you want to be associated with it. Moreover, “You need to have an identity as a marketing team, and that needs to be rooted in your product,” says Ethan Chernofsky, VP of Marketing at Placer.ai.

Having a clear identity will make a clearer and more effective marketing strategy. “Because they know who they are, and they can demonstrate how well they know the problems their audience is facing, they have the credibility to become a true market leader,” adds Chernofsky. The bottom line is, you need to know the product or service you are promoting, know its strengths and weaknesses.

Stay Flexible

In today’s ever-changing market, businesses must remain flexible to stay relevant. And so do marketing strategies. Just like Shachar Orren, CMO at EX.Co said, “If 2020 has proven anything, it’s that we must always plan to change plans.”

Flexibility enables necessary adjustments and innovations that build interest and set the brand apart from the competition. Staying engaged and thinking about new and current ways to communicate with your target audience is key for effective marketing.

Listen to Customers

Listening to your customers is a major part of a successful marketing strategy. “While our instincts as marketers are important, getting feedback from our audience is crucial,” argues Orren. For example, monitoring social media is a great way to assess what kind of messaging works best and is worth your resources.

Moreover, it is important to keep customers in mind when developing your marketing ideas. As explained by Yishay Yovel, CMO at Cato Networks, “Marketing is always customer-centric […] you want to better understand who you are selling to and more specifically who you are not selling to.” consumers come from different generations, with varied interests and needs. So, knowing your target audience is vital for effective marketing.

Set Clear Goals

A good marketing strategy has clearly defined goals. “The marketing strategy defines actionable steps to position the company as an industry leader and should be based on management’s needs,” says Jolene Amit, CMO at Voca.ai.

In addition, these goals should match and support the brand’s business plan as a whole. “Marketing Strategy is an integral part of the overall business strategy. It should begin with high-level and far-reaching business goals like reaching the next funding round or sales targets and then create a plan to realize these. The plan should elaborate on the company’s vision and break it down to tangible steps,” elaborates Yotam Gutman, Director of Marketing at SentinelOne.

A strategy that follows clear ideas and goals creates stable, consistent messaging, fostering positive customer sentiment and loyalty.

Identify Market Opportunities

Last but not least, never rest on your laurels. Nowadays, products, services, competitors, and market segments are constantly changing and evolving. Marketers looking to stay relevant and keep their competitive edge, need to actively seek new opportunities.

“My experience in places like UVeye, Funzing and Culture Trip has led me to appreciate forceful and quick impact rather than longer-term theoretical plans,” says Yaron Saghiv, VP Marketing at UvEye. “There are many hidden opportunities and pots of gold which can create quick wins […] and the first step would be to look for those and move from there.”

Yanay (John) Sela, CMO at Seeking Alpha, supports Saghiv’s arguments, saying it’s important to make sure to focus on the action channels that have the highest potential for success – “pick the initiatives you guesstimate to be the most impactful and likely to succeed and assign them to talented marketing managers.”

“For us, building a marketing strategy means creating a believable narrative for our growth,” adds Haim Pekel, VP Marketing at Ongage. “We try to avoid sci-fi scenarios and work with assumptions that are based on data we have while leaving enough room for extra manoeuvres,” he continues. Simply put, keep your eyes and ears open for exciting, realistic opportunities.

Conclusion

To sum up, marketers cannot rest on their laurels. We need to listen, stay flexible, and do our due diligence. Moving forward to a post COVID-19 economy, we will be required to re-think and adjust our marketing strategies. My post coronavirus marketing strategy will become even more consumer-centric, creating optimized relevant content that’ll consider our customers’ current needs.

No doubt maintaining flexibility and listening to your consumers is a great marketing move. In a post pandemic world it will be vital. Both consumer and brand priorities are changing, so paying close attention and improving your product or service accordingly is the way to go.