Anita Moorthy on Building Brand and Trust Through Community Engagement

Overview:

In this episode of Tea Time with Tech Marketing Leaders, host Kerry Guard welcomes marketing veteran Anita Moorthy to discuss the pivotal role of brand building in today’s competitive landscape. Drawing from her extensive experience across global markets, Anita shares how businesses can leverage community engagement, expert voices, and authentic connections to establish trust and credibility. The conversation dives into the challenges of aligning brand efforts with measurable results, the importance of identifying and participating in key communities, and the balance between organic influence and targeted marketing. Whether you're in the early stages of scaling or refining your brand strategy, this episode offers actionable insights to stay ahead.

Transcript:

Kerry Guard 0:02

Hello, I'm Kerry Guard and Welcome to Tea Time with Tech Marketing Leaders. Welcome back to the show. Before we get to the heart of our conversation today, I did a thing, y'all, ah, I can't let I I crossed over the dark side of maybe a little bit gave myself away. I don't know however you want to, however,you want to think about it, but I feel like I'm stepping my game up in a big way thanks to this, I have my very first sponsor, and I'm going to spill the tea later all about improvato and what they bring to the table for y'all, but big news here at tea time, we have our very first sponsor, and I'm stoked to be talking about what a wonderful brand. They are some bravado and some a product that we've actually used and that I believe in. So more to come on that stay tuned, because really what we're here to talk about is the wonderful Anita Murthy. I was supposed to interview Anita at the Martech World Forum last month, and it came down with a soul-crushing, migraine, and I had to bow out, which was just devastating. I was so sad to miss the wonderful people like Juan Mendoza who introduced us and invited me to come along, as well as as his wonderful team. And I was just devastated that I couldn't be there, but Anita stepped in and stepped up and crushed it, and we're going to unpack all of the wonderful things she said, and you're going to get to hear it live here at tea time, since we didn't get a chance to see it there in London. A little bit about Anita before she tells us her story. She has led all aspects of marketing and is more passionate about the product side. She has 25 years of experience delivering results at B to B tech startups and establish and established companies in the US, India and Europe. She's helped all stages of companies with their marketing strategy and execution plan, from defining go to market strategy and messaging through the execution of integrated marketing campaigns and sales enablement. She's also the founder of the European startup show a podcast in Europe, for Europe about startup stories, mistakes made, strategies for scale, etc. Outside of startups, she enjoys traveling at all types of spicy food. Welcome to the show.

Anita Moorthy 2:13

Thank you very much. Kerry, that was a lovely introductions. I'm very happy to finally get to be on this wonderful podcasting time. Chat with you. I'm

Kerry Guard 2:23

so excited to have you. Thank you for giving me another shot. Do over. Second time's charm. All the things, all the things, before we get into the heart of our conversation today, why don't you tell us your story, whether we found marketing or marketing found us. It's always a wonderful, interesting journey. So what's yours?

Anita Moorthy 2:41

Yeah, it's really, yeah, it's always nice to reflect on it hindsight, 2020, but, you know, sometimes opportunities just come your way. But I actually started, my background is in engineering. I have a computer engineering degree from Waterloo, and then I did an MBA, and I took up a job as a product manager and at a company that doesn't exist anymore, it's part of Oracle, but it used to be called Siebel, and that Job was advertised as a mini CEO role. So you kind of had a part of a product, or a whole product, and you were responsible for all parts of it. So like, you know, what are the requirements, and how do you build it, and then how do you take it to market? So I did that for about two years, and I realized that I really enjoyed the taking it to market, part of it, so I started moving towards product marketing, and then eventually, from Product Marketing, I grew into the whole marketing role, and I think it's such a I found it a really good fit for me because I had a technical background, and then I Did the MBA, and this kind of brought it together, and that you really have to understand your market and what what drives revenue for your product, and then you also really need to understand what to what to build that's going to drive revenue. So it kind of is a really nice intersection of the two. And then, yeah, so, and as my husband has a crazy dog, works for the government of Kazakhstan. So that's what took me to India, and then Europe, and then us. I kind of, you know, took these different roles in these different countries because of family and the commitments there.

Kerry Guard 4:18

I have so much follow up. I'm going to try and keep it focused so I don't go on too many tangents, because I could spend all day here. I do want to know because I think this is really coming up for folks around the product market fit piece. I think it's becoming more evident that if you don't have that, you're setting yourself up for everything else to fail. So is that, are you seeing that coming to fruition for people where they're having that aha moment nowadays, having lived in that space for a while, of being able to build it yourself?

Anita Moorthy 4:56

Yeah, the product market fit question. Question wasn't so much something that I worried about when I was a marketer, because I was working for companies that had product market fit. That's typically we would bring in a marketing leader because they're ready to scale. But my in the current role, where I'm actually a co founder and a CMO for a startup, that is what occupies us 90% of our time, 99% of our time, like, you know, what? When do we know you have product market fit? And it's actually not. I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of good theories. So for example, one of the ones that you know, I am looking at as our sort of North Star, is looking at our beta users we currently have, and seeing when 60% of our beta users want the product and are willing to pay for it, that's when, you know you have product market fit. So that's kind of where we are. We're not quite there yet. So we are, and you know, in the beginning you you're constantly burning through users because you have, you have a promise of the product, but the product quite isn't there. So you get a bunch of users, and then you they kind of don't get it, or you're not quite there yet, new users. You absolutely right. The product market fit is such a, such an important and critical part in the startup world. And you know, and typically, marketers don't get to be part of it, because most co founders and founders have a tech like their tech and product people, potentially maybe sales, but they don't have somebody who's got a marketing background. And so it's actually really been interesting. And my two co founders, who are technical, and I worked with them in a previous startup too. They were very keen to have a marketing person. And I think, and I hope this is going to be a trend where they understand that marketing is actually not something that's just a scaling function, but that can also be incredibly valuable in the early Product Market Fit stage, because when I'm talking to the customer, I have a very different mindset than when my tech person or the, you know, the CEO, they're looking at like a very product oriented view, like, what features should I build? And you know, how is this feature helping you? Whereas I'm looking at the more subtle cues on what is their need, what is their pain? How are they talking about it? If we don't, if our product wasn't there for two days, would they really miss it? And what characteristics between these two groups that seem to really like it, can I then harness to create my early adopter segment. Those are not questions that a co founder, I mean a technical person, asks. And it's becoming so valuable. I think in the PMF stage,

Kerry Guard 7:53

it's so so true. It's interesting, because I do think that from a marketing perspective, we are just sort of seen as like, Okay, we have a thing, and now we got to go now we got to scale. But what I love, what you're saying, and that I want to double down on, is that so often people get so fixated on telling our story as the company and who we are and about us, and look at me. Look at me, look at me. And they don't really see the customer and what the customer needs. And remembering, I always love this with founders. I always love to remind them of this, of like you built this, because at some point you were the customer and you needed this thing and and it's nice to remind them to be that voice in the room, to remind them of that and what they're trying to accomplish and what they wanted. What did you want? You wanted this thing? Why? Yeah,

Anita Moorthy 8:57

I think that's that's so well put Kerry. And in fact, the only three of us were just the CO founding team. We haven't hired other full time employees. And I make it a point not to get too deep into how the product works. I don't want to know, because I am the voice customer on your team. I am customer number one. We actually building our tech software so it actually works out. It really is true that I am customer number one, so I should be able to use the product without understanding all the goopty Goo behind how it's built. And I think, I think a good marketer always needs to be the voice of the customer and the outside, and bring the outside in perspective without getting too deep into, you know, oh, here's how the product works, and that's how, that's why you should care for it.

Kerry Guard 9:43

I just heard a wonderful quote today that actually reminds me this and Ashley, earlier, if you're listening, I'm going to be probably repeating this like you a lot, everywhere, all the time, but it's about treating the symptoms, right? So when you have a cold or you're not feeling well, you go. Online to wonder why you have this fever, right? You're not looking for the solution, and you don't even really know what the problem is yet. You just know that you have the symptom of the thing that you need to fix and solve and understand. And so I just really loved that. I heard that from her today, and then hearing from you, I'm like, yes, what are those symptoms?

Anita Moorthy 10:18

Yes, nice. I like that. I like that analogy a lot. I think I'm going to use it too,

Kerry Guard 10:23

right? We're spreading the word Ashley. We're spreading the word it's going to be great. Last question for you, before we really settle into our conversation today, of what's the challenge you're currently facing? I know you're hanging out in San Francisco. You're getting your product. You know you're with your co founders, which is just always got so much, it's a totally different energy when you're actually in the room with these people. So where are you in terms of the challenges you're facing and what, what are you trying to solve right now?

Anita Moorthy 10:49

Oh, my God, so many. We had this very interesting team discussion yesterday. And you know, I think people keep saying you need to charge people money, and it'll bring focus to your product building, you know, like everybody says, oh, yeah, that's nice. And, yeah, we're going to use it. And, you know, we're seeing usage. But until you get people to pay, you won't really be focused on who you're solving the pain for and what you need to build, like the priority of what you need to build. So I was really keen to charge data users we have and and so we were having this debate on when is the right time to charge because there's the promise of the product, and that actually attracted our baby users, but there's a gap between where we are today and the promise of the product, and so, you know, it's a delicate balance on saying, well, let's charge them when we don't. We haven't really fulfilled that promise, and are we going to really get the right signals? So that's the challenge that we're sort of, you know, debating with is when is the right time when your product hasn't actually got to the full promise to charge, or should you even charge at that time,

Kerry Guard 12:10

there was a little birdie sound I heard earlier today that something about 60% Did you that? Something about 60% Anita? Yes,

Anita Moorthy 12:20

yes, yes. That's the product market fit. That's the product market fit stat that you know you have product market fit when 60% of your users give you, like a seven or higher NPS score, like they they were, they're willing to refer you like 60% of the people find it valuable enough to say, Yeah, I'm going to refer you, I'm going to bring somebody in, because I think they would find it valuable. That's when you know you have product market

Kerry Guard 12:49

fit. So then wouldn't that be like Prime Time to start charging? Yes,

Anita Moorthy 12:54

exactly. So that could be, that could be when you should charge, is when you have product market fit. But sometimes, you know, in startup world, even when you do your beta program and your design or they call it the design partner program, there are a lot of people that say, Okay, you have this pain that we're solving for and if we can do X, Y and Z, so not the full promise, but if we can do X, Y and Z, you will start paying us some nominal fee, maybe not the full price that will eventually charge you, but some nominal fee because it shows that you have skin in the game, and you're going to show up for meetings, you're going to give us feedback, and you're almost going to help us build the product with you. So it's not exactly a product market fit that some people can say you should start charging earlier, because, again, it gives that focus into your product.

Kerry Guard 13:45

Yeah, so you're not charging the full amount just yet, but just getting a little bit of that skin in the game exactly. Okay, that makes sense. Well, we'll be following up with you to hear how it's going, and we're all on the edge of our seat for this, what this product is and what it's going to be. So more to come on that, because we have to take a mini break for Okay, breaks. Now this is so I know this is so weird, it's Welcome. Welcome to the new world order of tea time. Check Elijah. Elijah, there's, there's a secret you have. I'm not a fan of secrets, so like, let's get this out in the open here. I

Speaker 1 14:18

don't want to be selfish, Kerry, but I think it's time we spilled the tea on improvato.

Kerry Guard 14:25

It's time. It's time. Yes, I've been using improvato. We've been using it for the last few years now, and they I there was a time so mkg has been around now for 13 years. I know crazy. 13 years we've been around, and from day one, we always wanted this, what we called the magical dashboard. We wanted a thing where we could actually see end to end how our marketing was impacting revenue. And at the time, 13 years ago, that was unheard of. We were talking crazy. Crazy, and our clients were like, that does not exist, and good luck and Godspeed, because at the time, it was incredibly expensive and a huge lift to even broach the subject. Well, the time has come, folks, it exists. It is here. The magical dashboard is possible thanks to tools like improvato, where they can create the connection of all the different marketing systems on the back end, and then pull it into a way for you to see, end to end, how your marketing is impacting your sales. Even that dark, social stuff that we say we can't measure, we can. It is awesome. Have you Elijah, data, data, it's important. It's a big deal.

Speaker 1 15:46

It is. I love a good story. And I learned that software one estimates by using in provato, that got them a three times ROI, just during implementation alone. Apparently, according to their stats and their their use case on improvato, which is really cool, and that's compared to in house solutions. They were talking about post sales operation, scaling, addressing security concerns and actively listening on how improvato can improve its future features set and reasons why software one loves working with improvato so much. Pretty cool, right? Super

Kerry Guard 16:23

cool. And to boot, to boot, improvato has a very special offer for our listeners. Specifically. This is so crazy I feel so I feel so like, legit, yeah, I know. So you can go to improvato.com forward slash t dash time, and they have a very special offer for you in regards to how to audit your data and see what's going on from a trade desk account and Google Ads perspective. So head on over there and check it out. And thank you, improvato for sponsoring this episode. I'm so grateful to you for being on the show. I

Anita Moorthy 17:03

Wow, I love that. Congratulations again, Kerry. I'm gonna go check them out too, especially the bit about dark social.

Kerry Guard 17:14

Yeah, it's it's just nice to be able to actually see how those impressions are factor again into your your full media mix. So it's wonderful. I The magical dashboard. It's here. It's real. Speaking of magic, you have your own magic over there. Anita, in regards to this wonderful talk you did at the martech World Forum, yes, there's a big topic that's swimming around the internet right now, around brand. We've kind of lost sight of needing to build brand, and I feel like we've all sort of had this aha moment of, oh no, we haven't been doing this thing, and we need to get back to doing this thing. Are you? Do you feel like people are are coming around to needing to do that? Or do you think they're still a bit behind and there's still a bit of lag of realizing that we've dropped the ball here?

Anita Moorthy 18:12

I think, I think there's a disconnect between marketers who really get the brand and why we need to invest in the brand and the rest of the leadership team in terms of the CFO and CEOs. I mean, there are a few brilliant CEOs and CFOs that really understand it, but I, like most people, are still kind of like measuring, like, what am I putting in and what am I getting out? Type of mentality, and it's short term focused, and brand it, you do get it's not like you put stuff in when it comes to brand building and you get nothing out, but the time frames are much more longer, and so there's, I think, a disconnect, or there isn't. There needs to be more conversations to convince the rest of the leadership team about brand and the the need for it, and maybe we need to use different like maybe marketing needs to change how we talk about brand, because the way it is used right now, it seems very nebulous. And so obviously, for companies, for, you know, CEOs, especially companies in the younger sort of, you know, ACV stage, they don't have money to throw around, and they can't afford to say, well, let's just kind of believe the CMO and just do stuff that we can't see any results for. So I think there needs to be better, better frameworks that communicate what brand is and the impact of brand on the bottom line, because you do have to connect it to bottom line. So, yeah, I think that's where the conversation is. It's it's very much sort of brand. And everybody loves it and believes in it. In the marketing world, there's a little bit of disconnect, and I think there needs to be a bit more conversations and coordination and collaboration on that.

Kerry Guard 20:12

I do think that's the big hiccup for everybody, is the how do I know this is working piece? And yes, and it does feel like it takes a lot of dollars to get after this, but I feel like there's a shift in the universe where I feel like there's a shift in the universe in regards to the way that technologies now exists that doesn't need to be a times square billboard, because we can be more targeted around who we're building brand with, and I think we can measure it to a degree, one of my favorite metrics, and we'll get more into this, but just while we're here, one of my favorite metrics that I'm really leaning into right now is your branded search volume. So are more people searching for you? Is a really easy way to start correlating the efforts you're doing around building brand, and if there's more lift around Absolutely,

Anita Moorthy 21:15

absolutely. It's like, you know when you when you think about MQLs that people now consider as a bad word, but if you think about the metric that all marketing demand gen drives to, it's typically, at least for SaaS companies, demo requests. So you're doing a bunch of stuff, but the demo request is a sure indicator that they are, you know, ready for sales, to talk to them, right? That's the metric. Similarly, for branding, for brand related activities, it is branded search volume that I think needs to start becoming a key metric that people track. And, you know, I shared this at the conference, but there's this guy, Preston Rutherford, that I've been following now. He does a lot on Twitter, on LinkedIn, but he was a CMO of a of a consumer brand called Chubbies. They used to make these short shorts for men, and he has, like the best, best social media content, where it's always a conversation between the CMO and the CFO. And he talks about, like, why we need to invest in brand so that the CFO would understand. And you know, some of the things that he says, like some of the very memorable lines he said, If tomorrow you turn off all your performance marketing, you turn off all your ads, what do you have that is basically your brand. That's the brand sort of, you know, lift, or whatever you want to call it. And then the other thing he said is, you know, the truth is that our buyer journeys are like a spaghetti it's like all over the place, right? And honestly, trying to measure everything and measure the path thinking it's linear, or thinking it's similar from one person to another, is probably not as it's looking at the wrong thing, because the truth is, the brand that gets remembered gets bought. Think about, like, whatever we want to buy, right? It's such a great code. Like, think about like, when you want to buy, I don't know, whatever headphones or a jacket or coat, like, you know, you have certain brands that you go towards, right? And that has come from, like, multiple exposure to that brand, and then when you are ready to be in market, right? You think about that brand. And there are so many studies that probably you know of Kerry that hit home the same point, there's the stat about the 95% are not in market. Only 5% are in market. Dimension is focusing on that 5% and capturing demand, but the 95% and getting people to remember you when they're ready, that's the brand part of it, right? Or there's this recent study by six cents they did a buyer experience journey. And the most fascinating data point in that whole thing was, if there are four vendors that are getting shortlisted, three of them the then the buyer knew about so they didn't go searching for those three vendors when they decided to do the shortlist, they knew about them, which means when they were not in market, they were exposed to those brands, right? And so we know all these things, and so we need to, that's the that's the power of brand, is to remember that you have to be in their minds well before be ready to they're looking to buy you.

Kerry Guard 24:54

It's so many great quotes in there. One of the things that's popping up for me right now, I. Is I read an article yesterday, and I believe it was a quote from Rand Fishkin, where he was talking about how it's becoming a world where it's not necessarily about creating the demand or being visible, but it's about stealing shares from someone else like the competition now is so fierce that we have to try the Share of Voice metric that I also think is another one that's gotten lost in the sauce of of lead gen. It is something we have to start paying attention to now as well, because if we're not stealing visibility from at the very top to your point, when that short list shows up and we're not on it because we they didn't even know we existed, that's totally missed opportunity. That's going to cause our funnel to dry up real easily. So I I love what you're saying. In regards to that, let's talk a little bit about what this means in what it even means to build brand. We're talking very high level, and we're sort of dancing around it, but to actually show up and build brand, what does that even mean?

Anita Moorthy 26:12

Yeah, no, I think that's a really, really good question. Let's get practical here, right? And I think it depends on where you are as a stage of company. But let me talk about the way you're not so well known, because when you're so well known, you're probably showing up in chat. GPT, you have a lot of money. You can create Netflix like content. You know, you can do a lot of things. You can create these incredible experiences that are unique, that makes you get remembered. There's a lot more things you can do from a creative perspective when you have a lot of money, but when you don't have a lot of money, how do you build brand? I think that is a harder question, and is the one that I'm more excited to solve. Like, you know, you think about the because the area that I'm focusing more on is the SMB, the small and medium businesses, you don't have a lot of money. So when you do, like, okay, one part is you go to a lot of events and conferences, that's one way to build brand, right? And that is definitely something that after COVID has again picked up again, like a lot of people are talking about, in person events being sort of, you know, and that is something you should do. But if you think about the ROI on those events, it's not that great. I used to spend, like, the biggest line item in my budget, used to be events, right? And yes, we used to get a few good leads that came out of it. But the truth is, if I really thought about all the costs and the time spent in going to events. And the ROI that we got, I don't think it was a great ROI, but it gives you a hint on what you could be doing. Like, why is it that events are so popular? It's because you're getting your target audiences there and they're discussing problems and challenges that are unique to your space. And there everyone is coming there to learn and share knowledge and collaborate, right? That's what makes events so good. And if you happen to have a solution for anything in that space, then that's great. But guys, this is happening every day online. I am part of, like, several slack communities where we're discussing problems and solutions and challenges, you know, in my world, or whatever. And there's, there's lots of slack communities, there's discord communities on LinkedIn, like, I follow some influencers in my space, and they put out some fantastic content, and then all this discussion in the comment section about what they believe, what they don't believe, like tools that could be useful. That's that's happening 24 by seven. It's kind of like your events, but it's happened, happening 24 by seven online, in all these different places, right? And the truth is, all marketers know about this, right? They know that their their industry, is talking about stuff that's relevant, that they have a solution for. And I think the way to build brand going into 2025 is really getting smart about where's your critical mass? Because you can't be in every place you can't be in, you know, 10 slack communities and Reddit and just, I mean, it's too much. It's exhausting, it's exhausting. It's exhausting. But if you could find where your critical mass of people are, where the influencers are talking, and be part of those conversations and be thoughtful, and put your best people in your company, let them be part of those conversations. That's when you get known, because people buy from people, and now they're like, Wow, I really like what Kerry is saying. I love you know, she's really very thoughtful. She has a lot of interesting things to say. Well, what does she do again? They look you up. They look. What your company does, and that's how your brand gets exposure. That that first part, when they're not in market, they're like, Okay, that's interesting. And then when they do have a need, I can bet you that they're going to ping you and they're going to say, hey, Kerry, we're thinking about this. I'd love to chat with you. They may still not, you know, get to, you know, short listing you, but they're going to talk to you, and how powerful is that, that they are talking to you about a solution that you potentially could offer them, right? That's that trust and credibility, and that's not something that you can get from your marketing blogs, which are so generic that everybody sounds the same. It actually is not even possible with your website. Honestly. Think about a lot your last solution that you went for and look at the websites of the vendors that provide that solution, they all sound the same. That was my biggest challenge, right? I would put together, I was part of a security company, and I would put together what I thought was super differentiated. Within two weeks, my my competitor was saying the same thing, yeah, how do I how do I create differentiation in my customer's mind, on my prospect's mind, when all these things can so easily be copied and are generic, and now with AI that's just getting worse.

Kerry Guard 31:17

Let's pause here for a second Anita, because there's a couple things I just want to pull apart. One is the story, right? When we're talking about building brand, how do we do it in a way that doesn't become the LOOK AT ME aspect, right? It's what we were talking about earlier, right? It's so easy to get caught up in the features and the problems you solve, and it becomes the LOOK AT ME aspect of it like, but it needs to be about the customer. How do you build brand and that trust in a way that serves the customer? Like, how? What's that story?

Anita Moorthy 31:51

Yeah, I know that's not. Yeah, that's a really good point. And actually think about, like, the last few companies you were part of, there were certain people that, when you put them in front of prospects, they did a magic people just like, wanted to, you know, get, like, wanted to ask these people more question, and really felt that they could trust what they were saying, right? It's about taking those types of people in your organization, those people that are less interested in trying to sell you their product, and more interested in talking about that problem in the industry and how you can solve it, and why it's a problem and and what are all the things that you can do about it? Because if you think about it, and this is something that another person that I follow. His name is Sangram vajray. He used to be seek, co founder of Terminus, and before that, some other company. But he said it really lovely. He said the thing that you have that a vendor has in common with a prospect or customer is the problem statement. That's what you have in common. And if you get the people in your company that are really passionate about solving that problem and getting them involved in these places where discussions are happening, you're building your brand. You're because you're building credibility and trust, and you're seen as an expert. People, people, yeah, they see you as an expert, and by definition, then they start to see your company as an expert in solving this problem for them, that's, I think, the key.

Kerry Guard 33:35

I think it is a really important point. I'm gonna play devil's advocate a little bit, because I find that I, you know, I've had this conversation multiple times throughout the years of doing this podcast, and there's some people who are really passionate about wanting to get out there and wanting to tell the story. I've had some wonderful people in the show who are really great at that. And then there's, there's other companies I've talked to where they're like, I can't, I can't get my team involved at all. They want nothing to do with being out there and talking. They just want to be here, and they just want to build like. So what do you say to the people who are struggling to figure out how to get their people involved and to want to be out there, and who want to talk about this? Is it? Is it solely on the sales and customer success folks? Is, are you trying to bring in the technical folks? Like, how do you Who are you activating and how? Yeah,

Anita Moorthy 34:25

I think that's a really brilliant question, because the truth is, these people that potentially have all the knowledge are busy, people with a day job like this is not their job. So, so you start with the people that typically sales calls into conversations. There are certain people. It could be the director of product. It could be a solution engineer. It could be, you know, somebody else. And these are people that they're the think of the people that are usually the ones that speak at conferences, right? It could be the CEO. Those. Also the initial people that would be part of, like, this kind of expert led marketing programs, but you need to make it really easy for them. You need to use so that's where a solution like ours could potentially help. Is because we're, like, we can't be taking them and, like, taking them weed through tons and tons of stuff that they should be part of, like because they have a day job. Right? Imagine a world where there is an agent that you train and say, Okay, I want to know about conversations around this and this and this. That's what I care to be weighing in on, because that's my problem space. That's where I have expertise. And then that thing goes out and figures out where these kinds of conversations are happening, which ones are worth your while, like, in terms of like, where are the communities which are really active, which has your prospects and your customers talking, and really gives you a prioritized list, and also knows enough about you, like you fed it all your presentations, from events that you've done and blogs you may have written, so it is able to basically take over things that you've already answered in some other form, and then only bring to you those things that are really interesting, that are, you know, maybe in a conversation with some influencers that have a lot of influence in your industry, and brings those conversations to you, and then you weigh in on those conversations, right? That's where, that's where, then it becomes something that you can scale. Otherwise, it's not scalable. Like I used to try to do this my CEO, and she had, like, no time and but I knew that she could really create magic, and it was just like this very ad hoc and exhausting way of trying to match her time and her expertise to where I know the market would really appreciate it. And so that's where really AI can help. Now,

Kerry Guard 37:01

I do think that's the crux of it. Like it, how do you make it easy for people? Even for me, I feel like I'm in stuck. I'm stuck in these echo chambers on LinkedIn that like I don't even want to engage anymore because we're saying, we're all saying the same thing to each other, and it's not really where I'm making an impact. So why am I going to bother I the LinkedIn algorithm. I could talk about that for days, but I feel like that's sort of the uphill battle we have when we want to get our expertise out there and yes, so and where we where we do that. So let's talk about that for a second, because one of the challenges that I have not only in how many communities I need to be a part of, because I'm part of too many, and I can't keep any of them. But how do I even one, how do I even find the right communities to engage in? You talked about critical mass. And then two, I'm not always, I'm not always privy to those. So sometimes these communities do a really good job, as they should, of sort of keeping vendors at bay because they don't want to become salesy, right? They don't want people to enter merely to sell what their products are, right? You that's why they you know, we pay to sponsor their events, so I think it's really smart of them. But how do we navigate both of those things? One, finding the communities we need a part of and then two, how do we become thoughtfully and authentically part of these communities in a way that isn't trying to constantly sell?

Anita Moorthy 38:28

Yeah, so so many good questions there. Kerry, so first of all, on the LinkedIn stuff, I have a lot to say as well, because I totally agree with you. There's this algorithm stuff is really making things worse, not better for us. So I'll talk about the LinkedIn stuff, because we're actually also building something for LinkedIn, and love to maybe have you look at it after so that's the LinkedIn part. I'll come back to that. But the first two part where, which communities should you be part of? Again, this is where technology can help, right? We don't actually have a really good index, a live index of what conversations are happening where that's something that you know needs to exist, that's a problem, that's where technology can help. That's something that we're actually trying to build, something with some solution for. But in the meantime, you know, it's about asking your customers, prospects, where do they hang out? Who do they follow? Who influences you, right? Who do you consider? Because it's not, it's not just the gardeners of the world anymore. Like there used to be a time it was just about gardeners and foresters, right? But now there are lots of like micro people on LinkedIn and on all these different places that people really respect. So talking to your customers and prospects is how you're going to get to it in the near term. But I think technology has a has a part to play in trying to you should be able to say, I'm looking to engage with these types of people, and you should be able to get a list of where that is. Yeah, so that's the first part. The second part is, absolutely, you know, Kerry, the reason I started this company is because I was not feeling good about being a market. I was kind of like how it was pre inbound, based where, where we were doing all these, like lead automation and emails and, you know, just kind of interrupting people. And then when inbound came and they said, guys, this is not the way marketing does, like, right? Like, do good content. Like, be helpful, and when people need you, they'll pump you, right? And marketers just felt like, Oh, my God, that is, that's what I've been saying. That makes me feel good. I feel like that playbook is also not bus rides, right? Like everybody's got content, everybody's gaming system gaming, SEO, they're paying people to say stuff. So again, content is something that people don't trust anymore, right? So what I want is not to infiltrate all these places where people are trying to have real communication and get real experience and insights and polluted with, you know, marketing stuff because somebody paid to be in that community. No, no, please. Let's not do that. Instead, what I want is for you to get your best people, your most knowledgeable people, those people that actually want to help and can't help your prospects in their buying journey, that actually belong in those communities. So if you're a CFO, if you sell to CFOs, you should have either your CFO or an evangelist who's a CFO right, that speaks to that audience, that's credible with that audience. Be part of those communities and be helpful there, not just around you guys, solve and the product you have. Just be helpful and build credibility, build trust. That's what we should be doing. I don't know how much we've moved so far away from that, but that's really what marketing should be doing, right? Making making it easy for the buyers, not confusing them and overwhelming them. When we stop being lazy?

Kerry Guard 42:06

Oh, I think we got so lazy we gated everything and we we just wanted to throw money at the problem. And, you know, as an SEO and digital advertising agency, I still think there's a place for those aspects, and it's a part of a pie, right? Digital ads and SEO are not going to solve all the problems, and the critical piece to this, especially for complex brands who are in industries like cybersecurity, or if you're marketing to developers or IT folks like the credibility that has to be built there, and the trust that has to be built. There has to come from real people who know what they're talking about, because they can see through it a mile away, and they don't want to be sold to. So I think what you want to be sold to, yes, they do not. So setting in a sales guy is so unhelpful, right? But to your point, every we all have these people. We all have it folks. We all have fractional you know, whether it's fractional or full time, you know, CFOs, we all have, you know, developers in our wings, right? So working with them as the voice of the customer, and then having them as part of that community, I think, is huge. How do you closing this out here? I'm sorry, folks. I know we could talk all day about this. It's amazing. Closing this out here, though, and bringing us home like there's this I'm going to speak from experience as the person who's sort of that face of getting out there and talking about what we do and being in those communities and having those intentional conversations, and very much not wanting to sell because it's just not in my body at all. However, part of my problem then, is that I end up in this sort of friend zone, right, which is so easy to do for us people who are not sellers, nor do we ever want to be. But there does need to be this moment that brings sort of that strength through. You know, we're talking about building brand. It's all well and good for people to know who we are. Like people know me as Kerry Guard. They know tea time, but they don't necessarily know the company that I'm CEO of, which is mkg. So how do we help people bring that brand to life and through in this very organic, authentic way? Where does that? How do how can we insert brand but still be those things of transparent and authentic?

Anita Moorthy 44:24

I think you're, I think the point you're trying to get to Kerry, if I understood you correctly, and it's a brilliant way to end, is create Anita. You're talking about all these things. How does that connect to, you know, my business and what I'm trying to do with my business, right? I think that's a very fair question. And the answer is, a cup like, you have to connect it to the CRM data at some point, right? So there's two ways that you could, you can, kind of connect the dots. One is, like I said. Branded search volumes, like, if you are doing a good job of being in these communities and being really helpful, etc, etc, branded search should go up, right if you have certain people that are part of this program, things like profile visits, the number of profile visits and who is actually visiting their profile, which is all data you can get is something that you can look at, and then you can take that data and put it into your CRM, so that when you see deals move, you're like, oh, like, for example, some of the people that use our product are evangelists, right? This is their job. Is they're an evangelist for a company. And they are, they go into customer meetings. They go and speak at conferences. And now, through our tools, they're also doing the same thing online on a 24 by seven basis, right? So what they want to see is, when deals are in the pipeline. They also see that, oh, this person was actually, you know, in conversation with with Mark, and this happened, etc, etc. There's some touch points with him that show up on the deals that closed. So he's influencing, potentially that, or in some cases, it may be that it, it came from, you know, when you ask on the website, where do you hear from? And say, oh, you know, I heard about you guys from Mark in this community, or whatever. So you have to have multiple ways of tying the or connecting the dots. One is asking on your website. Another is taking things like profile visits and, you know, conversations that are happening like, you know, you put a post on LinkedIn, and then this person that you've been in conversation with engages on the post that is now part of your CRM data, and it shows that that deal moved or closed, or whatever. So that's the second one. And then on the pure brand side, on the long term in brand search. So those are sort of three ways, but these other sort of subtle ways, like, if any funder DMS you and says, Hey, I'm having this webinar, and I'd like you to be part of it, or let's collaborate on a paper. That's huge. That's huge for top of the funnel, right? Because you're that influencer is talking to your audience, and now you're doing something with them. Yes, right? Think of it almost like influencer marketing, but on the organic side. Right? The influence of playbook right now in B to B world, that everybody's talking about is paying people that are talking to your audience to have you have that person plug your product. That's great, but it's the same thing as you're renting that person's thing. And if they start doing it for also your competitors, the credibility and the sort of impact could reduce. So there is, there's definitely merit to doing that, but it's kind of like paid ad. It needs to be in conjunction with or with organic. Like you have to build your own influence, rather than renting influence through influencers. And you have the people, or you should have the people right? Build your own influencers within your company. That's what I'm saying. Yes,

Kerry Guard 48:06

yes. I think that's and I love the conversation that's happening in the comments. If you're not, if you're listening asynchronously, be sure to go check that out, because I think it's really helpful that I think we're all saying the same thing, like, sellers are important, and they need to be there, and they need to be there, and they need to be part of the conversation, so they can capture the people who are ready and and where we want to start, the initial conversations we want to have are with the experts who know what they're talking about and can speak our language. And then when we're ready, and we raise our hand, yes, we're going to have to talk to sellers, and there's no avoiding that. But it's not who we want to start with. Don't cold outreach me with a seller who thinks they know my problem when they have not lived it, right? And I think that's so key, Anita, to what you're saying. And I do think that there's when you're thinking about it sounds like we almost need to think about the people we hire, right? And you could do it through influencers, to your point, if you do, if you can hire a full time person, but it almost becomes a underlying thing. You look for a little bit of, could this person have a little bit of that magical energy where I where they could be part of communities, and they could speak to our product in a really thoughtful and intentional way and help that community, and for that community really thoughtfully. Are they somebody who might want to do that and to be sort of on the lookout look out when hiring for that role that we haven't considered before? Maybe that's something we need to start considering. And yeah,

Unknown Speaker 49:37

I love that. Appreciate that.

Kerry Guard 49:39

Yeah, be

Anita Moorthy 49:40

helpful. Like, let's get marketing to the place where it's just being helpful. You know, that's what marketing is supposed to do. Be helpful, first, helpful,

Kerry Guard 49:49

first. So what is browning out our conversation? You know, what does what does that mean to you? What does it mean to be helpful?

Anita Moorthy 49:58

Um, it's about, um. Um, really understanding your customer and what's on their mind, and seeing how you can help them in their their your buyer journey, like, how can you just really help them? And it may be like, I think you'll get a lot of brownie points if you say, you know, based on what you told me. Kerry, I think you should look check out these other people. I think they will be a really good fit for you, right? I think they'll really appreciate that. And actually, it's the right thing. It's not only the right thing to do by your customer, but it's also the right thing to do for you. As a company, you don't want to get somebody who's a bad fit for you, who eventually charms because they're not a good fit for you, right? So just, I mean, I think, like, I'll tell you, I'm saying these things, but actually there's a lot of data behind it. There's a company called deal. They're an HR software company, and they said, like you, you listen to their head of marketing in their early days, five to 15% of their pipeline came from Reddit. HR. You wouldn't, you wouldn't think of it, but it did right that I spoke to a cyber security company, and he had just organically, there was somebody actually in sales that was part of a Reddit community, which was basically their ICP, and just being helpful there. And when this new cmo came, he saw that there was so much good will, and he did not say that he was not trying to be something. He's not like. He was very clear that he's a vendor for this company, but he wasn't trying to sell the company. Or he was just like, you know, answering questions that had to do with whatever their cybersecurity product was. And it so happened that after, like, because this guy had got such good reputation in this community, they started then doing webinars, sponsoring that community, doing all kinds of thing. And the CMO said to me, five to 10% of their directly, directly attributable revenue was coming from this community. So they converted sort of this organic influence that they had built. The way you go from that to real marketing is then doing webinars and sponsorship letters and, you know, events, and then inviting these people, if you had not built that organic influence, and then you did a webinar and you sponsored or you put an ad there, you may get little bit, not a lot, but because they people really like this guy and what he was for, when they did a webinar or an event, they had a huge turnout from this one community. That's how you need to go from this wishy washy community thing that I'm saying and being helpful to you know what the business cares about.

Kerry Guard 52:45

I think that's so such a wonderful case study of bringing this thing to life, of having an expert be part of the community and being there and being helpful, and then you adding that brand element over top of it, and continuing to support the community in a really thoughtful way, I think, is just That's awesome. What a wonderful way to wrap this up with a bow. It's like you're a marketer there.

I think it's really just to pull the string through for everybody. We're talking about building brand through building community, so bringing in the experts from your company or or bringing in influencers around it, having them be part of these thoughtful communities and and starting with just being helpful in whatever capacity, that means creating a circle of influence, and then adding your brand elements into that of continuing to further support that community is really what this show has been all about, and I am here for it. If you have more questions for Anita, please chime in the comments. We will come to you asynchronously, but Anita, if anybody wants to follow up with you directly, where can they find

Anita Moorthy 53:56

you? I'm on LinkedIn. Anita moorthy, a morthi is my LinkedIn profile, but, yeah, find me on LinkedIn. Connect with me. I'm also on Twitter, although I'm not on it as much anymore, or x, but LinkedIn is probably the best way to connect with

Kerry Guard 54:11

me. Yes, blue sky.

Anita Moorthy 54:15

Oh yes. Blue Sky just, I've just got on to Blue Sky is a morthi, dot, B, s, k, y, dot, social. So yes, blue sky is definitely another place that I plan to spend more time on.

Kerry Guard 54:27

Yes, oh, we can unpack that as a whole new show. We'll come back to you in 2025 with that one. It's going to be good. I am so grateful. Before we close out here, Anita, it's the end of the year 2024 I think we are all in need of a little bit of love and joy. So what for you right now is bringing you outside of work, even though we're all workaholics, because we own our own businesses and we can't help it outside of work, what is currently bringing you joy? Yes,

Anita Moorthy 54:55

so I just got a small kitten, and. And it's a Siberian kitten. I don't know if you know, but a Siberian cat is actually like a dog in a cat's body. They love being around humans. They understand commands, they do tricks, and they're like, super friendly and very gentle. And I just got a kitten, and that's bringing me a lot of joy.

Kerry Guard 55:22

I have a cat. He's totally my cat. I we've, it's been acknowledged that, yeah, I haven't had pets growing up, and so when we got cats, I was like, I can't believe I love this, but I love Yeah,

Anita Moorthy 55:37

do you have a cat?

Kerry Guard 55:39

We do. Yeah, Otis, he's here somewhere, or maybe he's outside. He's so cuddly. So yeah, and I never,

Anita Moorthy 55:46

I was always a dog person, but yeah, cats, I'm totally a cat now.

Unknown Speaker 55:52

Yeah, welcome.

Kerry Guard 55:54

Welcome to the club. I'm here for it. If you are a cat lover like adida and I chime in in the comments. We would love to hear from you. Thank you again. Anita, I'm so grateful for this conversation. Thank you to Elijah for being our producer. Thank you to improvato for being our sponsor. This episode was brought to you by mkg and improvato. And if you'd like to be a guest, DM me. I'd love to have you on the show and talk more about all things marketing and Tech. Thank you all so much. Thank you Nita, thank you Elijah, and we'll see you next week.

Anita Moorthy 56:29

Thank you Kerry, thank you very much.

Kerry Guard 56:34

Bye, everyone.