Alyssa Maker
Alyssa Maker is a global growth marketing leader who blends data, creativity, and AI-powered workflows to deliver high-impact pipeline results and scalable GTM strategies.
Overview:
In this episode of Back on T-R-A-C-K, Alyssa Maker reveals how she uses AI and team alignment to accelerate marketing execution and build global demand engines. From reducing campaign approval cycles from four weeks to three days to scaling high-value webinars that convert, Alyssa walks through strategies that blend data-backed decisions with human creativity. She highlights the essential role of BDRs in the revenue engine, the evolving place of AI in marketing ops, and how leadership thrives on alignment, not micromanagement. Whether you’re leading a remote team or revamping your GTM strategy, Alyssa offers actionable insights for moving faster without breaking what works.
Transcript:
Alyssa Maker: 0:00
I think the biggest thing is, when you're managing a global team, you don't it's not as easy. You're not an office, so you're dead. I mean, even if you are remote, you're now. You're dealing with time zones. Now you're dealing with different cultures. You're dealing with different people and how they react, how they interact, things like that. So I think the biggest learning there is everybody's different, and as a manager, you have to learn how everybody works and operates and how you can get the best out of that person. And then you also need to make sure that the team is talking to each other and aligning with each other. So it's important to make that happen via, you know, whether it's a weekly meeting that you have where everybody comes together, or you do trainings, or anything like that. It's just so important to make sure that the teams are talking to each other. I've seen it time and time again where, you know, everyone just kind of forgets, and they all kind of go off on their own thing. And that's how you get, like, you talked about, like, teams are working in silos, and then you're doing double work. You're doing things that you're like, Wait, why are we doing this? And nobody's talking to each other. So I think that is honestly the biggest key to success with a global team.
Kerry Guard 1:16
Hello, I'm Kerry Guard. Welcome back to Back on Track, our podcast that's been rebranded from Tea Time for Tech Marketing Leaders, because now we are here to help founders get their marketing back on track with some wonderful marketers who have been there, done that, and can live to tell the tale. This week, I have Alyssa Maker back. She was on Tea Time tech marketing leaders, oh gosh, it feels like many, many moons ago, where we talked about the power of ABX. We are going to touch on that today, as well as her journey of what else she's figured out of what works when it comes to marketing around ABX and other marketing channels. I'm so excited for this show. Alyssa has scaled global teams, pioneered ABX programs with 25 times higher reply rates, and built AI-powered workflows that cut campaign approval time for weeks to days. Her approach to growth is both human and highly technical, connecting strategy, storytelling and system design into one measurable motion in this episode, as I mentioned, we're going to dive into how Alyssa builds global demand engines that drive real pipeline, the power of AI and Agent tech workspaces in modern marketing ops and what leading across regions teaches you about growth, alignment and resilience. Alyssa, welcome and congrats on the new gig. How exciting is that?
Alyssa Maker: 2:40
Yes, thank you. Thank you for having me. And yes, I it's super exciting. You know, everyone says things happen for a reason, and you always want to make sure that you have the next big opportunity in front of you. So really, really thankful for the opportunity I have and to great company, and I get to really build, build that engine that we're going to be talking about.
Kerry Guard 3:01
Amazing. It's a man I had, I had Desiree Goldie on my show two weeks ago, who is all about recruitment. And we really unpacked what's going on in the market for folks and how recruiters, especially HR folks, can show up better to support people looking for jobs. What was the journey for you? Do you mind sharing? I'm sort of going off script here for a second, because I know it's the wild west out there. You've done the thing. So I just you know, could you just share it? Give us a glimpse into how you know, you said you always keep that next opportunity in front of you. So what was that? How? How were you able to accomplish?
Alyssa Maker: 3:39
Yeah, so let me start off by saying, like, I definitely think it depends too on the industry and the job that you're going after, because I definitely know people that you know, they're still looking for their jobs, and they've done the same thing I did, and it's a little bit harder. But the biggest thing I can say is, first of all, AI is your best friend; use chat. GPT, like, there is no reason that we're not using ChatGPT to make applying for jobs easier. That was one thing I did, throw your resume in there, throw your job the job description, ask them, you know, what is it that they're looking for? What should I focus on based off my resume that's going to make me a good candidate and help me make this sound better towards what, you know, what they're looking for it. It really did help me apply for a lot of jobs a lot faster, especially because job applications can take a lot of time. So I really did it in two phases. I, you know, went out and I applied to a bunch of jobs that really excited me and got me, you know, thinking. And I was like, Oh, this could be a good opportunity. And then I really just reached out to my network, like, you know, I think that's, you know, one of the best things you can do, I started looking at, okay, who do I know that's in the industry? And let me just let them know that, hey, I'm looking, and then also reaching out to people that I know that are other marketers, saying, hey, you know, is your company? How. Hiring anything like that. And you know, the biggest thing I will say on LinkedIn is that everybody is supportive because everybody's looking for the same thing. So don't be afraid to send that message, because everybody's willing to help, everybody's willing to post on your behalf, even recruiters, like I've even reached out to recruiters I never talked to, and you know, they were willing to post on my behalf or get me in touch with another recruiter. I think it's really big. It's a big thing to really keep that network and use them because they want to help. That's what, you know, that's what the good thing about the LinkedIn community is. So I kind of just went about it that way and got lucky, I guess, I don't know. And I was it, you know, I got a lot of interviews, and then, you know, I was able to interview with the company I'm at now, and went through the process, and here I am.
Kerry Guard 5:48
Here you are, here you are. That's awesome. I love the personalization piece. I don't and that you use ChatGPT. I think that's definitely, it's our own marketing, right, using our own marketing skill sets to actually on for ourselves, building that personal brand and getting ourselves out there, of talking about why us, and so I just loved how you did that so beautifully in conjunction. And I imagine the scale of needing to do that, to chat with GPT and AI, was a huge help in that, for sure. All right, I'm gonna get us back on track. Thank you for veering with me. I appreciate you real quick. Alyssa, I like to always start off with a game to sort of get us in the moment. This week, we want to do it's called speed to value. So I'm going to give you five quick marketing scenarios, and you have 30 Seconds to explain how you'd accelerate time to impact. Okay, all right, here we go. The Approval Process is stuck for four weeks. What's your first move?
Alyssa Maker: 6:52
Why is it stuck? And can I? Can I just take it and run with it?
Kerry Guard 6:57
Get out of the way. Get out of the way. People. Alyssa is coming through. Lead scoring model gone haywire mid-quarter. What do you do?
Alyssa Maker: 7:06
I will try to figure out where it's going haywire and if we need to lower the score or higher the score when. The meantime, let's do that while we figure out the problem.
Kerry Guard 7:17
Sales and Marketing at odds over MQL, quality.
Alyssa Maker: 7:21
Oof, um, feedback. You can't do anything without feedback. So I would literally just set a meeting and give me all the feedback you can and let me know and let them know that, look, if I, if I don't have the feedback, I can't change what I what I'm doing.
Kerry Guard 7:35
So you inherit a global team working in silos.
Alyssa Maker: 7:42
Plan, make a plan that every in goals. Have everyone aligned to the same goals, don't have different KPIs per person, have everyone aligned to the same goal, and then also have one plan and show them how it all connects. That usually helps get everyone on back on the same track.
Kerry Guard 7:59
Sam asks for a viral campaign,
Alyssa Maker: 8:04
ChatGPT. You know, I always start with a base. So I go to ChatGPT, I put in my audience, my goals, what I'm trying to do. They give me a base, and I take that, and I build it into something great. I love it.
Kerry Guard 8:16
I love it. Thank you so much, Alyssa, for hanging out on a little game. There first question for you, you've led to Manchin across multiple regions. As we just mentioned, we mentioned the global aspect, what's been the biggest growth or mind shift from managing global teams?
Alyssa Maker: 8:32
I think the biggest thing is, when you're managing a global team, you don't it's not as easy. You're not in office, so your debt. I mean, even if you are remote, you're now. You're dealing with time zones. Now you're dealing with different cultures. You're dealing with different people and how they react, how they interact, things like that. So I think the biggest learning there is that everybody's different. And as a manager, you have to learn how everybody works and operates, and how you can get the best out of that person. And then you also need to make sure that the team is talking to each other and aligning with each other. So it's important to make that happen via, you know, whether it's a weekly meeting that you have where everybody comes together, or you do trainings, or anything like that, it's just so important to make sure that the teams are talking to each other. I've seen it time and time again where, you know, everyone just kind of forgets, and they all kind of go off on their own thing. And that's how you get, like, you talked about, like teams are working in silos, and then you're doing double work. You're doing things that you're like, Wait, why are we doing this? And nobody's talking to each other. So I think that's that is honestly the biggest key to success with a global team.
Kerry Guard 9:38
How do you navigate the time zone differences when you're when you're talking about needing all this communication now? You got different hours in terms of what people are working; things are pretty async. How do you navigate that?
Alyssa Maker: 9:52
So I've learned, honestly, it's its flexibility. So it's one of those things where you're going to have to. Remember, like, if you want them on a call, that is, let's say 6 pm their time, or 7 pm their time, because, especially if you're working, you know us and Dubai, or, you know, any some of that big of a difference, you have to be flexible as a manager, so, you know, let them know like, Hey, you can start at 10, you can start later or the next day. You know, don't you don't want it to you don't want it to be an everyday thing, because there is a work-life balance. You still want to create that. But usually what I found is team members, when you talk to them in that way, they're actually okay. They're fine, staying that extra hour, staying, getting on that meeting at 7 pm, but I think the other biggest thing is, as a manager, you have to lead by example. So if you want your team to be flexible, especially with the time zones and working with each other, you, as a manager, also have to be flexible. So if that means that you have to get on a meeting at 8 am, if that means you need to get on a meeting at 6 pm, but also as a manager, remember work-life balance for yourself, so you don't burn out. So maybe you take a two-hour lunch that day, you know. So it's finding the balance between the time zones. But flexibility is key for that.
Kerry Guard 11:10
I love that for us, what we do is we have dedicated you pick your hours, your standard hours, you make sure your calendar reflects that, and then when we when we that'll that allows us to then create those standing meetings that we need to ensure that communication is happening on a on a weekly or bi weekly basis, synchronously, and then asanas are async hub so of like, where all the magic happens. But yeah, I agree with you of that work-life balance being so critical, and people will work outside those hours, if you ask them, but being really thoughtful of, like, trying to not it's a lot easier for them to say yes, and when it's not often.
Alyssa Maker: 11:49
So yes, yeah, exactly. And also we, you know, I used a lot of, like, loom videos, so I think that's another way as well, to be able, like, to get kind of like, I need to talk with this person, but I don't have time to have a meeting with them, or the time zones aren't matching up. So let me just record this quick Loom video. And then in their morning, which you know, you're sleeping, they now have this loom video as if they were on a meeting with you, and now they know what they need to go do. So I think a lot of video helps with a lot of that. And then, like you said, you know, we would have a meeting every week where the whole team would get together, and that would be like our one time to sync for that hour to go over. Okay, are there any hurdles? What's going on? Let's, you know, align with each other that everybody's on that meeting.
Kerry Guard 12:36
Yes, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. It's definitely tough to do, cross time zones, but it can be done. You describe yourself as thriving at the intersection of data, creativity, and innovation. How do you keep that balance day to day?
Alyssa Maker: 12:51
So it's hard because data, first of all, data, should really drive a lot of what you do, because it really does help understand, you know, where you're at, where you need to go. I know a lot, you know, I get so many requests all the time, and it's like, I think we should do this. And I'm like, But why should we do this? And it's like, well, because I think it's a good idea. And it's like, Well, does the data back it? Because what people don't realize is, after you understand what you want to do to really create something that's an experience, that's innovative, that's really going to cut through the noise, that doesn't happen in 10 seconds. And yes, we have it with llms, it makes it a lot easier to get a base. I'm one of those people that, if I have a base to work with, I can then take that and really create something. So I that's what I use llms for. Like, I create the base, but I still have to create. You still have to create something that's going to speak to the audience you're going after, and it's going to accomplish the goals that you want it to do. So that takes time, that takes you know, you really need to think about that. So you can't; you need to focus on the data to know where to start. So maybe the data says I've got an issue with this segment, or the data says I have an issue with this industry, and that gives you your starting point. But then you've got to give yourself time to also then create. And when I say time, I'm not saying go spend two weeks to come up with a campaign, like give yourself a day to really put together what it is you want to do, why you think it'll work. And I think the other piece, too is really understanding, like, have goals of what you think it will drive. So then you go back, bringing the data back in, what do you think this campaign will drive? And you can use industry benchmarks, you can use past data, but if you have an understanding of what you think something is going to drive, it's going to make that story so much better than when you go to say, like, hey, we want to do this campaign. I want to do this crazy thing. I know it sounds crazy to you, but look at what I think we can get from it.
Kerry Guard 14:49
Data is so important, and I think it helps to sell ideas for sure. So I love that that is sort of the backbone, and I think that's where the creative ideas actually come from. Is because. Once you can understand the market of where things are sitting or not sitting, then you can see the empty space that you get to fill, and you get to go create and light it up, essentially. So yes, data being that backbone to the creativity and innovation. Tell us about a moment when aligning marketing and sales truly changed business results.
Alyssa Maker: 15:23
So I will be okay. So my last company before, before we went through, like, this big global change, we were regionalized, and we had, like, we had an off-site with, like, our management team, is what we called it. And so we had the head of sales, we had me, who was running marketing, and we had our BDR director of BDRs, and we really connected on that off-site. And was like, we want to create this winning culture, like we want to work together. Let's stop the blaming, let's stop the finger-pointing. Let's figure out how we can work together to get to this goal. And we started, like, when we got back from that offsite, we made a commitment to say, Okay, let's really take the take our teams, and let's, like, really build one team, one team, one goal. So we all had one goal. We were all tied to revenue. We all focused on pipeline. And it was, if there was a problem, it was, let's talk about it. Let's fix it together, and let's see what we need to do. If you need help, I'm going to help you. Vice versa. And so that, I mean, our pipeline started going up. We started seeing more pipeline. We started seeing more wins. We had the best quarter in the US that we've had in a long time, since I started at that company. So when you really build that winning culture between the really the three, because there are three engines that operate the revenue team, you've got sales, you've got BDRs, and you've got marketing. And I think it's important to understand it's not two engines, it's not sales and marketing, because BDRs is an engine of its own, and without like BDRs, is the middle ground between sales, the middleman between sales and marketing. They're their own thing, and they have such an important job as well, because they're what's basically taking what's marketing is doing and then converting it to then hand over to sales. So if that engine isn't operating correctly, then you're not running like you're not the whole thing isn't working. So I think that was like the biggest change that we had was really focusing on, how can the three teams come together? How can we help each other? And in the end, it did increase the pipeline, because we were all focused on the same thing. We all wanted the same thing.
Kerry Guard 17:41
I'm curious about the BDR piece, because I feel like that's been one of the and you, you know better than me, Alyssa, I feel like I'm just hearing this through the grapevine, and it's whispers. It's not even, like, very loud, but I'm, and maybe it's just me feeling this way, and it's not real. So you're going to correct me if I'm wrong, it's going to be great. BDRs, I feel like that is a role that's been sort of on the chopping block lately, of not feeling necessary. Is that a fair is that fair to say? And if so, why? I mean, you sort of mentioned it being that bridge. But at what point does that role become necessary in terms of stage, and what happens if it's not there
Alyssa Maker: 18:28
Yep, so you're not wrong. You hear a lot, especially with AI, because you hear there's a lot of tools out there that are coming out with what they call the AISDR. And I, I'm in love with that. I like, I am like, this could be really good, but I'm not looking at it as a way to replace a BDR team. It shouldn't be a way to replace the BDR team in AISDR with the way that I look at that is, you marketing is producing so much, there's whether you're doing an account-based strategy, a lead scoring strategy, whatever it is, there's all this intent that's happening. And the BDRs are only have so much capacity to like, follow up. And we always say like, more and more and more do more, more and more. So the only way they can do more is to automate. And we know automation is like, dead when it comes to like, it doesn't work. You need to personalize like it's so, especially if you're upper mid market and enterprise, like you can't just throw somebody in a sequence and say, yep, this is going to work like. You have to personalize that message to the person, understanding what are their challenges. What are their pain points? Who are you talking to? You know, is there anything that you can connect with them on, even based off the intent that they're showing? Um? So I think, from an AI standpoint, the AISD R piece that comes in, like, before that, that comes in like, maybe, like mid score, we'll say like, they're engaging, but maybe they're not. They don't have this high intent. But we want to start. Reaching out to them on this, like, personalized level. I'm not going to really call it one-to-one, because AI can only read from what you're giving it, you know, the AISDR. From what I know, it can only read from the intent that you're giving it. So that helps start it, but it can't, I don't it can't finish it. Like, you still need the BDR in there to really have an I've always said with the BDR and marketing, marketing is the one-to-many engine. If I'm going after an account, I'm going after I'm not going after one account. I'm going after multiple accounts that either fit an industry, or I'm going after personas within these accounts, or I'm going I'm going after a personalized subset, but it's still you're talking like 500 accounts or 1000 accounts. When a BDR gets an account, they're going after one account. So when they reach out to the people in that one account, they're that one-to-one. So marketing is one-to-many? We want to engage the account. BDR is that one-to-one; they want to engage the people within those accounts and your DMU that you're going after. And so it's AI. It can help. It can be the middle ground between marketing and BDRs to help engage more people, so that when the BDRs get to it, they're a little bit more warm on some of the contacts. So it makes it easier for the beat, because right now, the biggest issue with BDRs is connection rate, and it's not always there. It's not their fault. Like, people don't answer the phones as much anymore. People aren't replying to emails. The buying journey has changed, so it just helps warm them up a little bit more, so that when they go to reach out, that connection rate can be higher. But it's such an important piece, because if marketing is creating all this demand and there's nobody there to really personalize and push it forward, then you have marketing and sales, and then what? Then you're going to really have a fight, because sales is going to say, well, you're giving me all these crappy leads, and it's too much volume for them, and they're focused on trying to, you know, convert these and not selling. And you don't want that. That's, you know, you want them to focus on selling and so, and it also helps get us away from, you know, the same conversation I hear is, we want more hand raisers. We want more high-intent requests. So it's, you know, those should be the icing on the cake. Those ones, you know, we used to years pre-COVID, used to have like the inbound BDR, the inbound SDR, and they would be the ones that would they're just focused on inbound. Well, outbound is so much more important today because of the buying journey and the way, you know, things have changed. Inbound, you want to be brand awareness there. You want to make sure you're getting in front of them way earlier. So the high intent request piece, too, is you can't, you know, you can't just rely on that with a BDR, too. And I, I've heard a lot of companies, you know, they're going where inbounds go directly to the AE, so they even skip over because they want their BDRs to focus on that outbound and that ABX approach and those target accounts and things like that. So it's definitely still needed. I've heard the same thing you're hearing, like, Oh, we don't need any more with AI, it's needed because you still need that human touch.
Kerry Guard 23:11
yeah, and it's different than an SDR, I'm having some of these challenges even with some of my smaller clients that I'm working with from as a fractional marketing leader for them, where they have these leads sort of just sitting there, and there's nothing we can do with them, because sales is busy closing, and marketing has done all the automation it can, and now a person just needs to, like, pick up the phone and call them and or use from a B to B perspective, go on LinkedIn and start having a conversation to figure out, you know, we know that this is what you're looking for. We know that this is interesting to you. You've interacted with our brand to some degree, like where, where's the hang up? Are you just not ready yet? What's, what's in your way of moving forward with this and just being able to have those conversations, to even just understand the market and the customer is huge, especially if you're going after big accounts and that, and if you have a really high price product like you, I love how you're talking about these three things working together, and I see what can happen when you don't have that BDR piece and the collapse of These leads that go cold and just what a waste, what a waste. Wait, I'm going to find it. Just looking for where I was, I got totally engrossed. Many B2B companies still chase leads instead of revenue. How do you help teams make that mind shift today?
Alyssa Maker: 24:39
So, you know, the a lot of people think the more volume I have, the better, you know, the better pipeline, the better revenue I'm going to have. But what they they forget, or what they they don't look at, is like, if you really take a step back and again, use the data and look at the data, you really break it down, and you look at the conversion rate of. Those leads to, then you know whether you use an MQL, MQA, whatever, and then to demos, and then the pipeline, it's, it's low, and if, even if you compare it to industry benchmark, it's like, think about what it is like, are you even meeting that benchmark, or how far off are you from that benchmark? So if everybody's tied to revenue, and you work backwards, then you start to really think about the channels and what's going to drive because the other piece too is every channel, when we think about leads, then we look at the chant every like marketing channel as it needs to produce leads, and not every channel is going to produce leads. Every channel is meant for a purpose. It's meant for a specific stage in the journey, and if you understand what it can do at that stage in the journey, then you can start to understand if that channel is working or not. So a great example is LinkedIn. A lot of people think LinkedIn is like, I need to use LinkedIn to drive leads, to drive conversions. Well, LinkedIn is not built that way. First of all, the LinkedIn social media platform, I think we all forget that it is a B2B social media platform, and it operates like a social media platform. Its algorithm wants people to stay on LinkedIn. They do not want to have people click and go off the site, and they actually deprioritize that. So it's important that you can still have those links for the people that are interested. But don't just look at I put out this ad and I got this many leads from it, or I put out this ad, and I got this many clicks, and it led to this many leads. Look at the engagement rate. Like, are people reading your ad? Are they engaging with your ad? Are they reading your document? Are they watching your video? Are they going through your carousel? Like dwell time is a thing now, like, are they engaging with what they're looking at that is so that's just as important as the lead, because then what you can do actually with LinkedIn is when you get pipeline and you get opportunities, and you can take those opportunities and you can say, Okay, which of these accounts did LinkedIn influence? And you can, you can define influence in any way. So I define influence as they either click, so they engage, they click, they watch the percentage of a video, anything like that, or they had at least 50 or more impressions. And I use between 50 and 100, it just depends on your industry and kind of where you're at with impressions. But an account you're talking about, one account, had 50 or more impressions, then you can say, Okay, they're engaged in some way. And then we can say that this ad or whatever influence this account, and then you can track what the ROI, how much pipeline did it influence? And I think that's the key thing with some channels, is some channels are going to directly create a pipeline, and some channels are going to influence the pipeline. And you need to be able to track both and understand both so that you know how your channels are working. And then what it allows you to do is you can focus on pipeline and revenue. Now I can focus on my channels, contributing to the pipeline and revenue. I have goals. I have ROI goals for each channel, for every campaign that we're doing. But if you're just focused on leads, you know, I used to always tell people, would you rather have 100 leads that you know, 20 turn into a pipeline. Or would you rather have 50 leads where 40 turn into pipeline? You know what? At the end of the day, what matters the most. Leads are still an indicator. It helps you understand where you're at. But if your conversion rates are high and you're you're still seeing what you need to see, you're going to start to realize that the quality, it's quality over volume, the more quality you can bring, the less leads you actually need.
Kerry Guard 28:50
Yeah, and I love how you're separating too in terms of influence. Because I do think there's sort of this misnomer that everything should lead to a lead. Everything should be measurable in terms of, you put money in, you get money out. And there's, I had a great conversation yesterday with somebody who was saying this, so my client has a business coach, and the business coach was like, I know for Google ads, especially like you put money in, you should see the money come out. And it's like, yes, but, but money that we put in, like, three or four months ago is now generating the conversions today. And so we could certainly try and go back and, like, marry all of that up, but it's about the compounding influence over time that matters, because for all we because it doesn't just impact paid it also impacts organic people are seeing ads, and, you know, from a from a demand gen standpoint, and then they're searching or going to an LLM, and we're now, we're getting conversions and closing conversions from chat, GBT, so, like, it's a system that's all working together, and it's not always one to one, so making. Sure, that you understand. Like, and then my client actually backed me up. Love that CEO gets it. And he was like, I had a conversation yesterday with somebody who drove an hour and a half to come sit down with me, and he said, it's because I look like the guru, because he's seeing our name and our face everywhere. So clearly I know what I'm talking about, and that matters to me more than this. One to One, we put money in, we get money out. Aspect, Yes, yep.
Alyssa Maker: 30:26
And, you know, it's interesting because I, you know, I did an analysis. This is two years ago, and I, you know, CEO, and everyone was like, Why don't we just double our spend on Google, like we're, you know, why don't we just double the spend and we get more, We should be putting more money here. And I was like, I can go to him and just say no. But then I was like, that's not going to work. So I said, Let me look into it. And so I did an analysis, and I said, if I doubled the spend, we spend 10k a month right now. And let's just say, for easy numbers, I don't know exactly the amount we got, let's say we just got 100, we got 100 MQLs, demo requests, whatever. If I doubled the spend that and now we're spending 20k a month, I would only see a 10% increase. So we're going to spend 10k to get 10 more. Like, people don't realize it's not one-to-one. It's not a, you know, like you said, Put money in, get money out. It's it's not because, and that's not even your it doesn't even mean your quality is going to go up. So it doesn't even mean that extra 10% is going to be good quality. So you even have to take out that part. And I think, you know, I try to have the conversation, and it's a hard one. I think it's it's hard for people to understand, because awareness is a big one, and it's hard for the C-suite, especially, to understand the importance of awareness, because there is no direct line to revenue. You can't directly attribute brand awareness to revenue. And so they want all the money and everything spent on the things that are going to directly attribute to pipeline. What are the sources? Let's put more money there, this and that. But if you really, if you really understand the buyer's journey, and like, where buyers are going these days, we know, like, from research, it's done by Gartner, by Six cents. All these research reports that come out, we know that, like, first of all, 80% of the buying journey is done before they even want to talk sales. You know that that's one thing. Then we also know that, I think it's around 60 or 70% of them will choose the vendor that they have they interacted with first. I'm not saying in a sales conversation, they could have brand from a sales, maybe they saw a webinar, maybe they read an article, they found out about them first. They usually go with that vendor, because if you think about it, that's who they're going into. That's who they're basing okay, I might need this. What am I looking at? What do they do? What other people are out there that's doing it? So now all everybody's being compared to this person. So if you do the same thing as this person, well, they've already had this great experience with this person. So if you do the same thing, why would they? You know, you're not as high as this. You know this first person. So, but to and to get there, to get that is, awareness. You have to put money behind brand awareness, through thought leadership, through events, through getting your name out there, through PR, the things that don't always directly attribute to pipeline. But if you spend the time and you spend the money there, so that extra 10k on search, I'd rather put that into awareness, because I guarantee you I'll have a bigger return than it would if I put it in search.
Kerry Guard 33:34
The interesting thing, too, that I love about what you can there is one way to attribute some brand awareness, not all of it, but one of the one of the key indicators that I love to look at, and I would love to know what your leading indicators are. One of my favorite leading indicators is brand search volume, or more people searching for you. It's like the easiest lift thing, because branded search terms convert the highest set of anything you could be doing, which is why it's so important. And this is a different podcast, but it's so important to bid on your own branded key terms, because if you don't, somebody else will, because they're just that high of intent. So branded keywords are a great way to measure that awareness lift. What other leading indicators do you look at for brand awareness?
Alyssa Maker: 34:21
I think that's a great one. I've done that. The other ones I've done are when you go to networking events, when you go to events like, How many people know you? Like, ask them, Hey, have you heard of us? Yes, no, you know. You'd be surprised. Like, I've gone. We used to go to this one event. It was a Microsoft event every year, and the more we really focused on awareness, when we would go to this event, it was more people knew who we were. When I started, nobody knew who we were. Like, we'd go there and be, oh, I've never heard of you. What do you do? And then as the years went on and we really focused on awareness, we'd go there. We're like, Yeah, my CEO said I needed to come talk to you guys. Yes, that's another indicator that your awareness is out there. Like people are listening people, you know. The other thing I think a great way is always through a survey, you know. And I'm not talking a customer survey, I'm talking like, go to your prospects, go to your target account. And it could be a one-two-question, one-two-question survey, like, have you ever heard of the company name? Yes or No. If so, where have you heard us from? You know, and that's such an easy way to also understand. Like, if you do that every year, is your awareness increasing? Is it going down? You know what's happening there? So I think between those three things, I think you have a good indication of is your awareness working? Is it not working, you know? So, yeah,
Kerry Guard 35:47
What's your favorite campaign or initiative that turned into measurable pipeline impact, and why did it work?
Alyssa Maker: 35:54
So the best campaign I've ever run is a high-value webinar, and I can't take all the credit. I did get this idea from a fellow demand gen marketer that I was talking to, and he was telling me about a campaign he had run and how it did so well. And I was like, You know what? I'm gonna try this so a high-value webinar is not like your typical webinar. It's a webinar, but you are bringing on an external speaker. You're not having anybody from like your company speak because, let's be honest, nobody wants to attend and hear you talk about you. And the other thing is, there's an incentive. That's the high-value piece. There's an incentive for attendees, and it's themed. So the first one I ever did was summertime, and we did Ray-Bans. So everyone that attended got a pair of Ray-Bans. And when we did the one in the fall, everybody got a pair or an NFL jersey or soccer Jersey if they were in Europe, because that was that was bigger there. But you can also do industry-based. So I've done one where it was specific to the machinery industry. And so we did the LEGO sets that build, like the machinery, not even what they're called, yeah, technically, this stuff, so you can have it all, like, themed out and whatnot, but it gets them like it, you know, kind of like, oh, I want to go. You like that? That seems interesting. So give them a reason to attend. Then you got this external speaker, and you have this webinar, and we've would have, I want to, we would always have over 100 registrations to this webinar, and we'd always have a 50% attendee rate, and so, but the other key thing was the BDRs were an integral part in this, in this campaign, because we would target our target accounts, which I am 100% in like in agreement with, have target accounts because you want to align marketing and sales. Have target accounts because then everyone's aligned on the exact same accounts. And there's no arguments about, well, I need this, and you're you're over here, everyone's aligned on the same accounts. So we would have the BDRs actually also reached out for registration. So we would do some marketing, we would do some emails, maybe some ads. You're not spending a ton of money there. We would have the BDRs reach out to the accounts that they're already working. So it's important to have this, it's not like a one-off thing that we're asking them to do. In addition to their work, they are they're reaching out to accounts that they're already working. And the biggest thing is, you know when, when you're outbound, you never want to ask. The first thing you say is, do you want to do you want to have a demo? Do you want to talk? You like it the Give, give, give method, give, give, give, and then ask for something. So what better way to give value than say, hey, we have this webinar. We've got this industry expert, and we're also giving away this if you attend, would you love to join? You know you're giving value. You're giving a lot of value there. So we would have the BDRs register, and we'd have a competition with BDR. So if they reach so many registrations, that person would then also get the gift that we were giving away. Yeah, so, and then what would happen is, after the webinar, we would have the BDRs follow up with the attendees and give them the gift, because then what happens is, now the BDRs are starting that really, they started the relationship with inviting them. They're continuing your relationship by giving them the gift, and then they can start to talk about what was on the webinar, or really dive into understanding the person and what they need, and the company needs, and stuff. So what it does is it's a really good way to build to build the relationship. And we've had, like I said, 50% attendee rates and 10% conversion into the pipeline. So it really is a good way, especially in, like, a target account, if you have target accounts and stuff, it helps BDRs build the relationships that are hard to build.
Kerry Guard 39:55
Yeah, yeah, they are. I mean, that's half the battle. Is it? Half the battle is just getting your foot in the door, and then once your foot's in the door, to have those opportunities to give value over and over and over again. I'm a big proponent of paying it forward. I think that's the best marketing you really can do, is to show up to your ideal customer and figure out how to support them one way or another, over and over and over again. It will come back to you, maybe not directly, but definitely indirectly. I for my for my company at mkg, like one of my favorite things to do is to connect with people who are building side hustles, whether that's for marketing ops or writers or whatever, and just forward them business all day, every day, and then they just tell people about us, and then that business comes back to us in such a wonderful way that didn't require me having to go out there and try and talk people and like sales pitch them, because marketers hate that with a fiery passion, and I don't blame them. So I love that, and I think that's a really wonderful way to just get out there and give value and have the BDRs from that human-to-human aspect work. BDR's people, we're small, yep. Make it happen.
Alyssa Maker: 41:09
Ai, can't do that. So if you have any, I mean, they're not the ones that are going to go build that relationship there they you know, you still need that human touch. So it's a good example, too, of why BD the BDR piece is very much needed. But also why it's, it's its own function. It's, you know, it's its own thing, and the importance of what it can do, the importance of the alignment with marketing, but also the importance of the alignment with
Kerry Guard 41:33
sales. Well, you just took my next question. So that makes it easy. I'm going to ask it anyway, in case you have anything to add on. But the question is, how do you make sure AI accelerates creativity instead of replacing it?
Alyssa Maker: 41:44
Yeah, so I think, as a marketer, I've heard many times now, and I've had, you know, my bosses tell me, like, can we just do this quicker? Can we get this out quicker? Like, how can we do this faster? And, you know, I think it's important. We're all human. We can only work so fast, but we have the tools now that can help us work faster. And, you know, AI is, it's like you're your assistant. You know, it's much easier, especially as a campaign or as a demand gen marketer, one of the biggest time sucks that I've ever had was creating briefs, creating the ins and outs of what I need for ad copy to then send to the content writer. Because I the amount of time that I spend doing that, I could literally just put that into ChatGPT, get what I need, edit it, get it to a point that I'm okay with it, and then I can send that and say, Hey, can you tweet this? Can you make sure it's on brand? From a writing standpoint, this is good to go; that alone can speed up copywriting, from you know, I've had it take four weeks to three days to two days, so that's a great way. And also, as a campaign person, you know what you need. You know you know your audience, you know the goal of your campaign. You know what you're trying to accomplish. So instead of having this back and forth with a writer, have the back and forth with yourself. Get it to where you want, where you're like, I'm happy with this, so that then whatever the writer does, it's still in line with what you've created. Now they're just going to make it better. So I think AI is especially as a demand gen marketer, it really is. It just It helps you, it speeds up what you can do. And, you know, I talked about, like, the campaign planning, you know, Cam, if you have a base to work with, it makes it a lot easier, so you can move a lot faster, instead of starting from a blank, you know, scratch piece of paper. So use AI. Use AI to give you somewhere to start, so that now you can create a campaign in a day instead of a week. And then, I think it's also important to understand your tech stack in AI, because there are so many technologies out there now that are also implementing AI. I think a great one is HubSpot. HubSpot is, you know, all the AI functionality in there. If you have HubSpot, they have write your subject lines, and they can write your email. They can create your landing page for you. Anything is easier. I know people would say like, Oh, but I still have to do 50% of the work. But you don't have to do 100% of the work, yeah, 50% of it's done. So now that 50% you have to do may only take you a day or two days, instead of doing 100% might take you a week. So, so true. I think in just in general, AI, everybody is, they know about AI, and it's one of those things that like, especially as like marketing, CMOs and things like that, they know that they we can move faster with it. So as a marketer, I used to tell my team at my last company, I was, like, Whatever you do, like, keep learning AI, because you're not going to lose your job if you know AI. Like. Like, really understand how to use AI, to move faster, to do things better, to do things quicker, to be your assistant. Because that's what people want. That's what that's what they're looking for.
Kerry Guard 45:10
One of the things that I love, that you're saying, and I just want to, like, double down on, is, not only could it be your assistant, but as you build on it, so especially when you're writing for campaigns and ad copy and and landing pages, if you put all your if you help have chat or Claude or Gemini or whatever, help you build that positioning and messaging as that foundation to your point, right, that foundational piece, and riffing on it and really dialing it in, and even like going off and creating something totally different and cutting back and coming back and feeding that into the system, you will work like, three times faster in everything that you're saying, because you've done the the important work up front of dialing all of that, giving it all of that really good initial data. So yes, yes to everything you're saying. And do do that heavy lift up front too, because that'll also speed you up. Alyssa, I could talk to you for literally days. You have so much information. You've clearly been around the block. You know what you're doing. Hats off to the new company sweep that's hired you. They are so lucky, so lucky to have you. My last question is, you said you love designing, go to market strategies that scale and inspire. What does inspiring leadership look like to you, especially in today's high-pressure marketing world?
Alyssa Maker: 46:29
Honestly, it's alignment. I think, you know, I, when I talk about creating an inspiring and go-to-market strategy, it's creating something that, as a company, we can be proud of. It's creating something that we are all aligned to. I am competitive by nature. I love to win. So for me, success is my motivator. So when I win, when I see something that does, well, that's what motivates me to keep going. But I can't do it by myself. So we all have to be aligned. We all have to really be focused on one thing, and then who doesn't love you know, when you hit your goals for the quarter, and the CEO comes out and is like, hell yeah, to everyone like that is, to me, what it means to have a strategy that can inspire, that people can get behind and believe in. And that comes from everyone, and it comes from the top down, but it also comes from everyone doing their part. So it's not just C suite, you know, saying it, or, you know, whatever. It's also everyone doing their part, owning their role to make it happen.
Kerry Guard 47:30
So I love that. Oh my gosh. Alyssa, where can people find you? They want to learn more. They want to follow your journey. Where you at
Alyssa Maker: 47:38
I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me there, and that's probably a best way to start.
Kerry Guard 47:46
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We are all on LinkedIn. That's how we it as a wonderful, connected world over there, and I am here for it. Love it. Thank you so much. Alyssa, if you liked this episode, there are three others from Desiree Goldie that are similar, each about fixing hiring with systems that deliver DIB and retention. Mark Bliss was on the show last year. We talked about ABM to AI scaling B to B. SAS and Theresa Potres, where we talked about treating the job hunt like demand marketing, just as just as Alyssa did. Wonderful. I'm so grateful if you enjoyed this episode of Back on Track, follow the show on LinkedIn for clips and other conversations about how marketers lead with clarity, creativity, and courage in an AI-driven world for.
