Whether you’re a CMO or entry-level – every marketer learned a great deal in 2020. We pivoted, adapted, learned, and then did it all over again: as we found ourselves facing a global pandemic that appeared, and escalated, quickly and unexpectedly.
Each day brought new challenges for businesses across the globe. Declining pipelines, sharp drops in revenue, budget cuts, furloughed staff and even redundancies.
Yet throughout 2020, here at SaaStock, we continued to do what we do best: we kept the knowledge flowing. We brought together hundreds of industry experts, who shared their stories and the strategies they were using to keep afloat (or grow) amidst the pandemic.
Online or in-person, we’re here to help you scale your SaaS. Here are some of our Top Marketing Sessions in 2020, from industry-leaders sharing insights spanning across various territories and industries.
In this article, we’ll highlight the following sessions:
- Marketing in times of crisis – Meagen Eisenburg, CMO, TripActions
- Your marketing plans are now irrelevant: Adapting to what the buyer needs during COVID-19 – Randy Frisch, CMO, Uberflip
- Re-think the funnel: High-touch engagements in a low-touch world – Tricia Gellman, CMO, Drift
- How to solve your customer’s problems in SaaS marketing – Jen Lombardi, Owner of Kiwi Creative
- Tackling the struggle of marketing automation implementation – Mike Korba, CCO, User.com
- Hit Your Number: How To Fast Track Your Outbound Sales and Marketing in Europe – Henry Schuck, CEO and Founder, ZoomInfo
Marketing in times of crisis – Meagen Eisenburg
Meagan Eisenberg is the CMO of TripActions, a travel management company for businesses and business travelers. Meagen is a transformational leader, advisor and marketer managing customer acquisition to adoption and advocacy. She’s seen 14 successful exits since 2011 as an operator and advisor, including 3 IPOs and 11 mergers and acquisitions.
Meagen has advised more than 25 companies in the last decade, some of which have gone out of business, meaning she’s seen both sides of what it takes to build & scale a company. With this expertise behind her, Meagen led a keynote session at SaaStock Remote in 2020.
What can we do to drive revenue while cutting costs?
“If there’s no wind, row.”
She describes how TripActions decided (inspired by the quote above) to focus on their core when the COVID-19 crisis hit: customers, product-market-fit for the current environment, cash preservation & employees.
Your marketing plans are now irrelevant: Adapting to what the buyer needs during COVID-19 – Randy Frisch
Randy Frisch is the CMO and Co-Founder of Uberflip, a content experience platform that endeavours to empower marketers to create content experiences at every stage of the buyer’s journey. At a time where we’ve lost many of the face-to-face interactions we were so used to, digital content experiences are more important than ever.
Randy describes how at the start of 2020, many marketing plans were completely wiped out. We found ourselves having to adapt to what the buyer wanted, depending on how the buyer is/was going through their journey amidst COVID.
That feeling you felt of having lost control? Everyone felt that. Overnight, everything was cancelled. Postponed. And COVID-19 took over all the messaging; placed at the forefront of every communication.
So how did Randy deal with going ‘event-less’? With losing the ability to get right up in front of people? And how did he manage to optimise and control the digital channels Uberflip’s on: from first to last touchpoint?
Re-think the funnel: High-touch engagements in a low-touch world – Tricia Gellman
Tricia Gellman is the CMO of Drift, a revenue acceleration platform that uses conversational marketing and conversational sales to support companies reach their growth and revenue targets. In line with Drift’s mission, Tricia is passionate about marketing and sales alignment. Before Drift, she worked with Salesforce for nine years, helping to build their demand generation function.
Tricia joined us at SaaStock Remote last year, where she spoke about how we can continue to have high-touch engagements in a low-touch world.
Digital transformation skyrocketed in 2020. In fact, it went from being a ‘nice-to-have’ to totally essential in order for businesses to keep going. In her session, Tricia deep-dives into how you can discover how to ‘think outside the screen’, optimise different channels, and double-down on customer experience and communication.
How to solve your customer’s problems in SaaS marketing – Jen Lombardi
Jen is the owner of Kiwi Creative, a marketing agency for small- to mid-sized B2B software and technology companies looking to develop an authentic brand, increase lead generation and enable their sales team.
In her session at SaaStock Remote last year, she shared how to solve your customer’s problems in SaaS marketing:
“People don’t buy products…they buy solutions.”
Sound advice that applies pre, during and post any pandemic. Yet many SaaS companies still focus their marketing around the technical specs of their software.
Jen shared her knowledge on how to shift a brand’s messaging in a way that will solve the customer’s problems throughout their unique buying journey.
Tackling the struggle of marketing automation implementation – Mike Korba
Mike Korba is the CCO and Co-Founder of User.com, a full-stack marketing automation platform that helps businesses grow faster, from their marketing through to their customer service.
Last year, he joined us on the stage at SaaStock Remote, where he explored the struggle of implementing marketing automation.
If you want to grow your business – Mike knows where to start: by coordinating communications between your marketing, sales and customer service. But proper implementation of marketing automation technologies can be called anything but easy. The best thing to do before creating the first automation path is to have a good plan.
In this session, Mike delves into how to approach the marketing automation implementation process in a way that saves you time and effort, as well as access the full benefits of that automation.
Hit Your Number: How To Fast Track Your Outbound Sales and Marketing in Europe – Henry Schuck
Henry Schuck is the CEO and Founder of ZoomInfo, a leading business-to-business data platform, founded in 2000. ZoomInfo became a publicly traded company mid-2020.
In this session at SaaStock EMEA, Henry gets technical. An expert in the matter of data, he was named on the 2020 class of Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list. With all the data regulations and continuously adapting laws – how did ZoomInfo modify its sales and marketing strategy to navigate Europe’s newly established rules and regulations? Henry shares his story here, as well as goes into detail on the improvements you can implement to make sure you’re maximising outbound sales and marketing in Europe, and of course, the best practices for adhering to GDPR policies for contacting prospects from different cultures.
Want to hear the experts’ stories a year into COVID-19? Or interested in deep-diving into their tried and tested strategies and frameworks?
Get your ticket for SaaStock Remote, our global online conference to help you gain traction, grow and scale your SaaS. Kicking off with the Content Sessions, 23-25 February: everything you need to know and everyone you need to meet to equip you with the tools to become an empowered SaaS leader.
