Gwen Lafage is VP Brand & Content at Sinch and also the host of the Tech Marketing Podchat.
On this episode we talk about:
Are you ready to join the movement? Join our free slack community where some of the best demand marketers in the world share knowledge on demandgenerationmovement.com.
This episode is brought to you by our great sponsors Albacross, HockeyStack & Riverside.fm.
Gwen Lafage is VP Brand & Content at Sinch and also the host of the Tech Marketing Podchat.
On this episode we talk about:
Are you ready to join the movement? Join our free slack community where some of the best demand marketers in the world share knowledge on demandgenerationmovement.com.
This episode is brought to you by our great sponsors Albacross, HockeyStack & Riverside.fm.
The best b2b SaaS companies in the world have made the shift towards a demand generation strategy focused on revenue and revenue. And Europe is falling behind. What about you? What about? Isn't it about time you made the shift? On this podcast, we interviewed leaders at the forefront of modern demand generation to help you make the shift and join the movement join the movement, we need to drop the MQLs and focus on what matters leading you into the future. This is the demand generation movement. And this is your host, Adam Holmgren.
Adam Holmgren:Okay, welcome to the demand generation movement. And this time, it's my pleasure to welcome Gwen Luftfahrt. VP brand and content that cinch and also the host of the tech marketing pod chat. Thank you for joining us today again.
Gwen Lafage:Thanks for having me, Adam.
Adam Holmgren:And when when I think of brand marketing in Europe, your name had been the first one to pop up into my head for a long time now. So when I started this podcast, I knew that I wanted to have you on it eventually. So I'm super happy that we are finally here.
Gwen Lafage:Thank you. That's, yeah, what an honor. Happy to talk to you. Yeah.
Adam Holmgren:And in this podcast, we usually talk about like the definition of demand generation. But I wanted to hear from your perspective as a VP brand. How how do you view the difference between brand and demand?
Gwen Lafage:So that's, that's a good question. I guess, in my mind, the brand part is maybe more on setting up some of the foundation for the story and, and the narrative, right? And what do you want your brand to stand for? And? And how do you maybe explain, explain what we do, right, so setting up some of the foundation for the demand gen. team to kind of activate that and use some of those relation. So there's a lot of crossovers right between like the different team because some would say that maybe that also belongs into product marketing. And same in like understanding target audiences. And new personas is that like, part of like, branded product demand, and that sort of product marketing. So I think I see it all as, as a one, one team, but I do see in brand, like the the positioning and the story that belong there setting from a visual identity perspective as well, I think that fall under brand. And I maybe will go one step further, which is like, I feel in tech companies brand, that there's rarely is like a team that is like a category building team. They might be in some companies, but I feel that kind of falls on the brand as well. It's like before maybe setting up the brand, like defining what the category is, and how you want to kind of own it as a company. So I see that in two Interbrand. And I think, for me, there's a difference between brand and branding initiatives, or brand campaigns, which then kind of like, maybe are very close to like, demand campaign or demand gen campaign, because that's about trying to tell that story. Right.
Adam Holmgren:I think that's very, very interesting, because I feel like when we usually talk about brand, in a demand setting, we usually talk about this, as you said, brand awareness campaigns, and maybe not the actual positioning and like the brand narrative. And Would would you say it's needed for a company to kind of have that put down before you start your demand efforts? Or how do you think about when developing that?
Gwen Lafage:Yeah, I think to me, that's one of the foundation right? Obviously, in like fast growing tech companies and I see it for example, with, with St. We've, we've grown so fast that our story has changed, right? Like we've acquired a bunch of companies, we need to revise our positioning and redefine who we are. That doesn't mean that we're going to stop any branding or demand and activities. So you still need to run with those Why do you like adjust and adapt what your story is? So we kind of doing both in in parallel it's the same as like defining exactly your target audience and doing that kind of work I know get accept you've done a really great job on like defining your your personas, right like you didn't stop all their activities, whether you were doing that right like so. I think it's it goes in in parallel, but when possible, it is better and stronger to have like all those strategic foundations done right I see it as like, company's strategy then kind of brand dig strategy, then activation and demand gen efforts are part of the activation. And
Adam Holmgren:I guess that's key for fast growing tech companies to kind of continue to run all the time, even though you have to change. Exactly. I think you as me see all of these, you know, cool SAS companies over LinkedIn, we have gone we have Shealy, Piper that have really strong brands. And from your view, what are some of the things you think they have done to build those brands? So well, and some of the things we can take with us, I guess?
Gwen Lafage:Yeah. So I think Ganga is a really good example. And I think, beyond their look and feel that I guess it's recognizable. Whether we like it or not, it's like another story, I guess. But at least it's recognizable, and what they've done extremely well. I mean, many things they've done well, right. But I think they have actually tried to define own their own category with their sales intelligence, right. Like they really started like before, or in parallel of building the brand if they define and build that category. So I think they've done that pretty well. And and did it yet we see him through social but they also did it like through the press and through kind of analyst and peer review sites. And so they've done a good job there, where they are extremely strong, and then is social, right, like, I think they are fantastic with content. And in using their own tool, right. Like we we talked about drinking our own champagne, and seems I guess at Gong, I think they're doing really well, right? Like they they give insight from like listening to goals and sales calls, and they build content based on that. And then they have like an amazing way to get people in the team to share all of those insights, right? And to kind of amplify the content they do, which makes them very visible, which of course visibility and awareness participate in having a strong brand, because then people know about you, right? But yeah, I think they've, they've done a great work with the foundation, fantastic. Well with the content, and then in the distribution, especially through social and organic, social and their team. They've done like a really good work there. So to me, yes, they are a really good, good example.
Adam Holmgren:Yeah, I feel like many of these companies are also so good at empowering their teams to share things about their brand about their products. And that is a way for them to reach so many people, I guess, yes, do you do you have a similar like draft Diddy or whatever add scenes to like to work with how employees talk about you as a brand or so
Gwen Lafage:I will say not fully yet. And this is definitely something that we want to kind of put in place more. And it's a tricky one, right? Because you want people to want to post things, and feel knowledgeable enough that they feel confident that they can they can post things about the company. And also, it's a personal choice, right? Like whether or not people want to build their personal brand on LinkedIn, or if they don't want to be visible. So I think it's not really something you can force but you can definitely facilitated by like sharing what you're doing. And like showing to the rest of the company, what are the things you're doing in the marketing team and what they could be sharing? Right. But I think there is also something to say about some of those brand and why we feel like they are at the top of the game. It's a lot easier, I think to market to marketing and sales. And those audiences are on LinkedIn. Right? And in a way we are the audiences for those products. So we see them as the example of having strong brands because we are the audience. Right? Well, like it's a bit like it's not fully objective, right? There are other amazing brands that we not the target audience for then maybe we don't see as much because they they adopt a different tactic. But yeah, I mean, when you market to sales and marketing definitely I think organic social is kind of a really good way to do it. Yeah,
Adam Holmgren:I feel that is spot on, like certain products or brands are easier to digest also for an audience that is sales and marketing. So that is Yeah, it's pretty obvious that we view these brands as successful I guess.
Gwen Lafage:Exactly. And I think like I saw in my previous job working with with an agency right one of our client was commonly called snowflake, and they are really big success story in in the US and they're they're not targeting sales and marketing, right, like, I mean, I guess marketing became one of their target audience, but they mostly target more technical personas and their strategy is maybe not so much or like they are employees sharing Organic social, but they also have a pretty strong brand. They just did it very differently. They have like, I guess adopted some of the visible way to do it through like billboard in Silicon Valley. They own events, both from like, user events to like consumer events. Their CEO wrote a book, he has been like in a lot of like, press around him. So this, this, they've also built a strong, recognizable brand in a slightly different way.
Adam Holmgren:That's a very good point. And I think that's funny because I, I didn't even know what slowest snowflake was before I saw these billboards, and thought they did that very well. And then I researched them for a bit and realize that they are super big and super successful in their space. So it's a very, very valid point, it's like you, if you're not visible as much on social, you can still be a very competitive brand in your space. I guess that's Yeah, yeah.
Gwen Lafage:Yeah, I think we are like, I mean, from myself as well, right? Like, we are a bit bias from like what we see on LinkedIn, because we do spend time there. And it's the same people in the same brand, and the same kind of so called influencers that we follow. And it's a small circle, right? So in a way, we get kind of bias on seeing those as being like the most successful powerful brands. But that might not be the full truth.
Adam Holmgren:Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And I would say like one of the most important things, at least for myself, for our company for revenue growth is, you know, increasing brand awareness, creating a strong brand. And we really see that having a big effect on our demand and our on our revenue. But it is really hard to get your management team and to get your CEO on board, you know, to put money on more brand activities versus more maybe lead gen activities. And from your perspective, is there any way to measure brand and the importance of brand? Or how do you view that?
Gwen Lafage:Yeah, it's a tricky one that comes back all the time, right? Like, how do you measure brand is like, it's one of the things that, that you know, when you do it, right, and like you can see it working for them, some other people, right? And if you're not, if you need to convince someone is a bit tricky. I think I like to keep things simple. So I think it's really hard because it's a long term game versus like, immediate kind of lead gen type of activities. So you can't really measure it in the same way. And you can't really measure it with some of those short term metrics, because it's a long term play, right. But I think web traffic branded search, to me, I kind of like the two metrics that are easy enough to use. And that I think, like if you were to get on the heap to write and of course not, you're doing influence those two metrics is not just random, right? Like, you can also have like a really good SEO playbook. They will really play into like, branded search. But then I think it's just contributes to it right? So I think I'm, I'm a big, I mean, I'm not against like, murdering, right. And, of course, I'm kind of would love to get have get really good kind of attribution to all the different marketing activities, but I feel our overall that marketing teams spend way too much time tracking versus doing things. And so I'm like, keep it simple on the tracking, spend less time doing that do more time actually doing some stuff, right, like doing those activities?
Adam Holmgren:Yeah, I think that's spot on. And I I know you have worked that you know, an agency before and work with a lot of big companies, would you say have it been easy to explain to all those companies, how important that is with with a strong brand and to create brand
Gwen Lafage:home. So, I will say that usually the companies that that come to us right, like they they have a need or they are at a moment in their life when they see the need to make a change, right, like so. So the agency, we did different different things from campaigns to websites to kind of like brand on the positioning side as well as like the design right. But usually, companies will do kind of a redesign or like a brand refresh when they come to a certain point in the life of the company and they decide internally they want to do it right like so. But yes, it is sometimes difficult when I came to the Nordics. Why I want to move to Sweden, right? And we, I tried to get get to this client, I think yes, there, it was a little bit more difficult to convince on why you need to spend the money on why you can't just hire like a one freelancer or do it in house and just like put a few colors on. Why needed to be so true, right? And the importance I think God like showing what the what a strong brand is, right, which is not obviously just your logo and your colors, right. But like that foundational story and how you create the the playbook and the kind of guidelines for consistency? And how that can apply to everything you're going to do. And you need to have a pretty strong foundation to be able to apply it everywhere.
Adam Holmgren:Yeah, and maybe we can deep dive into that a bit more. Because I know, you have a pretty big marketing team at scenes. We have a pretty big marketing team at get except, but we still use agencies for certain things. When would you say it's, you know, it's relevant to maybe hire an agency to do certain things? And when should we do it in house? Do you have any of those? Yeah, how do you do it that sense?
Gwen Lafage:Yeah. Yeah, I think like we do both right. I think like, I'd mentioned and I think in most of the companies that I work with, we they did both right, like we had agency and we work with in house teams. To kind of like, yeah, align there. I will say there's this different thing. There's like a is scaling, opportunity and like scaling and resource, right? Like, when you're in a company in a growing company, you never have enough reason, design resource, right? It's always kind of a bottleneck, I felt like. So I think like when you need to scale things up and deliver way more than I think it's a good, a good way to scale this agency, because they have all the different. They have all the different resources and talents, right, like, available. So you don't have to hire like UI designer, UX designer or graphic designer for an event. Like, you need so many different kinds of design competency. That sometimes it's easier to get percentages of like people in agency rather than hiring five different person in house, unless you find that like Swiss Army designer that can do it all. But those
Adam Holmgren:Exactly. And sometimes I feel like that like that agencies are such a good way to sometimes challenge you, because you get so stuck in your way sometimes in house, you need someone to just come in. Maybe you can think this way instead.
Gwen Lafage:Exactly. So I think that's the other point, right? Like one is scale. And the second one to me is creativity. Because when you are in house, you use your certain way of doing things you don't always question and you just like, it's a bit political as well, right? Like you in the company. If you're a designer, you depend to like someone and you won't challenge your boss for like every request they have, right like so I think when you want to have a creative input, and some more people to brainstorm and give ideas so that you can lift the level of creativity of your marketing, I think then it's also great to have agency for certain project. So big creative campaign, for example, I
Adam Holmgren:completely agree. Can you describe how the marketing team look at scenes? And maybe specifically where the kind of brand function and the main function set and how you work together? Because I think that's very interesting for our audience.
Gwen Lafage:Yes. So we just made like a big restructure of the marketing team AdSense. So I'll tell you about the new structure and how we thinking about it. So with West special about centers that we have acquired a lot of different companies. And we are overall organized by business units. So separate business units have the separate goals, and the separate marketing teams. But I'll talk about the kind of enterprise and messaging business unit and a bit like on the group level at the same time, how we organize. So we have a CMO, CMO, and in his team, there's like, I think five different team one, which is like PR and AR one that is product marketing. Another one that is now brand and content. And then then it's split into regional teams. So we have a North America team, and a kind of like rest of the world team that also include three teams mea, lat, and APAC India. So those are kind of that's good. of how we split. So in a way, the let's say comms are like PR ARS plus branded content plus product marketing are more on. I've been on a on a separate level, I guess like, and then the regional team are closer to customers closer to the sales team closer to execution. And the way we see, I guess, demand, it's to me is like the, the kind of central team or let's say, the Brandon content team, as well as product marketing, with the content they produce, their role is to kind of like, try to drive that demand. But the implementation of campaign is done on the regional level, and then the region are also there to capture that demand. So I think that's kind of a little bit of the split. So we don't have a central demand gen function anymore. We used to have a dependent team, but we don't. Oh, and I forgot one team. Sorry, which is like the more second website, which also is kind of like at the central level. Yeah, pretty big.
Adam Holmgren:Just kept? No, I think that's interesting. I think we have a very similar setup, get accept, we also have a regional demand teams in US versus Europe. And I would like to hear your point of view on that. Do you think it's, you know, the SAS tech market is different in those kind of regions, US versus EU? And that is why we're splitting it into that way? Or what do you think that is?
Gwen Lafage:Yeah, for us. So we So essentially, is kind of a pre large tech company with a pretty large portfolio, our portfolio has different pockets. So not every market has the same needs for certain other products, we also very much have an enterprise lead ourselves lead type of organization, instead of like a self serve SAS organization, we have a team like a business unit, which is application when there'll be maybe more SAS in a way and and kind of like capture demand through more of a digital marketing approach. And to like the typical, I guess, demo trial product, lead type of approach, but in the enterprise team, it is not really done in that way. Right? Like we can't, you can't just like sign up for like a free trial of like all cinch products and then buy, try it out by yourself, and then buy in two months, right? Like it's it doesn't work that way. So I think that that change, and that change per product, and our portfolios, and needs are different per market. So I think that's one of the big reason. And I think you really need to kind of be as close as possible to the customers and work with the sales team. And those teams are split brain regions most of the time, right? So I think it makes sense that they have like, marketers supporting them on the ground.
Adam Holmgren:Hey, everyone, I just wanted to stop you from many to tell you that this episode is sponsored by Riverside, one of the leading podcasts and video recording platforms. I was actually using Riverside before they become a sponsor, so when they reached out, it was an easy decision. When I started this podcast, I was simply using zoom to record my interviews, and from there edit the audio as good as I could. But after try their platform for the first time, I was blown away. It's as easy to use as zoom, but I can record a much higher quality audio. And what's amazing is that it doesn't matter where my guest is located. It sounds like they're sitting with me in the same room. And after the recording, you can download separate audio tracks that upload separately on all guests computers, which means the Wi Fi issue is non existent, and it's easy to edit all tracks. And today Riverside is used by big names such as Gary Vee, and companies like Spotify and the New York Times so check them out you'll find the link in the description and now back to the episode would you still say that your brand team is supporting the regional teams when they create like brand awareness campaigns or are you working more more with positioning and the narrative or are we also in there supporting them with the more detailed campaigns
Gwen Lafage:Yeah, we support them a lot like I think we we basically we are discussing some of these things right now actually on like when it comes to content, right, like who produce what type of content and I think like the kind of central content team is definitely responsible for some of the top of the funnel so leadership team that can be used in every single market and they need to establish US, Alice, kind of a sea bass leader, and some of that that type of campaign and content will be the same across the globe. Right. So that makes sense that this is driven by the central team, where maybe we'll need to produce specific case studies, right. And that needs to be done by some of the regional team when they are like closer to the customers. And, and maybe a lot of content come from the product team as well, right, like the product marketing team, some fit into kind of more, I will say, high level campaign. I'm like, top of the funnel, middle of the funnel like type of content, where like, maybe some of the more bottom of the funnel type of content might be closer to the region. Yeah, that's, but yeah, it's it's tricky, right? Because it definitely, it also crossover, right? So there's no perfect Oh,
Adam Holmgren:exactly. When you grow larger, it's also harder to it will cross over even more, I guess.
Gwen Lafage:Yeah. And I think what's important, right, and this is why we set things up in that way and send now and I think, as you grow, you have to realize that not one team of one, yeah, small team within the marketing team can be responsible for it. All right, you can't just be in control of it all. You have to empower local teams to kind of like, go and run right, and produce content and be like there to support their sales team, and do what's right for the market. And they will never, in an especially that's true when you sit in different region, right. Like I think, well, it's it, we're very international. And we have like people in the kind of central team that sits in US and Europe, but I think a lot of it might be driven by your you Europe. We're like the North America team, they know the market better. Right. So I think that's important to keep that knowledge and and enable them to really know the brand and know the story and and create content that will help.
Adam Holmgren:Right? Yeah, it would be interesting to know, like, how much of all the campaigns you're running? How much do you think is more kind of brand related versus product related? That you do? Is it different, like on new markets? Or how do you think around that?
Gwen Lafage:Um, I think it's always well, I guess it's, it's so good question. I'm trying to think I don't, I can't really define the exact split right now. Also, because as part of a campaign or program, right, you should have a you should have content and, and part of the campaign dedicated to each stage of the funnel or right, you might have a blog post that is very top of the funnel that talks to or is the first step to like another piece of content that drive people that is maybe more hands on about the product, right, but they might belong to the same type of campaign. So it's a tricky it's a tricky one and then there's definitely like, right now for example, we just launched like a report with IDC, so we sponsored like report was IDC, the analyst firm and that they made with some of their key analysts and that in a way that report is very top of the funnel awarness prove working with a very well known analyst on what the market is bad and what the evolution is and but then we have like a webinar that we're doing with the same LLS that is like in North America, where is going to talk about some of those findings and then we'll bring on a customer's they will like talk about their journey right? So in a way those two work together they're part of the kind of similar campaign but they play different roles.
Adam Holmgren:So yeah, like that and kind of not differentiating between brand awareness and product and but more seeing it as a full customer journey where we make sure we have campaigns in top funnel middle funnel bottom funnel. Yeah, I like that definition.
Gwen Lafage:Yeah, and then they might be some campaigns like we working on on a brand video. Therefore four cents that explain what we do because it's like a lot of people still wondering what what it is that we do. So putting together a very simple video that explained what it is we do. That definitely falls more into like a pure brand. Play right on like explaining what it is in order to kind of increase that awareness and and drive the traffic but but yeah, and then there may be there is no like, next step that is driving to kind of a specific product. It kind of is more of a generic, more generic, I mean, yeah, more kind of, I don't even know if it's thought leadership. It's more kind of self serve in some ways, but it's like okay, we need to explain why we do it. So
Adam Holmgren:I feel like that's always the case. Given how big the company gets, we need to explain better what we do. So it's great that you're here. But I wanted to also dive into a little bit because you have been interviewing a lot of marketing leaders in your own podcast for for a while now. And so I wanted to see if you have any, like, memorable episodes or learnings Yeah, that you that you remember now that you can share with us where you where you actually learned something?
Gwen Lafage:Yeah, I think like, I mean, I had a lot of great, great discussion. Unfortunately, I had to post the podcast because I guess my since day to day job took over a bit, and I had to prioritize. Hopefully, I get started again. But yeah, I mean, I had some really great discussion. I think I started with the Nordics, right, like talking to a lot of people in the Nordics at a fantastic episode was with Frida right from from get upset. She was one of the first episode I did. And more recently had a letter, let me see a great discussion with Silvia, who is at think so another Swedish tech company, also good chat with Liam who is like in, in France, Liam boogers, really, we had a really good discussion about OKRs. And how you really set your team for success, and also how you make every person of the marketing team accountable for revenue, which was a really interesting discussion.
Adam Holmgren:Yeah, I can imagine. But I, now we are one and a half month into 2022. And all of us are, of course, going like crazy to try and hit our goals for the coming year. What are some of the things that you and your team, you know, are excited to try in 2022, that maybe you haven't done before? Something that you are something that you're excited about for the coming year?
Gwen Lafage:Yes. So one thing that I'm excited about and never really tried to get off, like, do almost since I started at cinch is to launch like the company podcast. And it's interesting how it's a lot easier when you do it yourself, and kind of reach out to people. And and just like, and plan your own episode, right, like, in a way that that part is easy. We're in a bigger company, it's way more complex. So this has been like a journey trying to get like get to the right, get booking the right guess, I guess like it's kind of a way, way more difficult. So launching the podcast, definitely looking forward to doing that. The other thing I'm really excited about is that, so we acquire a bunch of company last last year and some of the year before and we are constantly dating our brands. And so as part of like also the brand, right, like, roll is what is our brand architecture and like how do we have all those brands working together? Right? Like what do we do with all those brands we acquire? Do we keep doing like retired? How did they work together? So I'm excited about that, that type of project on how we kind of keep building the personal brand, throughout, like the product brand that we probably going to keep and how we're going to like, together with this company, work on some potential joint type of content that can really position us as kind of this new leader in the sea bass industry, because we have all this capability that we didn't have before. So that's another thing I'm excited about.
Adam Holmgren:That's awesome. And we're looking forward to listening into the podcast and hopefully soon it will be fun.
Gwen Lafage:Yeah, exactly. It's it will be about customer experience, right like the podcast will be called CX education. And it's it is about like how companies engage with their audiences and all the different ways they can engage with their audiences and how that really helped them delivering a better customer experience and and obviously improve well sell more and improve how they work with their customers. Right keep them happy.
Adam Holmgren:Sounds awesome. And as a as a final question then, for today, I wanted to hear from you if you have a company or a person in Europe that you think are crushing it either in demand yen or brand or marketing in general and someone that we can follow and and learn from.
Gwen Lafage:Yes, so I thought about this ray like trying to get us maybe think of it outside or definitely some good outside of the Nordics thinking like, let's try to kind of branch out like this to other countries. So I mentioned Liam, who is in France, so is a good, good person to reach out. I sewed about Andy collagen is in Vienna, I believe. And I think now he's like a fractional CMO, I believe to other companies, but he has a good experience working with tech tech company and can be a good person to talk to. And I sewed about zeyneb lychee. I don't know if you know her. She I think she's located in Barcelona, follow her on on LinkedIn. I think she has some really valuable content and insight will be a good person to have on the podcast. Yeah.
Adam Holmgren:Perfect. Thank you, Glenn. It was super fun to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining the demand generation movement.
Gwen Lafage:Thanks for having me and keep up the good work in promoting demand gen, right.
Adam Holmgren:Like to keep up with you.
Gwen Lafage:Thank you. Thanks. Bye.
Intro:Thank you for listening to this episode of the demand generation movement, the podcast where you can learn everything about demand gen and how to make the shift towards revenue. Are you ready to step into the future and join the movement? Subscribe on demand generation movement.com. This is your host, Adam Holmgren, signing off