Ever listen to someone who offers so many fresh perspectives that you can’t wait to binge on everything they do? Then you’ll love Pam Didner!
She’s an incredible B2B marketer, speaker, and author. She has a wicked sense of humor. And she speaks in such practical terms that you walk away saying to yourself, “oh my God, yes… she’s totally right!”
We knew Pam would offer some amazing insights on an age-old topic: sales and marketing alignment. That’s why Cari and Dana brought her onto the latest episode of our Marketing Gets Real podcast. And even though Pam says she has many days where she’d rather sit on the couch and watch Netflix rather than record one more podcast, we know you’ll love everything she has to say.
Take it away, Pam.
“Sales and marketing will never be merged 100%”
There it is! Pam starts right off by getting to the heart of the disconnect between sales and marketing. “You have to understand that we’re not coming from the same place,” she says. Marketing pros focus on the top of the funnel and see themselves as nurturers. Sales reps look at the bottom of the funnel and see themselves as hunters. “You’ll never merge, but you can stay close enough together that you can work in parallel,” Didner says.
One way marketers can start closing the gap is to rethink the way they handle webinars. As soon as the webinar ends, split attendees into three segments:
- Existing names from existing accounts
- New names from existing accounts
- New names from new accounts
Then crawl through your CRM (or ask your database admin to do it) and look for matches within your top 100 strategic accounts. When you find a match, send it to sales so they can follow up with a new lead or new business unit within one of their target accounts. “Then, the next time sales asks, ‘what have you done for me lately,’ you can show them what you’ve done,” Didner says.
“Go out and gather some gossip, my friends.“
No, that’s not what Pam really recommends B2B marketers should do to achieve job security. But it does speak to a larger concern: ongoing tech industry layoffs and ever-shrinking marketing teams.
As marketers move to new jobs amid a challenging economic environment, their new bosses will expect them to deliver results quickly. How to do it? Pam recommends something she calls the “90-day impact.” “Look for the low-hanging fruit and quick wins,” she says. “Maybe the company’s demand generation efforts have stalled out. So, help them launch a fresh campaign quickly. Perhaps the sales team’s content is outdated. Create new content for them fast.”
“You need a point of view, everyone!“
How often do you hear a podcast guest say, “don’t buy my book?” That’s what Pam said about her trove on AI in marketing, which she originally wrote in 2019, before ChatGPT was even a thing. (No worries, she’s updating the book now, and then you can buy it.)
The magic of generative AI, she says, is that it can help you answer almost any question, and the more specific your prompt, the better the answer. What’s the catch? “[AI] is still based on sources that are pulled from the internet,” she says. “Gen AI won’t tell you how you will do your campaign differently. You will.”
The key for marketers is to develop a point of view that’s unique to you and your business. “That’s something that cannot be taken away by anyone, even ChatGPT,” she says.
“A CPA that becomes a marketer. I don’t know if that’s really good or really scary?“
Great question, right? Listen to the complete episode and learn how Pam’s career shifted from finance and operations to sales and marketing. Discover why she says that “any kind of writing or content creation is self-abuse.” And find out how a show she binge-watched on Netflix led her to a story written back in 1839 (with modern translation provided by Google, naturally!). Intrigued? Listen now
Connect with Pam on X and LinkedIn.
Binge watch Pam’s YouTube channel.
Explore Pam’s career.
Learn more about Unreal Digital Group.