Investing in Brand Awareness for Long-term Business Evolution and Growth
Todd Wells shares his vision and focus on brand awareness for Acumatica, and how those efforts directly work alongside demand generation.
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>> Welcome to Pipeline Visionaries.
I'm Ian Faiz on CEO of Caspian Studios.
Today, our show is brought to you by Qualified as it is every day.
Go to Qualified.com to learn more.
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Today, we're joined by a very special guest, Todd.
How are you?
>> Excellent. Thank you for having me.
Excited to have you on the show,
excited to chat marketing,
ecumenica and everything in between.
Let's get into it. What was your first job in marketing?
>> It's going way back.
It was actually in the cellular industry.
I did fraud prevention,
CRM, some product management,
some net present value modeling,
sort of ran the gamut in and around marketing,
but that was my real entree to it.
>> Flash forward to today,
what does it mean to be CMO of Acumenica?
>> It means that I'm responsible for
a very broad portfolio of marketing,
and a very exciting, very fast growing company,
and it's been a great progression to it.
>> Let's get to our first segment,
the Trust Tree, where we go and feel honest and trusted,
and you share those deepest,
darkest marketing secrets.
What does Acumenica do?
>> Acumenica is a born-in-the-cloud ERP software company,
which is basically finance software.
We sell into the SMB space,
especially relative to particular industries,
so construction, distribution,
manufacturing, retail, and then a long tail,
certainly have industries beyond that.
We're unique in that we are channel-driven,
and sell only through partners.
>> We are going to get way into that today,
always a fascinating topic.
Tell us a little bit more about those customers.
Who's this buying committee?
What do they look like?
>> Within SMB, it certainly varies.
For companies on the smaller side of SMB,
it might well be the owner of the company.
For companies that are larger within that segment,
it might be VPs of finance or other.
But we typically see two scenarios.
One are companies that are growing beyond QuickBooks
or evolving beyond QuickBooks capability set
and need a full ERP solution.
The other one is really companies that have had
a legacy on-prem ERP solution,
whether for growth or sophistication reasons
that realize they need to get into the cloud
and to a modern ERP solution.
>> Yeah, so such interesting triggers there,
such a clear decision of when to move.
I mean, that's not that clear, it's still very cloudy,
but pardon the pun with cloudy.
But yeah, those are very interesting triggers.
>> Yeah, no, it's super interesting.
Just in terms of what we see relative to
win loss analysis and other,
the progression of these customers into these scenarios.
But it also enables us to target well into those segments
and to find those prospects.
>> So how do you structure your org
to go after those accounts?
>> Yeah, so I think that my org structure
is relatively traditional, if you will.
We've got communications, events, product marketing.
I do manage the inside sales or BDR team,
which I think relative to some companies can be unique.
But I think that the standout is that we do have
relatively significant resourcing
on the partner marketing side.
And so we have a whole partner marketing
enablement capability, it includes a number
of different services, a number of different
capabilities for partners.
But it's something that's critically important for us
because we are so in line with them in terms of an ecosystem.
We really want to create a flywheel with them
in terms of marketing and outreach.
Meaning that we can be more than we can be by ourselves
in leveraging them and then leveraging us.
And so, organizationally speaking and resource speaking
in terms of investments, the partner marketing piece
is substantive for us.
>> Yeah, so what does inside sales do
if you have such a strong partner go-to-market?
>> Yeah, so an interesting one.
And it sort of gets into the accountability
of what we do as well.
And so something that's, I think very interesting
for Accumatica in terms of marketing is that
I don't truly carry a quota, but I in effect carry a quota,
which is marketing is responsible for driving 30%
at minimum of what are our net new licensing wins.
And so on a quarterly, and on an annual basis
in terms of the forecasts and the goals from finance,
marketing is responsible for driving 30% of those net new
demands.
And so, we do operate in terms of driving that demand.
Demand generation has been core to what I've done
in the company, what we as a marketing team have done.
And so, whether it's the whole lead to MQL
to opportunity process and that qualification,
the delta is that once we've qualified prospects
as opportunities, they're transitioned to partners
rather than someone within the organization
following up with them.
- Yeah, and zoom back out what's your marketing strategy?
- So it's really, I mean, it is, in terms of outcomes,
it's really demand gen focused.
I think that we have covered a broad swath,
I mean, one of the things that we do within demand gen
is we focused very heavily on paid search.
But I think that one of the things that's interesting
in terms of strategy and outcomes at this juncture
within the company's lifecycle is the criticality
of awareness.
And so, Acumatica is very much a challenger
within the ERP space.
There are much larger incumbents than ourselves.
And so, one of the things that, while I've been
predominantly focused on very pure demand gen
in my tenure at the company in the last six months
or maybe a year, we've progressively been dipping
our toes into just brand awareness as well.
And so whether that's airport advertising,
whether that's connected TV,
whether that's sports sponsorships,
but all of those are really something that we've understood
from the marketplace, that there's, especially from partners
and then speaking to partners,
what are they value, what do they want?
They are very focused on wanting more brand awareness
from Acumatica.
- Yeah, that's so funny.
It's so funny because in marketing conversations,
we're always talking about the importance of brand to,
the CFO and CEO and all those people.
And they're always like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tell them to talk to a pipeline.
But then hearing it from your partners and saying like,
no, brand is super important.
Is a funny turn on its head?
- Yeah, and it's, in our scenario,
I think it happens interestingly very far down the funnel.
And so where it's really critical
and where the partners are asking for it
is really that convergent to win.
And so when they're in a final on sale situation
or a head-to-head situation in the CFO,
ultimately needs to determine if they're going to
rebase find their company on a finance cloud solution.
And the name and the brand is very important.
- Yeah, and the other things sort of unique about
selling SMB for this,
and how you think about driving pipeline, obviously.
Every sale is emotional in some ways,
but SMB tend to, as an SMB,
we tend to be a little bit more emotional
for some of our purchases.
- Yeah, and I don't, I think that one piece of that for us
maybe is just the positivity of the brand,
genuinely speaking.
And it's something that I honestly focus on in my role.
I think that we genuinely live it
in terms of our company and our culture
and the people within it.
But we do have a very solid NPS or Net Promoter Score
within the industry of 32.
To my knowledge, that's a leading figure.
But that's really sort of part of even honestly
how we go to market, how we communicate
with our partners, with our customers.
And it's something that I think is deeply ingrained
in who we are, but it's that positivity.
It's that brand, it's a sense of community.
And so one of the things that we do on an annual basis
is we have a summit for the last few years
and for the next couple of years.
So we have 3000 or so people, for example,
at the wind resorts in Las Vegas for the Ecumatica Summit.
But it's really, it is a genuine in my mind
community experience where those customers,
those partners, the Ecumatica employees really assemble
and talk about what is the product roadmap,
how can we improve as a community,
how can people learn from each other.
And so I genuinely consider it very productive
and very positive.
- We put so much work into our user conferences
and in B2B, so, so, so, so much work
and trying to make them bigger and better and all that stuff.
But it's an interesting, it's interesting to think about it
and not even as a marketing investment anyways.
Are you really marketing, you shouldn't even be in charge of it.
- Yeah, well, I think that I'd probably make a distinction
of marketing should be in charge of it.
I think it's an interesting question
as to where the budget would sit given that criticality
of execution, but yeah, you could debate that.
- All right, let's get to the playbook.
That's where we talk about the tactics that help you win.
What are your three channels or tactics
that are your uncutable budget items?
- Yeah, and some of them I've mentioned already,
but for us, I would say our number one uncutable
is probably paid search.
And so we have developed what I consider
true expertise in paid search.
It accounts for a substantive proportion
of our demand generation and results.
And so that's top of mind always for me.
We're very on top of optimizing that very persistently
and constantly.
The second one is the partner marketing and ailment piece.
And so that's really critical to our ecosystem,
how we're trying to develop in terms of breadth,
in terms of reach, in terms of our partners,
truly onboarding Accumatica,
and their effectiveness in marketing and selling it.
And then I would say that progressively
it's that awareness piece.
And so how can we really, as the challenger in the space,
make the, give sort of recognition of the brand,
give confidence in the brand.
But that's relative to life cycle or life stage.
That is very important to us at this point.
- So if someone sees an Accumatica ad on search
and they click through and they get into the funnel,
or do you route them to a partner or how does that work?
- No, so they would come to us.
And so they would, if they were a form fill,
they would come to us as taxonomically a lead.
We would progress them, pending some scoring,
algorithms to an MQL.
When they hit MQL, we qualify them through the BDR team
within the marketing team.
And then once qualified as an opportunity,
we would route them based on industry,
based on geo, based on other criteria
to who would be the most appropriate partner
to convert it to a win.
- Very cool.
So with regards to that paid search part,
obviously that's not something that you can do
with partners, that is just something that you're doing,
to drive deals.
But if you were to say like an organization
who maybe doesn't have a very strong partner org,
they might not be running paid search at all.
That being said, how come and do you think it is?
- Yeah, and so it's an interesting question.
I typically think about it almost in the reverse fashion,
which is because of the mandate for us to be able
to pay for us to essentially do the demand gen
for 30% of the net new licensing wins,
then paid search is a critical component of that for us.
The situation that we typically run into
is that the partners that are doing paid search themselves,
how can we reconcile what is their spend with our spend
to ensure that we're not either overlapping
or ultimately costing each other more money.
And so, well, for some of the bigger partners,
we'll engage them in a one-on-one conversation
and speak about search terms, for example.
We've actually created and published a document
for our partners in terms of counsel
as to how to not conflict with each other.
And so, yeah, that's something that certainly does come up
as part of that vehicle, but for us,
it's something that I think that we've found
very common ground with partners
and we've been able to reconcile it pretty well.
And some of what we do is we also have
within partner marketing enablement
and we've got different capabilities and services
within that, one of which is we provide
a marketing automation platform for our partners
and so they can host data, they can execute campaigns,
we give them HTML email templates, for example.
We also use that same platform
for the dissemination of all of our product marketing content
for them to use within their sales cycle.
We have other things like lunch and learn programs.
We've got social syndication capabilities
for partners to use, but one of them,
which is moderately traditional in my mind
is also joint marketing funds or JMF.
And so to your question about paid search,
one of the things that we've found partners do quite well
is actually paid social.
So we tend to be the 800 pound gorilla or other
for maybe lack of a better expression in the paid search space.
But then in terms of a model,
what we've found is effective is then how can partners
then complement that or use different channels
or vehicles that suit their expertise.
And so we've found paid social is certainly one of those.
And in certain cases and with certain partners,
we can also co-fund that through
the joint marketing fund type program as well.
- Any other, any interesting other campaigns
that you've done in your partner or channel marketing
org in that second bullet?
- Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
I was thinking about campaigns.
I mean, we do a lot of competitive campaigns
and I think that those are often successful.
I think we do a lot of install base
or conversion type on campaigns and those are successful.
I honestly think the things and maybe it's relative
to my background as well,
but I tend to find not the campaigns is interesting.
I tend to consider more of the journeys interesting
like the sales sequences.
And so how do we automate, how do we scale,
how do we develop the consistency of that prospect
and customer experience.
And so where I've spent a lot of my time
is really thinking about then and back to your question
about inbound from paid search, for example,
how do we personalize the website,
especially based on industry or audience
to that person that's inbound to accumatica.com.
How does that then translate into what is a journey?
And so how are we nurturing?
How are we maturing that individual
and that company through that pipeline?
And then ultimately, what becomes a very clean handoff,
again, sort of taxonomically between what are our journeys
to our sales sequences.
And so then how are we promoting the product marketing content,
for example, that we think is most relevant to that stage,
to that particular industry.
But I tend to take far more pride in what is aligning
that experience across the website,
the journeys and the sales sequences
than necessarily any campaign, if you will.
- And I think that that's like the modern B2B marketing,
I think at this stage is, I think campaigns
were very 2000 late or something.
But I think it speaks to sort of this
more modern persona based, industry based,
hey, I wanna know what my peers are doing,
I wanna know what my friends are doing,
I wanna know what people who are like me are doing.
- 100% agree.
And one of the best vehicles for that,
that I think that we've really focused on
and developed and expertise in are the customer success stories.
So number one, you actually have to have
positive customer stories, and in fact do that.
So that's sort of a prerequisite, if you will.
And so I think that again, back to that positivity,
I think that we've got almost innumerable
customer success stories that we can go after
and that we can publish.
But it's really working those into the website,
it's really working those into the assets
within those journeys and within those sales sequences.
Because I think to your point,
I mean, people want to see other people like themselves.
And so they want to see common pain points,
they wanna see common solutions,
they wanna see ROIs and timelines.
And all of those things become very tangible
and very explicit, if you can hear them
from others like yourselves.
- Yeah, it's all the things that end up on the deck
that they pitch to their boss need to all be things
that you've already created, right?
What do you see as SMB?
I should say too, I mean, the S part can be really little
or it can be really big.
So what do you sort of define as that?
- Yeah, I think that's a fluid definition
across different companies.
But for us, what it means is companies with revenue
typically between 10 and 500 million.
- Okay.
- And so do we have customers that are on either side
of that certainly?
And we've got several billion dollar customers.
But in terms of that core sweet spot,
it tends to be that 10 to 500 million revenue mark.
- Cool, yeah.
One, and the reason,
three, I should ask that earlier in the show,
but the reason that I think it's super important is
you really need customer stories
for those smaller type organizations.
Like you just can't,
they need to see something that's like them
and hear it from that person's mouth much more so than,
like yeah, if you're working with a multi-billion dollar
company, they're gonna be like,
yeah, let me see some people like me,
but they also are gonna go, yeah, but we're different.
You know?
And like everybody says that, but in SMB, it's like,
yeah, probably not that different of a,
you know, construction company or whatever.
- Yeah, you're very right.
And then, so ideally what you would ultimately want
are customer success stories that fit every dimension
of what you're trying to sell into, right?
So whether it's industry, whether it's the revenue size,
whether it's the audience, whether it's the geography,
I mean, you'd ideally have, you know,
a full set of customer success stories
for each iteration of all of that dimensionality, right?
But the reality is that you can't really have
what would be the full portfolio of assets
for each iteration of that dimensionality.
And so what you typically have are maybe the highest rung
or the video success stories,
which obviously require more production and time.
And so you don't necessarily have every iteration
within that context.
But then what we also produce are hero decks, for example.
And so we've got slides that would be, you know,
far more numerous than the customer video success stories.
And then ultimately, you know, it also gets
into reference ability.
And so, you know, all of the customer success content
and then, you know, how can you also then, you know,
further that through having referenceable customers
against each iteration as well.
And so, you know, the more that you can have
against all of that, really it makes the selling process,
you know, far more, I think, fluid
and certainly more successful.
- It really does.
And we never talk about customer success stories
with like a hard ROI number attached.
But it's so funny because, and I'm sure there's one of our,
somebody probably has this information, but it's like,
you know, you touch, you watch two, three, four
customer videos.
You just kind of start to believe
what the sales rep is telling you, right?
- Yeah. And so we've found them, to your point,
I mean, very impactful.
We do invest explicitly in it.
And even if you look at the navigation on acumatica.com,
for example, it's right in the forefront.
And so, you know, we think that it's super critical
to that sales process.
- So one of the things I was gonna say,
y'all got 124 of them.
That's pretty darn good.
And then the final piece here, you know,
you talked about sort of being a challenger brand
and brand building.
Yeah, what do you do for that?
What are the types of like, you know, activations
or whatever that show that you're, you know, a challenger brand?
- Yeah. And so some of it, you know,
I think gets back to paid search.
And so we do disproportionately invest in my mind
in paid search.
And so then what we try to do is also provide
some surround sound to that.
And so display ads, whether that's connected TV,
we've started to invest in in the last maybe 18 months or so.
A couple of months ago, we began an experiment
with national radio or SiriusXM.
We've found airport advertising very successful for us.
We get a lot of feedback about them.
And we think that that's great.
And then one of the other things that, you know,
that we've done more recently are sports sponsorships.
And so last year we sponsored an IndyCar team.
We sponsored a NASCAR team for the next two years.
So 2023 and four, we are partnering with Jessica Corda
in the LPGA.
And so we found, you know, those sports sponsorships
very successful and productive as well.
And so for us, you know, it's not one thing.
I think it's a lot of things.
And so how can we, you know, get ourselves heard?
How can we break into new audiences
to get familiarity with the brand
and folks wanting to learn more about who we are
and what we do?
But I think that it's a little bit early days on that.
But I think that it's something
that we will progressively be focusing on and evolving.
- Very cool.
I'm curious to the feedback that you got on the airport ads.
- Oh, it's actually pretty funny.
And so whether they're partners, whether they're customers,
you really see it a lot in social.
And so people will take selfies with the airport ads
and post them and the reactions, it's really,
it's pretty impressive.
And so it's great to see.
- What are you putting on these things?
People didn't sell fees with them?
That's pretty good.
- I think maybe it just relates to their affinity
with grand and maybe that positivity that we spoke to.
But people in fact want to do that, but yes, they do.
- That's pretty cool.
Anything that you want to be investing in here
in the near term?
- For me, it would really be that awareness piece.
If we could invest further in awareness,
I think it's very important for the trajectory
of the company.
I think that this company has very significant ambitions.
And if we are to realize those ambitions,
we've very much solidified the demand-gen piece.
I feel like I can scale that very well.
I think that what's sort of top of mind for me beyond that
is that awareness piece and not how it relates
maybe to current state, but how does it relate to
where this company wants to be in the next three to five years?
- You love to hear a CMO talking about the next three
to five years, warms my marketing heart.
That's fun.
How do you view your website?
- I view it as an infinitely critical component
of what is our demand-gen.
I think it's also a significant conveyor of our brand,
our design ethic even, if you will.
And then I think that functionally speaking,
we perceive it much more progressively
in that personalization arena.
And so as people are coming to the website,
how can we best determine what industry are they in?
What audience are they within or which persona?
And then how can we best accommodate what they're looking for
and how can we drive further interest in Accumatica
and start to move them along the pipeline?
- All right, let's get to our next segment, the DustUp.
We talked about healthy tension,
whether that's with your board, your sales teams,
your competitors or anyone else.
Have you had a memorable DustUp in your career, Todd?
- I don't know anybody that hasn't had a memorable
DustUp in their career.
I don't know if anybody needs to hear about said DustUp's,
but I think that in my mind,
and I think that that's a natural course of work.
And I'd also almost say that if you haven't had DustUp's,
then maybe you're not pushing hard enough.
Like I think that DustUp's can be a productive outcome
of what are people that are sort of pushing on the model,
trying to optimize, trying to ensure that you're extracting
the most that you can from the execution or the strategy,
whatever case it may be.
But I think that what I've learned in my career
is that it's maybe the solution to the DustUp's,
not that they won't happen.
I think it's really and honestly just communication.
And so how can you best communicate
what you're trying to accomplish and why?
How can you best understand that other person's perspective
and opinions and what are their motivations?
But it really, I think truly gets to that,
which is how can you best communicate with your peers,
the board of directors, your manager, your team.
But yeah, I think that that's really
the most critical component to it.
- Let's get to our final segment.
Quick hits, these are quick questions and quick answers,
just like how quickly qualified
helps companies generate pipeline,
tap into your greatest asset, your website,
to identify your most valuable visitors.
And instantly, and I mean instantly,
start sales conversations.
Right there on the website,
you can talk to the salesperson,
right there on the website,
you can talk to a salesperson from Qualified.
If you go to Qualified.com,
it's quick and easy to use Qualified,
just like these questions, go to Qualified.com
and learn more, quick hits, Todd, are you ready?
- Sure, let's do it.
- Number one, do you have a hidden talent or skill
that is not on your resume?
- I don't know if I have a hidden talent or skill.
I think the one that's maybe not hidden
is just background, perhaps, like relative to being CMO.
And so, I think I've had maybe a slightly different path
into the role, and so my marketing career
was very focused on different aspects of marketing.
And so, really the data operations, analytics,
peace to technology, you know, Martech.
And with this job, then I obviously sort of own
the whole breadth of what is marketing.
But I think that that background,
I mean, that path into the role
certainly gives me a particular perspective on it.
It also arguably drives what I focus on
and how I focus on particular things.
But yeah, for me, marketing, in terms of what underpins it,
it's really the scalability, it's really the efficiency,
it's that customer experience and the cleanliness of it.
And so, a lot of that's super important to me.
And I think that, you know, maybe just a different background
and maybe others have had a path into the role.
- See, I thought you just didn't want to leave Washington.
So you're just like, I'm just gonna spend as much time
in Washington based companies as I can.
- No, I do love Washington and Fairpoint.
And yes, maybe the personal hidden skill would be hiking.
And so, I love the Pacific Northwest.
I think this is some of the best hiking,
you know, potentially in the world.
And so, yeah, I spend a lot of my personal time
and effort hiking and I truly do cherish this area for it.
- Do you have a favorite book or podcast or TV show
or something that you've been checking out that you like?
- Yeah, so right now I'm reading a book,
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by,
I think it's Gabrielle Zevin, but I think that's the name.
But very interesting in terms of it gets into gaming quite a bit
and I'm not a huge gamer, I don't know if you are.
But yeah, just super interesting,
super entertaining book.
- Cool, check it out.
What advice would you give to a first time CMO
who's trying to figure out their marketing strategy?
- Yeah, it's a good one.
Yeah, I mean, first I would say you have to lay
the groundwork maybe.
And so in my mind, that's probably setting expectations
with the CEO.
So what's realistic in terms of outcomes and delivery?
What's the associated timeline and sort of development
of the capability?
One of the things that I don't hear maybe after that,
enough people talk about is the relationship with finance.
And so the relationship with sales,
I find fairly obvious and sort of a core function
of the position itself.
But one of the things that I've learned
is really developing that relationship with finance.
I mean, marketing is synonymous with the budget.
And so you really do want to have that clarity,
that communication, that relationship with the finance team.
I think maybe the third thing would be the reporting
and the transparency.
And so relative to setting those expectations
with the CEO relative to that relationship
and clarity with the CFO,
then it becomes, what's your ability to truly
and specifically track the outcomes that you're driving?
And then as mentioned previously,
then it becomes that relationship with sales.
And so what are the handoffs?
What are the expectations?
What's the entirety of the go-to-market plan?
But for us, and I think that we have made
very explicit efforts on that relationship,
honestly, the relationship that I've got with sales
is the most positive relationship of any I've seen
and any of the companies that I've been in in my career.
And it honestly snaps back to that communication point
earlier, which is what we do is every Friday morning,
we have a meeting to review what is the marketing dashboard,
which has the full pipe from leads to wins,
what was driven by Accumatica, what was driven by Partners.
And that meeting is with myself, it's with the CFO,
it's with the Chief Revenue Officer,
it's with the VP of Sales,
it's with members of each respective team,
but it really provides this weekly event
where we've got that open line of communication,
we're looking at the results,
we're talking about what's coming up
from a marketing calendar perspective,
whether that's events, whether that's campaigns,
it's looking at what is the favorability
against the goals and the forecasts
that we do on a weekly basis.
And so that communication, that persistence,
that consistency, it's super important.
Todd, it's been absolutely awesome having you on the show.
For listeners, go check out Accumatica.com
if you're looking for a cloud ERP and you're an SMB,
check them out, accumatica.com.
Todd, any final thoughts, anything to plug?
- No plugs, just thank you very much for having me,
it was fun.
- Yeah, awesome, thanks so much and take care.
- Thank you.
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