Declan Mulkeen lives in Spain and is an ABM expert. CMO at the strategicabm - the Account-based Marketing Agency, he also hosts the podcast 'Let's talk ABM'. Strategicabm partners exclusively with B2B tech brands to help them win, grow, and retain their most important accounts. 

So who better than Declan to talk ABM, right? 

We discussed the why and the how of planning and implementing successful ABM programs.
A few myths debunked:
- ABM is not = to B2B marketing or lead gen
- ABM is a strategy, not a marketing tactic
- ABM is not for everyone
- It's more an account based experience and goes beyond marketing

Enjoy our discussion!

Liam Boogar-Azoulay is an American marketer in Paris and also VP Marketing at Scaleway. A San Francisco native, he had to go to France to find the world of Tech! In 2011 he launched Rude Baguette - France's Startup Blog and went on to work at many successful tech companies like Algolia or MadKudu.
Scaleway is a leading European infrastructure cloud provider - the cloud that makes sense. 

Liam started at Scaleway only a few months ago so we shared experiences on joining fast growth tech companies recently and how to plan for success from day 1. We discussed building a marketing team for growth and making every team member accountable for revenue. Liam gave us the download on how his team is structured and how he makes sure to set clear OKRs for everyone so that they are all moving in the same direction and scaling fast. 

Anna Ålenius-Mathson is Director of Brand & Comms at Quinyx
Quninyx is a workforce management solution. Headquartered in Sweden, they are growing fast and now have offices across the globe.
Before joining Quinyx, Anna lead coms, PR and brand at several tech companies like Stratsys, Rebtel or Sinch. She's helped many companies go through a brand refresh or a rebrand.

And that's what we talked about!
Why do companies need to rebrand, what's the process, what's the most important part to get right, what's difficult about it?
We also discussed her role leading brand transformation from the inside and how you need to continue building a brand after the refresh, one campaign at a time. 

Anna Lämber is Senior Director, Marketing EMEA North, at ServiceNow.
ServiceNow is a cloud computing platform helping companies manage digital workflows for enterprise operations. Founded in 2004, ServiceNow is a massive success story - 14,000+ employees, 6,200+ customers, they serve ~80% of the Fortune 500.
Anna has been working in technology marketing for 20 years. 

We talked about her role and what it's like to work for such a large global, US-based tech company. While she drives a local marketing team larger than most Swedish SaaS startups', she also works very closely with the corporate marketing team at headquarters. We discussed some of the challenges that this presents, and how to manage differences between US and Europe. 

Ling Koay is CMO at Oneflow.
Oneflow offers an all-in-one e-contract platform with integrated e-signing tool. Ling is a passionate and energetic marketer who loves pushing boundaries. First a copywriter, she knows how to harness the power of copy and content for b2b tech companies.

We talked about her love for marketing, her passion for content and her approach to social media. She also believes our kids can teach us a lot about marketing!
We also discussed how she has been growing a world-class marketing team at Oneflow. As 2020 has been a challenging year for many companies and marketers, we looked into some of the learnings and what's coming for us in 2021.

Andy Culligan is CMO at Leadfeeder.
Leadfeeder is a b2b website tracking software - showing you the companies visiting your website, how they found you and what they’re interested in. Andy is on a mission to reinvent the word "alignment" between sales and marketing teams. A sales person stuck in a marketer's body (or a marketer in a sales body!), he is an expert in marketing and sales for SaaS companies with always the ultimate goal to drive pipeline success.

We talked, of course, about sales and marketing alignment and how to achieve it.
At the end of 2020, the B2B Institute by Linkedin published a report called 2030 b2b trends. They state that there are 2 types of marketing: Short-Term Activation and Long-Term Branding. And although short term activation has been the focus so far in b2b, this is changing and the winning companies will be the ones focusing on long term brand building. I asked Andy his thoughts about that report. We discussed Lead Gen vs Demand Gen and Demand Gen vs Brand. 

Carl Ronander is Head of Brand and PR at Mentimeter.
Mentimeter provides an interactive presentation and meeting software, allowing presenters to interact with their audience in real time. After more than 10 years as strategic planner and brand strategist in agencies, Carl made the move to working at Mentimeter about 2 years ago. 

We talked about one of my favorite subject: building a strong, brave b2b brand. Carl explained his role as head of brand and PR and what that entails. We discussed the differences between working on the agency side vs being the 'brand expert' in-house. We explored why it is important to build a strong brand when you're a b2b tech company and how to do it. We also discussed how you can measure the success of your brand building. 

Johanna Edepil is CMO at XMReality.
XMReality provides a Remote Guidance SaaS solution. "It's just like being there. Even if you're somewhere else." The perfect tool for our new remote life! 

We talked about the difficulties of entering the US market when you're an outsider (a small Swedish company) and the importance of really understanding the market before you try - companies often need to adjust their approach and messaging. We discussed the challenges of 2020 for b2b companies, like XMReality, who were relying on events to educate prospects. We talked about how XMReality used 2020 to focus on planning and redefining their marketing strategies. Sometimes you 'just' need to go back to basics!

Andres Sehr is CMO at Qred.
Qred, the fastest growing Fintech company in Sweden, is specialised in small business loans.
Before joining Qred to power up its expansion, Andres has worked in some of the best tech companies in Sweden - Skype, Spotify, TrueCaller, Hedvig - often as one of their first marketing hires.

We talked about marketing best practices for tech start ups, developing a hands-on customer approach and scaling up a company while in a pandemic. We discussed the perception of business loans for small businesses and the different challenges for Qred in different markets - from building a world class brand to localisation while expanding throughout Europe.

Mikko Luhtava is Head of marketing at Vainu.
Vainu is a software company that offers real time company data for sales and marketing. Mikko is a growth-driven, revenue-focused marketer with a strong background in sales. 

We talked about data-driven marketing and structuring a European marketing team for growth. We discussed the differences between doing sales in the Us vs Europe. We also talked about putting together the right marketing tech stack to run smooth multi-countries marketing programs. 

Mikkel Drucker is Chief Growth Officer at Tacton.
Tacton is a b2b software company enabling smart commerce for manufacturing. Mikkel is a visionary leader with an impressive international career in technology, IT, Saas in US, Europe and Asia.

We talked about his role as Chief Growth Office and the difference with being a CMO, about growth hacking, working in sprints and celebrating failure. As Mikkel has a strong background in product marketing, we discussed product-led growth. Mikkel also shared with us some tips on how to successfully have an international career and manage teams across continents. 

Fredrika (Nihlén) Bennison is VP of Marketing at Kognity. 
Kognity is a EdTech company who is redefining the traditional textbook and elevating the learning experience for billion of students. Before joining Kognity earlier this year, Fredrika was Head of marketing at proof Analytics and CMO at Froda. 

We talked about becoming VP of marketing at a new company at the beginning of a global pandemic, about working in-house vs in agencies, about content and branding. We discussed not only the importance of sales and marketing alignment but how essential it is to align sales, marketing and product.
"Technology is the heart of great marketing, content is the soul." 

Jonna Ekman is Marketing Director at Storykit. With a background as a journalist, she knows a thing or two about creating content and engaging audiences at first glance. Storykit is revolutionizing how businesses create video, through its smart platform for video creation. They provide an easy tool for everyone to tell engaging stories with videos.

We talked about the emergence of videos to engage audiences and why video is key to winning on social media. We discussed how to approach video creation, and how not every single piece of  animated content needs to be overly produced or overly expensive. Video can be scary, but Jonna explains why it shouldn't and how everyone can become a creator. We also discussed webinars to create dialogues with audiences, bring value and create connections without always pitching. 

Welcome to the post-text future!

Michael Chalmandrier-Perna is growth marketer at &frankly , a cloud based solution that measure and trigger engagement at the workplace. A great tool for today's remote work environment. They say they put 'Smiles on people at work.'  Who doesn't need smiles right now! 

We talked about what's a growth marketer, about producing snackable content, automation and competing fo attention while everyone is now on social. We also talked about working from home and staying connected to your workforce, to your colleagues in the current situation.

Therése Olsson is Head of marketing Sweden at Leadoo Marketing technologies, a marketing platform created to make websites convert visitors into leads. Therése is an inbound marketing and sales expert and a true go-getter who is not afraid of speaking the truth!

We talked about all the marketing buzzwords!
Inbound, lead gen, content marketing, CX, social selling, sales and marketing alignment ...  Marketers love new words and new theories :)
We discussed how sales and marketing can't be two different entities, how they need to work towards the same goals: building relationships, driving revenue. 

Sumeet Vermani is global marketing director at Worldpay. A marketing leader, Sumeet has a track record of leading change and managing cross-functional teams in international organisations. Worlpay is a global payment processing company, now part of the FIS.

We talked about b2b marketing in times of change, focusing on existing customers as well as the employee experience, about redefining the value marketing brings to a company, building for tomorrow and the future of events. 

Frida Ahrenby is VP of Marketing at GetAccept, a fast growing Tech company based in 6 regions, including Stockholm and Silicon Valley. Get Accept is a sales enablement platform for B2B sales.

We talked about staying the course during current times and recruiting for growth, using social media and especially Linkedin in your marketing strategy and establishing a global presence while being headquartered in Sweden.

Maria Monks is VP of Marketing at Apperio, a legal Tech company based in London. Apperio automates legal spend management and analytics.

We talked about adapting to the new normal, ABM, catering to your community and figuring out where you fit and if your value proposition is still valid in this new world we live in. 

Linsday Hedenskog is a brand and marketing consultant. She was previously head of content at the Swedish tech company Tink.
We talked about content and the opportunity we have right now as b2b marketers to talk to our customers in a more direct, more personal, more relevant way than ever before. 

Steffen Hedebrandt is cofounder and Chief Revenue Officer of Dreamdata. He is also a talented growth hacker with a successful track record of scaling businesses and building teams.
He created Dreamdata to solve b2b revenue attribution. Long sales cycles, multiple decision makers, multiple media channels, complex tech-stack - the b2b buying (and selling) process is complex and multi-touch. So how do you know where to focus your marketing efforts to generate deals?
Dreamdata collects all your revenue related data, joins it and presents it in a clear, insightful way that can add massive value for your business.

As a bit of an attribution sceptic myself (less measuring, more doing!), I talked to Steffen about revenue attribution and its benefits and challenges to align sales and marketing, to drive demand, to build a strong brand. Doesn't focusing on attribution limit creativity or can it help drive it? Can attribution help you find the secret sauce of doing digital marketing right for delivering deals, and not just leads? 

Find out more about B2B Attribution here: https://dreamdata.io/b2b-attribution

Nicolas Breuil is Global Head of Marketing, Brand & Comms at Stuart - and also my first French guest!
Nicolas came from a PR background and got started in the b2b tech world without the preconceptions and the over-used playbooks that all other b2b tech companies might be using. He is carving his own path and it looks like his creativity is paying off!
Stuart is a a leading last mile delivery platform that connects small and big businesses to a fleet of geolocalised couriers.

I talked to Nicolas about his experience with Stuart, from being the first marketing hire to growing his team to 20 marketers in 5 years (including 5 designers!). From day 1, Nicolas set his own path, focusing on creativity, thinking outside the box, using his clients in his communication approach and going beyond in supporting his sales team. His secret: don't follow what everyone else is doing and aim at standing out from your competition!

Luke Richardson is a British national established in Denmark for many years. From studying arts to producing videos, he didn't follow the linear path to become a b2b tech marketer. He is now the Director of Brand and Comms at the Fintech company Pleo.
Pleo simplifies bookkeeping and eliminates expense reports by offering smart company cards that give power back to the people. 

When your head of brand has an unusual background, you can expect your brand to embrace an unconventional approach too. Pleo's brand is fun and unique so of course we talked branding and design.
We also talked about the team Luke put in place to create, manage and grow the Pleo brand and how they collaborate with the rest of the marketing team. Luke's approach has been to follow the Mailchimp model and bring a lot of talent in-house.
We talked about creativity, humour and building a human brand that people would love.

Sylwia Lindén is VP Marketing at Tink, Europe’s leading open banking platform that enables banks, fintechs and startups to develop data-driven financial services. Founded in 2012 in Stockholm, Tink’s 400 employees serve 18 European markets out of 13 offices. Sylwia joined Tink in October 2018 to help the company pivot from being a Swedish B2C finance management app to being an open banking platform selling to banks and fintechs across all of Europe.

In my pod-chat with Sylwia, she takes us through the amazing transformation journey she helped lead at Tink and how she scaled the marketing function and her marketing team in a record time. We go deep into her team structure, how Tink started gaining traction in Europe and how marketing became a revenue driver for the company. 

We also talked content: to gate or not to gate, that is the question! 

Sophie Hedestad is the CMO at Netigate, a SaaS feedback platform, specialised in Voice of the Customer and Voice of the Employee feedback. Sophie is also the successful host of 2 podcasts #VoiceOfSuccess & #KommuniceraMera. She started podcasting in 2017, even before b2b podcasting was cool!

So of course, we had a chat about podcasting. Yes, that's a bit meta! :)
Sophie shared with me her experience as a podcaster, what motivated her to start and what she gets from it. We discussed podcasting as an individual vs podcasting as a company. We also talked about the importance of being innovative as a marketer, and our shared experience of clubhouse. 

Rosie Kropp is a board member, senior advisor to tech companies, speaker, business coach, mentor and change leader. She's built a successful career in marketing at global companies like Kraft, Vodafone, or Starbucks, before leading transformation at Swedish Tech company Bisnode as its Global CMO. With 25 years of international management experience across 60+ markets, Rosie is senior advisor and branding expert at consultancy company Lavandel, a boutique consultancy with focus on strategic brand and business development, digital transformation and innovation.

What's the secret for building a great career in marketing and international leadership?
Rosie shares her advice and recommendations for ambitious marketers wanting to grow and drive business transformation at their companies. We discussed the role marketing and branding can play at driving that change. 

Moritz Lang is a digital marketing specialist at Swedish tech company, Soundtrack your Brand - a music management platform for businesses. In the past year, Moritz has spent time mastering the art of LinkedIn and is now known for sharing his tips and advice on how to excel on the social channel.

We talked about why building a presence on LinkedIn is important in today's digital world and about the difference between posting as an individual and as a company. Moritz shared his journey with LinkedIn and his best tips and tactics to grow a network on the platform.