08


Q2 • 2023


COVER STORY


Q: What was the fi rst real marketing lever you pulled as you were building the team?


FL: For any start-up, prioritization is the key to life. We had a million ideas, but you can’t do everything. Figuring out the things you are going to do is important, but you also need to determine what you are NOT going to do. You need to have a handle on what things will move the needle, and that’s why the metrics were so important. As a performance-driven marketer, I needed to make sure we had dashboards in


We had to ask ourselves: How do marketing and sales come together to build whatever marketing tactic we use and make it as eff ective as it can be?


place that could measure clearly whatever we did as best as possible. We are working in a B2B, many-months sales cycle, and we have prospects that are going to engage many times along the journey, so the funnel is not super clear. It’s not like they come in and then next week they buy. For us, they may join a webinar, then they come to a dinner a month later, then a rep meets with them 12 times, and then they buy. All of those interactions are critically important, but which one gets the credit? The metrics are never 100 percent, but when you have a view of what works really well, you can double down on that. And then there is a test bucket to put some budget toward where we try other things for a defined time period.


Q: Early on, were you simply trying to get the company name out there or to explain the product? Or both?


FL: There was no doubt that there was a need for top-of-funnel marketing. The company had just started building a business development function, so they needed assistance there. Early on, we were flying blind in this area and trying to understand the marketing tactics we were using. For example, we were doing events, and we knew who the people were at the event and who the companies were, but how would we drive engagement with the right people at the right organization? We had to ask ourselves: How do marketing and sales come together to build whatever marketing tactic we use and make it as effective as it can be? I was going one by one to see the effectiveness of each marketing tactic. I found things that worked well and some that did not. This was one advantage of joining a company that did not have an established marketing organization. If you walk into an established company, it becomes a political thing to navigate. When it’s new, it’s easier . . . at least in that way.


Q: You took over an organization with no previous marketing function. How much of your early work centered around building consistent brand messaging?


FL: Well, that’s the word: consistency. We have so many smart people who are really good at pitching it, but they were pitching in different ways. All the times you touch people—from a salesperson on a sales call to a person working at a trade show booth—should have the same two- minute track. When the trade show booth, the PR, the content, and the sales reps are all saying the same thing, it helps the consumer, because they want it simple. They want to know how your company or product helps them. Whether it’s B2B or B2C, it’s all about messaging consistency, and when that consistency starts to hum, you can feel it in the organization.


Q: Regarding your messaging, did you settle on a tone of voice? And what does that sound like?


FL: For us, it’s about how to be bold. We are a B2B tech company in the legal industry, so the


default setting is that it must be both wordy and “suit and tie,” but if we fall into that, it’s easy to be lost. Every legal tech company and law firm is trying to get to the audience we want, so we can’t do the same old stuff. We have to be a little bold, break a little glass, and be a little snarky or kitschy. It’s part of what defines the brand and who we are. That’s a piece that’s not comfortable for a lot of people. We are on a journey here, but we need to stand out.


Q: How much internal marketing did you have to do to get people inside the organization to believe in your strategies in the early days?


FL: In an organization with tons of tremendously intelligent people, they won’t agree all the time. That’s okay, but you do need to do some internal messaging. When you do marketing, you need to figure out how to bring people along for the ride. After all, I am new to this space, and they know the customer. For example, I hired someone who is an amazing storyteller but not an expert in this space, so we needed to bring the right people together to help tell the stories. It took a little while, but now I feel like we’ve got it. We know what our customer wants and how we want to talk to them. You want everyone marching in the same direction, but it’s not about someone dictating down. At the same time, while there needs to be buy-in, you can’t have groupthink either. We want input, but not necessarily consensus. If I can take expertise from one of the subject matter experts who know this space and


Whether it’s B2B or B2C, it’s all about messaging consistency, and when that consistency starts to hum, you can feel it in the organization.


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