Marie Pettersson General Manager, for Kezzler in APAC, has an unquestionable passion for how technology drives innovation for both sales and marketing. Initially from sales, Pettersson has gone on to marketing roles in several other companies before settling into a general manager and chief marketing officer role for the traceability and serialization solution provider.

She is no stranger to working with new technologies having marketed mobile management and mobile security solutions during a time when they were considered still ‘uncharted territory.’

When asked about the differences between sales and marketing, she candidly quips, “This might become controversial… but in general, marketing is more strategic than sales. One is about closing business and is focused on getting orders and getting customer contracts.”

“In marketing, the job is really to develop the market, educate the market, and to mature the market.”

The Numbers Game

In an ideal world, sales and marketing are completely aligned, but in reality they are driven by different forces – one works to close sales and get higher numbers, while marketing measures its success and contribution by the number of leads it is able to deliver to sales.

It seems that the activities of one feed into the activities of the other, so why could conflicts exist? Due to its nature, marketing looks ahead and tries to answer the question, Who are the next people whom we need to talk to?’

On the other hand, a sales mindset revolves around, ‘ How do I close business today?’ Marie explained, “So, often sales think that a demonstration is super important, or a solution presentation is super important. But for marketing, our thoughts are, ‘Well, first we need to make sure we have enough people to present to.’

The Martech landscape

Marie’s advice for other marketers is that they keep their minds open to technology and technology trends. Technology can get them into a very unique position in the minds of their clients that serves them well for branding and performance.

Especially for smaller players, tools can help them build their position and brand quickly, as well as discover innovation that gives them an edge.

“On top of that, we use plug-ins and have different kinds of tools to optimize the website.”

Marie reckons there are easily twenty different contracts for different kinds of tools that do all this for marketing departments.

“I would prefer one tool that could do everything for me!”

The Customer Journey

This segues to the idea of a marketing funnel whereby there is a journey a customer goes through with a company’s brand. It starts when they first become aware of the brand, then express interest, start evaluating, and then go all the way to the action or purchase phase.

“We have talked about the customer journey, and often I bring it up to remove conflicts when they say, ‘I need a demo’.”

“Marketing’s priority is actually earlier in the customer journey because that is really where we are missing content and the right leads.”

Ideally, marketing can help generate demand and start conversations with clients about what they actually require.

Marie employs a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system like Salesforce, which functions as a database for customer contacts, prospects, and engagements. This pipelines into email communication tools like Mailchimp and also insightful information like search engine optimization (SEO) keywords for outsourced digital marketing agencies to deliver on.

Marie’s journey to develop an end-to-end customer experience leveraging various technologies has resulted in early successes. For example, email open rates are over 41 percent—no mean feat to achieve within the course of a year.

Getting on the Same Page

This looks simpler than it really is, and the process is able to run like clockwork because of the best practices Kezzler puts in place. For one, there has to be a very clear go-to-market strategy. While this strategy allows iterations to happen, there is one owner who oversees and is in charge of it.

Marie said, “I own the go-to-market process, but I also own the cosmetics, beauty, and personal care products segment, which is an industry we address as well.” With single ownership of both vertical and strategic needs, Marie is able to direct marketing and sales efforts with unity.

“We also need to build advocacy, and this is done differently than for consumer marketing. It’s easy for consumers to switch to another brand. When they get our product, they can’t just turn around and choose a different supplier. It’s a commitment.”

As a testament to the success of the strategy and process, Marie shared about a new segment Kezzler had taken on six months ago: apparel, textiles, and retail. Email marketing was used as a channel to address this segment, and after content was developed, she kicked off a webinar series that was marketed through different channels.

“It was a completely new concept for us to use to tap into a new market. And since then, we have experienced an incredible ramp-up.”

Marie had also shared that her marketing budget had doubled for the year. This is an exception to what we have been hearing from marketing executives across the board.

For example, Gartner recently surveyed 410 CMOs and marketing executives on their budget spread this year, and 75 percent of executives cited more pressure to reduce martech spend in spite of increasing demand for profitable growth.

Perhaps this is in recognition of the longer-term goals (accelerated demand generation and market development) that marketing can help the organization achieve.

“We also need to build advocacy, and this is done differently than for consumer marketing. It’s easy for consumers to switch to another brand. When they get our product, they can’t just turn around and choose a different supplier. It’s a commitment,” she explained.

SUMMARY

Kezzler belongs to a segment of solution providers that leverage a new paradigm: instead of communicating about having the best technology, they are talking and building advocacy about how their technology can work with their customers’ to deliver real value to end consumers. Sometimes this is at odds with sales objectives, but marketing tools can help deliver this quickly, with agility, and with as little friction as possible.