Chris Handy 🎉

Have a hunch about this but curious what others think: in your opinion, are user experience (UX) researchers responsible for also providing the following for a business: • JTBD insights • pricing research • product discovery • customer discovery • market / GTM research • customer journey mapping OR is it strictly limited to usability and understanding how users navigate digital experiences (like website, product, etc.)?

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Weekly Winning Strategies: Simplifying Competitor Analysis With Occam’s Razor: A Strategic Approach Clarity can be the difference between success and failure in marketing strategy. Occam’s Razor provides a surprisingly effective framework for competitor analysis. It’s an old idea, advocating simplicity in the face of complexity. It’s especially valuable in navigating the often murky waters of competition. So, we need to be always trying simplifying competitor analysis Occam’s Razor tells us that simpler explanations are more likely to be correct than complex ones. In competitive intelligence, this translates to a streamlined approach. One that can cut through noise and confusion to reveal the heart of competitive dynamics. Applying Occam’s Razor To Streamline Market Analysis Competitor analysis is essential, yet it can be overwhelming with too much data. Here’s how Occam’s Razor can refine this process: Prioritise Crucial Indicators Instead of getting lost in data, focus on key performance indicators. That’s market share, customer engagement, and innovation rates. This approach simplifies the analysis and highlights the metrics that matter. Home In On Distinctive Strengths Instead of exhaustively analysing all competitor activities, identify their unique strengths. This focused strategy helps you understand critical success factors without unnecessary complications. Spot Clear Patterns Use Occam’s Razor to discern straightforward patterns in market behaviour and competitor strategies. Simple, repeatable trends often emerge as the most telling and actionable insights. Opt For The Straightforward Complex strategies can muddle execution and dilute the focus. A simpler strategic response, aligned with core competencies, can outperform a complicated plan. Cut Through The Clutter To avoid the paralysis of analysis that can occur with too much information, Adopt Occam’s Razor emphasises essential data and actionable insights over speculative noise. The Strategic Advantage Of Simplicity Decision-making is usually complex. Occam’s Razor is a great tool for effectively navigating competitor analysis by advocating for simplicity and ensuring that strategies are clear and focused. The result? Enhanced decision-making that is both informed and agile, keeping you one step ahead in the competitive game. Simplifying Competitor Analysis With Occam’s Razor Occam’s Razor in competitor analysis doesn’t just simplify processes—it sharpens them—hence the name. It enables us to cut closer to the core of what drives market success. It ensures your strategic planning is grounded in reality and focused on what matters, paving the way for clearer, more effective action. We Find The Answers To Beat Your Competitors #competitiveintelligence #marketintelligence #competitiveadvantage #competitoranalysis #strategicanalysis Competitive Intelligence Solutions https://lnkd.in/eNej-GNC

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CRO tip of the day. It is fine to use drag and drop editors to prototype and get things out fast. But once you find something that works, build it natively. You will likely gain a slight lift in conversion rate due to page speed load time--and being able to attain pixel perfect design (vs. clunky looking). #cro #ecommerce #conversionrateoptimization

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Google’s third-party cookies phase out leaves no room for mismanagement of data. 🍪 As marketers we must now explore alternative strategies to achieve desired results and address the challenges posed by limitations in data tracking.   To increase conversion, marketers need to look into varying tactics to target customers across content, search and paid looking to ways to offer new users the choice to submit personal information.  Partnership, influencers and review sites are also worth exploring to compensate for the loss of reach via third-party cookies.  At Exclaimer, we've witnessed a growing trend among our customers who are increasingly leveraging personalisation including email signature marketing, to facilitate personalized, one-to-one communication. This approach not only nurtures trust between sender and recipient but also fosters stronger relationships.  Focusing on creating a strong human-centric brand and the personalization of content at scale are no longer luxuries but necessities for standing out. How are you navigating the zero-click world? ⬇️ 

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In my latest MarTech article, I discuss the need for substance and style in b2b tech. The key to success is not in the sales pitch but in the product itself. Disregard the flashy features, the technical jargon-filled presentations, and the promises of a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, we should focus on tools that work seamlessly and exceed our expectations.

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Nearly a quarter of product, sales, and CS folks have never collaborated on content. Beam Content 💡 found that 46% of non-content GTM folks (customer success, product, sales, etc.) aren't being effectively utilized in content creation. To quote my favorite Seinfeld episode: "That's not going to be good for business. That's not going to be good for anybody." In my experience, junior content marketers often feel that asking for SME help is disruptive to other teams, so they feel intimidated. Here are some ways to get experts from other teams more involved: 📍 Find the right person for the job. Who is the PM who owns the product feature you're trying to showcase? Which sales rep or CSM is most experienced in the particular use case you're creating content around? People like to showcase their expertise when they feel like they're the most qualified to do so. More eyes on the work they're doing? More recognition and validation? Yes please. 📣 Prepare a pitch. When you ask them, explain why their help matters to larger company goals or to the customer. What is the need you're trying to serve? 👯 Make it as easy as possible. Writing is hard, and you *chose* this path. It can be a huge blocker for SMEs. Ask for an IRL, recorded "brain dump" conversation instead, which will generate probably more raw material than you need. (I guarantee the 24% of people who said it was "cumbersome" were asked to do the writing themselves.) 🏅 Give them credit and share the impact People like to be recognized and thanked for their work, so don't forget to thank them when the piece goes live. Follow up with them if it's having an impact on pipeline or brand awareness so they know their work mattered. Creating a culture of content starts with everyone being able to see how content is created. It's a team sport, but you have to be willing to invite people to join the team. __ 🧠 Want more ways to prove content's value and improve your impact? My newsletter Contentious is launching in June: one tip, one content antipattern (and how to avoid it) and one big idea in your inbox every two weeks. Link in my profile!

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Be weary of CRO services marketing agencies offer. Often times, it’s not what they claim it is. They will lump CRO into channels and ROI-immediate tactics. The definition is building a growth function based on a comprehensive and strategic process that collects and activates insights through research and iterative testing to measurably drive growth. A great way for you to differentiate is to look at what activities are conducted and how they all fit in the puzzle. A lot of feedback that I hear is based on them doing individual activities and calling it a day - building a landing page in Unbounce, Instapage, etc. - a site audit that is not even backed with Heuristics - testing that is done with no supporting research and no articulated test plan They will skip the research in favor of speed to delivery and may not optimize that landing page once it goes live. You can recognize it’s incomplete by the fact it’s missing a continuous improvement cycle. It’s also not customer-focused and clearly all stems from an internal database they have, regardless of your audience and the issues that prevent your users from converting. Any testing that is not robustly structured around test plans and supported with research is probably the same template they apply to all their clients. Be weary of them, because regardless of price point, they are selling something tactical that is most likely to not drive significant impact for the business. Marketing agencies very rarely have the skillsets and competencies to build an optimization program. There are no silver bullets. There aren't any one time quick fixes for scaling a business. There are no universal truths for what works and there isn’t a single test that is always going to win. Most tests don’t even win even when they are backed with research. Be weary, be skeptical. I encourage you to trust agencies when their talk track focuses on their process involved for optimization, and their customer-focused approach. It’s easier to sell a promise of results than to sell a process.

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How can predictive analytics improve the targeting during cold email list building? Use previous data and do your research. Does (insert niche) resonate with (offer)? Network with people and ask around to see their experiences with cold email.

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What's your approach for onboarding into the CMO role? There are a few controversial topics where I'd love your advice: - How much do you debrief with the past CMO? There could be so much you could learn, but it could also influence your thinking in ways you may or may not want. I heard recently of one new CMO who didn't debrief at all, though the outgoing CMO had been there for many years and left on very good terms. - How quickly do you make assessments of the team and make changes vs. watch and give them a chance? At times, I advise my client CEOs on this topic, and right now I have several friends starting big new roles. So, I wrote a blog today on carilu.com all about it. Here are the highlights of the less controversial topics I covered in my advice to CEOs: - CUSTOMERS: Get them fast and deep exposure to prospects and customers; shadow meetings, listening tour, win-loss debriefs - STRATEGIC REFERENCE MATERIAL - Last 4 board decks, the last fundraising deck, OKRs and scoring from last year - company and marketing, financial plan for the company - all assumptions from finance and sales on attainment, close rates, product splits etc, Marketing budget summary - last year and this year, Company performance dashboards, Marketing dashboards, Past QBRs, market research - TIME TOGETHER - You may think that because they are senior, they need less time from you. Eventually, this should be true, but initially, they need you to help give them quick context and help with filtering. Make time to meet 2x per week for the first few months. In-person time will also be critical as you build the foundations of trust personally and professionally. - PRODUCT AND COMPANY STRATEGY - Walk them through it in a meaningful way and make sure they are in the right key meetings. - UPDATE OKRs - Get alignment on goals for the quarter and year that incorporate their new insights. - 30/60/90 DAY PLAN - Some of this will be captured in the OKRs, but it could be helpful to have some more explicit shared expectations about the 30/60/90 day activities, decisions, and deliverables.  - DASHBOARDS- Encourage them to update and have clear dashboards in the first 2 months (see www.carilu.com for a weekly marketing dashboard)  - FIRST BOARD MEETING - Give them plenty of advance warning, previous board decks, and guidance for the role you want them to play. Most likely: assessment of the market, company and teams, priorities, key metrics, and goals, sequencing, and asks.  - CULTURE AND UNMENTIONABLES - While you don’t want to promote politics or unduly influence their thoughts, it’s important to help them understand how to navigate the conflicts underpinning relationships that could disrupt their efforts.  - C-SUITE OFFSITE - Always helpful to do a personality types session at the first offsite they attend to help everyone understand each others’ working styles, motivators, and personality drivers. What else? #CEO #CMO #Onboarding  

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I'm a little obsessed with the new MarTech map from the folks at Chiefmartec.com and MartechTribe.com. In their new map, there are 14,106 MarTech solutions out there. https://lnkd.in/g4ysmQPr For the last couple of years, I've been trying to stay on top of all of the cool creative tools out there. There's soooooo many. I post frequently about some of my favorites. Here's what I know to be true: This acceleration is not done. In fact, it's only getting started. I don't believe anyone in marketing should commit to any long term contract with anyone in this space. Everything will be disrupted. But, you have to so something. You have to get your feet wet, or you will be disrupted. And by you, I mean you and your company. Take a breath, take a step back, and find one problem to solve with GenAI and these new tools. Then, do it again. By solving one or two problems now, you'll be pointed in the right direction and more prepared for the new future. #martech #contentmarketing #genai https://lnkd.in/g4ysmQPr

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The influx of new “Modern Marketing Measurement” vendors is both exciting for marketing leaders, but also a bit overwhelming. Beyond the five vendors that map particularly well to Google’s new “Modern Measurement Playbook” framework (which I shared in a previous post - see link to that in the comments), there are probably at least 10 more developing compelling solutions, each with their own unique strengths and shortcomings. As just one example, I’ll call out the new MMM+ from Northbeam. Their 2-minute video quickly convinced me that their solution deserves a closer look. But honestly, almost everything I’m seeing is compelling enough to explore in more depth. I’m going to schedule demos with a number of these solutions to kick the tires. Because demos like this are especially valuable when many people join and ask a range of questions, I plan to organize them as open conversations that anyone can join. For anyone interested in participating, leave a comment below and I’ll make sure to share specifics about time, date, which vendor, and questions I’ll be asking.

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This is so obvious yet so difficult to change in many organizations.

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As a new B2B CMO or VP of Marketing your first 90 days are your most important. Here are 4️⃣ key objectives for every new B2B marketing leader that both Nick Tippmann 🏔️☁️ shares in his experience at Greenlight Guru, and what we’re seeing on the agency side at Evron. 1️⃣ Due Diligence Do not confuse this with onboarding. It’s your responsibility to gain a deep understanding of brand narrative, product value, category insights, company profitability, sales metrics, and more. You cannot build a world-class marketing program with no benchmarks or context. 2️⃣ Data Integrity Find out where marketing dollars and resources are going, measure the ROI, hit the killswitch on every marketing initiative not producing pipeline and ROI, and recover that wasted spend back to your marketing budget. 3️⃣ MVP Experiments Your first win was recovering wasted spending back to the company. Your next win will come from making a strategic bet on a marketing initiative(s) and setting up benchmarks and roadmaps to validate it in the early stages. The worst mistake you can make as a new B2B marketing leader is betting the farm on a program with no positive signals or roadmap, and not hitting your target numbers. Instead, you should identify what positive signals validate a program in infancy, achieve those metrics, and then scale. 4️⃣ Communication with Senior Leadership Most B2B marketing programs get shut down way too early because the marketing leader does not communicate all the factors to senior leadership. The program details are usually vague with a massive request for budget right after. The more clarity and depth you can bring to senior leadership on what and when to expect results will give you the breathing room needed to actually validate and scale your program. #RevenueEngineering #GTM #B2BMarketing  #DemandGeneration #B2B #Evron #vSaaS #SaaS

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How to minimize buyer's remorse 👇 We've all been there... you make a purchase on a website, you're excited to receive your product... but then you start to question your decision. "Did I make the right choice?" "What if there's a better option out there?" While perfectly normal, this causes headaches for retailers. So, what can #ecommerce businesses do to minimize this? 1️⃣ Ensure your advertising and marketing initiatives accurately reflect your products 2️⃣ Manage customer expectations 3️⃣ Implement the right post-purchase communication strategy 4️⃣ Enhance customer satisfaction after the sale 5️⃣ Gather customer feedback Read the latest parcelLab blog to learn more...

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I was on a CMO Slack channel yesterday offering free templates to help marketers. I mentor a great deal and know that it is a challenging time where many need support. Within minutes on this channel I was berated by several high-profile marketers to post in a less-seen part of the channel and discounting the value and well-intention of my offering. I literally had to delete something free to then help no one. We have reached a low point in our society when being kind elicits an anger response. With this post I send out a HUGE HUG to dissipate the frustration of marketers around the globe. If you are a marketer having a hard time or you are witness to one that is struggling, please message me. Please comment if you are seeing this too and like/share this post to help me send support to marketers who have a really tough job right now or are on the market looking for their next opportunity.... #marketinglove #cmos #marketing #marketingjobs

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⚡️DATA ALERT⚡️ The banking & CU industries are different than they were a decade ago. I've been waiting for an updated take on what it means to be someone's primary financial institution. The wait is OVER! 🥳 In 2023, Neobanks won nearly half of all checking accounts. Consumers now manage relationships with dozens of financial providers, and everyone is glued to their phones. What does it take to win PFI status in a mobile-first era? Download the report to find out. https://lnkd.in/gTJ8Hs2z

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We built a cool tool to see how your business stacks up against your competition. 🚀 This is a free marketing benchmark analysis you can use in your business to help make better data-driven decisions. Check out what our team at Major Tom created, and please let me know what you think in the comments. (greatly appreciated 😀 ) https://hubs.ly/Q02wqKwt0

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