Full Transcript for How Sarah McConnell Scales Demand Gen at Qualified (And How You Can Too)

--> 00:01:53.359 This is Tech Marketing Rewired. 00:01:53.359 --> 00:02:01.680 Sarah, welcome to the podcast. 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:03.040 I'm so happy to have you here. 00:02:03.359 --> 00:02:04.560 Yeah, thanks for having me, Kevin. 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:05.280 I'm excited. 00:02:05.519 --> 00:02:06.480 Yeah, this is great. 00:02:06.480 --> 00:02:10.400 Uh in light of the fact that I talked to Maura in the summer, your CMO. 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:11.759 But so much has happened. 00:02:11.759 --> 00:02:15.360 I mean, even at Qualified, so much has happened since last time we talked. 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:17.680 Yeah, it feels a lifetime. 00:02:17.919 --> 00:02:18.800 Yeah, it really has. 00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:34.000 So uh maybe to kick things off, you give a little intro on yourself and uh maybe a little bit uh for those of people that don't know, for those humans that are left in the world that don't know who qualified is, and Piper, uh just give us a little overview of what the uh what the product is and a little bit company. 00:02:34.479 --> 00:02:34.639 Of course. 00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:36.000 So my name is Sarah McConnell. 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:38.080 I'm our VP of Demand Generation at Qualified. 00:02:38.080 --> 00:02:40.080 I've been here almost six years now. 00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:44.080 So I've been with the company and with the product through a lot of iterations. 00:02:44.080 --> 00:02:50.080 Qualified, we call ourselves an Agentic Marketing Platform because we have an AI agent named Piper. 00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:56.000 Piper is an AI SDR agent and she's really focused on Pipeline, which is why her name is Piper. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:57.599 So it's really interesting. 00:02:57.599 --> 00:02:58.960 I mentioned I've been here a long time. 00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:00.479 I've seen the evolution of the product. 00:03:00.479 --> 00:03:03.520 And when people think of qualified, originally we were a chatbot. 00:03:03.520 --> 00:03:14.080 So, you know, right hand corner of your website, you know, we could do some really cool things because we could read data from your Salesforce instance and your ABM instances and male engagement platforms, things like that. 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:18.240 But at the end of the day, it was pretty constrained to that right-hand corner chat bot. 00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:21.840 And then over time with this AI boom, we become more of an AI native product. 00:03:21.840 --> 00:03:24.000 And we have Piper, the AI SDR agent. 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:29.360 So she's no longer just a chat bot in the right-hand corner anymore with our Piper X launch. 00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:31.919 Gosh, what has been a month and a half ago? 00:03:31.919 --> 00:03:33.599 She's now front and center on the website. 00:03:33.599 --> 00:03:37.759 It's almost like an avatar that you can have a conversation with, and she will pop up, have a conversation. 00:03:37.759 --> 00:03:39.759 She can see you if you let her see you. 00:03:39.759 --> 00:03:44.240 She can have conversations, she can guide you through the website, she can highlight things. 00:03:44.240 --> 00:03:54.080 So we've really evolved from that simple chat bot to a full pipeline generation of your website using a Gentech Marketing or an AI agent. 00:03:54.479 --> 00:03:59.919 Yeah, I was telling you on the pre-call, I think you guys do probably the best job of actually making AI work. 00:03:59.919 --> 00:04:06.159 Like it's a product that's that's if you look at it and the case studies and then you see the demo, it's like, yeah, this stuff is actually working. 00:04:06.159 --> 00:04:09.680 The other thing that's exciting for you guys is there are so many people that use it. 00:04:09.680 --> 00:04:11.360 You have such a rabid fan base. 00:04:11.360 --> 00:04:13.680 You got Piperfest, you do all this other stuff. 00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:18.000 It's really a pretty good use case for AI in marketing. 00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:19.600 Yeah, it has been. 00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:23.040 I am very fortunate that we sell to me at companies typically. 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:27.040 Our buyers tend to be CMOs, demand gen, people who own a pipeline number. 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:37.360 So if your point of it actually seems to be working, I, for better or worse, get to be our guinea pig a lot of our product and find out what's working, what's not, give feedback to our product team. 00:04:37.360 --> 00:04:44.720 So it is, it always makes me proud to hear that it feels like it's working because it is something that I feel like I've been very closely involved with. 00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:52.720 Because we've, you know, if I'm gonna set her loose on our website and she's going to be in charge of inbound pipeline coming from the website, that's what I'm calculated on. 00:04:52.720 --> 00:05:01.519 Like that's what my boss and our CEO, to see if I'm doing my job correctly, they're looking at that pipeline number saying, uh, she has to work, or my job is in jeopardy. 00:05:01.519 --> 00:05:15.839 Um it it has been really great to see it become an AI product that our customers, even too, are willing to speak to and say that it's working for them because we talked about this a little bit earlier, but there's a lot of hype about AI products. 00:05:15.839 --> 00:05:21.199 I think there is a healthy dose of skepticism on whether or not there are results coming out of AI products. 00:05:21.199 --> 00:05:22.399 I think it's it's valid. 00:05:22.399 --> 00:05:26.879 There are a lot of products that are very cool to have, but they aren't really impacting bottom line. 00:05:26.879 --> 00:05:29.839 And Piper is not one of those products. 00:05:29.839 --> 00:05:36.720 And I don't just say that as a spokesperson for the company, I say that as a person whose job depends on her doing her job on our website. 00:05:37.199 --> 00:05:37.920 Yeah, it's awesome. 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:39.680 Well, that's one of the reasons why I reached out to you. 00:05:39.680 -->

00:05:43.279 I was super interested in the Piper X launch, which I didn't know was on a month ago. 00:05:43.279 --> 00:05:43.839 That's awesome. 00:05:43.839 --> 00:05:48.959 Um, you know, you guys have done the launch so well, from what I've seen. 00:05:48.959 --> 00:05:52.879 I was really interested to sort of get into your head in terms of how the launch went. 00:05:52.879 --> 00:05:57.519 And what's so interesting to me is that there's so many people trying to launch AI products. 00:05:57.519 --> 00:06:06.800 And so if you could, from your perspective, I'd love to get in your head about how you actually think about a product launch there qualify, because I think a lot of people can can learn from it. 00:06:06.800 --> 00:06:13.360 So let's get into some sort of some of the main event here, which is kind of the launch playbook and how you think about things. 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:18.319 Um and I'll take maybe we take it in stages, like from the initial strategy and ideation all the way through. 00:06:18.319 --> 00:06:21.680 And we can use the Piper X launch or not use it, whatever you think is best. 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:25.519 Let's say you're using something like PyperX. 00:06:25.519 --> 00:06:29.279 Let's talk about how you actually go through that first meeting where the product team brings you in. 00:06:29.279 --> 00:06:32.639 Like, okay, product team, this launch is gonna happen. 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:36.720 How how far out does your go live, does that meeting happen? 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:38.560 Like, how much time do you typically have? 00:06:38.560 --> 00:06:45.279 And what's the key information that you usually try to get from product to start thinking about, okay, we're gonna have to launch something here. 00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:47.279 Yeah, it's actually really interesting. 00:06:47.279 --> 00:06:51.519 I have never worked at a company that does product launches quite the way that Qualify does. 00:06:51.519 --> 00:06:58.160 And I think one of the things, even going back a step further from that initial meeting with product, is a lot of it is driven by our executive team. 00:06:58.160 --> 00:07:01.120 So our CEO, he used to be a CMO at another company. 00:07:01.120 --> 00:07:04.240 So the blessing of that is he is very in tune with what marketers need. 00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:11.600 So I feel like he is very hands-on with our product because he's been there, he knows sort of the trials that marketers are going to run into. 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:18.319 He also knows from an executive level what he expects a marketer to be able to come to him and say is working and isn't working. 00:07:18.319 --> 00:07:25.680 So, with all of that being said, a lot of times product will come not just from him, but he will have an idea of like, hey, this is something we need to be doing. 00:07:25.680 --> 00:07:29.439 And I think you mentioned it is hard to launch an AI product. 00:07:29.439 --> 00:07:34.319 Our whole company philosophy, including our

CEOs, is that the only mode is speed. 00:07:34.319 --> 00:07:41.519 In the AI world, when things are moving as fast as they are before, your moat of your product used to be things like, you know, what was your differentiation from your competitors? 00:07:41.519 --> 00:07:46.560 And you could go down a litany of product differentiations and why you're better than your competitors. 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:52.959 But I feel like AI has just upended that so much that now it really is speed and how fast can you bring something new to market? 00:07:52.959 --> 00:08:01.439 So that has kind of changed our launch playbook a little bit more than it used to when I was here two years ago, three years ago, before AI was really forcing this speed at which we work. 00:08:01.439 --> 00:08:04.079 So a lot of times it'll start with the concept of an idea. 00:08:04.079 --> 00:08:05.519 So Piper X is one of them. 00:08:05.519 --> 00:08:06.959 We knew it was something we wanted to do. 00:08:06.959 --> 00:08:13.600 We knew we wanted to break Piper out of this bottom right-hand corner chat bot and make her more because you know, we're saying she's an AI SDR. 00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:15.759 She needs to be more than just a chat bot. 00:08:15.759 --> 00:08:19.920 So working with our product team, our CEO usually will work with them and say, like, hey, here's the idea. 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:24.079 And they'll come back to a timeline of like, hey, this is how long it's going to take to build something like this. 00:08:24.079 --> 00:08:26.560 There are phases we're gonna have to go through for testing. 00:08:26.560 --> 00:08:33.679 And I mentioned earlier, as a power user of our product, I tend to be more involved in the early stages of testing. 00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:35.919 So, you know, we'll do trusted testers internally. 00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:42.399 We'll work with our product team and they'll say, okay, once something feels like it's in a testable state, not GA state, but testable. 00:08:42.399 --> 00:08:46.159 We are so lucky that we have so many customers that have been with us for a long time. 00:08:46.159 --> 00:08:50.240 They really like our product that we have people like clamoring to be in our trusted testers. 00:08:50.240 --> 00:09:00.320 So we have a pretty good roster of customers, including myself, that will test out that product first and sort of give some feedback before we start talking about launch timeline. 00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:05.120 Now it's a roundabout way to also say we will do launches for like Piper X. 00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:05.679 She's ready. 00:09:05.679 --> 00:09:06.320 She's on our website. 00:09:06.320 --> 00:09:11.279 You can go to qualified.com, you can talk to her, but she's only in trusted testers with a lot of our customers. 00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:12.559 So we will move fast. 00:09:12.559 --> 00:09:13.679 I mean, she's ready to go. 00:09:13.679 --> 00:09:14.240 She is there. 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:14.960 We're selling her. 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:18.879 She's on people's site, but our launches will coincide with like when she goes live. 00:09:18.879 --> 00:09:20.639 It's not a wait until it is in a state. 00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:22.720 We can't wait because of AI anymore. 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:24.559 I think that we have to move fast. 00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:30.240 Now, that isn't to say we're launching like half-baked products that don't work because again, it's on our website and it does have to work. 00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:37.440 But um, it's almost like they go together in tandem when we're talking about the product and when is that going to be live and when is a launch going to happen? 00:09:37.440 --> 00:09:39.600 Move so much faster than it used to. 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:41.440 Wow, that's I hadn't actually thought of that. 00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:41.840 You're right. 00:09:41.840 --> 00:09:42.080 Yeah. 00:09:42.080 --> 00:09:46.559 And there's no reason not to get it up if you've used it and tested it, but it's not actually like a production. 00:09:46.559 --> 00:09:48.720 You're not, you're beginning to sell it. 00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:49.840 There's no reason to wait. 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:50.960 And you can't wait. 00:09:51.200 --> 00:09:54.799 And I would say too, you know, I've been here since we were a very small company. 00:09:54.799 --> 00:09:56.480 We didn't have the luxury of doing that before. 00:09:56.480 --> 00:09:58.000 You know, you don't have the same customers. 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:03.440 You have a, you really have to make sure the product is something where you can take it to those customers at a very ready state. 00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:10.399 Where now, because again, we have this roster of really great customers, we know that we can give them a product that they are willing to test and give feedback on. 00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:13.759 We also know that our product team is incredible and they're going to make something that's really good. 00:10:13.759 --> 00:10:18.399 So with our product launches, part of it is also just painting the vision of like, hey, here's where the product is going. 00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:20.799 And we'll start to tease those things with product visions. 00:10:20.799 --> 00:10:27.440 Like if you're a customer and we do product roadmap reveal events, where we'll kind of give you a peek behind the curtain and say, like, these are the things that are coming. 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:40.799 But again, I think based on your stage of company, that's only doable for us because we have amazing customers who are excited about the product and they've been through a lot of product launches with us and they know that the outcome is going to be something impactful for their business. 00:10:40.799 --> 00:10:43.679 So they are willing to help us test that and give feedback. 00:10:43.919 --> 00:10:45.120 I mean it was super interesting. 00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:46.960 In the AIH, you just can't wait. 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:51.120 And

it's real So how do you productionize that when you're getting, when you know this thing's coming out? 00:10:51.120 --> 00:10:55.759 Do you have the when you're thinking about bill of materials and actually what you're gonna do? 00:10:55.759 --> 00:10:57.600 How does that process look like for you? 00:10:57.840 --> 00:10:58.000 Yep. 00:10:58.000 --> 00:10:59.120 So it's a few different things. 00:10:59.120 --> 00:11:02.879 We always we almost always start with a keynote, which you'll see our CEO Craig do. 00:11:02.879 --> 00:11:04.720 And that is really painting the vision. 00:11:04.720 --> 00:11:07.200 So, you know, he wants to get out there and tell you, why are we doing this? 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:09.039 Like, why does this matter to you as a marketer? 00:11:09.039 --> 00:11:10.559 We're not just doing it for the fun of it. 00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:14.639 We're doing it because we've seen a very real business need, we've seen a real need in the market. 00:11:14.639 --> 00:11:16.320 So we start with those keynotes. 00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:22.879 Typically, our our product marketing team, our CMO, will work with our CEO to get down what is that story. 00:11:22.879 --> 00:11:26.159 And that kind of really guides the rest of our launches. 00:11:26.159 --> 00:11:27.759 And we tend to do launches in events. 00:11:27.759 --> 00:11:30.799 That's something our company is very event heavy. 00:11:30.799 --> 00:11:36.000 If you go look at our resource page, we put on a lot of virtual events because they do really well for us. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:39.360 So the event format is typically okay, what's the story we're telling? 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:41.279 That kind of shapes itself as a keynote. 00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:44.480 And then going back to speed, the toughest part is we've got to show it. 00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:45.600 We have to demo it. 00:11:45.600 --> 00:11:53.440 So then there's a lot of work between the product team, the product marketing team on we need to get this into a demo ready state for that event because we need to show it to customers. 00:11:53.440 --> 00:11:55.519 So we never launch it before that is ready. 00:11:55.519 --> 00:12:02.639 And then typically we'll bring on customers to sort of do a validation of yes, we've used it, we've seen it, this is why we're excited about it. 00:12:02.639 --> 00:12:07.759 And that is our typical playbook is paint the vision, tell the story, then show the product. 00:12:07.759 --> 00:12:09.919 I think if you can't show the product, people aren't going to care. 00:12:09.919 --> 00:12:11.440 They're not going to get excited about it. 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:16.960 And then really bring on those customers to tell everyone else, like, yeah, we've seen it, we're excited, and here's why. 00:12:17.279 --> 00:12:18.000 Yeah, I love that. 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:19.360 And Craig's a good spokesman too. 00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:19.919 He's awesome. 00:12:19.919 --> 00:12:21.679 I mean, he's just good at painting the vision. 00:12:21.679 --> 00:12:30.639 But what a great what a great way to get the actual actual positioning and messaging about the product and its features and why have the CEO actually talk about it on camera. 00:12:30.639 --> 00:12:30.879 Yeah. 00:12:30.879 --> 00:12:33.440 Because that I mean that's basically the script right there. 00:12:33.440 --> 00:12:33.759 Yep. 00:12:33.759 --> 00:12:36.960 And it's probably pretty, I would guess it's pretty precious to them too. 00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:38.000 They want to get that right. 00:12:38.159 --> 00:12:46.320 Like how it's and it will we'll go through iterations of script for the keynote, and it really helps us like hone in on that story because you know, he'll go over it with the team. 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:47.679 And again, I'm a user of it. 00:12:47.679 --> 00:12:51.440 I'll be like, ah, that doesn't the way we're that doesn't really like mean anything to me. 00:12:51.440 --> 00:12:53.120 That's not something that would get me excited. 00:12:53.120 --> 00:13:00.559 And then we'll kind of go back and forth until we get right, like, okay, this is this is why we're doing it, and this is something that will resonate with people. 00:13:00.559 --> 00:13:06.159 Um, Craig was a product marketer before he was a CMO, so it is very much in his blood to do that. 00:13:06.159 --> 00:13:12.879 But it is such a good forcing function to get the rest of the marketing team and the product team aligned with what we're bringing to market. 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:20.399 I don't know why more brands don't do that, have the C have the human face of the CEO, and then more does such a great job at being a spokesperson. 00:13:20.399 --> 00:13:21.200 Then you have customers. 00:13:21.200 --> 00:13:22.559 It's kind of like the trifecta there. 00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:26.799 You get a little triangle of CEO, another spokesman, and then you got customers. 00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:27.759 It's really smart. 00:13:27.759 --> 00:13:28.080 Yeah. 00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:30.240 How long does it take for you to produce that? 00:13:30.240 --> 00:13:32.639 I'm just curious, like the the pipeline for that. 00:13:32.639 --> 00:13:36.879 Like, is it months or weeks, or what do you typically months? 00:13:37.039 --> 00:13:40.320 I would say any one of our launch events that we've done. 00:13:40.320 --> 00:13:43.840 I'm notwithstanding like product testing and getting product into a good place. 00:13:43.840 --> 00:13:47.120 Like once the product is in a state where we're like, okay, we can start to demo this. 00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:54.080 My typical playbook for any sort of launch event is I want to give at least three to four weeks for people to register. 00:13:54.080 --> 00:14:07.759 So that means we've got to work backwards from like, okay, launch date is, you know, if it was today 1022, we need to go back into September and say, okay, if we wanted four weeks, we need to launch registration and start to tease this mid-September.

00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:15.440 And then depending on what the product is, how long it's going to take to get the demo right, things like that, you know, it's going to take at least a month and a half. 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:17.039 Now we've launched things faster. 00:14:17.039 --> 00:14:26.399 Like if it's something that is already built into the product and, you know, we're we're trying to do a launch of that, but we're not building something totally net new, we can turn them around in four to five weeks. 00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:27.759 Now the team doesn't love doing that. 00:14:27.759 --> 00:14:28.559 It's not easy. 00:14:28.559 --> 00:14:30.720 It's a whole team effort and it's hard. 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:37.600 But all that's a really long way to say, I would say four to eight weeks is a typical turnaround for like launching it. 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:38.080 Yeah. 00:14:38.080 --> 00:14:42.720 And what you're thinking about your plan to actually get it launched, media, let's say that you use. 00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:44.879 I mean, your site gets probably a lot of traffic, I guess. 00:14:44.879 --> 00:14:52.000 Do you even consider paid media or search or what other channels, like how do you get the word out to get people to the events and stuff? 00:14:52.399 --> 00:14:54.720 We typically use our email database. 00:14:54.720 --> 00:15:03.600 So again, you know, I've sound like a broken record here, but because our customers are really excited about what we're doing, we get a lot of engagement for customer-focused events. 00:15:03.600 --> 00:15:14.720 So product launches tend to be if I look at a Salesforce dashboard, which we do for every one of our events, including launch events and thought leadership events, they probably make up 70% of registrants. 00:15:14.720 --> 00:15:19.840 And then the 30% are, you know, prospects or net new, you know, people who aren't already in pipeline. 00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:25.120 Where a thought leadership event is much different than that, that is skewed much more prospect and less customer. 00:15:25.120 --> 00:15:28.320 But for a product launch, we're really going to focus on emailing them. 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:30.559 So we'll do that through a marketing automation system. 00:15:30.559 --> 00:15:42.080 Now, the other cool thing is with Piper and her email functionality, which came out, gosh, I think April of this year is when she started being able to email, is we will have her do the email for us for pre-event reg. 00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:46.320 So we'll give her a campaign, we'll say, hey, email customers, invite them to this event. 00:15:46.320 --> 00:15:56.399 It takes a lot of pressure off of me and the demand gen team to not be responsible for sending those emails and segmenting the lists and all of those things and marketing automation, which is never easy. 00:15:56.399 --> 00:16:00.879 Um, so yeah, she Piper handles a lot of that invitation. 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:04.720 And then for product-specific events, our sales team will also get really excited. 00:16:04.720 --> 00:16:06.399 Like they know this is gonna help them close deals. 00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:08.720 They know it's gonna help with expansion, things like that. 00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:15.440 So they will also do a lot of outreach one-to-one to people in their pipeline and prospects, and they will invite them to it. 00:16:15.440 --> 00:16:25.120 I think when we break down the numbers again, I would a majority of it is gonna come from email, whether the email campaign is for marketing automation or Piper, that's a majority of the registration of customers. 00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:31.200 And then the sales team is gonna make up like 20, 30% of the in like people registering for it. 00:16:31.360 --> 00:16:31.519 Yeah. 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:33.200 Because they're also trying to close deals. 00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:33.840 So Yeah. 00:16:33.919 --> 00:16:37.679 You have such a it's great to have a great uh customer base that loves your product. 00:16:37.679 --> 00:16:38.000 Yeah. 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:47.440 It's kind of the Salesforce model, you know, it's like, it's like they're you you built a little army of people who really love the agentic stuff and they're willing to learn the next thing, right? 00:16:47.759 --> 00:16:48.799 It is, it's really exciting. 00:16:48.799 --> 00:16:53.360 But to your point, we don't product launches, we don't tend to put a lot of money behind from a paid media perspective. 00:16:53.360 --> 00:17:01.120 Not that we haven't done it before and we've tested it in the past, but again, we find when it's product specific, people that aren't customers or in pipeline with us tend to not care. 00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:05.599 Like they care and it might be cool, especially in the AI world when like PyperX is really cool. 00:17:05.599 --> 00:17:09.680 Like PyperX felt like something very new and very different that was not seen in the market before. 00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:13.759 So that I think was one of our highest registered for launch events that we've ever done. 00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:16.480 For that reason, I think it spanned beyond customers. 00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:28.559 But for most launch events, the main people are going to care and want to sign up are customers, and you already have a line of sight to them through like your customer success team, your salespeople that are working with them on any expansion and upsell opportunities. 00:17:28.559 --> 00:17:36.000 And then, you know, if they've opted in and they're on your database, also using a Piper type campaign or a marketing automation campaign to email them. 00:17:36.319 --> 00:17:39.359 And I guess one more thing about the messaging around the launch. 00:17:39.359 --> 00:17:44.640 This new Piper X does some things that I've never seen before, particularly like the vision part. 00:17:44.640 --> 00:17:46.000 It is it is so cool. 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:52.799 And I was telling you before, as I was testing

it out, how Piper knew what was in the background or could tell what I was doing, you know, glasses and stuff. 00:17:52.799 --> 00:17:56.000 It's really amazing, human-like quality. 00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:58.480 How do you think about with AI products? 00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:08.319 Because you got a lot of AI noise out there, how do you think about best showing the uniqueness of this AI product because it is kind of a category creation? 00:18:08.319 --> 00:18:10.240 It's a new, it's a brand new thing. 00:18:10.240 --> 00:18:11.759 Do you think about that a little differently? 00:18:11.759 --> 00:18:13.599 How do you think about that? 00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:15.920 Yeah, for me, it's letting people get their hands on it. 00:18:15.920 --> 00:18:22.559 Because I think to your point, when you started like asking Piper questions and you started messing around with it, you see how cool it is. 00:18:22.559 --> 00:18:24.480 So I think the demo is always great. 00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:26.079 You know, a keynote is always great. 00:18:26.079 --> 00:18:29.519 Painting that vision is always it's all necessary steps. 00:18:29.519 --> 00:18:34.240 But if you can't drive people to go see it for themselves, it becomes much, much more difficult. 00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:36.480 So for us, we had a test drive page. 00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:41.200 So at the end of our launch event, we're like, hey, you can go see for yourself, go talk to Piper, go test her out. 00:18:41.200 --> 00:18:49.920 So I think the more, and then also kind of in that same vein, when we go to events now, because we do a lot of in-person events, I think that is something that qualified. 00:18:49.920 --> 00:18:55.359 We found a lot of success with, and part of that is because of Piper's pre and post-event follow-up, which is a whole other conversation. 00:18:55.359 --> 00:18:58.960 But showing demos at events now has become imperative. 00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:02.240 Before it was like, yeah, show a demo at the booth if someone stops by. 00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:04.160 But I'm thinking back to inbound. 00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:05.519 We had just launched Piper X. 00:19:05.519 --> 00:19:08.880 Hubspot Inbound was at Moscone, which is right down the road from our headquarters. 00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:13.839 And the way we set our booth up was like a vastly different booth setup than what we'd done before. 00:19:13.839 --> 00:19:25.680 And we had a loud speaker, like we brought in a giant speaker, we had a microphone because we were talking to Piper and we were like bringing people and we would be demoing her and it would stop people that were walking by. 00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:27.599 Like it wasn't like they had just come to our booth to see us. 00:19:27.599 --> 00:19:34.160 It'd be like they were walking by and all of a sudden they see Piper on your screen, and she's saying things like, Oh, it looks like you're at a conference. 00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:35.359 What conference are you at? 00:19:35.359 --> 00:19:36.960 And people thought that was really cool. 00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:44.000 So I do think it is about finding ways to get people hands-on and seeing it for themselves. 00:19:44.319 --> 00:19:44.640 Yeah. 00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:45.759 Yeah, it's completely. 00:19:45.759 --> 00:19:52.640 Like I say, it is it is very jarring when you actually see it at work and you're like, it's the next, oh wow, that is something that really, really cool. 00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:58.960 And I I encourage everyone that is listening to this to go check out the demo because it's kind of it's kind of mind-breaking in how it works. 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:01.440 Yeah, because she's there. 00:20:01.440 --> 00:20:02.480 You can talk to her. 00:20:02.720 --> 00:20:03.519 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:04.880 It's it's it's pretty amazing. 00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:06.720 Let's talk about production. 00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:14.640 I think one of the hallmarks of the stuff that you do is and not a lot of people can pull this off the way you do it, is really high quality video. 00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:21.119 It's really sharp, it's narrative, it's it's both the demo videos, and I was just wondering what's the secret there. 00:20:21.119 --> 00:20:22.960 Like, how do you pull those off? 00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:26.319 Why is video such an important part of what you guys do? 00:20:26.640 --> 00:20:27.920 Yep, I would say so. 00:20:27.920 --> 00:20:31.599 Very early on in the company's history, we made a big bet on video. 00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:33.519 We also made a big bet on our creative team. 00:20:33.519 --> 00:20:36.000 We have a really large creative team because we do everything in house. 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:37.440 We don't outsource anything. 00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:46.400 Found, you know, I've worked with great agencies in the past, but it's so much easier to move at the pace that we need to move, especially in an AI-first world where we're moving so fast. 00:20:46.400 --> 00:20:50.960 If people are in-house, they understand our product, we're not having to re-explain it to them. 00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:54.240 So the first thing is we brought stuff in-house really early on. 00:20:54.240 --> 00:20:57.920 And it's actually been a couple of years since we built what we call qualified studios. 00:20:57.920 --> 00:21:04.559 And we had it in our the last office we were in, we've actually since moved to a larger office and reset up a studio. 00:21:04.559 --> 00:21:07.680 So we have something that's always ready for filming. 00:21:07.680 --> 00:21:12.079 Now, the biggest shout-out goes to there's a guy on our team, his name is Danny, and he is our producer. 00:21:12.079 --> 00:21:14.559 And Danny is kind of the mastermind behind all of it. 00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:21.599 He's on all of our recordings, he's the one that's in the studio setting up the cameras, he's the one who's setting up the shots, making sure it all looks good. 00:21:21.599 --> 00:21:26.000 So having

that person in-house is incredibly helpful. 00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:28.319 Then the other side of that is the demos. 00:21:28.319 --> 00:21:31.759 So I think doing polished demos, we do them live. 00:21:31.759 --> 00:21:34.160 They're not made up, they're not fake demos. 00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:42.319 And then that's going to require if you have to do a fake demo, that's gonna require a whole other skill set of designers and motion animators and things like that to make it work. 00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:49.920 Um, more, you'll see our uh CMO Maura do a lot of the demos, but our CEO has pushed a lot of people on our marketing team to know how to demo. 00:21:49.920 --> 00:21:52.240 Like I can go demo Piper at any given time. 00:21:52.240 --> 00:21:57.119 I have, I know the talk track, I know what she is capable of, and all of our product marketers can do that. 00:21:57.119 --> 00:21:58.400 Our CMO can do that. 00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:01.839 Now, part of that is because the product is very simple to use. 00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:04.400 And so it makes it simple and easy. 00:22:04.400 --> 00:22:11.200 But I do think having people that are comfortable demoing the product from a production standpoint makes it a lot easier. 00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:14.960 So we've got Danny in qualified studios, he's filming our keynotes. 00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:17.839 Then we're doing sort of like a riverside recording with the demos. 00:22:17.839 --> 00:22:20.319 So we're getting the screen capture, we're showing it happening. 00:22:20.319 --> 00:22:28.000 And then having the studio again when we have customers come in, it's just a nice space to have them if they're local and they want to come into the office and do the filming. 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:35.519 So we're very fortunate in that we have such a large creative team that is very talented and lets us do a lot of it in-house. 00:22:35.759 --> 00:22:36.880 Yeah, I completely agree. 00:22:36.880 --> 00:22:41.839 The the, I mean, I would, I would, if I was uh client side, I would build my own video team. 00:22:41.839 --> 00:22:44.319 It just makes them so easy these days. 00:22:44.319 --> 00:22:47.359 I mean, the equipment you need is pretty simple. 00:22:47.359 --> 00:22:48.799 The editing tools are amazing. 00:22:48.799 --> 00:22:52.880 You've got things like Riverside that just makes it super easy to cut to edit. 00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:53.519 So I agree. 00:22:53.519 --> 00:22:58.160 Well, um, I was going to ask about the customer interviews that you guys do, because you do so many. 00:22:58.160 --> 00:23:04.000 How do you like what is the system that you put together to get customers A to agree? 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:07.119 And then B, how did you make have you made that system really easy for them? 00:23:07.119 --> 00:23:08.799 Like it's really unique, I think. 00:23:09.359 --> 00:23:14.960 Customer marketing, I think, is one of the hardest jobs of marketing that I did not realize until I was here. 00:23:14.960 --> 00:23:18.400 It's incredibly hard to get a scalable system for customer marketing. 00:23:18.400 --> 00:23:19.839 I think it all starts with the product. 00:23:19.839 --> 00:23:22.000 If people like your product, they're willing to vouch for it. 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:28.480 I think if you work at a company where the product doesn't work very well, your job is that much harder to get customers to come on and be able to talk to it. 00:23:28.480 --> 00:23:32.240 We are in the position where our customers do like our product. 00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:34.559 They use our product, so they are willing to join us. 00:23:34.559 --> 00:23:37.599 We have a really close relationship with our customer success team. 00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:40.960 We actually call them QSAs, which is qualified success architects. 00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:44.079 They work under our chief customer officer, Dan Darcy. 00:23:44.079 --> 00:23:47.279 And Dan is really well connected with our customers. 00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:48.319 He knows a lot of them. 00:23:48.319 --> 00:23:50.319 He takes the time to get to know them. 00:23:50.319 --> 00:23:52.880 He's always trying to have meetings with them. 00:23:52.880 --> 00:24:02.960 So when it comes time for a customer testimonial, he usually has his thumb on like the pulse of, okay, this customer, they're really excited about it because he's really close with his leadership team. 00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:06.640 So they're always, you know, funneling information up to him about who's doing well. 00:24:06.640 --> 00:24:14.799 We also have a um, I feel like I'm just doing like a award ceremony shout-out for all the people that do a good job, but we have a really good RevOps team too. 00:24:14.799 --> 00:24:23.039 Um, our SUP of RevOps, Kieran, runs a very well-oiled machine of RevOps and the way that our data is in our systems. 00:24:23.039 --> 00:24:30.880 So when you want to talk about a scalable customer marketing program, it starts with the data in our systems and we're able to then go and look at here's all of our customers. 00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:32.000 Are they happy? 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:33.599 What products are they actually using? 00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:35.039 What's the sentiment there? 00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:44.720 And I wouldn't be able to do that, and our team wouldn't be able to do that if we didn't have the data in place in our CRM system to pull reports and then from there we can say, okay, Dan, QSA team. 00:24:44.720 --> 00:24:48.400 It looks like these five CMOs, they've been using our product for a long time. 00:24:48.400 --> 00:24:49.680 They've been trusted testers. 00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:51.839 It's showing their sentiment is green. 00:24:51.839 --> 00:24:53.039 What are your thoughts? 00:24:53.039 --> 00:24:54.240 Would they join us? 00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:56.640 And it makes it a lot easier for them to say yes. 00:24:56.960 --> 00:24:57.119 Yeah. 00:24:57.119 --> 00:25:01.200 You want to hear too is you've kind of built

a culture of the customer feedback. 00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:03.039 You want the customer feedback. 00:25:03.039 --> 00:25:04.400 You're very customer-centric. 00:25:04.400 --> 00:25:10.000 So it makes it easier because everyone knows that you want that customer feedback and test them ultimately testimonial. 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:10.799 So absolutely. 00:25:11.039 --> 00:25:13.920 Our team has always we try to be very cognizant. 00:25:13.920 --> 00:25:16.720 Um, you know, we've talked, we do a lot of things, we do a lot of events. 00:25:16.720 --> 00:25:20.400 So the team is always working together to be very cognizant of who are we asking? 00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:22.160 Have we done asks of them recently? 00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:24.559 We don't want to overload customers that are happy with us. 00:25:24.559 --> 00:25:27.039 We, you know, we're appreciative that they're willing to do these things. 00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:30.880 Let's not sour that relationship with too many asks. 00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:39.759 Now, again, if you're doing customer marketing at a company where you don't have as many customers, you kind of got to make those champions that are willing to like really go to bat for you over and over again. 00:25:39.759 --> 00:25:47.920 As we've scaled and gotten bigger now, we just are able to go to different customers and make those asks and be careful that we're not overloading anyone. 00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:54.319 And I do think that starts with like a good relationship and a good feedback loop with our customer team so they know what's going on. 00:25:54.640 --> 00:25:54.880 Yeah. 00:25:54.880 --> 00:25:56.720 I'm dying to ask you too about events. 00:25:56.720 --> 00:25:59.839 You guys do so many events and they seem to be so well put together. 00:25:59.839 --> 00:26:04.640 I'm wondering, um, are there certain type of events that you're now leaning into more than others? 00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:06.079 What's working, what's not? 00:26:06.079 --> 00:26:10.240 I'm hearing a lot of people doing private dinner events and you know, the more personal things. 00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:12.400 I'd just be curious what's working for you guys. 00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:12.880 Yeah. 00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:15.599 So we actually we have a pretty healthy mix of events. 00:26:15.599 --> 00:26:19.200 We do, we have our thought leadership virtual events. 00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:22.480 So that lives under like me and my team from a demand gen perspective. 00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:24.000 Because in my mind, that's a lot of content. 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:25.759 And then it it lives with campaigns. 00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:29.039 We're talking about how can we reutilize the content in these longer-term campaigns. 00:26:29.039 --> 00:26:32.880 So the the big thought leadership we usually do twice a year. 00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:33.839 We call them summits. 00:26:33.839 --> 00:26:36.319 Like we have upcoming is our Agentic Marketing Summit. 00:26:36.319 --> 00:26:38.240

In April, we had our AI SDR summit. 00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:45.440 We had an AI workforce summit, we have pipeline summits, but those are our thought leadership events where we're bringing on those are virtual. 00:26:45.440 --> 00:26:47.039 We we host it through Goldcast. 00:26:47.039 --> 00:26:53.279 We've got a really good system down for those, down from like the way that we do prep docs for our speakers. 00:26:53.279 --> 00:26:55.039 I, you know, I've been doing this for a lot of years. 00:26:55.039 --> 00:26:58.319 So the system has gotten pretty, pretty turnky. 00:26:58.319 --> 00:27:04.079 I mean, there's still a ton of work for the team to pull off, but the way that we work with our guests, we try to make it as easy as possible. 00:27:04.079 --> 00:27:09.200 The way that we're doing the recordings, we have our producer Danny in house, so he's helping us with everything. 00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:12.720 So those virtual events, they're longer, they're a couple hours. 00:27:12.720 --> 00:27:14.319 We do them a couple of times a year. 00:27:14.319 --> 00:27:18.319 Then we do other virtual events like our launch events, so very product-focused events. 00:27:18.319 --> 00:27:29.839 So that might be anything from as large as a Piper X launch, which is huge, and you know, that's a huge internal push, to smaller customer events that we'll do like our roadmap reveal events where it's very customer focused. 00:27:29.839 --> 00:27:33.680 Again, all virtual, kind of the same playbook, but just a lower lift because they're usually shorter. 00:27:33.680 --> 00:27:38.480 They're like 45 minutes to an hour, so not quite as much filming and producing and things like that. 00:27:38.480 --> 00:27:45.599 Then on our events team side, like our in-person events team, they we started sponsoring more events. 00:27:45.599 --> 00:27:48.400 And what's interesting, I kind of mentioned the Piper use case. 00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:53.279 In the five or six years that I've worked here, we've, you know, slowly ramped up in-person events. 00:27:53.279 --> 00:27:57.119 Never in my career as a marketer has it been easy to make an ROI use case to do events. 00:27:57.119 --> 00:27:59.599 You get these massive lead lists, you hand them to your SDR team. 00:27:59.599 --> 00:28:01.440 They're like, I don't want to talk to any of these people. 00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:04.799 I don't know if they're any good, but I paid $80,000 for them. 00:28:04.799 --> 00:28:06.880 So I really want them to go follow up with those leads. 00:28:06.880 --> 00:28:11.680 And it's always been hard to justify the spend because it's hard to type pipeline to it. 00:28:11.680 --> 00:28:17.039 With our Piper email capability, I don't have to worry about my SDRs anymore. 00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:18.160 I just give them a lead. 00:28:18.160 --> 00:28:20.079 I give Piper a lead list from an event. 00:28:20.079 --> 00:28:23.519 She's able to write really bespoke personalized emails, do that outreach. 00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:28.559 I actually shared on LinkedIn a while ago, but we saw a massive jump in our event pipeline. 00:28:28.559 --> 00:28:33.279 It was some like 70% quarter over quarter increase when we turned on Piper campaigns. 00:28:33.279 --> 00:28:35.279 And it was just from her following up with event leads. 00:28:35.279 --> 00:28:36.640 And it was solely events. 00:28:36.640 --> 00:28:41.519 So now this Q3 of this year has been the heaviest event quarter we've ever done. 00:28:41.519 --> 00:28:43.519 Like in-person events are per events. 00:28:43.519 --> 00:28:44.240 That's amazing. 00:28:44.240 --> 00:28:47.680 And then the last one is we will do some small bespoke dinners. 00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:56.480 When we go to certain events, like we're going to SixtSense's breakthrough, where we know there's a lot of cross combination of customers. 00:28:56.480 --> 00:28:59.039 Like we know we have a lot of joint customers with Sixth. 00:28:59.039 --> 00:29:01.920 Is we'll do a customer dinner at like a nice restaurant. 00:29:01.920 --> 00:29:05.119 A few years ago, we tried some customer dinners and got burnt. 00:29:05.119 --> 00:29:05.920 They didn't do great. 00:29:05.920 --> 00:29:07.119 We didn't get good turnout. 00:29:07.119 --> 00:29:08.720 It was a lot of money. 00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:10.559 I think things have gotten better. 00:29:10.559 --> 00:29:15.039 You know, we we've been much more selective on when we do it, where we do it, when we know customers will be there. 00:29:15.039 --> 00:29:16.720 So we kind of do it all. 00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:17.759 Yeah, I agree. 00:29:17.759 --> 00:29:26.079 In that, but isn't that so interesting that those events worked all along, big events, but maybe the follow-up wasn't just humans are not quite built for that. 00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:30.240 And then you put Piper on it and you're like, whoa, it just actually these events actually work. 00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:38.960 Yeah, and we, you know, we would always it would always just put a bigger onus on the team that was on site before we had Piper doing that post email follow-up because and I I go to a lot of our events. 00:29:38.960 --> 00:29:43.680 I do a lot, again, I use our product, so it's great for me to go to events and get to talk to people about it. 00:29:43.680 --> 00:29:55.039 Um, but you know, I'd be demoing the product at the booth or I'd be talking to people at the booth at these events, and you just have such a limited time to get their attention and get them to no one wants, I mean, you're busy at these events, no one wants a demo. 00:29:55.039 --> 00:29:56.240 They got a happy hour to go to. 00:29:56.240 --> 00:29:58.400 Like they've seen a million demos. 00:29:58.400 --> 00:30:04.720 So being able to ensure that we've got the right follow-up after justifies the spend that we're putting into events and the time. 00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:05.920 It's a heavy lift for the team. 00:30:05.920 --> 00:30:07.759 So we've got to make sure it's worth it.

00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:08.319 100%. 00:30:08.319 --> 00:30:08.960 Yeah, yeah. 00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:09.440 Okay. 00:30:09.440 --> 00:30:10.640 Just a couple more things. 00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:12.480 I wanted to ask you about uh measurement. 00:30:12.480 --> 00:30:14.799 So you launch you do a launch event like this. 00:30:14.799 --> 00:30:20.799 I wonder if there's anything unique in the way you guys measure launch day, launch month, but almost even the long tail. 00:30:20.799 --> 00:30:24.079 Like I'm wondering how the long tail looks for you for these type of things. 00:30:24.400 --> 00:30:27.759 It depends on what we're launching, but typically it's event registration. 00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:30.160 So do we have people that are actually showing interest in the event? 00:30:30.160 --> 00:30:34.240 So I kind of mentioned we have a Salesforce dashboard that is fantastic. 00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:36.799 Our RevOps team set up it has just a drop-down menu. 00:30:36.799 --> 00:30:44.319 You can toggle to any single event we're running and you can see registration by type, prospect customers, anything like that. 00:30:44.319 --> 00:30:46.799 We have our goals in there of what a registration goal is. 00:30:46.799 --> 00:30:52.480 So we're always looking at how close we are to attainment and then live attendees like how many people actually showed up. 00:30:52.480 --> 00:30:58.319 Now controversial I'm less worried about people showing up live because we'll always send something out after the event. 00:30:58.319 --> 00:30:59.599 So I'm like, you didn't show up live. 00:30:59.599 --> 00:31:01.759 Doesn't matter you already showed interest you registered. 00:31:01.759 --> 00:31:04.640 So I care a whole lot more about register number. 00:31:04.640 --> 00:31:12.319 And then if the product has a call to or the the event has a call to action from it, which a lot of times we will do. 00:31:12.319 --> 00:31:19.440 So Piper X is the example was go to the test drive page and go test Piper out to see how the launch was successful. 00:31:19.440 --> 00:31:22.240 I'm going to look at traffic on that page and like are you engaging with the product? 00:31:22.240 --> 00:31:22.960 Did you go to that? 00:31:22.960 --> 00:31:26.480 Like did people actually care enough about our call to action to engage with it? 00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:30.160 And sometimes our call to action is sign up for trusted testers like are you interested in this product? 00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:40.480 And then we'll measure it by volume of people hand raising to say that they want to be a trusted tester before we go GA so it really comes down to interest from a registration standpoint. 00:31:40.480 --> 00:31:43.200 Are people going to that call to action that we want them to do? 00:31:43.200 --> 00:31:45.359 That's like our first line of measurement. 00:31:45.759 --> 00:31:45.920 Yeah. 00:31:45.920 --> 00:31:52.079 Do you use any sort of attribution around how long it takes, number of touches, all that type of stuff. 00:31:52.079 --> 00:32:00.000 Seems like it's in your case, since it is so web heavy, your own organic property heavy, there's probably just a lot of visits back to the website, I would guess. 00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:09.599 Yep we're always our marketing team this is a like a broader answer, but our marketing team is all we're all measured off the same thing and it's pipeline and website traffic. 00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:11.599 So we care very deeply about website traffic. 00:32:11.839 --> 00:32:12.400 Oh it's smart. 00:32:12.559 --> 00:32:20.799 So now if it's people coming back for repeat visits, whatever it is, that's always a healthy and the team cares very deeply about it because that's what they're measured on. 00:32:20.799 --> 00:32:23.839 So web traffic is very important to us and then pipeline. 00:32:23.839 --> 00:32:42.960 So if we're looking at expansion pipeline our events people and our product marketers when we're running events they will always pull reports afterwards and say there was X amount of pipeline in that room of expansion pipeline or upsell pipeline because we need our sales team to care and they're going to say like hey we had X millions of dollars of people sitting in that room you need to go close those deals. 00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:43.680 Like they were there. 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:45.519 They showed interest they were there for the whole event. 00:32:45.519 --> 00:32:51.839 So we also do really look at that pipeline number um because that's all sales team cares about is dollar at the end. 00:32:53.200 --> 00:32:54.960 I love the idea of pipeline in the room. 00:32:54.960 --> 00:32:57.599 So you're on this event, you know there's pipeline in this room. 00:32:57.759 --> 00:32:58.000 Yep. 00:32:58.160 --> 00:32:58.720 Let's go get it. 00:32:59.039 --> 00:33:02.400 If it's a thought leadership event like one of our summits then we measure pipeline generated. 00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:08.880 So like how much pipeline is being generated which we'll also do for launch events because we can look at expansion pipeline generated from attendance. 00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:18.960 So yeah we'll we'll look at pipeline for both like created from event but also what's sitting open that then came and saw this product launch that can impact the speed at which we can close that deal. 00:33:19.359 --> 00:33:19.599 Yeah. 00:33:19.599 --> 00:33:19.920 Okay. 00:33:19.920 --> 00:33:20.480 That's great. 00:33:20.480 --> 00:33:21.680 Yeah that makes a lot of sense. 00:33:21.680 --> 00:33:29.519 And I, you know I register for a lot of events that I'm not I'm planning on not going to but I just want to register so I get the I get the recording or whatever. 00:33:29.519 --> 00:33:38.319 It's probably I would say like 90% of the events I register for, I'm not going to go to I'm actually shocked at how many people come to our events live. 00:33:38.400 --> 00:33:43.920 I'm like you know we're going to email you this right chat going and

we'll do QA in the events. 00:33:43.920 --> 00:33:51.279 So I think a lot of times with customer events with launches, they do want questions answered so they will show up to ask those questions in the chat which I totally get. 00:33:51.279 --> 00:33:54.559 But yeah I'm always shocked at our pull through numbers I'm like what we're going to email you. 00:33:54.799 --> 00:33:55.519 Why are you here? 00:33:55.519 --> 00:34:00.880 Well okay so let's talk really quickly last thing about sort of future forward stuff. 00:34:00.880 --> 00:34:06.960 I'm wondering as you know you've been there a long time you've been running Demand Gen which is an amazing job that you guys do. 00:34:06.960 --> 00:34:14.880 How do you see these these events launches evolving over time as AI sort of continues to change what's possible? 00:34:14.880 --> 00:34:21.840 And you're looking at any new tech or platforms or anything that you can see in the next year or a few years that you're like these could change for the future. 00:34:22.239 --> 00:34:44.480 You know, I think from a very static baseline, no, I don't like I think we'll keep doing them probably the volume we're doing them, the things I think will change, maybe volume will change is because AI is forcing us and allowing us to move so fast, we'll probably do more product launches as we are able to build more things and do more things with Piper, the onus will be on the marketing team to therefore do more launches. 00:34:44.480 --> 00:34:51.519 The team has already done a very good job of incorporating AI into how we're able to scale doing them. 00:34:51.519 --> 00:34:57.199 Because if we're going to have the volume of the product launches that we're going to have to do with the same team size, that's going to be very hard. 00:34:57.199 --> 00:35:05.840 So you know like people on my team from a content perspective, they're already using a lot of you know Chat GPT agents, things like that where they can crank out content faster. 00:35:05.840 --> 00:35:10.400 I use it quite a bit for when I'm thinking about events when I'm doing like prep documents and things like that. 00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:21.360 So I as we continue doing events, just finding ways to make it easier to pull them off in the same level that we've done it, but not needing the same amount of lift. 00:35:21.360 --> 00:35:41.599 Yeah I think there's a lot of just you know smaller AI things between like the LLMs that we're able to use for helping with content creation or um you know small things like you know we've talked about Riverside we use Riverside for a lot of our recordings their AI functionality for like they have magic clips and they'll give you suggestions of what you can use or I can go and use their their auto transcripts. 00:35:41.599 --> 00:35:50.239 It's things like that that I think have just become more commonplace in our workflow that are making it easier and will continue to get easier as we do these product launches. 00:35:50.239 --> 00:35:56.559 Now I don't envision AI is suddenly able to just take the full lift off of our marketing team as we launch them. 00:35:56.559 --> 00:36:03.519 I think it is just taking pieces within the entire workflow of these launches and taking a little bit of pressure off people. 00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:04.639 Yeah I agree. 00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:35.199 So you're an amazing coworker but not a replacement in this use case for I don't think in this particular use case for launches no I think it still requires so much you know we talked about doing the keynotes I think there's still so much like I guess human in the loop is the buzzword for it but you need the humans there to hear out the message and like you can use an LLM to help you with ideation and come up with different iterations of what you think the talk track should be, but it's going to take your SMEs internally hearing it and saying like no that doesn't resonate with me or yes it does. 00:36:35.199 --> 00:36:39.920 And it still requires a heavy human involvement to pull off these type of product launches, I think. 00:36:40.239 --> 00:36:40.400 Yeah. 00:36:40.400 --> 00:36:40.719 Yeah. 00:36:40.719 --> 00:36:44.800 And I would guess your team's probably pretty AI savvy like the marketing team. 00:36:45.440 --> 00:36:56.320 It's so interesting I was just I think I was reading on LinkedIn the chasm I think between people saying like oh we use AI for everything and then you kind of talk to people and they're like no we still haven't found out like how we're using it or where we need to use it. 00:36:56.320 --> 00:37:01.440 So it's always hard to gauge are we using it more so than most are we using it. 00:37:01.440 --> 00:37:04.320 Let like sometimes I feel like I'm way behind the ball on AI stuff. 00:37:04.320 --> 00:37:05.599 And then I talk to other people. 00:37:05.599 --> 00:37:12.719 So I think it's all over the board but the team is no matter what leader I've talked to, it is encouraged internally. 00:37:12.719 --> 00:37:15.519 Like using AI to make your job faster and better, it is a culture. 00:37:15.519 --> 00:37:30.800 I mean we're an AI native company so of course it's the culture but that's not the case at a lot of companies so I think even just by encouraging the team to find more use cases to build agents for and to use AI for it just makes the team a little more curious and willing to go do those things. 00:37:31.039 --> 00:37:32.400 Yeah for sure for sure. 00:37:32.400 --> 00:37:34.079 Okay well this has been fantastic. 00:37:34.079 --> 00:37:41.039 I could keep talking to you forever but I'm going to go to the next section that I wanted to do this our final question here for you. 00:37:41.039 --> 00:37:42.880 It's got called AR AI roulette. 00:37:42.880 --> 00:37:58.480 I warned you about this at the front part of the call I'm going to put a I'm so excited your profile and a little bit about what we're talking about here in the perplexity and it's going to ask me a question

the best question you're going to get for this entire and my fingers are crazy I use perplexity a lot so don't do me dirty perplexity. 00:37:58.559 --> 00:38:01.840 I'm I'm your biggest fan girl give me a softball here. 00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:07.039 Okay so let's try this here let me go hit send okay here it's so fast it's crazy. 00:38:07.039 --> 00:38:14.000 Okay but do you think the future of product launches will be designed more for AI algorithms than human buyers? 00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:15.039 That's interesting. 00:38:15.039 --> 00:38:24.159 Could that shift make traditional marketing emotions obsolete in favor of what the robots look for algorithm algorithmic precision? 00:38:25.039 --> 00:38:27.199 That is a you know what you said it would be a good question. 00:38:27.199 --> 00:38:28.320 That is a very good question. 00:38:28.320 --> 00:38:31.119 And my not great answer is I think it's a little bit of both. 00:38:31.119 --> 00:38:41.519 So I'm envisioning like even that just sparked my I'm like ooh for future launches there is we have a woman on our team her name is Sarah she's our AEO GEO expert. 00:38:41.519 --> 00:38:48.320 She's done a really fantastic job of like understanding how these LLMs are are scraping and learning and sourcing your content. 00:38:48.320 --> 00:38:56.559 I think the thing that will be impacted with AI for our product launches is how we put it live on our website. 00:38:56.559 --> 00:38:57.760 How is it structured? 00:38:57.760 --> 00:39:00.880 Is it being structured in a way that LLMs will reference it? 00:39:00.880 --> 00:39:02.960 So I don't think it will change how we run it. 00:39:02.960 --> 00:39:06.960 I think the creativity and what we're doing from a marketing standpoint will stay the same. 00:39:06.960 --> 00:39:15.679 I think how we put it on the internet and make it available for these LLMs to read and and who's and their citing and their sourcing will change. 00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:34.320 And then what's also really interesting about that question is Piper with the launch of Piper X, Piper can actually on your website if you're having a conversation with her like if you go to Qualified and you ask her, you know, tell me about a customer story she can actually go to pages on your website like in she'll take you there as you're browsing. 00:39:34.320 --> 00:39:36.960 Like it's not just like the it'll open on the website. 00:39:36.960 --> 00:39:40.239 She'll actually scroll down to certain things she'll highlight certain things. 00:39:40.239 --> 00:39:49.840 So to that point when we do product launches now we do have to think about the structure of the pages and how we're putting the videos on there because of Piper and that is an AI product. 00:39:49.840 --> 00:39:53.840 So it has changed kind of how we do those pages because we know that Piper needs to be able to read them. 00:39:53.840 --> 00:39:58.880 She's able to speak to them and also guide potential prospects to those pages and help them through it. 00:39:58.880 --> 00:40:01.360 So it has changed that structure in a little bit. 00:40:01.679 --> 00:40:13.679 Yeah it's such an interesting use case because when I think of agent-to-agent interaction on a website I think of two agents talking in the background or LLM looking at a page and it kind of serving you up the information primarily in text. 00:40:13.679 --> 00:40:24.639 In your case, your agent, let's say your AI Piper is actually able to talk to someone live like a human and then pull up a webpage that they found through talking to the webpage. 00:40:25.039 --> 00:40:37.280 So it's kind of adding a whole new dimension that I had to granted it has to be on your your domain like she's not going to take you off to some other but yeah she can guide you around the website I was messing with it the other day and I was like hey I'm a VP of demand gen. 00:40:37.280 --> 00:40:48.480 What content is on the website that I would find interesting and she was able to be like here's a piece of content and then she opened it up on the screen I was on and she dropped down and was like because you're a VP of demand gen I think you would find this part really interesting. 00:40:48.480 --> 00:40:50.719 I was like she's right that is really interesting. 00:40:50.719 --> 00:40:53.280 And I forgot we'd even done that content. 00:40:53.599 --> 00:40:54.400 How did she do that? 00:40:54.400 --> 00:40:55.039 It's crazy. 00:40:55.039 --> 00:40:58.320 Are you are you seeing much traffic through AI search? 00:40:58.320 --> 00:41:00.480 Are you guys getting seeing any increase? 00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:13.920 We are it was actually a big in our Q3 we do v2 mom which is a very I think it's a Salesforce centric like how we do our our measuring but part of our V2Mom for Q3 was AEO and we tasked Sarah on our team to help us out. 00:41:13.920 --> 00:41:15.920 You know we don't how do we do this? 00:41:15.920 --> 00:41:27.519 Because things are going really well at the company I think we've we've gotten a lot of traction we haven't seen as much of a dip in traffic I think as some of my peers have talked about as like search shifts from Google search to more LLM search. 00:41:27.519 --> 00:41:31.519 And I think a lot of people are seeing a pretty big dip in organic traffic. 00:41:31.519 --> 00:41:41.440 We've seen a pretty steady organic traffic that we're not seeing massive jumps but we're not seeing a decline either but we are seeing an increase in LLM reference people coming to our site. 00:41:41.440 --> 00:41:45.360 It's not like huge numbers but it is an increase for sure. 00:41:45.599 --> 00:41:45.840 Yeah. 00:41:45.840 --> 00:41:54.239 You know what I'm seeing is it's highly qualified the stuff that we're getting because we get a lot of the people that come through ChatGPT or we get a lead is through an AI search. 00:41:54.239 --> 00:42:03.039 When they show up it's almost like you're they're you they've the vetting that the AI does is a different like a higher level of credibility let's say if they just found you through search. 00:42:03.039 --> 00:42:04.159 It's really interesting. 00:42:04.159 --> 00:42:10.239 Yeah like um they may have done a little bit more searching or talking to the uh to the LLM about us. 00:42:10.239 --> 00:42:14.800 So by the time they get to us they they've kind of gone well these guys are pretty good. 00:42:14.800 --> 00:42:22.880 They these one of the you know one of the uh best in the in the industry or whatever and they've just asked the AI basically like a reference from the AI. 00:42:23.199 --> 00:42:31.440 I set up our V2 mom in a way that each each channel from our website because I you know I mentioned earlier web traffic is a big indicator for us in what we measure. 00:42:31.440 --> 00:42:39.360 So I have reports for all of our different channels and how much traffic is coming and then from there we also have how many leads are getting created from that channel and how many are turning into opportunities. 00:42:39.360 --> 00:42:43.119 So I can always reference like conversion percentages and stuff like that. 00:42:43.119 --> 00:42:53.119 Even though our LLM traffic our AEO traffic is a smaller percentage of our overall traffic I think at its best it's like 8% of all of our website traffic. 00:42:53.119 --> 00:43:00.960 Pretty good it does have a much higher conversion percentage than any of our other traditional channels in which people then turn to leads and opportunities. 00:43:00.960 --> 00:43:10.239 So it is one of those things where like you don't need the volume because you've got the quality of people coming but obviously I always want higher volume. 00:43:10.480 --> 00:43:11.679 You're going to be asked for both. 00:43:11.760 --> 00:43:16.239 If you don't want it you will prevent it never stagnant so I need both. 00:43:16.559 --> 00:43:18.880 Well Sarah it's been great talking to you. 00:43:18.880 --> 00:43:26.000 I love the qualified team it's it's you're so fun to talk to and so uh you're doing so much innovation over there and it's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast. 00:43:26.000 --> 00:43:27.440 I'm sure people get a ton from it. 00:43:27.440 --> 00:43:31.280 If people want to connect with you or want to learn more about qualified how should they go about it? 00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:32.960 Yeah go connect with me on LinkedIn. 00:43:32.960 --> 00:43:41.920 I'm always looking to talk to people on there my name's Sarah McConnell if you ever want to see things like I kind of mentioned the event report and we talked about you know seeing an increase I'm always willing to share that stuff. 00:43:41.920 --> 00:43:46.719 So if you ever want me to share any of my like reports or things that I'm doing I'm always game. 00:43:46.880 --> 00:43:47.920 So cool. 00:43:47.920 --> 00:43:50.079 Thanks so much Sarah look forward to talking about