This episode features an interview with Dorian Kendal, a former CMO and a multi-time marketing leader. Most recently, Dorian served as CMO at Netlify, a platform for developers to build highly-performant and dynamic websites, e-commerce stores and applications.

In this episode, Dorian discusses his non-traditional path to the CMO role, his experience restructuring teams for an enterprise focus, and the value of partner programs. He shares his thoughts on why you should avoid checklist marketing.

Key Takeaways:

• Moving from product-led growth to an enterprise focus requires more targeted, “surgical” campaigns.
• Evangelist and influencer programs can drive long-term pipeline growth more effectively than short-term, paid media strategies.
• Over-reliance on SEM (Search Engine Marketing) can stifle creativity and drain budgets without delivering proportional returns. Redirecting resources to SEO, community engagement, and innovative campaigns like events can offer better long-term ROI.

Quote:

• “I'm very anti-checklist marketing, I call it, where you just have, every campaign you're like, here's the eight things we need to do, and you just check them off. Because it just sucks creativity out of the process. And I think that we oftentimes, instead of finding really unique ways to attract audiences and engage them, we sometimes just fall back on stuff. And search engine marketing, I've always felt it's been like the easiest thing for people to be like, you know, we're gonna do a campaign. Well, of course, what's our SEM budget? So I think sometimes just sucks creativity out of the process.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(03:59) The Trust Tree: Restructuring to target enterprise customers

*(13:23) The Playbook: Investing in search optimization over search engine marketing

*(35:45) Quick Hits: Dorian’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Dorian on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Caspian Studios