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Marketing Trends
The CMO Who Never Becomes Obsolete
00:53:20
The most future-ready marketing leaders aren’t the ones chasing trends… they’re the ones who can reinvent themselves every time the industry changes.
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- [00:00]
A
Going through all these different revolutions, are there any mindsets that you can think of of like, this is how you stay relevant?
- [00:07]
B
I'm a tinkerer by heart. I love figuring out how things work and learning about new things. So I think curiosity is huge. What I always really liked about the world of tech is that it changes so much and you're always learning about stuff. Sometimes people fear in this space that if you are out of it for a year or two, you become irrelevant. It just gets. Keeps changing, I think rolling up your sleeves and just volunteering to do stuff. Or people would say, hey, could you take this on? They're like, sure, let's just do it. I'll figure it out. Especially today in this world where everyone's always talking AI, I see people leaning in, learning, experimenting, trying new things. It's great because then you kind of have these experiences that you can continue to take with you for each role. Then being relevant on the company side is trying to have that balance of not just being too trendy for trendy sake. If you're going to stay relevant, there's showing people the path. You have to be innovative enough so you can take your customers on that journey with you.
- [01:08]
A
Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Marketing Trends. I'm your Host, Stephanie Postols, CEO and founder of Mission.org and today I'm really excited because we have Michelle Huff joining the show. She's the chief marketing officer of Alteryx. Michelle, welcome to Marketing Trends.
- [01:24]
B
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
- [01:25]
A
Yeah, so this one's going to be a good one because I can't think of many guests who've been through as many tech revolutions that you have. And so I want to just start with that of like a bit about your background so our audience can hear about like how many shifts you've been through because it's going to paint the picture for the whole conversation.
- [01:44]
B
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, since you. I started my career in tech in the late 90s and my first major job was actually in the early days where we were all creating websites. And believe it or not, I remember so our technology would take Word documents and automatically convert it to websites. And I remember being at trade shows and people would say, why would I want to read documentation on a monitor? And it's just, it's kind of mind blowing a little bit now. Right. Like when you think about it. But, but it was really those early days where the creation of the technologies and people were moving off of things like front page or hand coding everything. And so it Was kind of like this new world of wow, we could really digitize so many different things. And so I was at this small startup that grew and was acquired by Oracle. And then at Oracle it was really about continuing with the websites, but people were building a lot more web applications and portals and E commerce and you know, starting to collaborate more digitally. And so those were all kind of the technology sets that I worked with at Oracle and then went from there to Salesforce. And so, you know, it's, it's kind of like back in those days I felt like I was more in the middleware all the tools that people use to build things. And then at Salesforce it was really moving to this new thing of cloud. And what does that mean? And then you know, from the on premise and from Salesforce it was more of this end to end package kind of applications. And I worked in the world of data there as well. So had that whole journey and then went to my first. So along those ways it was all around doing product marketing, product management and those types of functions. And then at Salesforce was leading product marketing, product management. Eventually was the GM for the data cloud. And then went to my first chief marketing officer role and went to a company called Acton which is more marketing automation. And so the evolution around marketers and how tech enabled we've become and what we do and all the apps that support it. And then I felt like Cherry on top was going to user testing where it's kind of been like helping people build applications and tools to actually doing that in the cloud and then all the applications that people use. And then really user testing was about helping companies build and get feedback on everything that you've been building, everything that you're putting out there from customers to build these great experiences. And then since then I've gone to Alteryx, kind of going back to my data roots. And so at Alteryx, it's CMO for that company. It's about all this world of messy data we all live in. And oftentimes people are trying, it's amazing how manual it is to kind of get insights out of it and then really drive reports, dashboards and. And so Alteryx is kind of really in that whole area.
- [04:51]
A
I love it. Yeah, I was looking into Alteryx, I'm like, man, you're like putting this like these superpowers into people's hands that only data scientists used to like be able to have access to. Like when I think about my old days in finance, we'd have to go and be like, we're trying to query data and who owns the database and who can actually read this. And it was only the data scientists who could look at this housing data. And when I was looking at Alteryx, I'm like, whoa, this would have been very handy to have back in 2011 now.
- [05:19]
B
Totally. It reminded me a little of the web days where I remember people would say, oh, well, you know, we're not going to let other people, like, there's people who know how to write code. And then marketers would, would be like, hey, you know, like there's an apostrophe. Can you go in and change these few words? And everyone's like, oh my gosh, can you just, you know, so over time you really kind of help, you know, empower all the business. And really I feel like there's a very similar thing with, with Alteryx where instead of rewriting everyone to be the data scientists and it, it's really the business users who have more power to, to build all of that. So, yeah, there's somewhere I was like, oh, I can't believe I didn't know about Alteryx before joining. I could have used that before as well. Yes.
- [05:59]
A
So going through all these different revolutions, are there any mindsets that you can think of, of like, how, you know, you're like, this is how you stay relevant. And I'm sure you saw a lot of people get left behind periods and so what do you think that you know, is unique to you or the way that, you know, your mindset, you're thinking that really kept you relevant through all these big changes that you got to see firsthand?
- [06:22]
B
Yeah, I mean, I guess there's, well, there's a little thinking about as a company versus your own personal career. I think, you know, maybe if we talk career first, you know, it, it. I'm, I'm a tinkerer by heart. I love figuring out how things work and learning about new things and, and so I think curiosity is huge. And you know, what I've always really liked about the world of tech is that it changes so much and you're always learning about stuff. And I know sometimes people fear in this space that if you are out of it for like a year or two, you're like, you become irrelevant. But in some sense, it just keeps changing. So as long as you kind of roll up sleeves and decide to engage and read and learn and try and tinker like you, you can quickly become the expert on something in technology because it's always these new kind of unchartered paths and so, you know, it's, you know, I feel like back in those days, you know, marketing worked so different than it works today. Businesses worked very different. And, you know, I think rolling up your sleeves and just volunteering to do stuff was always how I grew my career. Or people would say, hey, could you take this on? And there's this moment where you're like, sure, let's just do it. I'll figure it out. And so I think especially today in this world where everyone's always talking AI and that's like a huge part of the disruption where I see people leaning in, learning, experimenting, trying new things. It's great because then you kind of have these experiences that you can continue to take with you for each role, each job that you have. And, you know, then being relevant on the company side is, you know, trying to have that balance of not just being too, you know, trendy for trendy sake and just putting things out there. Because I do feel like if you're going to stay relevant, there's kind of showing people the path. Right. It's. You have to be innovative enough so you can take your customers on that journey with you. But I think it's always being really staying grounded. And your customers, it's really. That's kind of the whole reason why you're. You're building your company.
- [08:35]
A
Yep. Yeah. Right now it feels like it's hard to know which things to tinker in. Like, do you. How do you know when you, especially as a cmo, where you're like, I want to get my hands dirty in something. I want to try and be curious. Let's just say vibe coding or something like that where you're like, this looks cool versus knowing. Like, okay, there's too many things I need to actually delegate my team to do it versus no, this isn't something we should be even trying right now. Like, that still needs to stay with me. Tech, IT, product. Like, how do you find the balance when things I feel like are so rapidly coming at everyone right now, like so many new things, so many new tools. Oh, my gosh, now everyone could do everything.
- [09:11]
B
You can't. You can't do it all. I mean, that's why I'm a big fan of obviously this part of my career having a whole organization because I want the whole org to tinker. So, you know, part of it is driving a culture where people feel like they can. Right. And providing them with the tools and access to do it. Actually, just even on the all hands we were having, you know, someone was showcasing you know how they went to an Adobe conference and was learning about all the AI features in Firefly and then thinking about how they're going to apply that within their own role. And so really just highlighting and showing how people are starting to experiment and explore. And I think it's also celebrating because it's sometimes the tinkering and the doing, it's not you don't hit success every single time, but you learn a lot, right? Like you learn like either how it was done and all the blockers. And then I feel like sometimes you start with things where you're almost doing it for, for doing it sake, but not for like a real business reason or real productivity. Like there's. And so you learn it kind of flops because there's not enough like pull there. And so I think, but I don't think it's, it's useless effort because, you know, you, you learn quite a bit through each as long, I guess, as long as you take a moment to reflect on why it's not working and so you can get the learnings, then I don't think it's a lost cause.
- [10:32]
A
So, I mean, this is a good segue into team building. And I mean, you mentioned, you know, the all hands, but how do you set up an environment for experiments? And I mean, I hear, you know, you had someone presenting what they were experimenting with, but how do you really make this part of the culture of getting your job done and doing it well, but also being in this curious experimentation mindset?
- [10:55]
B
Yeah, I mean, the nice thing is I feel like with my leadership team, number one, I think, you know, everyone on the team has a very growth, experimenting mindset, which is super helpful. Right. And so, you know, it's, it's not just me, it's them and how they're working across their teams. And you know, some of the things that they'll be working with their organization is, is when they're planning, planning time for some of the experiments. Right. Because marketing, I feel like we always have the endless checklist. There's always more that we can do, there's always more, always more, more, more. And so it's really easy to just not feel like you have time. And so I think a part of the culture is making sure it's a leadership team that we can work with the teams to help carve out some time. For me, I was like little forcing functions, whether they be, you know, like, like it all hands, always having a little section where people get to highlight what they're doing. So there's kind of this timeline forcing function where people say ooh, maybe by this date I'll present this. And so then there's, there's a little urgency to drive that. There's also where you know, if people are experimenting, someone will say hey, let's, let's combine what you're already trying to do. So instead of it an experiment for experiment's sake, it's tying it to something that you're already trying to drive and then that way you can see some of the results and then continually like highlighting the wins and build it in. And one of the things that we're doing right now is we're actually just going to hire someone. So good job post stuff that anyone listens to be an AI lead that's going to be in the ops team. And so I want someone who's just going to wake up every day thinking about how we are going to be transforming the marketing organization and working with each of the different teams. You know, it just feels like for the, you know, we all, everyone has their job to do, right? Like they're trying to generate leads, they're trying to drive the brand, they're trying to actually, you know, do messaging for the field. And so like, you know, it can feel sometimes like a, a hard job to try to also come up with the whole system process, you know, technology to even if it's going to ultimately make your job easier, it's, it also feels hard, you know, because you've got the results you're trying to drive. And so I just wanted someone who's going to, to go through each of the different roles and kind of imagine with those users and help kind of be that continuous driving force and so that we kind of don't lose momentum right when kind of other projects come up.
- [13:33]
A
So, so for this role is it? Yeah. I'd love to hear more about this because I could see a lot of companies wanting roles like this to come in outsider perspective. You're not in the weeds in the projects. But how like are they working individually with a whole team, a certain member and like what kind of skills does this person have to think outside the box? That's, you know, they're probably not maybe a product manager or a product marketing manager cuz then they're two in the weeds or they need to be thinking more holistically maybe at the higher level of marketing. But yeah, tell me how you're thinking about hiring this person and skill sets they need to have.
- [14:09]
B
Yeah, well, my head of marketing strategy and ops is the one that's hiring it into his org. And so we're, we're, we're going to put into marketing ops. And so we, we've been talking a lot about the role and obviously it's a new one. You know, I think industries are kind of experimenting and tinkering. And so, you know, it does feel like, you know, sometimes I'm like, am I looking for a unicorn? But what I want is, you know, you do need someone who's going to be almost like startup mindset, right? Like thinking scrappy and know how to take, you know, I do feel like there's a lot of skill sets of people and there's people who can take something from 0 to 1 and, and then there's people who can have something that's already built and like grow it, and then there's people who can like really optimize that. And it's hard to find someone who does all of that. But I, I feel like for this role, being able to take something from 0 to 1 is a really big. Because you're, you're really trying to, you know, walk into a world where there's not a lot of existing templates, a lot of existing best practices, right? Like, you have to just kind of create it. And so I want creators. You know, you need to be someone who, who has a little of a product management mindset where, you know, like the people who can actually go and talk to users and, you know, other team members and ask about what their job's like and what are the pain points and what are the things, you know, and you know, how I think about AI is, you know, I think so much of it's about automation, right? Like what people are starting to dream up is like, wow, we've lived in this world for years, right, over the last few decades where lots of manual things, we've been able to actually automate it through workflows, right? Business processes, apps, all of these things. And so we all have this mindset of how to scale something through, through automation. I think what the biggest unlock for AI is suddenly there's all these parts of the process that requires a lot of manual data entry. A lot of times where it needs to stop and someone needs to make a judgment call and kind of put it in. And so what AI starts to unlock is like, wow, this is kind of automating human judgment. Is there ways where I can actually put that as a part of the process? And now I can actually automate something more end to end. And then if you're actually able to have AI semi autonomously. Autonomously start running some of these processes, doing some of that, using judgment to understand which one to run and when. I mean, this is kind of a whole unlock. But I think what the difference is, is you're now starting to think about organizational management. I think the roles of people in marketing will change. Where, you know, I almost feel like it's almost like asking every person who owns a function on the team, you know, like, if I hired you five more people, what would you do? And no one would say, I would have the person come in and I would have them just read everything on the Internet and I'd give them access to Salesforce and just have them like peruse Salesforce for a while and then like do good things, right? Like you would say, okay, well actually I want them to help. Like I'm going to break down like this role, like into these different functions and I'm going to have my intern, like, this person's going to run this and this person's going to do this and then I'm going to tell them what I need them to know, what I expect them to do, and then I'm going to inspect like that they actually understand and they're doing things the way that makes sense and provide feedback. Right. And manage the process and that individual. And so I think AI agents is this shift of mindset, of trying to think, are there parts of a role that you carve out that you start to allow an agent to do, but then the person who's running it has to train, has to actually carve out the role train, be able to inspect what's actually being done, but at the beginning, guide what needs to be done. And so in that spirit, I want that AI lead to work with each of these function owners, help dream up with what those roles need to be. What tasks could actually be safely automated today? Because not everything's going to be and create these like AI agents. It's almost like, I think I read how Satya Nadella had everyone, Microsoft, start to create Org charts and be like, would you put them? And I think that's an interesting mindset to say. Like, where, where would you put them? I think, you know, like, sometimes there's just even like my, my marketing team, one of the ones I just want to help fix is they, they come back from all these marketing events and you get like all these like spreadsheets and then they're having to do all this manual work of like figuring out, you know, mapping to any Notes that were taken from the event and then being able to, if there's missing data, like help figure out if there's missing or if there interesting titles. And then getting that uploaded into systems. And it's just a lot of like manual work that you can really automate and make it a lot of an easy. You know, and it might not be something that we'd be able to hire for, you know, like all these kind of functions, but yet it's a part of their job. And if they could hire someone, they probably would create that role. And so that's where we're starting to think of like, what would an agent kind of look like?
- [20:00]
A
Yeah, yeah. So is there any areas of judgment that you have automated that maybe even your team was like, I don't think you can. And you're like, look, we did it. Or is it still very early days?
- [20:14]
B
Early days? I mean, there's ones where you actually see it in different applications today. So one I think you and I were talking about is we have with our SDR team. And so what that process tends to look like is where they're looking for potential prospects. Right. To outbound. They'll look for all these different systems, right. You first go in and you find someone on LinkedIn and then you go to Zoom Info and then you go into Salesforce to see if they're already in there. Right. Like you're constantly checking all these different places and then you end up using all of that insight to craft an email. And which is kind of the human judgment part. And so what we ended up doing was creating a workflow that, that takes the lead. So basically the, the, the rep actually finds leads and then the workflow triggers off and actually looks across all of those different systems, fills in anything that's missing, but now has all that context. And then we have a few policies and rules around GDPR and around different kind of checks. And then the other part that's automated within that workflow is the step to actually use the generative AI to actually create that email. And then it sticks and puts it within their application and they use Salesloft. And so what they do is every day they wake up and they look within their queue and they can. They basically have someone who's kind of in a really nice contextual way, like written the email for them and they can either automate that or they, you know, make little changes or they can just, you know, have it go as is. And so, you know, these are just, you know, it's like, I think about things that we do. There's some things that are great to have that automated judgment part and then there's other parts where it's like, you know, you don't want AI to come up with a gdpr. Like you have a policy in your company you need to follow and. Right. Like, so there's certain things that are really specific that you need to maintain and then there's other ones where you want to use the generative AI. And so I think, you know, obviously the content creation is one that we use so often in marketing, but that's always a human judgment part. That's been great.
- [22:33]
A
Yeah, Amazing. Yeah. I mean it seems like what one person, I mean, I'm hearing about all the workflows that one person used to have to do. It just seems like a very different world we're entering into where now your sales rep wakes up with crafted emails that they can just approve and tweak a little bit and just imagining every part of the org having that, that they get to look at and having the person from the outside looking in being like, let's look at your whole workflow now and see all the steps that you know, can be automated to then help you focus on the more creative pieces and the more human connection pieces of this process and not having to move things between different systems and you know, checking boxes and whatnot. Yeah, it seems like a fun time and a time also when you just maybe don't need as many people doing the same job like that sales.
- [23:26]
B
Almost like I think of it as like for example, I talk with my head of FP&A and he was describing how they have been doing some, some automations where you know, he remembers when he started like five years ago he had to do like revenue forecast. And if you think about that, revenue forecast is always going to download all these things from different systems and then you pull everything and then you have to like make a little call. Right. You kind of look at it and you like understand the context of the company, understand like market context, what's going on. If there's tariffs, if there's different things, then you make, you kind of make a judgment there. And he said like five years ago he had to have five analysts all prepare on a weekly basis that that forecast. And he's like, now we've been able to automate pulling all these things together. Right. And those are more standard like workflows, like analytic workflows. But then the very tail end they've started to automate where you know, he's like he goes, you know, even if you take an analyst and say you're supposed to every week go look and understand if there's tariffs or market, like all the comp, like you might not fully, but like the AI will actually go and consistently look at all of these indicators and then provide a recommendation of where they think the forecast. And then the person still makes the forecast like call, but he's like those five analysts that now we just have one. It's not like we don't need less people in FP&A. They're just now focused on things beyond this every week pulling the data. So like it's. I think in my mind it's the roles just evolve and shift and you take on different kinds of workloads. I do feel like the marketers over time will end up feeling like they're managing right. Like I think today people own applications right, like their job, they own a problem set and a function and they also like they own the marketo engine or they own, right like different parts. And I think that they'll, they'll say, oh yeah, and my team is made up right. Like I own this and then I have, you know, this job that I do, but I also have some agents helping and there'll be a combination. I don't think everything ever gets kind of fully automated away. I don't think that kind of a world that I see happening.
- [25:47]
A
Yeah, okay, so then that would require a lot of upskilling, I guess, to be able to take someone who was just used to. I'll go to your FPA example because I used to do that kind of stuff. Like I used to pull all the different data together and it'd be in Excel and adding different formulas. Like all that's gone. And so then to accelerate in a different role, it would probably take a lot of, you know, training to be like, okay, here's a new world that you're used to doing a lot of these things. And now it's more of a managing role, managing workflows, agents, automations, plus leaning into something very different that you're not used to. So I'm guessing there's quite a bit.
- [26:22]
B
Of upskilling for everybody in that world. We still need the analyst role. It just shifted to another problem set that constantly finding audits or things like that within the system. And so I think there's always problem sets that you can have the same skill set just applied into new things we've never been able to get to and now we can, and we can Improve that. And then there is for the people who, who want to kind of expand. I think there's people who, you know, in marketing are always wanting to kind of grow in their careers. And I think it's an interesting way to, to kind of grow without always. Because it's, it's what you do. Right. And how you. And the more strategic you can be instead of having to be doing just kind of like the. Because most people over time reach a point in their career, they don't want to do that anymore and this allows them to kind of grow.
- [27:12]
A
Yep. So are there any examples where y' all were like, an agent can fix this or AI can fix this, and then you're like, oh, never mind. Either too soon or bad idea that failed for now?
- [27:25]
B
Oh yeah. I mean there's so much. Right. I mean just even like with the content creation stuff, like we have with our team, we, we have a lot of little GPTs that we've been creating to help like create solution briefs, you know, automatically or help, you know, do some of the ideation kind of work for, for blogs or take like the first pass at certain things. And so it's, it's. I feel like it's done a lot of the productivity where it cuts out some of that work time. But you know, you, you look at some of the times of what's output and, and you're like, ah, you know, you got to still kind of work. Like it's not at a spot where you'd be like, oh yeah, let's just kind of let it run. And so there's, there's a lot of times where it does. Through all these experiments, you learn where its capabilities are truly at where you might need to fine tune or like where you, where it's super helpful within the process. You know, my team constantly talks. It's like, gosh, we've now unlocked some things around being able to create a lot of. But then on the marketing side of the editing, actually the generation of the like, there's still so much more of that process where now, now you've almost kind of unleashed one part of it and you haven't figured out how to actually get more out of like the machine. And so, yeah, so then that, that kind of shifts our focus of like, okay, where, where do we want to do some of this? Like on the production side of the house. Where can we add more value there? Yep.
- [29:01]
A
Yeah, it's. Content's an interesting space. Obviously I'm in this, I see it all the time, but people are sometimes surprised to hear that, you know, I still have a team pulling and editing the video clips and all that. And they're like, you can just have an AI tool that spits out a hundred. And I'm like, yeah, a hundred terrible ones. Like, I have creative thinkers who are thinking about the storyline, the hook. Like, does it resonate with our audience? What's the purpose of this episode? Like, you can't just use an AI tool that's just noisy, actually. And then it's just all this vanilla content out there pulled from a machine that can just cut really quickly and be like, is that helpful to the world, though, or is that just noisy? Which. Yes, it's a lot of what I'm seeing right now with content, it's just like noisy noise. Because everyone can do it now. They're like, I have ChatGPT. I can write up a LinkedIn post now. I can cut a video a thousand times and I can just put it all out there. And it's like, you know.
- [29:49]
B
Right. And then it almost creates a new problem sometimes where people. It's just too much. Right. And people are trying to wade through to find, like, the actual really thoughtful, kind of insightful pieces instead of all the fluff.
- [30:02]
A
Yeah. So how do you think about that then? Standing out, like, for the space that you're in? I feel like it's kind of competitive, this data analytics, AI space. And so how do you think about building campaigns or creating content in a very noisy space? And I'm sure any CMO listening, they're like, my space is also noisy. Any industry is noisy. But how do you all think about standing out, creating different content, maybe finding people who already have trust behind them? Like, tell me more about your process there.
- [30:29]
B
Yeah, I mean, it is hard. I think there's this world right now where everyone's in the sprinkle AI pixie dust on everything. Reminds me of the early days where everything became a dot com type of a thing. But, you know, and. But it's interesting too, because you. If you don't evolve your messaging, especially if that is what you do, right? Like, if. If that's a part of your strategy and what you're doing, you need to be able to say that, you know, but it is hard because I think everyone casts kind of a broad net. It is. Everyone starts to sound kind of similar. And I think it does make it really hard for. For buyers, you know, customers to kind of understand this world. And so I do feel like maybe what's lucky is with Alteryx we are at a size and scale now where we have a community of 700,000 people, which is amazing, 8,000 customers. And so the whole brand and reputation of Alteryx has always been around empowering the people. And so we have all these people who have been able to really change their lives, their jobs there like such community love. And I feel like that's such a important part of marketing, you know, because I think she say there's a lot of generic stuff that's out there, but I think telling stories and use cases from actual customers and things that they've done, I feel like that needs to be, that's how people kind of break through some of the noise is really using like the people who have firsthand kind of knowledge, experience. And so that's some of the things that we're kind of working through with our marketing plan too. And it's really always been a big part of the Alteryx brand. But I think we really want to continue to emphasize that within our marketing.
- [32:28]
A
Yeah, that's amazing. It's interesting. When I think about small businesses and entrepreneurs, we all know that everything comes from word of mouth. Every tool we use, everything that we're doing, it comes from people in the industry, friends being like, oh, this is a really good CRM or this is a really good, really good data tool. But sometimes I do feel like enterprise companies forget and they treat customers as if this, like they're different. They're. Because it's B2B because it's, you know, it's just a different thing. But like they're all the same customers. They probably are in slack channels, substacks, talking to each other at events and they're like, no, actually this one's way better than the one that you're using. So it's good hearing that you're like leaning into that. But I don't know if enough CMOs in this enterprise, you know, B2B space. Remember that. At least when I look around I.
- [33:15]
B
Also, what happens is there's the, you know, you start with users and then you keep growing and then you get larger deal sizes and so then you get higher in organizations and so then you're talking to buyers and then you're talking to VPs and then, you know, VP buyers and then C level buyers. Right. Like, and then you're, you're, it's like the, your audiences expand and then it's really easy to forget the end users who are using your solution because you're constantly talking to buyers versus maybe the end user might just Be an influencer of that buying decision. And I think it's important, I think that it's the hard balance that you have to do. But some of the things that we're working right now is programs for all those different audiences and not forgetting about our community and our aces and making sure we have messaging for all of them and programs for all of them. Because I think it's tempting to forget about the user community because you just figure the buyer will just buy it.
- [34:24]
A
That's who we need to talk to. I hope you all have a good time in there.
- [34:26]
B
I know, right?
- [34:27]
A
Whoever's using it.
- [34:28]
B
But it's hard if it's, you know, you can't just have it be like the marketing, because a great product experience. You know, as you say, if someone goes, oh, I love this one versus that one. Not because like I saw this amazing marketing campaign. Right. It's because the problem set that you're trying to solve, you really enjoy how that solution. Right. Has helped you solve it. And so, you know, it's something that as a company you have to care right. About that end user experience at the same time, from product to sales to marketing to the customer success side.
- [35:04]
A
Yep. So 700,000 people, that's a lot of people in a community, right. Which I, I was like, whoa, I was not expecting you to have a community of that size. So tell me more about, like, how do you all think about, I mean, how did you build it? How do you keep it a community? How do you make sure they all talk to each other and have a good time? How do you create experiences? I have so many questions about a community that big. And I know I have to give.
- [35:28]
B
A lot of the credit, right. Because I just joined Alteryx about four or five months ago. And so it's been a company that's been around for 20 years. They had amazing grassroots effort. I mean, it's been truly a product that has changed how people have worked so much that some community members literally have a tattoo of Alteryx on them, which is kind of amazing. Right? Like there's. And they had just done the, the founders and a lot of the leaders before me had just done this fantastic job of really thinking about that user community and bringing them together and showcasing some of the things that they're achieving. And you know, a lot of people had grown their careers because of the solutions and, and really, you know, they got to lead their organization and how they could solve problems in a different way. You know, I think with, with our company, you know, we've you know, used to be public, taken private, and we're, you know, basically, you know, driving a lot more in where we want to take this next chapter of Alteryx. And so, you know, for me, I'm just even diving in and thinking like there's more we need to be doing around the, the community and our aces as well and kind of reignite some of those former programs and kind of the user love that we had.
- [36:56]
A
Yeah. Okay, so what are some of those former programs or ones that you think would still work today? Because I'm sure, you know, if you look 20 years ago, how people build a community, I don't know if all of it would work now because there's just so much more noise. And you really have to do, I think, more work to get people to come together, get in person, like, let's stoke this again. So what are you thinking now when it comes to, you know, bringing back some of the oldies, the goodies, the things that are maybe new to. Yeah. Activate this community?
- [37:25]
B
Yeah, well, I think, you know, some of it is, you know, around. I still feel like the in person experiences are really important and it's really where. And I, I do feel like even over kind of past pandemic, I mean, you can only. I think the hard thing is you can only be in so many places at the same time. So it really is like the people who want to be there will pay and go and spend their time. But usually that alone really means that the people who are there are way more engaged. And so I think that there's things that we're wanting to do to make sure to drive that kind of experience and continue to have assets and programs and things that people can go and feel like they've learned something, you know, when they, when they go home. And so I think a part of it is, is really just making sure we're, we're looking at how do we take those types of events and bring some of it on the road. Sometimes it's easier to, to do things in more local areas. You know, I think that, you know, some of the programs that we're looking at is in partnership with our customer experience team as well. And there's a lot more programs that they've been standing up. So like the community of 700,000 is really in our customer experience organization where they have digitally ongoing programs, they have competitions, they'll put little challenges up and so people can kind of go in and then showcase their challenge. You know, we do the challenge work too, even at our events. So it was really fun. I went to the Inspire one this year, and it was right before I joined. And they have a Grand Prix, and the Grand Prix, we're sponsors of Formula One as well, and they. They put out a challenge of how to build these workflows. And everyone goes and sees how fast they can actually build the workflows and to qualify, right? And then the people who have the fastest times qualified, and then they go on stage, and then they all compete to see who wins the Grand Prix. And people are out in the audience and they're cheering and they're just, you know, for the person on stage. And so it's. It's just such a fun way to engage the audience, but it's, in a way, that's training them and teaching them and showing them what's possible with the solution, which is kind of cool. And then that kind of continues within the community with all these different challenges and. And I've had a lot of people say, like, they'll come in, and it's just a great way of, even if you've never used it before, where you can kind of quickly get up to speed all on your own just by taking some of these challenges. And so, you know, I think we're. We're still at the early stages of how we would think of. Are there other kind of programs beyond that to continue to build upon that? But we're. We're working on our brand campaigns and really wanting to make sure that we kind of showcase, you know, our buyers and our users as well, within programs. And we have some social campaigns for our users, too.
- [40:31]
A
Amazing. Yeah. There's a. There's a book I'm reading now. I think it's called Grassroots to Greatness, I think, and it's about community building. And it's interesting because it kind of touches on these pieces that you're talking about, like, how to build a great community. And it talks about having autonomy, like, knowing how to navigate yourself and, like, choose your own adventure and your own path through the community. It talks about education, learning something that you can take home with you, and you know that you're getting better because the education, it talks about energy and excitement of, like, you have to have. Like, you have to create energy. It won't just create itself, so you have to create the moments for energy to happen all throughout the entire experience in person, online, everywhere. The other two, I can't remember. But anyways, I love it.
- [41:13]
B
I'll check out the book.
- [41:14]
A
Yeah, I'm only halfway through, but I'm like, you're already saying all the things that this book said. And yeah, for me, I feel like.
- [41:20]
B
A part of it is some of, you know, the messaging piece of, you know, in this new era of AI, there's actually a lot of what's been done that it's kind of eye opening of where you can start to bring in AI into what you're currently doing and how to kind of reimagine some of these changes. And so I think a part of it is tapping into our user community to really help show them and have them provide feedback to us and then. But have. Have them start to kind of be a part of the journey with us of that change. And so, you know, I think that's a part of how we're thinking through that right now too.
- [42:05]
A
Yep. Yeah, that's another part is letting your community be the hero of the story. And then recognition was like recognizing them in front of their peers. That was also part of it.
- [42:14]
B
Memory, Memory. I know.
- [42:16]
A
I was like, I got it. I can pull my mom brain.
- [42:18]
B
It's.
- [42:19]
A
It was failing me for a moment. Okay, it's back. So of all these different AI experiments you've been running, we've talked a lot about this throughout the episode, but I'd love to hear about the tangible results or the quick wins or early wins that you're seeing right now from some of these experiments you're making with AI.
- [42:36]
B
Yeah, yeah. So you know how like we were talking about the one that we built where, where we were supporting kind of the outbounding efforts with SDRs and being able to automate that process and put AI in there. And, and what was great about that is we've talked about content and all these different kinds of things you can do. What's great about starting some experiments that's more middle of the funnel is you just get more tangible, quick results because you can quickly see, hey, are these efforts getting you more opens, getting more lift? Are you converting more into pipeline? And so what's been awesome is we've been, you know, we didn't want to just suddenly unleash, so we've been continually kind of opening it up to more people, expanding more of the opportunities. But we, we were seeing on that first round a 7% lift in our, our leads from this actual change, which was pretty awesome. And we decided, you know, because outbound can be hard because maybe, maybe that month is different than the next. And so we have something called user Gems, which takes existing users. And so we even benchmark the difference between when we were not using it versus when we were using it. And we were seeing a 4% improvement, which was pretty cool. And so as we've been continuing to roll that out, we've added more AI to even how we prioritize prospects. We call them diamond leads. And so that combination of what we're calling personalized AI as well as the diamond leads, we were seeing a 3x lift in outbound engagement. And that's really something that's kind of fundamentally changed how they're working with leads now, which is cool. So we're starting to keep broadening that, but it was a good place to start getting some good wins, tying it back to revenue and not making everything just so kind of early stage, which is a little harder to measure sometimes.
- [44:37]
A
Yeah, amazing. Okay, 3X, that's amazing. So is this in engagement from the cold outbound that's happening. People are opening, responding. That's the metric that we're looking at right now.
- [44:50]
B
Yeah.
- [44:51]
A
And do you think it's more from Velocity just having more going out where before the SDR could only send a certain amount because they were gathering the data and checking things. And now because you set it up where he. She is able to just approve, tweak a little bit, it's more of a, you know, able to send out a lot more that you're seeing that result. Or is there something else in there too that you think is influencing that?
- [45:14]
B
I mean, what we were seeing is it's, you know, because even when we were taking up the usergens, it's comparison, it was also just how we were personalizing. And so, you know, it's because the automatic kind of generation of the note was taking in all of these factors. So if they've actually used us before and how they've used it and their current role and the company that they're at, and if we've had any experience, you know, if they are, for example, if the solution is being used somewhere else in the company. And so there's all these little factors that can help better personalize the outreach and make it much more tangible. And so that research does take a lot more time. And so, you know, I think you get better. We were getting better open rates versus not. So it's the message is resonating more and then potentially, you know, getting higher volume through also helps with that lift as well.
- [46:14]
A
Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of data that it'd be hard for a human to pull all of that on a per lead basis of. Yeah, it's one of their departments using it within your company. And here's something on LinkedIn I saw, you know, like, there's so many data points to pull in.
- [46:28]
B
Yeah.
- [46:28]
A
So I can imagine why. Yeah. You all are seeing such good results with that.
- [46:31]
B
Yeah.
- [46:32]
A
Okay, so I want to now do the lightning round with you. We do this in every episode. I'll send a question your way and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Michelle?
- [46:42]
B
Sure, sure.
- [46:44]
A
Okay. What is a marketing belief that maybe you held 10, 15 years ago that now you think is just completely wrong?
- [46:54]
B
Oh, that's interesting. I think I used to have a, like a, a belief that like, like in almost the ta da moments, right, where you spend all this time and then you're like going to like the field or whatever and you're like, and this is what we built. And then, and then you would just release it and you would just imagine. I don't like that. Like that was the end point. And I think what I've learned over the years, like it's almost like that's the starting point and all the work that you need to do to work, get the feedback, continue to iterate, make sure that the team's using it, measure it. I think my understanding of what needs to have happen and that that's the starting point has really changed.
- [47:38]
A
Yeah, that's a good one. What is a KPI that you look at more now than you ever did before and what's one that you don't rely on as much?
- [47:51]
B
Maybe the, the new one is the, the AE or the, the AI search engine results. So the referral traffic from AI versus search is one that we actually just take a look at at all hands. I think that one is definitely, you know, search traffic been very much disrupted. So being able to better understand, well, actually what is coming and we're being able to look at. Okay. Of that cohort that comes, they are staying longer, they are converting better. You know, so we're, we're really trying to understand the audience more and paying attention to it obviously a lot more. Maybe one that I'm not as. I think it's always kind of the back and forth where, you know, marketing we do so much that it's really tempting to have metrics that are activity based and to celebrate like the activities and really trying to move towards like outcomes. And so, you know, you want to celebrate the effort and the work, but really sometimes it's trying to figure out ways to maybe you don't have to do as much but get bigger impact.
- [49:02]
A
Yep.
- [49:02]
B
Yep.
- [49:02]
A
I love that. That's probably music to many people's ears that are listening. I'm like, ah, that's better. Let's focus on outcome impact. Who is a marketing or a business leader that you think is ahead of their time and you can know them or not know them?
- [49:17]
B
I think I was reading some articles about the Autodesk CEO and I don't know her. Not CEO, cmo, and I don't know her, but I feel like she's been doing some really interesting things and thinking about an audience or a technology where, you know, it's for a lot of those wet CAD drawings and engineering. And she's really started to create some interesting activations and sponsorships of. I think it was like the la. Like the Olympics that are coming and it's all like the buildings that they're creating. Sustainability. So I just think she's. She's coming up with pretty innovative ways to engage and be relevant with her brand. So I thought that was pretty interesting.
- [49:59]
A
Yeah, I think we had her on one of our podcasts maybe five years ago, so this is a good reminder to. I should get her back on, see what she's up to.
- [50:06]
B
Yeah, yeah, I was reading articles. She's doing some cool stuff.
- [50:09]
A
Yeah. What is a book that you've read and it could be at any point in your career that really stuck with you, helped you either with leadership, marketing, anything in the world of business.
- [50:21]
B
My new favorite one, I don't know if you read. Have you read the Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins?
- [50:25]
A
No. I want to. I've heard it's very good. Is it good?
- [50:28]
B
So good.
- [50:29]
A
Yeah.
- [50:29]
B
I think there's great, like, just great tidbits. I love her, like, how she just simplifies and says to me, she's got a good podcast to listen to. And, you know, it's. So much of it is like, you know, I've always just been such a big believer of. Of, you know, especially marketing. You always try to control so much and, and really, like, the only thing you can have complete control over is how you choose to respond to something. And so, right, there's that own, like, how you choose to see it, frame it, react to it. It's all in your power. And she just does such a nice job explaining. And so many people that I talk to who've read the book, they're like, oh, my God, that's completely changed how I reacted during this whole experience or how I think about my job. So if you haven't read it, I think it's such a great one.
- [51:16]
A
I'm gonna read it now. I think I've had a couple people actually recommend this book and I have such a big pipeline of books on my.
- [51:23]
B
Oh, yeah, no, but it's good. It's good.
- [51:25]
A
I'll bump it up. I'll bump it up.
- [51:26]
B
Personal life, you know, parenting as well as for leadership, you know, being.
- [51:30]
A
Yes, yes to all of this. What is a daily habit that helps you reset after a crazy day?
- [51:37]
B
I still do the family dinner thing and I love it. Talked about my kids, about their day and hubby and just take the time to do it. I think it's really hard when events and everything starts getting crazy, but it helps me just kind of turn certain things off and turn on focus on family and hearing about their day. I always try to get them because they're at the age where they don't always share a lot and you, like, get one word answers and someone's like, tell me a story about your day. And so I think those ones are fun.
- [52:08]
A
How old are your kids?
- [52:09]
B
Nine and just turned 14.
- [52:12]
A
Okay. Yeah. I've got two fives and two sevens. Two fives, two sevens. And they also just seems like kids just don't remember their day when you're like, what'd you do? They're so in the present moment that they're like, I don't know. I'm doing what I'm doing right now. That's my day.
- [52:26]
B
I know. I always ask how do they learn and who to play with? And then I evolved it to tell me a story about your day. Yep.
- [52:33]
A
Yeah. I always try, like, what's something fun you did with your hands today? What's something fun you did with your feet to try, like, trigger memories of being like, oh, yeah, I did do a drawing today. Kind of works 50% of the time. It works sometimes. All right, last one. The future of marketing belongs to leaders.
- [52:51]
B
Who blank think, stay grounded in their customer needs and problems.
- [52:58]
A
Nailed it. All right, Michelle, well, thank you for coming on Marketing trends. This is super fun. Where can people find out more about you and Alteryx?
- [53:07]
B
Oh, well, you can go to alteryx.com I think we also are on LinkedIn and yeah, you can follow me on LinkedIn as well.
- [53:15]
A
Amazing. Thank you, Michelle.