Sandra was a panelist on a recent DNN webinar, "Marketing Got Complicated: Challenges (and Opportunities) for Marketers at Mid-Sized Companies." During the webinar, Sandra provided endless wisdom for marketers at mid-sized companies. Following the webinar, she agreed to answer additional questions. Missed the webinar? Register to view the replay.

Everyone, Meet Sandra

Q: Tell us about yourself, Sandra?

A: Professionally, I am a technology marketer and have helped launch new businesses for large and small companies. Today, I help companies put together agile marketing teams and approaches to create speed, relevance and revenue. If you really want to know more, here is some deeper insight about me as a person.

How to Reduce Marketing Complexity

Q: The title of our report is “Marketing Got Complicated.” Do you agree?

A: Completely and wholeheartedly. 

In the tornado that is marketing today, it is difficult to see a clear and straightforward way to map out your options and then focus and prioritize on the most important areas, capabilities and investments.

The plethora of channels, communication overload, data-driven marketing and iterative approaches all create a blur of possibilities that can take our focus off of the customer and what is most important. 

Taking smaller steps helps and creating a simpler approach is a smart way to tackle the “marketing mountain” of options that are changing with tremendous speed and magnitude.

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” (Confucius)

How to Select Marketing Technology Solutions

Q: How can marketers at mid-sized companies determine that they need to purchase a particular marketing technology solution?

A: It’s important to start with clear goals. What does the “home run” look like? For starters, building marketing technology solutions on one platform so that you can manage everything from one central place is extremely helpful.

Cobbling together pieces/parts after the fact is never fun. Also, it’s important to find solutions that are “fit for use” versus ones that “boil the ocean.”

My experience with a $1B company revealed that our marketing automation platform was overly sophisticated for our needs. The way to ensure a good match is to test drive before you buy.

In terms of approach, I like using a dual view. Using a top-down and bottom-up approach can help match strategic needs of the business based on customer needs (top-down) with the capabilities of tools in the marketplace (bottom-up).

Chart: Sandra notes that cobbling together pieces and parts are not fun. Marketers at mid-sized companies tend to agree, as 69% find it "challenging to manage the growing number of technical vendors used by marketing."

Sizing Up Marketing at Mid-Sized Companies

Q: What’s one thing marketers at mid-sized companies are doing well?

Mid-sized companies are naturals at being agile, which is a significant advantage that helps to level the playing field with competitors who may have more marketing resources and dollars. Using online tools such as websites, social media and digital content are also inexpensive, low-entry-cost approaches that mid-sized companies can easily leverage and be noticed, influential and create impact.

Lastly, an advantage to a mid-size company is that – by nature of its size – is often more “human” and emotionally savvy. This is the foundation for being engaging and retaining loyal customers and advocates.

Q: What’s one thing marketers at mid-sized companies can do much better?

Leverage digital marketing to its fullest potential – as mentioned in the question above – together with a influencer and advocate marketing outreach. These two tactics help to create significance and reach that is much larger than the budget that funds them.

How to Engage Influencers on Twitter

By Dennis Shiao

Q: Name a mid-sized company whose marketing you admire (and why)?

A: I’m gong to cheat and name two.

The first: EKS&H is a company I have grown to admire. The CEO, Bob Hottsman, sets the culture and tone of the business by focusing on his people. The company consistently wins “best places to work” awards and the employee rewards and recognition create a level of loyalty and capability that is unrivaled. Further, the CEO is active on many boards and does charity work to elevate the lives of children. He is a role model because his behaviors tell you everything you need to know about him. So admirable.

The second: CCAI is Chinese Children Adoption International. Josh and Lily are the founders and they are nothing short of amazing in their quest to enrich the lives of orphaned children. With limited budgets and resources, they are an adoption agency providing families with thoughtful and supportive customer experiences at a reasonable price. Their motto is the lower the cost, the more children we can place with families. They utilize digital approaches and communities to help families navigate adoption. Beautiful mission, elegantly implemented.

Recommended Reading for Marketers

Q: Tell us about the most recent Marketing book that you’ve read?

A: I just read a poignant and powerful e-book by Scott Brinker titled “A New Brand of Marketing.” This book is elegantly simply written to hone in on the core changes transforming marketing.Scott is “right on” with his discussion of the seven meta-trends that have completely disrupted marketing.

Q: A marketer at a mid-sized company tells you s/he can subscribe to just five blogs. Tell us your five, along with the reason for your recommendation?

1) Kare Anderson (@KareAnderson)

Her topic, “mutuality matters” is thoughtful, insightful and helpful. Using collaboration and connectivity to create solutions with collective talents and effort are the way to solve the world’s toughest challenges with warmth, shared interests and mutual benefit.

2) Copyblogger.

The writers of this blog are extraordinarily talented. The topics are helpful for content creation and writing (something I strive to be better at) and the content is delivered in the most engaging formats. Impressive.

3) Michael Brenner (@BrennerMichael)

Michael is a smart marketer who stays very up-to-date on emerging trends and has a way of explaining things simply and pragmatically. He is also connected to many of my favorite thought leaders such as Lee Odden, Joe Pulizzi, Jay Baer, Jeffrey Rohrs, Jonathan Becher and others.

4) Bryan Kramer (@bryankramer)

Bryan is a forward thinker and super creative. He just published Human to Human and writes about leveraging a human approach in business regardless of B2C or B2B.He is also connected with some of my favorite content producers such as Todd Wilms, Daniel Newman, Jeremiah Owyang, DJ Waldow and others.

5) Marc and Angel (@marcandangel)

This blog is inspirational, authentic and so well-written. I like this one to keep me centered, connected and encouraged.

Work-Life Balance

Q: It seems marketers at mid-sized companies are working constantly: office, home office, coffee shop and more. How can they maintain a positive work/life balance?

A: The saying goes something like, “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” This is mostly true. Life is never balanced no matter your company size or job. Learning to embrace the ebb and flow of life and deciding on your “must-haves” in each day are the best pieces of advice I can provide. It reminds me of the rock parable: know what your big rocks are and start there.

The Future of Marketing

Q: What does the future of Marketing hold?

A: A few of the areas I think we will see in the future:

1. A renewed focus on customer engagement
2. Using brand experience as a differentiator
3. Leveraging data-driven insights to cut through the noise
4. Broadening capabilities and responsibilities in the marketing suite
5. Real-time, agile and iterative marketing approaches

I also think the street cred of marketers is increasingly exponentially. More CMO’s are wanted on boards, we see CMO’s managing IT and CMO’s becoming CEO’s. Bravo!