Learn from Jenny Force, VP of Global Demand Generation at Meltwater, about using tech to automate the inbound process and maximize each MQL.
This episode features an interview with Jenny Force, VP of Global Demand Generation at Meltwater, a company with a suite of solutions that spans media, social, consumer, and sales intelligence. Jenny discusses her experience launching the company’s first big summit, as well as the work they have done to automate their inbound process to maximize each MQL.
Key Takeaways:
Quote:
Episode Timestamps:
*(06:03) The Trust Tree: Improving inbound efficiency and increasing deal velocity
*(14:32) The Playbook: Launching a summit and investing in automation
*(45:53) The Dust Up: Changing inbound KPIs to get a seat at the table
*(49:30) Quick Hits: Jenny’s quick hits
Sponsor:
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PLV279 - Jenny Force - v1
[00:00:00] Every single marketer and every single brand should be attempting to earn a disproportionate share of conversation. If you work for an organization where they say, bring us a chart that
goes up into the right, you have a challenge. Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I dunno, which half
I am here to inspire you, to excite you, to motivate you, to transform you, to energize you.
Producer: Hello and welcome to Pipeline Visionaries. This episode features an interview with Jenny Force, the VP of Global Demand Generation at Meltwater, a company with a suite of solutions that spans media, social consumer, and sales intelligence. Jenny discusses her experience launching the company's first big summit, as well as the work they've done to automate their inbound process to maximize each MQL.
Let's get into the episode. [00:01:00]
Ian: Welcome to Pipeline Visionaries. I'm Ian Faison, CEO of Casing Studios, and today I'm joined by a special guest. Jenny, how are you?
Jenny: I'm good. How are you doing?
Ian: Oh, I am thrilled to be here. Excited to chat, marketing, chat, demand chat, meltwater and everything in between and, and our show is always brought to you by our friends at qualified.com.
Qualified helps turn your. Website, pipeline generation machine with pipeline AI and Piper, the AI SDR that everybody is talking about. Hundreds and hundreds of people are trying, of companies are trying. Piper, the Ai, SDR. Check it out@qualified.com. Jenny was your first job in marketing.
Jenny: Yeah, so I actually worked while I was in college and I had this amazing job in the education department and had this great mentor.
At the time, I wasn't sure really what I wanted to do. I was majoring in dietetics and nutrition and knew I didn't wanna do that, but didn't know what I wanted to do. And so she [00:02:00] was great. She taught me web coding. I was doing CSS JavaScript. I learned the whole full Adobe Suite. Spent a ton of time in Illustrator, Photoshop, and I realized, gosh, I really love this stuff.
Like I love building websites, managing websites, the whole design part of it. And I realized I could apply this to marketing. So I went out after college, started applying to marketing jobs and landed my first marketing coordinator job. And I was managing a print, I know that dates me, but a print and a digital catalog for a computer, a manufacturing company.
And then I, yeah, I started getting my hands into events and some of the traditional field marketing stuff and I was like, I just love it. Like I. Because of that background of having that technical side and that creative side of things. I started learning in the beginning. I feel like marketing's really great.
It's kind of combines both of those things, right? You know, coding tech builds in the back data, but also the really fun side of marketing campaign ideation and, and just the creative stuff. So,
Ian: and flash forward to today, you're [00:03:00] basically. Pals with Reese with their spoon, which is pretty incredible.
Jenny: Well, I am soon to be, we've got our amazing Meltwater summit coming up and you know, this is our largest event of the year we've been doing it.
This is gonna be our third year in May. And we, yeah, we commissioned Reese with their spoon to be our keynote and I'm super excited. I'm gonna interview her on the main stage. So that gets me up in the morning, getting really excited. Last year we hit Ryan Reynolds, so that was also pretty awesome.
Ian: Clearly for the summit, you all aim low, you know, which I appreciate, you know, the, the no names, you know, if it work.
Yeah.
Jenny: I like, you know, you gonna do these things, you gotta do 'em big. And I think, I don't know, I've been in marketing a long time at this point and I've done these big scale events at a lot of the companies I've been at. You gotta find that way to differentiate yourselves and that that stands true for anything we do in marketing.
But at an event of the scale, there's tons of marketing conferences out there. So how do I make this one feel different, look different, and actually have people walk away with real [00:04:00] skills and knowledge? And it's an impressive roster of speakers when you look at it. It's not just Reese Witherspoon, who, gosh, like so excited to learn from her.
'cause she's not just an actress, but she's also a business leader. At the same time, we've got like 50 other amazing industry experts, BLE cookies, Heineken naacp and all those VP of marketing, VP of PR and comms. Those leaders out there really talking about challenges that we all face every single day and giving us tips and what to do when we get back to our desks to really find that way to, you know, improve things right, and, and get on the cutting edge of how to do marketing and pr.
Ian: Well, one of the cool things about Reese and, and also as you mentioned Ryan Reynolds, is that like they're not just actors anymore. They're also literally. You know, marketers, they're, they're business people that are, that are, you know, running marketing or overseeing someone who is doing marketing for their other companies and initiatives and things like that.
This is kind of cool, like in years, days past there we, there [00:05:00] weren't as many actors that also had to actually think about marketing. They actually need to now, which is kind of hilarious.
Jenny: Yeah, I feel like a lot of them, you know, start businesses, right? I think almost every single famous person out there has a brand that they started, but they're not really managing their brands.
They're not actually invested in branding it and promoting it out on their channels. And I think when we think about the Summit keynote, we really want that person who not only has that celebrity cachet, but someone who actually can talk. Relevancy to our audience about brand building and community development and how to use social media channels to really engage with your audience in an authentic way.
And it's like finding a unicorn, to be honest with you, right? Like when we found Brian Reynolds and he agreed to do it, it was right before Deadpool, but he's someone who you see, you see him in front of mit Mint Mobile when he was doing those advertisements. He's invested in his companies. And you see the same thing with Reese.
She started Hello Sunshine. Her production company was self-funded. She [00:06:00] started it just 'cause she felt that the industry needed a change. They really wanted to start talking about females and women and not just always have the male characters be that that main dominant storyline. So it's been impressive to see her do that.
And then she has Draper James, the clothing line. She's got her amazing book club and she's really out there on the circuit running her, her businesses. And so, yeah, I think it's. They're hard to find, but I think it's pretty amazing when you find a celebrity who does both and does both well.
Ian: Well, we'll be.
Eagerly awaiting New York City in May to see your talk. Okay, let's get to our first segment, the trust tree.
Mash up: With the knowledge you've been given, you are now on the inside of what I like to call the circle of trust. What I thought we were in the trust tree with in the nest, are we not?
Ian: So where we go and you honest, interested, and you share those deepest, darkest pipeline secrets, what does Meltwater do?
Jenny: Yeah. So at Meltwater we like to say we are the eyes and ears for marketers and [00:07:00] PR and comms professionals. We really help the brand stay ahead by tracking what's being said about them and their competitors, you know, and that could be across, uh, traditional media channels or social platforms.
What really sets us apart is we have the largest and most comprehensive dataset in the industry. Let's be real, and I could say this 'cause I'm a marketer myself. No one has time to really sift through all that endless data to find the insights that really matter. And I think that's what really makes Meltwater so powerful.
Our platform uses AI to analyze a billion pieces of content every single day, and then it really surfaces those actionable insights that will have a meaningful impact in your business. And that could mean whether it's, you know, tracking media coverage, monitoring social conversations, or scaling up influencer marketing campaigns.
That water really helps brands stay ahead.
Ian: So what types of companies are your customers?
Jenny: So we've got 27,000 customers around the world and they really span all industries. They include the top 50% of the global Fortune 500. And when you think about like who within those businesses are really [00:08:00] buying and using the order every day, it's really two core buying groups.
The first one is PR and comms. We help them stay ahead of the narrative, build those strong journalists and influencer relationships, track brand mentions, measure impact, and for all those marketers like you out, you and me out there, we really help those folks optimize brand and social performance. I.
Streamline social media management, capture audience insights, and of course just improve MROI. So I get your little story if you'd like on how, please, how marketers really use meltwater. So this one's a fun one. There's a company called Neuro Gum. They sell toing gum. It is actually a natural alternative to energy drinks and coffee.
And as a science driven company, neuro really relies on data to do just about everything, right? So as they're developing their products or building the brand identity or the marketing strategy, I. We need to make sure it's data facts before they move forward. So the marketing team uses melt orders, social listening solutions, and they use it to analyze the market, of course, [00:09:00] but also they want to use it to strategically identify some audiences that were maybe untapped.
They had a theory that the gaming audience was really low hanging fruit, but they wanted to validate it with data before they started any campaign. So basically couldn't, couldn't spend a dollar until they had that data to prove it. So they used Meltwater to run the audience analysis and they found three, not just one, but three untapped audience segments.
And the first one, of course, buzz, in fact, gamers, they, because that's what they thought was maybe a low hanging fruit. So they kicked off this 12 month partnership with an eSports company, and then one week. After launching this campaign with this new partner, they went viral on social media. A lot of it was because the content they produced for the campaign really resonated with this gaming audience.
And that was, of course, based on meltwater our audience data and our audience insights to really create that relevancy and, and their content and their campaign. It generated 4.6 million impressions and since then, neuro garnered over a [00:10:00] billion impressions in 2024 on that single campaign on social media.
It also sold out of its flagship energy and focus co collection multiple times and achieved a 400% lift and year over year sales. So that's the kind of impact that can have on on marketers, especially when you're looking at audience stuff.
Ian: And are we looking B2B, B2C? Everything in between.
Jenny: Yeah, so we sell to all, all shapes and sizes.
I'd say, you know, our top industries are probably more in the consumer brands, banking, finance, manufacturing, et cetera, but we also do sell to B2B markers. Yes.
Ian: You mentioned sort of, you know, obviously marketing, comms, pr, all those folks. What about the different sort of, you know, seism, mid market enterprise SMB?
What are the different sort of buying committees looking like for y'all?
Jenny: So it's definitely those core departments, you know, PR and communication teams as well as marketing all, all levels, right? Some of the smaller s and b companies that we sell to, we're kinda selling direct to that PR manager, the marketing [00:11:00] management.
But up an enterprise, we're definitely selling to director, VPs. CMOs of course, we also see up in enterprise it's, it's a lot of procurement these days. We also. Sell to researchers and insights professionals, so people who are running, you know, traditional research methods and they're looking for data and insights from their audiences.
We also partner with those kind of folks and support them.
Ian: And zooming out, what's your marketing strategy? Summed up in about a minute.
Jenny: Our marketing strategy is really designed to drive growth, right? Like everyone else sitting in the seat like me, who's running a demand generation team focused really on align, aligning brand and demand for pipe gen.
But it's not just about capturing the demand. Once it's there, it's about creating it, accelerating it, and converting it into revenue. So over the last year, we've been super focused on improving the efficiency over inbound engine, increasing deal velocity, and just the overall experience for our buyers.
On the operational side, it means we've been rebuilding our entire backend engine, implementing new definitions, workflows, and just getting [00:12:00] closer to sales to really drive up the conversion rates. We also focused on improving the buyer experience. 'cause you know, there's a lot of friction points in the traditional journey, and let's face it, marketing buyers like you and I, you know, we don't wanna do that anymore.
We want self-serve experiences and relevant content on our terms. So that's how we kind of approach it from big picture in terms of our strategy.
Ian: And then, um, your team, how do you think about, you know, organizing your marketing team?
Jenny: So we are quite lean here at Meltwater. Shockingly so, but it is a, a team of stars.
When you look at the Demand Gen unit, we have marketers across the world and I think what's I. Maybe not unique about Meltwater, but I think something that I really enjoy is it's a global business and we have offices around the world and sales leaders around the world. And what makes demand gen really function?
I'd say, you know, for maximum impact, maximum MROI is settling our field marketing team right next to sales. It's kind of that whole boots in the ground kind of idea, and it allows us to. [00:13:00] Really have a sense of the market, understand the nuances, run localized programs in localized languages, and make sure that we are, you know, just lockstep with sales.
We definitely see ourselves a bit as an extension of the sales team when you sit in the, in a demand gen seat here at Meltwater. And then o other departments under me. We've got marketing operations, analytics, we've got the corporate defense team, so some of those other departments that, you know, it's pretty critical that demand Gen.
Has access to. Right. And we all have one single directive.
Ian: Any other things strategy wise that we missed or hadn't talked about or anything like that?
Jenny: I'd say that when we think about strategy, to me it's, you know, as a VP of marketing, I think it, it is always, I. Important to not just consider just generating more MQL with your strategy.
Right. I think we're in this day and age where we've got tons of opportunity to leverage tech for automation and helping to move people [00:14:00] through the journey. And for us at Meltwater is not just about how many more campaigns can we do, it's about, well, doing them better, but also finding ways to automate.
Processes, right? And focusing on quality. So when we run campaigns, no matter what stage of the funnel, top, middle, or bottom, it's really around how do we focus on our exact ICP? How do we make sure that we're moving people through the journey in an automated way? We're not relying on some of those traditional methods anymore.
It's definitely trying to take a much more modern approach to marketing.
Ian: Alright, let's go to the playbook.
Mash up: This is what's great about sports. This is what the greatest thing about sports is. You play to win the game. Hello, you play to win the game
Ian: where you open up the playbook and talk about the tactics that help you win.
What are your three channels or tactics that are your uncountable budget items?
Jenny: Well, number one, no surprise Order Summit, which we've already, we've already spent some time on. Yeah. But I think for that one, when I joined Milk Order, you know, I've been here [00:15:00] for seven years and when I joined the company it was one of these things I wanted to bring into the business and.
It was a tough one, right? It's a tough one to position in front of an executive team who has never done something of the scale before.
Mash up: Mm-hmm. And
Jenny: to prove that in year one, you know, it was gonna pay off and it was gonna impact the business. And I think for those of you out there who are considering doing a large scale event or maybe already have one as part of your programming, it's, it's making sure that we're finding those ways to report on its success because they can be expensive.
But for us it's. It's just thinking about the a RR that you have in that room, right? You're never gonna have all those customers or all those prospects sitting there undivided for those one or two days. And I think it's, it's about having that impact, right? Looking at accountant expansion, looking at this net new logo, opportunities that are in the room, and also considering GRR, right?
We know what our customers come to a program like this more than anything else. Their adoption increases their, you know, happiness about the product and the brand and their [00:16:00] confidence in who this company is. Really changes and evolves. And although I love all of the tactics we do in marketing, I'd say this is probably one of the most effective ones to really drive that a CD growth and also improve.
GRR at the same time has such an important KPI for us. And it definitely is paying off. We're seeing. For 10, for accounts that come to Summit, we see a five to 10% improvement in GRR, and that's, that's pretty big.
Ian: Wow. That's amazing. How are you looking at it from a prospect's perspective and like bringing in that new logos?
Is that happening at all? Or, I mean, I shouldn't say is that happening at all, but is, is that something that you are, have found to be more difficult than the other side of it, which is the, you know, the retention piece.
Jenny: Yeah. I mean, I think it, it is, right? Like we've gotta find that balance. We see roughly 70% of the people who come are customers, but we don't call it a user conference for the reason that it's really open door to everybody.
Sure. So to get to that 30% of prospects, it is harder, right? It is finding ways to [00:17:00] lean on our net new logo team to use it as an opportunity to open pipe. Right. Define new opportunities. Out there that maybe they haven't talked to yet, as well as a way to accelerate deals that are already there. And the net new logo team has found great opportunities in bringing those people in the room and then signing the paper, right?
Like as soon as that event ends, they're able to get the, the contract signed. And that's been really great. But I, I'd say we've gotta go outside of our database right where we're going upstream. And I'd say that. Given it's in New York and everyone's gonna travel. So it is finding creative ways to use paid channels, have that be email sponsorships, or have that be paid social as well as, yeah, just kind of leaning into the things that we know work really well,
Ian: because we're already talking about sort of the big.
10 pole event, whether it's, you know, part user conference, part part party, which is what, you know, they tend to be, to me it's like a no brainer that I, I don't know why any company would, would not do it. It's one of the most obvious things of like [00:18:00] getting your customers together in person to hear their feedback to.
Invigorate the community and to get stories from them and then share those stories broadly or help them share their stories with their friends, who they're all on Slack with and Discord and, and on LinkedIn and all that stuff. Anyways, like, which you're gonna get so much earned value of like, Hey, I'm at the conference, or, Hey, I'm posting it on LinkedIn, or, or wherever they're posting it, or just, Hey, I'm gonna be gone for the next two days.
Like, to me, it's just such a no brainer. Why do you think that? And obviously they're very expensive, so that's the reason. But why do you think that like, you know, boards and and executives are, you know, loath to do, to do this sometimes? I
Jenny: think some of it is just the fact that it is expensive, but I'll tell you, I'm the queen of negotiation and doing things on a very tight budget, and so we have a lot less than one would think we have to run this thing.
But it's still, it's a lot of money to put onto a channel that if a company has never done it before, it's kinda that unknown. Right? Like an [00:19:00] exec team is like kind of like excited about it.
Ian: I mean like seriously, is it unknown? I mean like this is like one of those things where it's like, it's actually not unknown at all.
It's actually like. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of companies have done this successfully for years. They continue to do it successfully. Like it's not, I don't know, it's like not actually unknown, it's, it's more like, do you, do you think it's important? I don't know. To me it's just very philosophical.
It's like, do you think it's important to get our customers together once a year in person so they can talk to each other like right.
Jenny: It to give us a chance to get up there to also talk about our product roadmap Sure. And all the things you're doing and you know, just bring people together. Yeah. I think, you know, when I started at Meltwater and they, you know, they, they're kind of pushing back, right?
It came from a place where I always did these events and to some degree it's nothing new, but it's, it's that cashflow thing, right? You're getting out there, you're asking for a lot of money upfront, and you're trying to get them to be bought into an idea. And I think the first year that I ran Meltwater Summit, it was three years ago.
And there's just a lot of [00:20:00] skepticism, and I think the reps who have. Been at Meltwater, maybe only worked at Meltwater, had never been to a conference, to know that this could impact my book of business, and I'm gonna get really jazzed about it and tell my people. I think year one was a lot of pressure on marketing, right?
We had to get out there and I had to prove this thing was gonna work. We were working our tail off to like hammer our database, get out there with, you know, promotions. And it was almost at that grassroots approach to fill the room. And then the reps that were able to staff the event came and they're like, oh.
This is what you're talking about. This thing is awesome. You know, that year we had Bethany Frankel and Trevor Noah on stage. Yeah. And so, you know, like they just got really excited about it. And so I think it was useful for them to be motivated as employees. Right. They had this amazing event now that they understood what it was.
And then it was, I got to go there, got to meet with their customers and like learn a lot of challenges and stories from the people on stage, but then also, yeah, kind of proved it right. But it was a lot of metrics after that event. It was a lot of digging [00:21:00] into the data and like, how could I prove it with the KPIs that are meaningful to the business and not just talk about, oh, I got this many people in the room.
'cause that's not what really matters.
Ian: Yeah, that's, that's really interesting. I get from the standpoint that it's like one, it's a huge. At that first year, it's not in the budget. You gotta cut a bunch of stuff in order to fit it in. You know what I mean? We cut all this stuff. What do we lose from, you know, from not doing it?
Jenny: Yeah, and you're pulling away from tried entry channels. You know, like paid search is one of our biggest budgets. Right. And that's the second thing on my list. I would never cut, but you had to, I had to dip into that, right? A pull out of things that I knew I had tried Intru to MROI, I was gonna see, you know, five x eight XMRI, and I was pulling away from that.
So it was definitely a bit of a risk. And I think as marketers sometimes we have to put our neck out on the line, right? And try new things and really get out of our box. But it can be tough. It can be really tough because if that, that test doesn't work and it's as big as something like this Meltwater Summit, [00:22:00] then you're, you're in that spot.
But usually it pays off, right? Like usually you're going into something like that. Having the experience before, knowing what's gonna make it successful and kind of leaning into that. And as a leader, making sure you have the data to really prove it
Ian: time and time again. Yeah. Very cool. Okay, so that's number one.
Uh uh, next uncut.
Jenny: But it's search generally on both sides. It's a paid and organic on the paid side. What's been really cool to see over the past year is we've been expanding beyond Google, right? We, we were kind of a Google paid search house for quite some time, and that's where we spent all of our money getting really good rates of return, but we started dabbling more into being.
As well as into Badoo and apac, and I mean Badoo specifically. It's been incredible to see that uptick. I mean, we're getting 10 X-M-R-O-I with Badoo. It's really healthy a SP, we're getting tons of deals out of that door. And yeah, it was one of those things that just started with a bit of a [00:23:00] test on the organic side.
We've been spending a lot of time over the past five years building out our SEO strategy and a melt order. We use pillar. Pillar cluster strategy. And that is, you know, one of the ways that we really are able to increase our SEO content while also improving the journey once they get to our website. Yeah.
And we're seeing really healthy rates of lists. So, you know, paying for those tools, that tech and that team that helps us with SEO is definitely something I would never cut.
Ian: So we did a bunch of the, you know, pillar based marketing and stuff for, for hers. For our marketing at Caspian Studios here. But I'm curious, like, aren't you nervous about Google changes and behavior changes and, you know, changes with, you know, Gemini, you know, servicing more information and people gonna chat, GPT and all that?
Jenny: I am, I am nervous, you know? 'cause I know how I act, right. I'm, I'm I gt, that's where I go to search. 'cause it's just cleaner. I think it is definitely a risk. [00:24:00] What we're starting to see though, is we're, we're starting to see M QLS come in the door through chat, GBT. And that's been really cool, right? So like how can we start training some of that engine and getting out in front of it?
And we're dabbling. We haven't definitely, we haven't mastered a strategy around it yet, but it seems to be the things we're trying is starting to work for sure.
Ian: Cool. And then, yeah, number three.
Jenny: Number three is tech. So as I said around my strategy, you know, in the last year we've been really investing in not just spending more money to get more mql.
It's making almost like, you know. Not to sound cliche, but every MQL count and it's about automating the process. I'd say, you know, here at Meltwater, we're a 20-year-old company, we're very sales centric and there's a lot of energy that used to be put behind outbound. And so it's changing the narrative around inbound.
Um, and until we kind of totally make this change as a business where everyone in the business is like shouting to get a inbound lead and are super [00:25:00] excited about it, it's how can I get every single lead. Under an hour without any delays. And it's been a bit of a journey to kind of put the right tech in place to automate those processes that we can take out that, you know, manual human intervention and then put the sellers into the business so they can actually sell.
So I've got some, um, tech around instant meeting scheduling, self-serve demos, a conversational email that we've put in. And honestly, I feel like that has already had such an impact on our conversion rates. Like I wouldn't get rid of it. That's for sure. So take it away. I want more.
Ian: Something like that.
Okay. Now I wanna invest more. How do you think about something like that now that you know it's working?
Jenny: Yeah, so let's take an example of like instant meeting scheduling, right? If, if we know that we're dropping instant meeting, booking right behind a form on our demo or pricing page, our paid search forms, and that person can immediately book.
Right on the spot. I think some of the challenges we [00:26:00] have is it works, works really well in every single test we've done and market we have it in, but I almost need more. I need more seats. Totally. I need that thing turned on everywhere that marketing's operating. And that's right now where we're navigating, where can we wove within our tech contracts, how many seats do I have?
How can I play across this global business with a thousand reps, with, you know, SMB, mid-market and Enterprise Variations across every single area and country. And that's the kind of science around, okay, like I've only got got so much of this tech based on our budgets. How do I make it go as far as it can?
Ian: Yeah. It's really interesting. I mean, it really, obviously we talk a ton about qualified on the show 'cause they're our best friends in the whole world and sponsor the show. But it, it really has sort of changed, I think the structural dynamic of how go-to-market teams and how sales teams respond to. You know, leads and pipeline and, and all that stuff, or leads and, [00:27:00] and source pipeline and, and, and do all that stuff because now, like you said, it's like, well, it's, if it's instantaneous now it's like maybe we need to rethink who the people are who are receiving that information and who's getting those meetings and all that stuff.
Anyways, we can go on and on and on about that, but really it does, like, it's, it's crazy how those type of technological changes make you rethink how you're even doing it in the first place.
Jenny: Percent. It's like, you know, you think about how many reps we have to getting our leads and we want 'em to sell, right?
Yeah. Like their skillset is selling. Yeah. Not all this admin stuff that we can automate and put something in place to, to do that job for them and then protect their time in a sense. Right. And get them to just like open that pipeline and close it faster. Yep. Is really where we wanna put their attention and focus.
Ian: I've said as many times as on the show where it's like, to me that is sales and everything else is marketing. It's like sales is when a person is talking to another person or emailing another person like one-to-one, or [00:28:00] being at an event, or being at, you know, speaking on a panel or doing any of those things that only a human being can do is, you know, is convincing someone to, you know, hopefully make the best decision that's in their best interest.
It's like everything else is all marketing, right? You know, outbound sequencing, all that stuff like inbound sequencing, all like, that's all marketing. It's, that's, it's what it is.
Jenny: It's what it is. And now we have, we move like inbound BDRs, we now help them under marketing for that reason, right? Like, we'll write the, we'll write the thing that says we'll make sure we're, we're kind of tracking how those things are performing.
We don't necessarily need that function to sit in sales. There'll be doted line right up to the other bdr r outbound BDRs. But like, yeah, we can, we could take it in marketing and just get, get it done because it is, it's part of that inbound process. So
Ian: what's one thing that's not working or fading away or something that you're not investing in as much?
Jenny: Yeah, so in 2024 we put a lot of energy behind paid social. Mm-hmm. We built out and scaled up this new [00:29:00] centralized digital team. We still had regional digital marketers, but we put a lot of budget into paid social, and one of the big reasons for that was awareness. Right. We wanted to drive some awareness.
We wanted to drive some middle, middle of funnel content downloads and activity to build up our database. But the challenge, and I say, I say was working is, is working to drive engagement. We get a lot better with our targeting. We started using the intent data to make sure that we're focused on the right ICPs.
And you know, I'd say over the year, even though we kept turning down the dial on the amount we were putting to it, I. We're starting to see really healthy engagement. We also know that people who engage with paid social were in open opportunities, right? So it was impacting and influencing opportunities.
But unfortunately for Meltwater marketing, we don't get any credit for influenced, um, right. A CB. Our number one K-P-K-P-I is sourcing pipeline and sourced a CV. And so when you're held to those kind of standards. And you're really [00:30:00] focused on these bus business objectives, it's hard to make room for something that isn't impacting the bottom line.
When you looked at our bottom of funnel campaigns and activities like, you know, conversational ads, for example, they'd get some decent names in the door. They just weren't converting to rail pipe. They weren't weighted, they weren't closing. So we kind of had to, we had to make some big cuts and big changes this year and move that money to things that we know will guarantee marketing sourced pipeline.
It's
Ian: tough though, right?
Jenny: It is. It hurts my heart a little bit. When you think about, you know, our integrated marketing mix and that should have paid social on and should be a pretty decent chunk of my budget. And I, and someone who, uh, previous roles before I was in demand gen and melt order, I was running corporate marketing, right?
I am a brand building person and I know you need both of those together to really build a healthy pipe. So it's one of those things that like we've, we've tried a bunch of different things and uh, you know, I can't get it to [00:31:00] work towards my core KPIs, so I've kind of broken it out of this central global digital team.
I've kept the money in the regions. They seem to be doing some micro plays around bottom of funnel that's really getting some decent pipeline in the door. But yeah, it's really turned down and I kind of tell, I tell the team, prove me wrong. Right? Find a campaign. That can generate the kind of MRI we need to keep it going.
And up until this point, you know, conversational ads a big thing a few years ago and it's just started to peter out. Right? Yeah. So how, so what is the next big thing? If so, my team can pilot it, pilot it, and test it, and get us some good results, then sure, we'll give it more money. But right now it's just not driving what it needs to.
I'm hoping by the end of this year we start including influenced. A CV is one of our core KPIs. And then 2026, maybe it's different. Maybe we can rebalance things a little bit.
Ian: It's just expensive too. It's very expensive. That's the, yeah,
Jenny: yeah. And if [00:32:00] you're just gonna use it to build your database, right, you can do, you know, content and lead syndication for a much cheaper CPO.
Yeah. And so that's kind of the, the tough part. If it's just awareness, growing the database, you can get it done a little bit cheaper elsewhere.
Ian: Yeah, I, you know, we were doing a bunch of brand stuff, brand ads that were just sort of like, they were like probably medium the funnel, but they were just funny.
It's kind of silly. And we got a lot of great feedback on that. I was just like, oh my gosh. Like we'd get in, they'd get in a deal, they'd be like, oh gosh, your ads are hilarious. Um, very much that influence. Sort of piece where it's especially, you know, once they come to the site and you know, then the ads follow them around everywhere.
And, uh, we're definitely seeing a lot of that. But it's so hard, you know, it's so hard to, you know, people are just not, you know, we, people are not trying to buy something 24 7. They're trying to buy something for like two weeks, you know, of the year. And so Yeah. It's hard to be top of mind [00:33:00] for the entire year.
Jenny: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And meltwater like, we didn't even, we didn't have a, a good brand. Campaign running that was just always on. And similar to your story, we, we started doing a brand campaign last year. It's called Guesswork Doesn't Work. And we, we brought humor into some of our, our campaigns, like, and it was, it was something we didn't try before, right?
It was a little. It's a little scary. Gonna put them in front of the CEO E and be like, yeah, we're gonna have some fun with this. It's called Guess Work Doesn't Work, and it's around the fact that actually you need data and you shouldn't be guessing or having a gut feeling about something. And I couldn't believe we could across the line and that that campaign definitely lifted LinkedIn engagement by like 30%.
I lifted Instagram engagement up by 124%. So, you know, I think it's too, it's like that, that switch to short form video and really trying to find those ways that. We're just all humans, right? And we're all out there TikTok or reels. That's how we like to consume content and information. So how can brands have that side [00:34:00] of their creative in their, their campaigns?
Ian: We'll twist my arm on short form video. Yeah. How are you thinking about short form video?
Jenny: Melt order sell, you know, social products, social listening, social media management. So we felt that, gosh, like two years ago, we just weren't on the cutting edge. And one of the, the reasons for that is. We just weren't, yeah, I don't know.
But what do they say? Like eating your own dog food? Yeah, that's, that's right. And so there's not a lot of time actually in our Meltwater platform really understanding how people are ICPs, were consuming information, what our competitors were doing, and it really helped to fuel that new brand campaign.
Guesswork doesn't work. And historically before that, we were pushing out a ton of content on our social media, our LinkedIn channel primarily. And yeah, I mean it was doing okay, but our engagement was really down. We weren't really connecting with the people we wanted to. Our followers were like slowly increasing and we needed to try something new.
So that's where it, you know, first it was [00:35:00] coming up with a concept of guesswork doesn't work, but then it was also around, okay, if we do it for the brand campaign, then we can do these short form fun. Funnier videos across all of our content, right? Mm-hmm. We do a new guide, a new ebook, whatever it is. We don't need to just have a tile with an image.
We can actually do something fun and do a short form video about it, and we're seeing a ton more engagement. I say across the board. We put out, like we put out 60, 60 short form videos last year and we've seen followers increase, we've seen engagement increase. And when I look now at our social channels on LinkedIn or Instagram, I'm like proud of it, right?
I'm like, oh, this is stuff that I can, like with my personal account and like, you know, I think my friends would even like it, right? Even if they're not in marketing and they're not looking for a new product. Um, I think we, we finally are starting to, to use content that is more relevant to people.
Ian: Do you have a favorite campaign that you've run over the years?
Jenny: Well, you probably already [00:36:00] heard others. Two of them. One is Meltwater Summit. Yeah. 'cause I started it here at Meltwater. And then the second one is the, this brand campaign Guesswork doesn't work because we hadn't tried it before. And I think with guesswork doesn't work. It was really about that light, lighthearted approach.
I. To highlight the very real challenges that those of us in marketing and PR face all the time. And I think it comes down to finding that funny way to talk about the fact that we're all searching for data and sometimes we don't have it and we're just trying to go anyway. But those that use data really have that leg up on their competitors.
Ian: Well, it's just funny too, obviously, you know, you come from corporate marketing, but you've also, you know, you're also in demand. But I think it's interesting that sort of like, you know, all of the. All of the very, you know, product centric type, you know, campaigns that you're running 24 7, you know, are, are not the things that really, you know, jump out at people because that's, they're just trying to solve a problem and they say, oh, hey, this is a solution.
You know, but it's those things that, that can get [00:37:00] people excited or happy or feel something that we gravitate towards because, yeah. You know, they got people moving and going.
Jenny: Yeah. People and it's fun and it makes you laugh a little bit.
Ian: Yeah.
Jenny: I think too, for Meltwater, a lot of people know us as as a solution for PR and comms.
You know, we've been around for 20 years. It's all about media monitoring. They know we do that. We're the number one in the entire. Industry, but they don't know we have influencer marketing. They don't know that we do social listening. Social media management. Yeah. So it was like, how do we tell this story about the new Meltwater and that the Meltwater with more solutions than maybe what you just know about us already?
And so I think that was, that was the key part, right? It's finding that creative, those creative elements, having a little bit of fun and finding that way to tell the full story of Meltwater and not just what you already know about us.
Ian: Very cool. What about. Influencer marketing. This is something that I think everyone in B2B, really everyone is [00:38:00] just so concerned about.
Influencers, micro influence, influencers more important than ever, people that have real sway in the market and they're easier than ever to access. So how are you thinking about it?
Jenny: Yeah, I think, you know, even in B2B, we lean into influencers as part of our social media strategy. I think when we think about Meltwaters customers, we're thinking about some of those bigger brands.
So for those of you out there whom may brand con, consumer brand, consumer goods category, we tell you a little story about how Chobani uses us because I think there is. A lot of people trying influencer marketing, but those also have to do it at a grand scale. And you know, for ani, they, they have influencer marketing campaigns running at all times, and they're doing, they're, they've got like 500 influencers running at once.
Specific time or a specific campaign. And for them it can get hard to just manage that community of creators, right? Because a brand who's just [00:39:00] trying to stand up one thing and promote it through a single influencer a little bit easier, probably a little bit more short term, but these bigger brands are running it at all times, and.
Managing creators and the creative around that is kind of a beast, right? When you think about it. And so, you know, for Ani, they were looking to launch a new Instagram community through 500 influential Aussies. Down in Australia. Mm-hmm. And they wanted to kind of give these creators a chance to win some ani active wear, because that's the other thing, right?
How do you entice an influencer to get really engaged with your brand? What's gonna make it feel slightly authentic or get them to like pay attention to you? So for a digital team at Ani, they had to go out there and try to find those creators that are gonna be the best fit. For what they were looking for.
And when you think about, gosh, how many creators are out there in the world these days out on, you know, Instagram and TikTok, et cetera, it's really hard to comb through for a digital marketing team. So they were able to use Meltwater [00:40:00] to. I identify those creators that kind of fit the values that they were looking for, had that follower base that was a good fit.
We're already producing content that was in line with what the brand was looking for. But it came down to things like, okay, how do you outreach to 500 different influencers at the same time and make sure your messages are consistent? How do you make sure you're managing those programs that you accept into the program and that you're tracking what they're doing and how it's.
Going, and then how do you pay them? How do you pay 'em at scale? Right. Because if you're, if you're not talking just one or five and you're talking 500, yeah. It gets really hard to kind of pay all those influencers too. So I think having a tool like Meltwater in place is, is what makes it a little easier to do.
Because Yeah, if you're trying to do at scale, it can be hard to, to manage every day.
Ian: Yeah. And it just can bear such massive results. I mean, the thing that. The thing that I like so much about short form video and that I like about influencer campaigns is that when you do it right, [00:41:00] it can have really massive results and you compare that to paid search, for example, which is like.
Never going to have an outsized result. Like it's you pay, you're paying for what you get. Right? Whereas, you know, these other type of campaigns, you could get 500 views or you could get 5,000 views, and that's a huge difference where you could get 5 million and like that's where, you know, you're placing strategic bets on certain things to say, Hey, is this something that.
We're investing in that could go viral or could be, I mean, viral is a very operative word, but like is something that could, you know, really drive a, a large, you know, roas.
Jenny: Yeah. And I think those brands are out there doing it, right? Like it's critical, especially if you're in the consumer goods retail. You gotta be out there doing it and doing it at scale and finding the, the, the best creators that are gonna support your campaigns and your brands, right?
Like they can be challenging some time to find the right creator [00:42:00] that's. Hold your values close to the brand and that you feel really good about investing in and having them out there talking about you using your products and your goods. So
Ian: what about ai? How are you playing around with ai?
Jenny: So, I'm not gonna lie, I use it all the time.
All the time. I use a lot for creative writing. I found that Gemini is actually a little bit stronger for creative writing than just straight chat, GPT. And then I've been hearing a lot of things about Claude, too. That seems to be quite popular across my team. It's newer one, I haven't used it yet. But I also have the luxury of being a marketing leader at a company whose platform serves marketers.
And we have AI built directly into our platform. So it also is integrated into Microsoft Teams. So for me and my team, we, we go into Meltwater, we can instantly access information like market trends, brand performance metrics, competitive intelligence. I'll just like asking those questions that you put into chat.
GPT. I think what's cool about [00:43:00] Meltwater is it actually gives me not just the data and the answer, but it does a readout and a summary of those findings of the data and that stuff. It used to take us just a lot longer, like things like, you know, how is my brand performing in media coverage this month? Or bookie topics or my audiences discussing in social media right now.
Or what? What are the most common complaints across my top three competitors? Like things that you just wanna know that are really important for your marketing strategy, for your campaigns that you're running, for understanding what's being said about you and media and social, and needs to take us a lot longer to analyze.
The new AI assistance that we have launched recently in the platform have just been incredible in terms of. Uh, saving time and energy. Right? But it comes down to how comfortable are you with chat GPT? Right. And for me, I'm all about it. I encourage my team to use it. I think those who don't use it are crazy.
You can do things in like a minute versus three hours, so it's pretty cool.
Ian: I think just around social, like obviously, you know, you all do social listening [00:44:00] social's so important. I was actually looking at some, at some Mel Water statistics here for use of social media for work activities. As of this is February, 2025, you're talking about like, you know, age, age 25 to 34, like over 40%, 41% female and male using social media for work activities for 35 to 44.
It's like 42 and 45%, I mean. Again, like we are so on social, it's so part of our life that it feels like it's still under invested from a content perspective for just all the reasons, uh, in B2B.
Jenny: Yeah, I think it, BB, it's, it's been a little hard to prove, right? I mean, you've already said paid social is the thing I'm turning down, and that wasn't really necessarily working.
I think it's a little hard in our industry to find the way to get. You know, those, those business objectives met through them?
Ian: Yeah, exactly.
Jenny: Right, and it's like, it's hard too, like I think if you have [00:45:00] our CO is obviously, again, he's running a company that cares about social media, so he's probably more open-minded to investing in social at times and wants to see us out there and and cares about engagement metrics and cares about for sure our follower base and how much it's increasing and that's important to him.
But not all B2B CEOs are like that. Right. They may not see the value in investing in that. 'cause you're not seeing in the in, in A CB or a RR or GR R. Right. You're seeing it, yeah. In those considered softer KPIs. But I just encourage those marketers out there in B2B, like, don't give up. Right. I think that as an area you have to play.
You just have to find the thing that's gonna work for you, and then the minute you find a campaign that's really. Driving results that you find to be meaningful with your experience and expertise. It's finding the way to really position that up and finding the right talking points and story to prove that it's, it's worth it to
Ian: keep
Jenny: doing
Ian: it.
Yeah. Alright, let's get to our next segment. The dust up. Uh oh.
Mash up: Here comes Strella. [00:46:00] You may have heard that there was a dust up involving yours truly. And now we've got a wild scrum with fights breaking out all over the place.
Ian: Where we talked about healthy tension, whether that's with the board, your competitors, your sales teams, or anyone else. Have you had a memorable desktop in your career?
Jenny: Yes, I have. And I'll give an example of some of the stuff that was I was working through last year, so. Uh, I've been in melt order for seven years and when I came in, I came in through an acquisition and at that time I was running demand gen for the social division melt order, acquired this company called SMOs, and they're the ones who brought social listening, so social media management technology into our tech stack.
At that time, you know, SMOs was. Sourcing 80% of their business through inbound. It was, it was an incredible engine, and we had a really good reputation with the executive team within that division and that team. Over [00:47:00] time, once those social products got fully integrated into the core of Meltwater and the marketing team at Meltwater started picking up the social marketing campaigns, you know, it was one of those times where I moved over to corporate.
I started building out the brand, but then last year I got the opportunity to come back to Dimension. And I'd say the time I've been here at Meltwater, as I mentioned before, it's a company that's very outbound sales focused, and they've always had a bit of skepticism around inbound. Like, is it really working?
Does it, does it not work? Can't we just use sales people for that? Like, do we really need to invest in marketing? And I think that over the 20 years that this business has been around, they haven't really been able to find the path for marketing to get a seat at the table. Not for lack of trying not for working through different scenarios and trying to do that rally cry around it, but we just, at the end of the day, weren't really speaking the right language or using the right KPIs that were meaningful to the business.
So, you know, [00:48:00] last year was about breaking into those exec conversations, getting marketing represented within board conversations, and it really came down to a lot of things. But one was just changing our KPIs. Right, and you heard me throughout this, maybe talk more about us being measured on Marketing Source pipeline.
Marketing source, a CV. And when? When all else fails. That's what sales leaders understand, right? Yeah. They understand marketing like a go to market team and their impact when you're talking about sourced. So right now we're kind of sitting in that seat. There's a lot of other things we had to do in order to make this marketing demand gen engine start getting recognized as valuable.
It's valuable go to market team and a lot of that came down to, you know, our backend operations changing definitions. What is an MQL? Do sales wanna follow up with? How do they follow up with our, our leads? What are those SLA agreements and handoffs and processes? And then even just like how do we report on success, [00:49:00] right?
What are those reports we're using? How do we define our KPIs? How do we talk to sales leaders across the world and all these different segments and talk about our impact, not just. Yes, we're doing these five amazing events. We we're generating all this volume, but like what is it doing for you in sales and how are we kind of helping you with your book of business?
So we had to kinda really change a lot and that was, it was a tough thing to work through, but we're now at a point where we have a very comfortable seat in front of the exec team and the board, and that's been really exciting.
Ian: Cool. Final segment here. Quick hits. These are quick questions and quick answers.
Just like how qualified.com helps companies generate pipeline quickly. With pipeline AI and Piper, the ai SDR. That's right. Somebody comes to your website and it's 3:00 AM and you have no salespeople working. You know who's working? Piper right now, working 24 7 and giving them all the information they need.
Go to qualifi.com to learn more quick hits. Jen, are you ready? [00:50:00] Number one, do you have hidden talent or skill that's not on your resume?
Jenny: So I am a bit of a di I wire, my husband has a workshop out in the garage, so he builds the stuff I paint, the stuff we've done like a barn door, a Aron jack chairs. I know how to change bathroom floor tiles.
Just painted my front door. So I'd say like nothing to do with marketing, but I do really love to improve things around my home myself.
Ian: All right. What about if you weren't in marketing or business at all, what do you think you'd be doing?
Jenny: Can I say I'd be sitting on the beach with a drink in my hand.
Ian: We can do that anyways.
Jenny: I mean, I guess
Ian: let's do, you know what, I know New York City this year, but next year for Summit, maybe we're talking about the beach all. Final question here. What is your best piece of advice for a global VP of demand?
Jenny: Yeah, so I would say get into the backend. [00:51:00] I think, you know, there's marketing. We've gotta care about those campaigns.
We've gotta care about those activations. Our teams are running each and every day. But if you don't understand the backend, if you're not curious about the workflows, your attribution rules, how Salesforce, Marketo talk to each other, what your lead scoring models are, runoff, what's the algorithm? You're not gonna be able to find those spots within your operational flow and your inbound engine to really create those changes.
You're only gonna be looking at the campaigns you're gonna be looking at. Yes, how you spend money, but there's a lot of things that you can do within the backend to improve your conversion rates, how leads are being processed and handled. So I think that's, you know, kind of how I started my career, kind of thinking about it in that technical way and being in the backend.
And that has really helped me, I'd say own the entire demand generation engine for an and back.
Ian: Fantastic. Jenny, wonderful having you on the show. Thanks so much for, for joining. Any final thoughts, anything to plug? I.
Jenny: You know, just come to [00:52:00] Meltwater Summit. I talked about it a few times here. It's May 6th and seventh in New York.
Go to meltwater.com/summit to check it out. We've got some discount prices out there right now, and like I said, you get a chance to listen to Reese Witherspoon. That's definitely a must attend event for marketers and PR and comms folks.
Ian: Alright y'all, everybody, go check it out. Appreciate it and we'll talk soon.
Jenny: Thanks, Anne.
Ian: Thanks again to our friends at qualified. Go to qualified com to learn.