TOP CMO: Isabelle Guis, Commvault - 'Empathy, Alignment, and Adaptability'

Isabelle Guis  0:00  

I encourage all marketing teams to be diverse because if we are as diverse as our customer base that will make us so much better at being empathetic and understanding how we reach out to them and how we make them successful.

Ben Kaplan  0:13  

This is the podcast where we go around the globe to interview marketing leaders from the world's biggest brands, fastest growing companies and most disruptive startups. Three ideas packaged a certain way want to spread, they want to be told us someone else's simple, surprising and significant data. Unlocking viral creativity is to make it rapidly scalable. This is top cmo with me, Ben Kaplan. today I'm chatting with Isabelle geese CMO of Commvault, a cloud data protection powerhouse. Before joining Commvault Isabel's impressive career included a stint as VP of Product Marketing at Salesforce, where she contributed to $1 billion plus growth and Sales Cloud revenue. She also served as the chief strategy and marketing officer at Ignite, where she expanded the company's total addressable markets by 10x. Isabelle currently serves as an adjunct lecturer and member of the board of advisors at Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business. So how does being empathetic help you ultimately deliver value to customers? Whether in a marketing activation or at an industry events? Let's find out with Isabel geese.

Isabel, what are the past experiences that you draw on most now at com vaults in an industry where it's certainly booming because of all the digital transformation that was accelerated through the pandemic?

Isabelle Guis  1:44  

Well, thanks for having me, Ben. First of all, but But you're right, I've been very blessed in working for best in class companies, which I've learned tons from and in a way, you know, being CMMI COBOL, bring it all together, we have a vibrant ecosystem of partners. And we'll say the partner go to market motion at Cisco is when you were I was exposed to, to the depths and the richness of it, we have a SaaS solution. And obviously working at Salesforce and buildings is strong link with the customer, the communities you've built, and the SAS, you know, velocity of doing marketing and sales was critical. So it's been it's been great, sir, it's been a journey to learn at every step of the way to bring it together at combo,

Ben Kaplan  2:34  

you've spoken about the importance of events, connecting with your customer, and the changing nature of that, of course, during the pandemic, we all sort of went virtual, and then we tried to do kind of hybrid. And now things are continuing to evolve. I know event marketing is important part of your strategy, how has your thinking about events evolved over the past couple of years.

Isabelle Guis  2:55  

So for everything marketing of the sea, you have to listen to customer and I think event has been the one most dramatically affected by the pandemic. But also what the pandemic did is transfer a lot of our interaction online. So digital marketing has been more than ever critical in the way of understanding your market and monitoring it. And I am terribly biased because I teach at Santa Clara University is the foundation of the marketing tech stack but using a lot of this technology to see where the market is going and engaging with customer to see firsthand what they expect and how's he want us to engage with them which event is about of Well we found out is a lot of customer was still not depending on where they were geographically or just you know, personally comfortable going to a full, you know, immersion in in person event. The travel industry is being challenged. So traveling is not as glamorous as it used to be the desire to be away from home when with COVID. You know, they already had their routine, the children pickup and so forth. So thing one week in Las Vegas was not an option for them. But they still wanted to engage some of them in person. But at the same time, they wanted something convenient. So that's one thing we learned. The second things we learned was really the like online and the flexibility it offers for events, but they don't have the attention span that we used to have early 2020 They want to experience this on their own terms, you know, different topics. They like short, you know us impactful I would say session so we redesigned to your appointment or entire event strategy around this

Ben Kaplan  4:46  

meaning that you want less long big monolithic events where everyone the globe comes to input more events closer to where people are and also make it more bite sized chunks that we all have short attention spans now so we've got a sort of Reduce what these are

Isabelle Guis  5:01  

exactly. So so what we did was we redesigned our event platform where you can engage as question live network. And it was multiple track with to your point 15 minutes, 20 minutes very short session, and that you can, you know, explore a little bit more, and then can book a meeting for follow up if you want to deep dive into one of them. And then after this big online event, we had roadshows where we will meet customer where they are, where instead of asking them to spend an entire week in a conference center, they will just come for, you know, four hours, maybe there will be two hours of presentation and exchange and two hours of visiting a museum, or, you know, fun activities where they could network with their peers. And these formats so far for us have been extremely efficient. And it's answering to the desire of engagement of our customer, which varies, as I say, through cities and through the times it can allow you to spend with us for other

Ben Kaplan  6:02  

CMOS who are listening and thinking about their event marketing strategy. There's different objectives from events from what you're trying to do, what is your objective, why is events something that you single out as important in your marketing mix? And what are you hoping to accomplish?

Isabelle Guis  6:18  

So we are designing or event with multiple personas in mind, we have people who are going to come to especially a virtual event, and that the first time they're going to be exposed to Commvault. So we are both keynotes, we have partners, critical major partners that work with with us, that will actually give an overview of all the realm of possibilities and solution we bring, then we have or customer who are considering buying a new product or purchasing us for the first time and we have roadmap session that shows the deployment, the rollout, the benefit and the value. And then we have or we could say your article, very loyal customer was super advanced. And we will do session that demo ends on where we submit the expert. So and that was back to you, people want to decide that this is what I want out of the event. And you try to offer them the choice, they sign up for the sessions you want. And you also have a follow up. Like if they want more deep dive session, because the event is only four hours, they can book a meeting with a product manager with someone from Sioux Falls after the event as well.

Ben Kaplan  7:30  

It's interesting to think about personas applied to events because I think personas we commonly do that in marketing, we want to understand our customers, we want to understand our customer segments, but then we then hosting events. And so we spend a lot time separating people out into different personas. But then we put them all back together because they're all coming event. And sometimes we forget that there's different people there for different reasons, much like you would map out the journey when someone comes to your website, where are they going to go? What did they experience? Where are they trying to get to? You should do that for an event as well? How are people with their own different objectives going to experience and what's going to be their flow?

Isabelle Guis  8:05  

Exactly. And so that's why the platform you choose is very important, because we can offer a different journey to through the event, depending at which stage and the center of interest your customer have. And in a way that's the beauty of doing this digitally is the flexibility and the self service. So everybody can customize their own journal, or what platform are you using? Right now we're using six connects.

Ben Kaplan  8:27  

And it's for that reason of being able to kind of be flexible to adjust it to different purposes, different personas. That's why

Isabelle Guis  8:36  

yes, absolutely. You can arrive you have an exhibition, or you can go to different booths, you have people to interact with, you have a chat version, you can decide to listen to the keynote, you can sign up for different sessions so we can really design a customer journey. You can have live engagement between customer with each other as do networking, but also between experts and customers. And and you can schedule. We have different integration with Six Flags, where you can also schedule follow up meetings if you want to.

Ben Kaplan  9:06  

Before you were at Convo. I mean, as you mentioned, you're at Salesforce, which is a company that's known for events known for a very strong community known for one really big event particular Dreamforce. So what do you take from sort of the Salesforce experience to now have a company that really did prioritize that sort of events as a marketing tool?

Isabelle Guis  9:26  

So I will not say we prioritize event but I will say we've been very successful at a time that's been challenging in attracting customer to events and I will say this, a lot of this is drawn and inspired by my time at Salesforce, Salesforce customer obsession, and making sure we answer their needs and you know, they have a large customer base. So back to the personas. They have very different type of interests. They have sales, either marketing leader sales ops, support people who use their product, but they all call them at Dreamforce Was it all different tracks and what is cool to Salesforce is to engage with them on an ongoing basis with reinforce beings a major event. But, you know, we used to do coffee talks, just to catch up with them and talk about what step of mind and exchange best practices between different sales leader because I was on Sales Cloud. We used to organize you know, review of some of the contents of our session to add customer feedback and see if that was resonating with them. If there was another topic and we will ask for the service and to see what topics they want you to listen to, you know, Salesforce has an entire I will say logic and processes center around customer from the certification to train them on the product with the Trailblazer community and all the online demos and training that you can take up to Dreamforce and an ongoing engagement to make sure we listen we include back in the roadmap, but also we engage on their own terms.

Ben Kaplan  11:07  

Isabel's time at Salesforce is an interesting marketing training ground. By account of its Industry Focus, Salesforce shouldn't be an innovative marketer. Yet, it is

Speaker 3  11:18  

Salesforce donates 1% of their time product and financial resources to organizations doing good in the world.

Ben Kaplan  11:25  

And the company's unique and positive image via its commitment to corporate social responsibility to its iconic Dreamforce conference and innovative no software campaign, Salesforce took an out of the box approach to b2b marketing. Hi, it's

Speaker 4  11:39  

Marc Benioff companies can do more than just make money they can serve others. And our job is to get out there and really show how corporations can change the world and make them a better place.

Ben Kaplan  11:51  

So what did Isabel take away from founder and CEO Marc Benioff? And what makes him such a successful leader?

Isabelle Guis  12:00  

Yeah, so well actually, you know, very strong on the values you really leave them through and through is not just you know, words that are on the website, and one of those values is customer success. And for him, he really means it, it doesn't mean that you know, we're successful in just rolling out the Salesforce product, it means that if your business as a customer grows, if you're doing well, we will do well. And so the focus is not just on helping the customer use our product is helping them grow, helping them thrive, helping them you know, survive during COVID. And by doing this, it creates a lot of trust, a lot of loyalty and a lot of knowledge of the market that I've met this company, so successful long. Benioff is keenly interested in customer and making them successful beyond Salesforce.

Ben Kaplan  12:50  

What is the priority? Now for Commvault? We've focused a lot on events, because I think it's an interesting topic, but it's not necessarily the core of what you do. Where is your priority? Now? What do you need to accomplish in the next 12 months for convolved? From a marketing perspective?

Isabelle Guis  13:05  

Yeah, so obviously, you know, the corporate strategy is much broader than events, as you mentioned, then Cobalt is at a very interesting inflection point, in the company history. We are in the Data Protection business. And there are two things happening with data. It keeps growing, and nobody's throwing it away, which mean that, you know, we've been in this business for a couple of decades, nobody's throwing away data in their data center, and we can protect that. But a lot of people are adding data in SAS application, like Salesforce application dynamics. And so you need to protect this data in the cloud. We have a SaaS solution called Metallica that we launch. But less than 10 quarters ago, and that actually reached, you know, the stage of 100 million all the stage of you know, being a unicorn in itself. This has drastically changed how we approach the market and how we market obviously, we have two motions, we satisfy customer no matter what workload they have. So that's one thing, adapting to different delivery model of the solution. The second thing that's really important is, in the recent years, you've seen data is under attack, you have ransomware. So data security has become a cornerstone of our solution as well. We made an acquisition, I think February last year, and the company called tropics, which now is part of a portfolio under metallics, threat wise. And this is a proactive way of deceiving people while trying to attack your data. And data security is becoming more and more important in a way where actually the market has to be understood as we just talk about it from a marketing perspective, but also in this ever changing economic environment. You do need to forecast you don't need to predict You do need your data available on an ongoing basis. So we saw a lot of interest there.

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have the nature of the conversations changed since the pandemic, the pandemic accelerated a lot of digital transformation of companies more being put into the cloud has that changed how you have to educate people has it changed the types of people you're educating what what is different now,

Isabelle Guis  16:08  

you're correct, it has accelerated the digital transformation before it was maybe a side project ongoing in the background. With a pandemic, it became the number one priority. Customer I've realized and moving to the cloud is not doing what you do on prem. But in the cloud. It's a completely different logic, the way you approach a skill sets you need. You don't want just one cloud provider, you want multi cloud, you want hybrid cloud, you want some of the data accessible very fast, depending on how critical it is, and some that you can afford to have in the cloud. So the level of sophistication and the entire thought process is very different. And I think that's what they've learned at the beginning of the pandemic. I will say that a little bit later, when you saw this ransomware attack attacks happening, they starting also looking more at data governance and data security, in addition of protecting it and making it available in the cloud. And I will say you know, I don't have a crystal ball. But I can tell you that I think also some of their priority will change this year. With the current situation in Europe and with the stock market, a lot of also customer will probably look at more consolidation of vendors and cost will be one one of the topic top of minds as well,

Ben Kaplan  17:32  

at Santa Clara University, one of the topics he teaches on that point is like building a marketing stack and your marketing tech stack, which that wasn't even a term, you know, maybe five or 10 years ago or something like that. And that now it's like a cornerstone of a lot of businesses. So how do you go about thinking as a CMO about like, what's in your tech stack? You mentioned some maybe price pressures and costs, you know, belts tightening? How do you think about what's kind of essential to have what's nice to have and how you build out an effective marketing tech stack.

Isabelle Guis  18:03  

So the tech stack is very important. And you should, as a CMO, review it on a regular basis, because the market is changing how much it

Ben Kaplan  18:13  

means it's the kind of thing when you say regular basis, I mean, is this your once a year thing before things renew? Or is it more than that in your editing? And just to clarify, we're talking in the tech stack, it might be your CRM, your web analytics, maybe your marketing automation, these are all elements of that tech stack?

Isabelle Guis  18:29  

Absolutely, yeah, your event platform, your all of that is part of the tech stack. And yes, once a year is, I would say a good, a good cadence. And sometimes like we just talk about events, sometimes you have to change your event platform in the middle of that, because you see the market changing. So looking at your marketing tech stack will tell you a lot of things, you can identify gaps where you see, you know, you don't have a lot of choice maybe to engage with customer or you have too many events platform. And that's a chance for you to consolidate and maybe reduce your costs. So all of that can be can be laid out. I think, you know, there is always a balance and a conflict. Yes, you want to optimize and have an end to end integration. And that will reduce your cost at the center, and you do need to invest. And I say that because a lot of customer and that's been accelerating, since we're all online, are bringing their consumer buying habits into b2b. And that's why I say you know, they want to engage on their own terms. And when you do this to be successful in this market, you need what I call them iferror or micro personalization. And so you need to micro segments your market and really engage with them and talk about the topics they want to talk about on this channel they want to hear and with that you need a lot more either resources or you need your tech stack to helps you. And I, I'm very interested right now as I'm reviewing my tech stack into any AI ml technology, because it's so much data, how to segment it, how to micro personalized content, we cannot create like 10 cells and content. So there are tools that I can actually automate some of these contents as well, like different data sheets of data, different persona wording change, depending on the industry. And so I am looking into this because I do think that in terms of cost, that will help you actually better serve your customer with the same team that you have, but helping them scale through those tools.

Ben Kaplan  20:41  

And talking, of course, about AI, artificial intelligence, ml machine learning that one of the challenges when you're doing complex marketing automation, or you're doing a lot of different personas is it can get pretty unwieldy fast, like there's power in sort of keeping it simple. But there's personalization and keeping it complex. And those kinds of tools hold some promise for having this complexity and being able to pull out a simple insight or something else, even on very complex systems.

Isabelle Guis  21:10  

Exactly, exactly. That's why I look at the tech stack, they don't solve problems, but they help people solve problem. And when it's too complex, they will help they have tools to help us see and have more visibility in a simpler way to mine the data that's very abundant now and extract only the critical information. So people solve problem, not technology, but technology help people scale, be a GI and have mineral knowledge of around their market and around the solution they bring.

Ben Kaplan  21:44  

As you think about kind of problem solving as a marketing leader. Now you're in the CMO role in many other roles you had you were a vice president of marketing or you're a marketing leader, but but not necessarily that title, what is different about being a CMO versus just being head of marketing, or a very senior marketing person that has similar marketing, oversight, what's different when you think about being a CMO? As an evolution of that,

Isabelle Guis  22:11  

I think the business impact and the ability to help teams aligns, I think that my only value actually, you know, I'm not really doing the work and that fantastic people doing it. But my value added is to connect the dots between them. And I think a multiplier effect. So for instance, you know, when we have a new product coming in, and our communications team is ready to launch it, making sure they know about the event we're doing. So they can say, hey, if you want to see this product in demo come to this event, making sure our sales team are being trained before we launch making sure the website is ready, making sure that there is a webinar to follow up on that and that our Field Marketing team will reach out as a follow up. So I think all those function coordinated, and instead of individual activities with smaller return, having a bigger coordination and a bigger business intact. That's really what as a CMO, I feel my role is is making sure I empower all the team to work together to align towards a bigger goal and and to achieve it and back to the events. We were discussing this roadmap and big event we so in at a time when I talk with my peers, and they are struggling to reach the same level of attendees than last year, we so 40% More registering to our event online this year, and 50% more attendees, because we really had a very integrated marketing and as a CMO, I think that's my role.

Ben Kaplan  23:43  

So is a CMOS role to also serve as a chief collaboration officer. Should a CMO unite teams to harness collective intelligence and foster innovation across disciplines. By breaking down silos and embracing diverse perspectives? CMOS can drive growth in surprising ways. Simply put, how should a CMO coordinate and integrate teams outside of the formal hierarchy? And if you do this, can you achieve better outcomes?

Isabelle Guis  24:15  

I've been at places like that where the marketing organization is see as a service organization instead of a strategic organization. So let's say for instance, when product as a new product to launch, they will go to the communications team and say hey, we're launching yellow okay, but then meanwhile, the digital marketing team is putting ads on purple and then the Field Marketing team has a request from the field to do a webinar on pink. So a lot of activities but it's smaller return on investment. And when you look at this from a customer perspective, you see all these rainbow colors and it's is a result of being so nice organization when you become a strategic organization and you can change the culture at the company level of your marketing team, it's we all align around purple for a quarter and you lose the next one. And so as a result, you have a multiplier effect. And you have also better coordination and returns because people work with each other to offer a better experience to customer.

Ben Kaplan  25:16  

My wife is French from the south of France, you're a French from Marseille in the south of France, and you're working in a global organization does a French perspective, is that different in any way as a marketer, or just a business person doesn't have to be marketing. But what do you take away from sort of being French working in a global organization with people from all kinds of backgrounds does that give you that might be different than someone from a different background, a completely

Isabelle Guis  25:37  

different perspective. By the way, I'm French, but I am also Indian, in Asian, Vietnamese, Indian and Vietnamese because Vietnam used to be French at one point and bondage in India used to be French.

Ben Kaplan  25:51  

I'm half Thai, my wife is French. And so our kids will be a big mix as well. So you say you have multiple perspectives, I can appreciate that. Sure.

Isabelle Guis  25:58  

Exactly. A region perspective and naturalized American. And I will tell you back to, you know, the market changing and people being more individuals, not just buyer, but individuals and consumers too often say, you know, I'm more than a market are now especially for the last few years, since I've been a sociologist, you need to understand where people are coming from their comfort level with COVID their opinion on Twitter, are they gonna stay on this? Or do they want to communicate differently the people's personal opinions is influencing their professional life. And as being brought of, I would say, multiple mindset and framework like being French and being Europeans. But at the same time, being American being a woman, all of this,

Ben Kaplan  26:42  

it gives you a kind of a multi focus lens that allows you to be more empathetic with the customer, ultimately, because you can see things differently.

Isabelle Guis  26:51  

Exactly. And that's why I encourage all marketing teams to be diverse. Because if we are as diverse as our customer base, that will make us so much better at understanding to your point, being empathetic, and understanding how we reach out to them and how we make them successful.

Ben Kaplan  27:07  

I was recently chatting with the CMO of Nike. And if you talk to a consumer company like that, and he'll talk about, you know, the power of emotion. And that's emotion by design and how you have to connect with people on sort of a really different level. And that's of course, it's a company like Nike, it's famous for ads, it's a consumer brand. Do you think for a b2b company, you're talking about being a sociologist and being empathetic? Those are actually things I could have heard from the Nike CMO, too. Is there any truth to that? And b2b marketing? Or is b2b marketing just a different animal? Or do you think it has some core similarities with a more b2c counterpart? That seems like totally different,

Isabelle Guis  27:46  

the nines are blurring, we're all consumer and we're all professionals and we bring our consumer lens to work. I would say since the last few years, I think the way to understand the market and aesthetic aspect is there for both b2b and b2c b2b is more recent to your point compared to B to C. But the way you use that information is different. You know, in in b2c, your the way you engage with customers, the way you you market, your product is emotional to your point, but you understand their their emotion, because you've been building your understanding of the market. In b2b, the way you engage them is still very, at least in my space, with it still very technical, they don't necessarily buy a brand just because their emotions are in play. The trust trust is one emotion that's very strong in it. But I will say the there it's a more logical and rational operations than an emotional purchase on the b2c, but the way you engage with them, you still have to share the understanding of the market at the emotional level, even if you translate your marketing in a different way.

Ben Kaplan  28:54  

Commvault a lot of the offering is protecting you from bad things happening, backing up what you have in case of something catastrophic, protecting against risks from outside threats, compliance issues, problems. So how much of it is just kind of putting a more positive spin on marketing of things people are afraid of? And it's actually fear? Or is it something different? How do you think about sort of communicating value when a lot of it is protection from what could happen? That would be very negative.

Isabelle Guis  29:24  

So actually, that's that's a good point. I don't like using the word fear as you, as you heard that, not use that, but what I liked using his trust, and he's like, you know, when you buy an insurance, you know, you don't want to get a car accident, but you never know. And so you don't want to lose your data. But unfortunately, there's been a lot of bad actor, and we don't want to instill fear in our customer. It's just the news, unfortunately, and the way the world is going and how critical the data is, and it's a new wealth that people wants to steal. So what we really good and very proud of is we actually don't protect all The workload the same way. So more criticals and requires more attention. So I'm, you know, you can live with that for a couple of days until you recover them. And that's really what we offer. And I think for us, the word that's important is not for you, it's trust, trust us with our expertise to help you when things are not well, the amount of customer will help recover from ransomware. And they didn't have to pay a ransom, and they were able to keep their business running is impressive. They've been extremely grateful, but it is our job, we take a lot of pride in it. And we rather be there when things are bad, then making students have fear in them. And you know, that's that's not how we think about marketing, we think about marketing with trust. And if you decide to protect your data, and things go bad, we'll be there for you.

Ben Kaplan  30:46  

I'd be interested to hear your take, because not only are you practicing as a marketer, as a CMO, but you're also teaching a next generation of business leaders or marketers in your role at Santa Clara University. So what is your advice for those who want to be in the CMO role down the road? Maybe that's three years maybe that's five years, maybe that's longer? What is your advice for getting there? What sorts of experiences what what do they think about their careers? What sorts of skills what sorts of networks should they have? What is your advice to the next generation,

Isabelle Guis  31:17  

I will say, you know, the market is changing so much the technology of combing whatever advice I give that will need that actionable will be outdated in two years from now, what I tried to teach my students is to be comfortable being uncomfortable because the market will change. The tools we're using will change. new social media tools will arrive a new way of segmenting the market will arrive. But as long as it keeps the customer interested, they're hot, and they are comfortable being uncomfortable and asking and learning and experimenting, sky's the limit, because it will always stay on top of their game. They will always learn new technology that will come their way but more importantly, they will be successful because he should care about customers customer will care about you.

Ben Kaplan  32:06  

According to Isabelle geese, strategic alignment, empathy and adaptability are crucial elements in the evolving world of marketing. So really understand your customer. embrace their diversity, and your own. seek to foster trust. Don't just use customer personas as part of a brand exercise, leverage them at the tactical level, even at your next user conference. break down silos embrace change. If you can continually adapt to the changing landscape. You'll thrive in an increasingly interconnected world for top cmo on Ben Kaplan.

Tom Cain  32:51  

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