The CRM is just the start. Two thirds of the web is still unaddressed.
Christopher Hogg Chief Revenue Officer, Lotame
Interviewed by Justin Cooke
Published
Christopher Hogg is Chief Revenue Officer at Lotame, the independent ad-tech and data collaboration business, where he has spent close to twelve years across regional and global leadership roles. He set up Lotame's European business in London after joining from France Telecom, where he had been a customer of what is now known as an audience management platform. At the time of recording he was also operating as interim Chief Marketing Officer. In this conversation he sets out why selling enterprise data software has become a committee sport requiring three or four internal sponsors; why the marketing team has been split into three pillars rather than the traditional brand-and-demand binary; why Lotame ungated all of its content; and why partnerships and data collaboration are the structural opportunity as addressability on the open internet gets harder.
Holding both seats: CRO and acting CMO
On wearing both hats.
I have always worked closely with marketing. Holding both seats has shown me I did not work as closely as I thought I did, and that I needed to. That is the place to start looking inside any business: are you working with the marketing teams as closely as you genuinely believe you are? In most cases, the honest answer is no.
The discipline is reciprocal. The full customer experience, from the first piece of content somebody reads through to the conversation with a sales representative, runs across both teams. The information has to flow both ways.
The buying committee, and why selling software is now a sell to four
On the committee.
Selling into organisations is by committee now, and for multiple reasons. These are big decisions companies are making. It is no longer I am going to buy a piece of software for advertising. It is I am going to buy a piece of software that touches consumer data. So we need the data privacy officer involved, the legal teams, procurement. Three or four sponsors across the business, all of whom have to reach consensus before the decision lands.
That changes how content has to be designed. You tailor content to each role and each use case. Even legal teams, who know their business inside out, may not know the digital advertising ecosystem, so you need content that helps them understand why we are asking certain things and why they may be pushing back on certain things. The contractual phase of any sale can take as long as the sales phase that precedes it.
On staging.
Different content at different stages. During prospecting, before the customer has spoken to a human, the content is top-of-funnel and brings them down through the decision process. You also have to account for the competitive environment. We are rarely the only platform in the conversation, so the content also has to handle objections and the next stage of consideration.
Why Lotame ungated all of its content
On the discipline of ungating.
We used to put everything behind a gate because we wanted email addresses to send information and book meetings. The move was from putting barriers in the way of content being read to letting it be read. You cannot force people into a pipeline with a blunt object.
They have to get there under their own steam, which means taking them on a deliberate path, and if the first stage of that path is a gate asking them for a great deal of information, you are setting the wrong tone. So we ungated all of our content. The customer comes in, takes the path through our digital properties, and the end goal is they reach out, ready to have a conversation with a sales representative who is the right fit for what they need.
The three pillars of the marketing function
On the structure.
Three core pillars. Demand generation: SEO, search, all SDR activity, the content that supports the funnel. This is where most of the data turns into insight, and that insight feeds the creative pillar.
Creative: the team that manages PR agencies, writes all content, owns branding and design. Works closely with demand generation.
Product marketing: competitive intelligence, working with the product team on new launches, ensuring sales collateral and go-to-market positioning are in place before things ship. Feeds into both creative and demand generation. This is also where customer and sales feedback gets brought back into product development.
On the early signal.
Some of the changes went in last year, some at the start of this year. The early signal is a more focused pipeline of opportunities for sellers to work with.
Beyond the CRM: where the real audience data lives
On the stack a brand marketing leader has to build.
The CRM is the beating heart for a brand marketer. That is where the data path starts. Brands are now more aware that the CRM is only part of it. Significant traffic does not disclose itself on digital property. You can spend all your money in the walled gardens and miss out on two-thirds of the attention on the internet, which sits in the open market. So you need tools that operate in the open as well.
Add to that the technology decisions of the biggest players, government and legislation, and the ecosystem becomes difficult for marketers to navigate. A CMO today has one of the most difficult jobs in the industry. There are fourteen thousand pieces of technology in some of the Lumascapes that could potentially help. The skill is in choosing the right tools for the right use cases, not collecting them.
On creativity in B2B.
It matters more than the industry traditionally allows. We are brands. Our brands need to resonate with our market. That happens through creativity: a spin on a display campaign, poking a little fun at yourself on certain platforms, or just being deliberately creative about how you earn attention. The brand presence matters.
The question for the board
If the CRM only addresses one third of the web, what share of our reach is built off first-party data versus left invisible?
