In this episode of "20 Growth," host Harry Stebbings converses with Kip Bodnar, CMO of HubSpot, on the intricacies of scaling a billion-dollar company. Bodnar shares his journey from marketing agencies to HubSpot, emphasizing the importance of learning and adapting quickly in a new domain. They delve into the evolution of marketing, highlighting the shift towards inbound strategies and the pivotal year of 2013-2014 when online marketing matured significantly. The discussion also explores channel selection, the longevity of marketing tactics, and the necessity of aligning marketing with emotional storytelling. Bodnar stresses the significance of understanding distribution constraints and advises on managing up and aligning with company goals. They touch on the challenges of cross-functional collaboration and the loneliness of the CMO role, underscoring the need for broad knowledge and context switching. The conversation concludes with insights into hiring decisions, the potential transition from CMO to CEO, and the impressive marketing strategy of Cash App.
"Today, we have such a fantastic and natural discussion. I have to admit I got quite animated in this one with the amazing Kip Bodnar, chief marketing officer at HubSpot, where he sets HubSpot's global inbound market strategy which has been so core to their success."
This quote sets the stage for the podcast, emphasizing Kip Bodnar's role at HubSpot and the significance of inbound marketing to the company's success.
"I saw the Internet happening and I was doing marketing at a bunch of different marketing agencies and I was like, wow, this Internet is going to change how people do marketing."
Kip explains his foresight about the internet's potential to revolutionize marketing, leading to his involvement in the industry.
"Basically what happened, Harry, is that Facebook ads especially got real."
This quote highlights the point at which online advertising, particularly on Facebook, became a significant and effective marketing tool.
"You're going to have some primary advertising channel and you're going to need one to two primary organic channels."
This quote advises founders on the necessity of selecting a primary advertising channel and a couple of primary organic channels for growth.
"Are you able to increase your subscribers and your distribution on that channel, even if it's small? But are the growth rates meaningful?"
This quote emphasizes the importance of consistent growth and learning in content creation, which determines whether to persist with a channel.
"You have to solve distribution. So what I would say to them is, cool. You don't want to be a creator, you don't care about personal brand. Great. How are we going to get scalable distribution at a low cost?"
Kip Bodnar challenges founders to find a solution to their distribution constraints, emphasizing the importance of scalable distribution.
"If you're thinking you're going to run out of Runway in twelve months, you're just kind of an idiot."
This blunt statement by Kip Bodnar underscores the importance of long-term thinking and commitment to successful channels rather than hastily seeking diversification.
"A startup that gets traction and really kicks off, they've got one predictable growth channel. It's often ads. A startup that really scales and flirts with that 5100 million dollar run rate. They have two predictable growth channels. Normally it's ads plus one other thing."
This quote emphasizes the importance of having a focused approach to growth channels, highlighting that successful startups often have a limited number of predictable channels that they optimize.
"I'm a fan, Harry, of a more focused approach. I think of marketing as a venture capitalist."
Kip Bodnar compares marketing strategy to venture capital investment, suggesting that a focused approach on a few potential channels can lead to greater returns, akin to seeking out investments with the potential for asymmetric gains.
"But man, it had a peak and then really troughed down."
Kip Bodnar shares a past experience where a once-successful growth channel for HubSpot, the website Grader tool, reached a peak and then declined, highlighting the need for companies to recognize when to shift focus and resources to new opportunities.
"I don't think people can tell stories."
Harry Stebbings expresses frustration with the state of product marketing, pointing out that many founders fail to communicate their product's story effectively, which is a crucial part of marketing and brand development.
"We didn't start with, hey, you need software to do better marketing. We said, hey, technologies change the way people shop and buy."
Kip Bodnar illustrates effective product marketing with HubSpot's approach, which began by addressing the broader changes in consumer behavior before introducing their software as a solution, thereby positioning the product within the context of a larger narrative.
"When I think about brand Harry, I think it is the emotional benefit of not just your product, your service, but your company."
Kip Bodnar defines brand marketing as creating an emotional connection with customers and explains how HubSpot built its brand by focusing on helping and educating customers, which fostered a strong emotional benefit and community.
"You're creating categories. You're a transformative business or you're a better mousetrap business."
Kip Bodnar categorizes businesses into those creating new categories (transformative) and those improving existing solutions (better mousetrap), discussing the different approaches to customer education and brand marketing required for each type.
"You want to think about your marketing story as in a timeline."
Kip Bodnar provides a framework for aligning marketing strategies with different time horizons, ensuring that brand marketing sets a consistent, long-term vision that supports more immediate product marketing and demand generation efforts.
"All those people have the same problems all of those people have the same problems."
Kip Bodnar explains that despite the horizontal nature of HubSpot's product, the brand marketing story resonates because it addresses universal problems faced by all customers, emphasizing the importance of finding commonalities in customer needs for brand messaging.
"How do you advise cmos on managing up in order to get their upward hierarchy to see what they see and what they need?"
This quote emphasizes the difficulty CMOs have in getting upper management to understand and support their vision and requirements.
"You have to be very proactive versus reactive. You have to play offense instead of defense."
The importance of being proactive in strategy planning and communication with upper management is highlighted in this quote.
"What is the constraint for growth of that business? Because a board and a CEO is always thinking about, like, what is the thing that we fixed would drive growth and success for this business?"
This quote underlines the need to align marketing strategies with the company's growth constraints and the priorities of the board and CEO.
"Be happy with the silence."
The strategic use of silence in negotiations to prompt decision-makers to commit to a plan is suggested in this quote.
"Marketing be held accountable to a number tied directly to revenue?"
This question raises the issue of whether marketing should be directly responsible for generating revenue.
"Measuring something is more of an internal alignment exercise than it is an analytic exercise."
The quote emphasizes that consensus on attribution methods within the company is more critical than the analytics itself.
"Every marketer in the future should be directly accountable to revenue, both inbound and outbound, whatever that may be."
Marketing's direct accountability to revenue is advocated in this quote, suggesting a shift in how marketing success is measured.
"Marketing is eating sales."
This quote reflects the trend of marketing expanding its role into areas traditionally managed by sales.
"The best teams are going to be aligned on that story and that customer journey from that very high level brand awareness or first search result to the deck that a sales rep showed the demo, the sales rep show."
The importance of alignment between marketing and sales throughout the customer journey is highlighted in this quote.
"Mistakes always people related. People are much harder than strategy."
This quote acknowledges that people management is one of the most significant challenges in leadership roles.
"The biggest mistakes I have made, not hiring the right person or not knowing that I needed a person with a new level of skill set at that stage and scale of the company."
The quote reflects on personal mistakes made in hiring and skill assessment, emphasizing the importance of having the right team for different stages of growth.
"Teams with a balance of perspective and skills win."
This quote underscores the importance of having a diverse team with a range of skills and experiences.
"You can probably get by with a stretch candidate because you know a lot of it."
The quote suggests that a knowledgeable leader can support and guide less experienced hires effectively.
"You know when to let someone go when you're clear on what you're trying to achieve, set expectations with them about what it takes to get there."
This quote outlines the criteria for deciding when it is time to part ways with an employee based on their performance relative to clear objectives.
"It's super lonely. Think about it, have a pretty broad sense."
The quote conveys the isolation felt in the CMO role due to the wide-ranging responsibilities and decisions that must be made.
"You have to look at everything from the principle and problem layer."
This quote suggests that CMOs must focus on the core issues and principles, setting aside personal relationships to make strategic decisions.
"You need to understand the depths of distribution on Google and Facebook. You got to understand email score deliverability and GDPR and data privacy regulations. But you need to understand what great design looks like and what a perfect event experience looks like."
This quote emphasizes the diverse knowledge required in marketing, from understanding digital distribution platforms and privacy laws to design and event planning.
"Incentives and alignment around goals and incentives fix everything. If you have a problem collaborating, it is because you have competing goals or you have competing incentives against those goals."
Kip Bodnar suggests that misalignment in goals and incentives is the root cause of collaboration issues, and by aligning these, collaboration improves.
"If you want to be a CMO, you have to figure out how to get a breadth of knowledge and you have to figure out how to scale your leadership and get things done through others."
Kip Bodnar advises that to become a CMO, one must gain a wide range of marketing knowledge and learn to lead through others rather than just being an individual contributor.
"Maybe what I'm advocating for is multiple spikes of excellence, which is like, hey, I've got a spike of excellence in marketing automation. And then I went and did 18 months in product marketing and killed it."
Kip Bodnar suggests that a pattern of excellence in different areas of marketing builds a strong case for someone to be considered for the CMO position.
"If you can combine that with really emotional skills, then you are like a diamond in the world. There are very few people who can combine those things together."
Kip Bodnar highlights the importance of balancing logical and emotional skills in marketing to stand out in the field.
"The more open a tactic, meaning less regulated by one company... it changes a lot less."
This quote explains that marketing tactics governed by open protocols are less likely to undergo drastic changes than those controlled by a single entity.
"The inbound marketing story was ten very simple slides... That was the story I could give you the three hour version, or I can give you the three minute version of that story or the three second version of that story."
Kip Bodnar credits the success of inbound marketing to its simplicity and the ability to educate consumers about a new approach needed due to technological changes.
"Problems of scale. International markets are really hard. Leading a large scaled team of people and helping them succeed in a hybrid work environment when nobody knows what the hell's going on."
Kip Bodnar acknowledges the ongoing challenges he faces as a CMO, highlighting the need for constant learning and adaptation.
"Do you want to be a CEO, Kip? Someday? Yeah."
This quote reveals Kip Bodnar's aspiration to take on a CEO role in the future, suggesting a natural progression from CMO to CEO for some marketing leaders.
"They've taken a product that had no business of being successful candidly and making it very successful through remarkable marketing."
Kip Bodnar expresses admiration for Cash App's marketing strategy, highlighting their ability to differentiate and succeed with a common product through effective marketing.