The World of Lifecycle Marketing

Chuck Brotman: All right. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the latest episode of the talent GTM podcast. I am Chuck Brotman hosting our episode today, and I am excited to have on as my guest and wave and thank you for joining the podcast and recording with me Monday morning.

Anne Wave: Oh, yeah. I’m glad to be here.

Chuck Brotman: We’re here to talk about life cycle marketing.

I’m really excited to kind of get more into marketing and having a guest on who’s super accomplished in life cycle marketing and other things that to introduce and her audience. She’s a longtime self described email geek with a specialty for taking programs from scrappy to scalable. Her M. O. Is bringing data to every conversation and her team’s focus on showing The compounding impact of behavior driven programming.

We’re gonna talk a little more about what that is here on the episode when an is not in marketing work. She is reading, hiking, building community online and in real life. And, one thing about an is that she was so gracious. We had a search. We were running for a client a couple months ago. I reached out to and she made a great introduction.

That person ended up getting hired by my client. So testimony and the value of your community and your commitment to it. Thank you for joining the show today.

Anne Wave: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Chuck Brotman: I’m excited to get into the conversation. I would love to start off. And if you can talk a little bit about how you got into marketing in your career, maybe tell us a little bit about your bio.

Anne Wave: Of course. I got into marketing by way of sales actually. So early on in my career, I got a job as a BDR business development rep. And a lot of that work was, you know, so figuring out how to get the right message to the folks that you want to get time with. it was an, you know, an interesting path.

My dad had been in sales his whole life. 

And so I, I, knew a lot about what the sales path looked like. One of the things that he always said to me was, you know, quote every news every month, 

which is so true. It’s like, you know, definitely that, that reality of sales was, it’s fast pace, it’s, it’s, it’s an intense career.

And I had this opportunity to transition into digital marketing and I took it. So,

Chuck Brotman: What was that opportunity? Can you talk a little bit more about how it, how it showed itself?

Anne Wave: Transitioning.

Chuck Brotman: Yeah. What, how did you get, I mean, how did you Get a pathway in.

Anne Wave: I mean, it was my community for sure. It was somebody who I had worked for in the past who, you know, it’s somebody who knows somebody and they were looking for what they called at the time, a middle funnel marketer. so in addition to sort of helping with the marketing team and demand gen activities, there was a huge.

Need in this business to qualify leads that were coming in. So we would get an inbound lead in. I had five minutes to qualify that lead and pass it off to sales. Obviously as a prospect, I understand that because the faster that I get somebody on the phone, the like, the more relevance I have to all the research that I had done online.

But the reality of that was pretty fast. Like, so anyway. I had, you know, done a lot of qualifications from my previous role as a BDR. I was also in a full like sale, full sales cycle role as well. and yeah, I knew somebody who knew somebody who was hiring for this role. And Denver is all I live in near Denver and Denver is a pretty small town, especially in tech.

so yeah, I kind of. I don’t know. People sometimes make those connections and help you get in the door. And I guess as they say, the rest is a little bit of history, but that role was, I would say, over time we sort of transitioned from that like middle funnel marketing, where it was really focused on qualifying leads into nurturing those leads over time, which sort of created this path for me into email.

You know, if somebody is not quite ready to talk to a salesperson or if they’re ready, but 

I don’t know their previous contract isn’t up for seven months, you need some way to sort of keep. Your business top of mind. I’m talking in a b2b context here. and so yeah, it transitioned more into email. And then just every role that I’ve had since then has been just more and more and more in that email world.

Chuck Brotman: That’s awesome. It’s great to, to hear how, I mean, it sounds like at a, at a basic level, you, you’ve been able to kind of grow your career, picking up with some of what you were exposed to when you were first in sales and continuing to grow from your experiences beyond that. Right.

Anne Wave: Well, cause I think sales is really about relationships and that’s what true, like good marketing should feel like. It shouldn’t feel like you’re being sold to it should 

feel like somebody’s meeting you where you’re at. And it’s really a relationship type of day to day, you know, figuring out what to say to this person because of what you know that they care about or what they’re doing on your website.

So I think I think there’s a, there’s a huge amount of crossover. Definitely difference in the day to day. But what we’re talking about and how we’re going to our audience is pretty similar. 

Chuck Brotman: I, I want to pick up this conversation where, well, not where we left off, but maybe to share with our audience. We came up with the idea of, or I certainly thought about inviting you on the podcast when I first met you. And, you made me feel comfortable to ask you some really basic questions about life cycle marketing and the profession and what success looks like in the role that was really helpful, helpful for me at the time.

I would love to kind of start our conversation off here in terms of can you tell our audience a little bit about About like, what is life cycle marketing? Why do we use this term instead of email marketing? And how would you define the function within a marketing organization?

Anne Wave: I remember that conversation with you and this conversation happens a lot with folks, even who are very well versed in marketing. I would say life cycle is sort of the next generation of email. So I remember doing a project for a role that I had in, I think it was 2020. And I was an email marketing manager at the time.

And it’s just, as I looked across the industry that I was in and I talked with my peers who worked similar roles that I did. There was this new term cropping up that sort of like opened up more opportunity for an email manager. So I would say in a, in a few ways, like life cycle is namely. Using more channels than just email.

So depending on what type of business you have, that might be in that messaging, it could be mobile push. If you have a mobile app, it could be guided onboarding. It could be an app inbox. And so I think that’s sort of the, the easiest thing to talk about. It’s beyond just email. the second part of this, I would say is that it’s focusing more on the journey and what is happening to a customer throughout their progression with the relationship with your business. And finding those interception points. so figuring out, you know, if somebody has been on your website and maybe they are starting a trial, what do you know needs to happen? Like, what do you as a marketer know it needs to happen in the first seven days to get to that aha moment. It’s like a 

term that really makes a lot of sense for life cycle.

So as opposed to like a batch and blast type email program where we’re sending, you know, I don’t know, let’s say like, we want our folks to know about this webinar that’s coming up life cycle is much more about using that webinar to progress. Somebody into the next stage of what their lifecycle is. 

So as an example, you can talk about activating a member or engaging a member for the first time or retaining a member, like that type of programmatic.

Compounding result program is really what life cycle is as opposed to email, which, in some cases can be like, okay, this audience, we’ll just kind of tell everybody about it. So I see it as an evolution in a few ways, you know, of the tech stack that we have, of the ways that we are interacting with our audience, but also I would just say like a little bit more of a strategic lens on figuring out how to move somebody, how to successfully like engage in a new way so that they’re moving further down the funnel.

Chuck Brotman: Do you, it seems obvious to me from what you described and the, the way that, building relationships with, you know, prospects and customers has changed. You mentioned kind of in app messaging and other channels for communication. So obviously, you know, life cycle marketing is really important in context where you have a large audience to communicate with B2B to C seems obvious.

Do we see life cycle marketing roles as well, cropping up more in like B2B marketing organizations that have maybe like a smaller number of like of like prospectors and users of a given solution? Like where, where do you tend to see more of it? Or does it truly span like across categories and motions in GTM?

Anne Wave: I do believe it spans across both. I personally think it belongs a little bit better in B2B. I mean, I think it belongs in both, but 

like, no hate to my B2C friends who are in Lifecycle. I really understand. Breaking up your audience into these cohorts and just like a really strong segmentation strategy is huge for B2C.

What I see is valuable in B2B is especially if you, as you have an app that’s maybe used day to day in somebody’s life, like Asana or trying to think like even Pendo itself, like some of these tools where adoption of the app is critical towards the business goals that you’re trying to achieve as a As an employee.

I see so much opportunity there because those daily like habits, those daily actions, are really what create that aha moment. And then once you’re in, you’re done. Like if somebody sees it, unless we’re talking about some type of budget cut, they’re probably going to have a pretty good relationship with that tool for a, for a long time.

So I think in B2B, like it’s not necessarily a numbers game, obviously in B2C, you would say that you’re selling like, I don’t know, beauty products. 

You have more transactions from the same customers and also more transactions from multiple customers. but when we’re talking about like average dollar value of a contract, B2B is pretty big.

I’ve been in both and I’ve talked to folks about sort of what I liked about each. And I would say, because I came up in B2B, because I came up as a BDR, I’m like, Oh my God. When you get a demo request from a big deal contract, like there is nothing that’s quite as satisfying as that. And so when I think about the value of like meeting these people where they’re at and really progressing them through stages to understand adoption, to get to that aha moment, B2B is huge for that.

I would also say something that I hear, like, I see this happen or sort of be organized differently in different organizations. Customer marketing versus life cycle. I’ve even, I’ve hired somebody who was a senior life cycle specialist for customer marketing specifically. So one of the things that I think is sort of a nuance of this area of marketing is that it can be pre sale.

It can be post sale and it can be both. So when we’re talking about building a relationship, there’s still some of that that happens before somebody signs on the dotted line.

Chuck Brotman: So is life cycle marketing, was that often then in, that would be sort of encompassing at times of customer marketing because it spans the whole life cycle, whereas if, if you’re hired for customer marketing, you have a very specific kind of journey that you’re focused on, is that right?

Is that, is that the difference there?

Anne Wave: Yeah, I think that in, like, my business that I’m in right now, it’s everything post sale. We’re not nurturing somebody down the marketing funnel from awareness to consideration to purchase, you know, we’re talking about, okay, somebody signed. Now it’s show me the money, like, show me that this is worth my time. But there are definitely life cycle teams who focus on demand, Jen, who are doing that, building the funnel from awareness to consideration. Like when I was talking earlier about nurturing a lead, who’s not quite ready to sign. it is definitely both.

Chuck Brotman: Got it. I’m curious to get your, your perspective on, on how life cycle marketing Has changed, if at all, over over the last few years, maybe the last couple of years in particular. I mean, there’s a lot of discussion that I’ve seen on LinkedIn and elsewhere around just, you know, difficulties in reaching prospects over email, given some of the changes that Google has implemented.

How has that impacted life cycle marketing and how much more challenging is it to rely upon email even even in a context where you are multichannel in your approach? How much more difficult is it to have email as part of that strategy? And how do you how do you deal with that? Or how is the profession changed in response to some of some of these changes?

Anne Wave: There’s been a lot of change, on both sides. I think about how I relate to my fellow marketers and how these channels that I oversee are valued by my company. And then there’s also the reality of like getting in the inbox to who you want to see the message. I want to talk on the 1st, a little bit 1st, because 2020 was a huge year for email.

Like, people were closing the doors of their business. I worked in a, At the fitness industry at the time, and all of our studios closed kind of overnight. the best way to get in touch with somebody is over email.

You don’t have any, I mean, we all like saying things that we all know you don’t have any like reliance on Facebook changing your algorithm or this person. Like, it’s just, it’s a really different owned channel. so. 2020 was huge and I think it’s been, I don’t know. There’s been like. It was up and then it was maybe coming down a little bit and we’ll see how it goes in the future. But I think the biggest thing that happened in the last few years is companies understanding the inherent value of email in a different way.

If you have to talk to your customers, email is a really good way to do it.

Chuck Brotman: But you’re saying that during, during COVID, it became so critical because of just distancing and the impact of the pandemic that email, are you saying it became a more vital channel for for businesses to maintain relationships with their constituents?

Anne Wave: Yes. And in some cases it was even just like a news update channel. So I think that’s a place where. We’re kind of talking about again, the difference between email and life cycle, 

like in email, we can occasionally use it as like a bulletin or a memo we’re sending, Hey, FYI, this is happening. And that was huge in COVID.

Chuck Brotman: right,

Anne Wave: what I think that has done, especially for people who can articulate that well to the business that they’re in is open up more opportunity to say, okay, yes, we can get to our customers. This is a really safe way to do it. But we can also use this channel that we have nobody in between us. It’s me and you, Chuck, if you are on my list, I can speak directly to you.

And then I think that the company started to see like, Ooh, there is a lot of value in that owned relationship that owns channel. and so I think the conversations for email marketers has changed in my, in my sort of perspective, I think that’s a lot of what bred the change from email to life cycle.

Like we’re seeing that term used a lot more. I think a lot of people in my community, a lot of people in this industry are talking the talk that we need to have, which is how do we make sure that email is seen as a strategic channel, that life cycle, our strategic partners in the business that can not only definitely get in front of people, but tell people what they need to know to get them to the next stage.

So I think that’s a huge component of the last few years. We have been in some cases, like we were deployed as a necessity. And then because that was successful, you could think about how that would apply in a different way. On the sort of getting to your client’s inbox side, 

these things are always going to change.

You know, we’re talking about third party cookies or talking about the availability of actually getting into the inbox, like Yahoo, Google changed their sender guidelines just in April this year. we’ll see what happens with Microsoft. There’s kind of some rumblings around there, but I think what this brings us back to is the need for email marketers and lifecycle marketers to be stewards of the experience. So as an example, we don’t want to end up in the spam folder. 

All that hard work just goes into a place where the consumer is not going to see it. but when it comes to spam, we’re not just talking about, like, I didn’t sign up for this email list.

We’re talking about emails that aren’t relevant to your consumer.

And so the more that people in life cycle and email can say, you know, is this, is this actually the best use of our clients time getting in their inbox? Like, can we be really diligent and purposeful and intentional about every communication that we send out?

Because if we’re sending email, it’s not resonating with our audience. Not only are they going to be like, hearing from this brand again, I’m not interested, but we have risk of then being marked as spam. Like those. What these companies are trying to do is provide a better experience for the people who have their inboxes And so we should be on the same side of same side of that as well

Chuck Brotman: That’s really interesting. So post 2020, Email and life cycle marking became increasingly important as a way to communicate with your customers. If anything, I’m almost what I’m hearing you say, if one’s thinking about like your changes and in spam guidelines or, you know, more, more challenges, if one is marked as spam dealing with implications.

This almost makes your profession even more important that you are really thinking about understanding your customer, where they are in the cycle, and that your content is consistently meaningful because the channel itself is so important in this world today. Like you have to make sure that every touch is very thoughtful, well constructed. Is that a fair way to put it?

Anne Wave: Yeah, it kind of reminds me of the boy who cried wolf, you know If you’re like sending somebody something all the time There you’re like diluting the impact of what that message is and then if you actually have something that’s really worth saying You kind of wasted the novelty and they’re not going to pay attention to anymore.

So I think in addition to the, like, literal challenges of making sure that, you know, your clients are getting the message that you want them to, I think I feel a little bit conservative as a marketer, right? I would rather say less than more because I want to make sure that when it lands in the inbox, it’s a really impactful message.

I want to make sure that when there’s an interstitial in the app, they’re not like, oh my God, I’ve gotten so much, so many of these pop ups, I’m like, just, just going to, you know, exit out without reading really what the message is. And so we have to be pretty, I don’t know, diligent and considerate of what What we’re asking for their time in. 

Chuck Brotman: Let’s talk a little bit about data. I know you’re the big advocate for the importance of using using data in general and in your work. How do you make sure and advocate for your your team and organization having the data you need to be successful. And how do you look at that in general?

Anne Wave: Data is what will make or break any type of program. So not only and what you can put into a message that you’re reflecting back. Hey, I noticed that yesterday you just logged in for the 1st time. How’s it going? but also in reporting the impact of that, I would say the biggest piece of advice that I would offer to somebody in this is to find some allies in the organization who will win from your wins. And what this looks like for me in practice is sometimes like a proof of concept that might not be the tool that I want. But if we can sort of like get some of the team together to deliver some of the events, as an example, some of the events that we need to fire into our ESP, then we can show, okay, so this is what it looked like before we had this data point available.

This is what it looks like after. Can you imagine what it would look like if you’re going to give us, you know, sort of this full suite of what we’re asking for? I think this is a place where you also need to be a little bit conservative or maybe hedge your bets or, or maintain that like, Political capital within your business.

So you’re not the squeaky wheel who’s always asking for help. But ultimately if you can partner with somebody in the business who is invested in seeing the number that you’re trying to move, move in the direction up, probably up into the right. 

And you can prove that some of those early wins, then you get more trust within the business.

That’s like, okay, not only is she saying that this is important, but she’s showing us like a morsel of what is possible. So what would happen if we could really open it up?

Chuck Brotman: What’s the typical objection? Is it a cost one? Why would anyone stand in the way of implementing tools that can help you get better insight into your customers? ,

Anne Wave: Cost sometimes, I would say prioritization is a bigger one. We rely a lot on product teams. I’m just thinking, you know, in, in different business contexts, like occasionally we’re prioritizing our needs against what product is wanting to do in onboarding as an example.

Product is also the enabler for us, you know, on a lifecycle team, there’s not a technical implementation person.

Who’s like making all of these things happen. And so I have had like, you know, negotiation conversations with the head of product to say, This is what we really need to be able to make good on the promises that we have deliver results for this business. Can you give us Two sprints of your team’s time.

How much does that set back the priorities that you have? And I think a lot of that is having good relationships across the business where we all, it’s not me against somebody else. It’s us trying to solve the way that everything can go in this direction up into the right. But I would say prioritization is much bigger to me than budget.

Just because there’s so many things that a business wants to do, even product in particular, those folks are always busy. Like when you’re talking about a backlog of ideas, it is long for them. And so for us to get the time, you really have to be able to show the promise of what’s going to happen. And then, and then ultimately it turned into a flywheel.

It becomes a little bit faster and they’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s do this. Let’s get you what you need. But initially buy in is, is big on, okay, what are we giving up for these four weeks of work? Mm

Chuck Brotman: And I’d imagine part of the case that you’re making your product organization is The, the value that they’ll achieve in having better insights furnished from that data to guide roadmap and development as well, right?

Anne Wave: Yeah. And a lot of times seeing is believing, you know, so if somebody has never seen, you know, something, sometimes, sometimes a product. Probably not an organization, but like somebody in products might not have worked closely with the life cycle team before they might think about email more as batch and blast.

And so this comes back to the top of our conversation. What is the value that life cycles driving? I see us as a really strong counterpart to product. We have a lot of close friends. In that part of the business that are they care about some activation rate adoption, right? Those are that’s the same language as they’re speaking but in some cases it’s sort of like a a little bit of pre education on what we are trying to do That might be a different framework from how you’ve worked with email teams in the past. 

Chuck Brotman: Changing gears a bit and I’m, I’m curious if you can speak a little, if you have a point of view on, you know, when I know you’ve worked for companies large and small. When, when do you see. Or how should a B2B think about when it may be time for them to like hire like a dedicated life cycle marketer?

I mean, I would imagine like very early stage, you have your general growth marketers who are doing a lot of things right as you drive the business and trying to drive more awareness and opportunity in the market. When is it time to bring in? I don’t know if it’s fair to call these specialists or to build this function, but like, what are the things to look for within a business when it may be time to hire a life cycle marketer and make that first hire?

Anne Wave: I do think the earlier the better but a life cycle marketer is only as good as the data that you have so if you cannot commit to some type of metric, like some type of anchor in your business that shows an aha moment. It’ll be really difficult to orient your life cycle team or your life cycle marketer around that achievement.

so I would say, like, a really early team, probably not so much you need to have some of that infrastructure set up and that aptitude and availability of data. I think generally when I see people or businesses raise their hand for a life cycle marketer, you might be entering the like land, I call it like the land of diminishing return. Your emails are like, maybe not moving the needle for the business in the way that you might expect them to. And I’m not talking about open rates or click rates.

I’m talking about what email or in app or mobile push is actually achieving. In the goal of what you set out to be. I think this is a, this is a place where like a generalist can definitely write email. A generalist can definitely do a lot of, do a lot of the work that we do. I think about lifecycle as putting on like a really strong pair of glasses where you’re really looking into the data and understanding, okay, we want to achieve this milestone.

These are the channels that we have available. This is what’s happening, you know, in the product, the seven days before, Let’s go, let’s focus on that one small thing. and so I think typically, especially in this stage of businesses that I plan when you’re going from scrappy to scaling, there’s a lot of unhiring of the folks who have been doing this for a long time.

So early on, people are wearing 15 different hats and then you’re kind of bringing them back from, okay, what is the actual like purpose? That we are trying to get from your role. And how can we zero in on that? That’s something that I’ve been talking about a little bit as the zone of genius, like how can we find the right place for each person on the team to drive the maximum value in the way that the business is expecting them to.

Cause what I’m really interested in as a marketer is being employable. I 

want to be able to. Validate the use of my time and my team’s time. and so if we’re pulling them back from these ways of, you know, wearing multiple hats and just sort of driving the email experience, we get into that area where we’re like, okay.

Diminishing returns on email, how can we really sort of, like focus here, and bring folks into a core metric that we’re trying to move the needle on.

Chuck Brotman: What does that typically look like? So when, you see companies hiring their first life cycle marketers, or when you’re talking to, you know, folks on the market who’ve been practicing the craft for some time, what are, what are typical ways that success is measured, from a life cycle marketing function?

 It sounds like it’s more than like clicks and email opens, right? You’re trying to move the needle on, on business and presumably increasing. Customer lifetime value, you know, as you mentioned earlier, like facilitating time to adoption. Like what are some like great ways to look for success in this profession?

Anne Wave: I would say it really depends on the business and that might not be what you want to hear, but as an example, you know, there is this idea when Facebook was early on, you wanted to get, or actually they wanted us to get seven friends in seven days. I’m sure that there was some data that was talking about somebody having that many, or I guess that much activity early on in their experience with Facebook that then created that aha moment.

I’m thinking about in my own history, we had a, I’ve had a little bit of this sort of at every business. I think a good example of it, I worked at a money transfer business and there was a metric that was socialized from top to bottom in this business. When a customer makes two transactions in four months, I actually forget what the percentage is, but they were X amount more likely to stay with us.

By the end of their first year. and so what I then went to work doing was getting as many transactions as possible within four months, ideally two as quickly as possible, because then I could go to the managing director and say, Hey, remember that metric that you really cared about? 

Look how we’re moving the needle on that. So there is adoption and there is activation. There are sort of these like milestones that we want people to achieve, but I think a strong life cycle marketer is rooting that and like the reality of the business that they’re in and delivering more of what their business says is an early win or a good signal of that.

Chuck Brotman: So you talked about these. I love this aha moments concept. Maybe this even gets back to when to make that higher. There needs to be. Within the business, some sort of understanding of there is an aha moment and that moment and that in itself needs to be backed by data. There has to be a there has to be a data informed point of view on why we’re calling this an aha moment and what other outcomes in the business it drives.

And what I’m hearing you saying is that when a business had reached reached that point, understands this obviously has the traction to market both prospects and customers that it’s looking to retain and grow when you get to a point you have these key moments in that relationship, which can vary.

Business by business, but you were getting into diminishing returns are struggling. Like how do we drive more of these? That’s when it’s time to bring in these kind of specialists into the business. Is that a fair way to put it?

Anne Wave: Exactly. And when you’re interviewing, those are good questions to ask. What is the, what does a good customer look like at day 30? 

Or what is a successful trial? What actions, what like micro conversions are you trying to achieve in what timeframe? And I think there’s kind of two ways to look at that. It benefits the business, because, or I’m sorry, it benefits you as the interviewer, because you look like you are data driven.

You want to know, all right, tell me, what am I like committing pen to paper to make happen? 

And I think on the other side, it’s a benefit for you to understand. Do they have do they have something to talk about? You know, do they have a 2 transactions in 4 months? Do they have a 7 friends in 7 days? And so I think when you’re interviewing kind of setting up that, I always think about, like, you know, what are you telling people about based on not just the answers that you give, but the holistic.

You know, and really cares about data or Chuck really cares about whatever, whatever elements of this is you’re starting to see that as like, okay, if we are working with Chuck, this is what it’s going to feel like we’re going to be really data driven. We’re going to really anchor all of this on these milestones that who, like, if you’re telling me you want more to transactions in 4 months, who’s not going to be happy when you get more of that? 

Chuck Brotman: Well, I think you’re touching on something I think is really important in interviewing and hiring in general and that is that you know a a well designed assessment process by its nature, not only helps you make the right hires and assess for the skills you need in this case, like, you know, data driven skill sets, but also in the process, you are, you know, highlighting the strengths of your organization, like your data savvy to attract the people you want to hire to be more likely to join the organization, right?

Anne Wave: Yeah, exactly.

Chuck Brotman: What else do you look for when you’re, what are, what are other like, skills and competencies. We’ve talked about, being data driven, what, what else is important in life cycle marketing? And when you’re hiring for these kinds of roles, what other sort of behaviors and skills?

And I know this as well can vary by organization and job specifics, but are some like other general things that you tend to find are important here. Maybe even soft skills as well.

Anne Wave: Oh, okay, well, I’ll start there.

Chuck Brotman: Okay.

Anne Wave: soft skills are huge. You’re doing so much negotiating across the business. As I was talking about earlier, you know, you’re borrowing time for products. You’re making relationships with brand. You’re trying to figure out the way, like the players in each of these areas of the business that you really care about.

You’re talking to maybe the VP of engineering, like, Hey, this. Tool stack that I need different tools. and so I think that cross functional, like, you kind of have to have a good, you gotta be a good sport about it. because you are oftentimes asking for things that you don’t have, and you might not get what you want right away.

But if you’re building that relationship, people are going to, you know, building the relationship, bringing data to the conversation. I have a feeling you’re going to get what you want. 

Chuck Brotman: Yep. 

Anne Wave: on the hard skills, life cycle is kind of, it’s kind of weird emails, weird emails, maybe weirder. email is like a really full stack job.

You are creating the segmentation, which means you have to know these data points that are important. And sometimes I don’t know, maybe you’re in sequel. I’m not sure, depending on the org. sometimes you’re requesting creative direction on a hero image. Sometimes you’re copywriting. sometimes you’re in the tool, like actually building, building the email, testing it, QA, all that stuff.

And then finally analyzing at the end, you know, what are the results look like? and so I do think that generalists are a good fit for, I mean, I was a generalist when I was 

early on in, in, marketing and that’s definitely a good fit, But I would say it depends on the org. If you are copywriting, it depends on the org.

If you’re in Marketo building it, it depends on the org. If you’re using Marketo versus iterable. 

Chuck Brotman: Right.

Anne Wave: I don’t know. I kind of look for interest in the customer journey more so than any type of technical skill. I recall interviewing years ago, somebody asked if I had experience in a one tool in particular, and I didn’t, I had experience in many others and they’re like, that’s the end of the road for us.

That is a sign that whoever is hiring for that role doesn’t understand life cycle. 

It’s not about being an expert with the exception of Salesforce marketing cloud. It’s really not about being an expert in the tool. It’s being an expert in the journey and caring about what happens to the customer at each point of that.

and yes, you’re bringing copy expertise and maybe some design direction and maybe some interest in some of these other areas, but you’re really talking about like, how can we handhold the customer through this experience? So that they are not only having a good time, but the business is having a good time, we’re getting value from them as well.

Chuck Brotman: Touching on something interesting here. and maybe this gets back to your bio, but I, I wonder if you can share some guidance for, you know, maybe folks who are, you know, who’ve had some success in sales or sales development who have like interest as well in, in kind of expanding their work kind of across the funnel, but maybe they haven’t been in a formal market.

Or like, how does somebody know that, you know, they may find it more fulfilling to pursue an opportunity, I don’t know if it’s getting straight into a life cycle market. Maybe we talk as well about some of the ways that one gets into this profession, but like, how does one know if this might be more rewarding for them from a career perspective?

And then maybe part B, like, You know, how do you get an opportunity like this if you haven’t worked previously as a marketer, but maybe you’ve been in sales development or other types of sales roles. 

Anne Wave: One of the simplest questions I would say, or maybe differences between sales and marketing is who you’re talking to. yeah, through the Internet, I’m talking to customers, but I’m mostly talking to my peers and marketing. 

I have a lot more meetings. I have a lot more, like, relationship building within my team.

In sales, you’re probably on the phone a lot, 

Chuck Brotman: Yep. 

Anne Wave: talking with customers, and I think both I like both personally, I just got really tired. I’m not really an extrovert. And so it got kind of difficult day in and day out to be on the phone. but I think that’s a sort of an easy declaration between the 2.

if you are excited when you write. A sequence, and you see the results coming in, and you’ve like, really made. Made something great of just this, like, digital touch point. That’s what it feels like in life cycle every day. So if you have a good time writing copy and getting into the mindset of the customer and trying to figure out what to say to them and why, and maybe like, even if you like testing subject lines, that is the day to day of this job. And so if you like that, I have a feeling that you might like this.

Chuck Brotman: It’s interesting what you’re saying. So the, the common theme between, between, we’re really talking about sales and marketing here at a certain level that obviously in, both professions, right. You’re ultimately trying to, you know, kind of move, move the needle on, on relationships that yield.

You’ll revenue and value to the customer. If you know, if you’re maybe more attracted by the idea of sort of scaling that kind of impact again and again, versus going deeper on initial success into direct relationships with the customer. Or the prospect in this case, I feel like that was clumsily said, but there’s something about it almost feels like what you described is really about if you are passionate, energized by really trying to use data and insights digitally to just continually scale and grow, you know, impact on journeys versus like seeing firsthand the journey itself.

Is that a fair way to put it?

Anne Wave: yeah, a way that we talk about it as like one to one versus one to many. So one to one, I’m having a conversation with Chuck, my prospect, that is sales one to many is I have Chuck, I have Danny, I have all of these different people. and so, yeah, it is sort of that. I think scale is a really good word for that, which then makes me think about something that I see a lot, especially in bigger B2B orgs, which is a scaled customer success team.

I’ve also heard this called tech touch. I’ve heard it called like. Success programming, but ultimately this is people who have, no, like, I’m thinking in my previous business context, like, you don’t have a specific CSM. I don’t have a relationship with 1 person. It typically has to do with the contract size.

So if something is under X amount. It’s tech touch, which means onboarding is a 

series of emails. And if you send in an email, like with a question, if I’m a prosper, a customer and your customer, and I send in a question, I will be able, like, I will get a response from maybe one of five different CSMs. I see a lot of newness cropping up there where a scaled success program. Is life cycle. I’ve even seen people move from that into a marketing org. If we’re talking again about customer marketing, this is post sale. I see a lot of interesting things there and I’ve talked to folks who’ve made the switch. I’ve talked to folks who were like considering the switch. And I would say that’s, this brings me back to the second question that you asked, which is like, How do you tell people that you’re interested, or how do you get into it?

The answer is you tell people that you’re interested.

Chuck Brotman: Right.

Anne Wave: This is, this is what community is, you know? You’re like, hey, I really like this type of project. Can I just bend your ear for a minute and can we talk about what your day to day is like or, Something someone I used to work with would put together this whole flow She was on the scaled success team and she’d be like, okay, what do you think?

We would like pull down together the results from iterable and look and see like how is this doing compared to It’s generally it’s like, you know, you’re not looking for some type of benchmark in the industry. You’re looking for benchmark against your own company’s performance. and we would have just like sort of casual conversations to talk about, Ooh, what if you try this here?

Actually email seven looks like it’s really not working for you. and so some of that is like, you know, you seeking out some relationships in the business with folks in life cycle who, You’re either interested in talking to, or you feel like they would help your decision. Like, if you’re at a decision point, you’re at this challenge, and you don’t know what to do.

We’re probably going to have a good time bouncing ideas off of each other. so, yeah, I think a lot of it comes down to, like, internal networking and, figuring out who are those. Maybe champions of, you know, I’ve worked with BDRs to not, I didn’t even work with them specifically. I worked with their manager and they said, this person’s interested in life cycle, or this person is interested in marketing. Are there some ways that they can like, I don’t know, do a project coming up that they can help with. So those super connectors are a huge deal when it comes to finding ways within the existing business. That really makes sense to turn over.

And that’s the other piece of advice that I would give. I think if you’re moving from. Some type of sales or CS role. It will be successful in the context of the business that you’re at, because as an example, somebody who’s in CS knows so much more, so much more detail, so many more anecdotes, so much more just meet about what the onboarding experience is like, or what are the pain points of somebody using our product, and that is so valuable to somebody like me, who’s hiring on a life cycle team and trying to figure out, you know, who’s really going to understand our customers, somebody who already knows them.

Chuck Brotman: Right. That’s that’s such a wonderful way to put it. Let’s let’s close out with the discussion of of community I think you you you’ve shared how this is I mean, part of how one can think about, like, confirming if they have the kind of, you know, the passions and skills that would lend themselves to to life cycle, you talk about the value they bring to these communities as well.

If they’re coming from, you know, a scale, you know, post sales world or, or maybe they work as a BDR and they’ve had success in a more one on one sense. Can you tell our audience a little bit about the communities that you’re a part of and maybe how one looks into membership and, And yeah, I mean, I think it’s called the Email Geeks, but yeah, tell us more.

Anne Wave: It is Email Geeks and I feel like I owe my career to it. I actually owe my career to the person who introduced me to Email Geeks. it is free. So if you find us online, it’s a Slack community. we have, I actually don’t even know, I could check, but we have tons and tons of marketers. We have specific channels for tools.

We have specific, we have a life cycle channel. We have a B2B email channel. and it is. Be constant in my career of change. It’s been so great to meet these folks at industry events and conferences and have people to ask. Sometimes you have a challenge that somebody else has encountered before somebody else is dealing with right now.

And so we share a lot of wind. We share a lot of like, hey, this is what I’m considering. Has anyone done this before? And it is just, it is the cream of the crop of coming, you know, getting the expertise from folks who are doing this day to day. I think it’s email. geeks or maybe emailgeeks. chat, but I’ll send you the link after this and yeah, I would say any, anybody can join if you are tangential to email, you just submit a little form and in you come and you can find me there.

Chuck Brotman: That’s awesome. I appreciate you coming on the podcast. We’ll get the URL and share that when we post the podcast. And I would encourage folks who are exploring career change, who have the kind of passions that Anna described here to, to consider looking at this community. I think, you know, one, one great, to me, sign of a strong and healthy community is one where you see people, you know, really kind of getting into details on some of the problems, you know, being comfortable, first of all, being vulnerable, sharing those problems and then, you know, and then be seen the caliber of the responses. It can be a great way for somebody to learn, even if you haven’t experienced those problems firsthand and from what you’ve shared, and particularly given that it’s free.

This seems like a no brainer for anybody who’s got, you know, curiosities in this area. yeah. Thank you for coming on the podcast and I really enjoyed the conversation. Is there anything further you wanted to share before we wrap?

Anne Wave: I just have one plug, which is for a workshop that I’m running in San Francisco in August. it’s email roadshow. It’s a global event. We have some events in the UK. we’ve had momentum already in the US so San Francisco in August. I’ll send you the link for that as well.

Gonna be talking about how to turn your part of the organization into a data-driven machine. So how you can connect what you do to what the business cares about. If you have two minutes with the CEO or the CMO, you can quantify the impact of your specific role. should make you feel really secure in your job should make you feel really. I don’t know, comfortable to talk about what your impact on the business is and feel good about what you can deliver. So I’d love to see folks there. I’ll send you a link for that as well.

Chuck Brotman: All right. My Bay Area peeps show up for this conference in August and thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Really enjoyed the conversation a lot.

Anne Wave: Likewise. Thanks, Chuck.

Chuck Brotman: Thanks.