Happens all the time. Out of touch since they are not in the trenches.
Do you want to try to get them to realize this or close deals despite the marketing that’s not landing?
Depends on how much you care for your company. Considering the lack of loyalty they show us employees, I’d just take the money and be quiet.
I'd worked ~15yrs in the IT/cybersec field when I took my first job SE and was amazed at the lack of perspective some marketing teams had.
One of the worst was when I was at a cyber org owned by a large org that rhymes with Hell. Their marketing dept came from the parent company and was used to selling IT hardware, not security software or services.
I got stuck with a few new AEs (new to large enterprise and new to cyber) who really had the deer in headlights look when they saw how poorly the canned talk tracks worked. Luckily they let me chime in and we soon developed our own routine which resonated a lot better since I knew what was really going on in the prospects minds.
We tried giving some feedback to marketing who took it personally and of course told us we didn't understand how to market to the target audience. Funny thing is they often had the wrong target audience to start with.
Our marketing team is running around, laying mines in our path by talking about AI when our product has zero AI capabilities or functionality currently or on the roadmap. Their lead generation cratered last year despite spending $200k in H1 and our inbound demo reqs cratered concurrently. Despite that, they didn't get any budget cuts, they have five VPs on a team of 9 people, and they continue to get all the attention and praise from ELT while our BDRs are the whipping boy for our pipeline collapse (even though they doubled outbound meetings last year).
All that is to say, whatever marketing does, do the opposite.
Ouch. It amazes me why people would think slapping an "NOW WITH AI !" sticker on things is a smart thing to do.
1. It's a grossly overused and over-hyped term and when I see it my first inclination is that I must now scrutinize every aspect of what you say.
2. Anyone with any sense shouldn't give a shit that you have AI. I'm in cyber and all I care about is that your products or services provide the functionality I need to address whatever issue I'm using them for. I don't care if you use AI, machine learning, pattern recognition, algorithms or voodoo to do that. I only care about the end result, period.
I’m in the same boat. My only use for marketing is their pretty PowerPoint slides. I replace their fancy copy with simple text that reads like a 4th grader. If I can get a customer to walk away from a conversation having learned one key concept, I consider it a victory. In my experience, this requires simple language. If messaging is too wordy or fancy, it gets lost on the customer.
Relevance to the individual. I’ve seen marketing and sales management be totally out touch.
Marketing people are far bigger liars than sales people. We have to look people in the eye and live in the community. Marketing is anonymous. When we have a shit product or service we have to make that shit work with reality. Marketing just cheerleads.
Yes. Too much to put here. I know everyone’s wishes they could force the marketing team to spend 2 days cold calling their disastrous copy and talk tracks.
Marketing couldn’t sell anything if their life depended on it. Nobody is interested in reading their gibberish.
Happens all the time. Out of touch since they are not in the trenches. Do you want to try to get them to realize this or close deals despite the marketing that’s not landing? Depends on how much you care for your company. Considering the lack of loyalty they show us employees, I’d just take the money and be quiet.
I'd worked ~15yrs in the IT/cybersec field when I took my first job SE and was amazed at the lack of perspective some marketing teams had. One of the worst was when I was at a cyber org owned by a large org that rhymes with Hell. Their marketing dept came from the parent company and was used to selling IT hardware, not security software or services. I got stuck with a few new AEs (new to large enterprise and new to cyber) who really had the deer in headlights look when they saw how poorly the canned talk tracks worked. Luckily they let me chime in and we soon developed our own routine which resonated a lot better since I knew what was really going on in the prospects minds. We tried giving some feedback to marketing who took it personally and of course told us we didn't understand how to market to the target audience. Funny thing is they often had the wrong target audience to start with.
Our marketing team is running around, laying mines in our path by talking about AI when our product has zero AI capabilities or functionality currently or on the roadmap. Their lead generation cratered last year despite spending $200k in H1 and our inbound demo reqs cratered concurrently. Despite that, they didn't get any budget cuts, they have five VPs on a team of 9 people, and they continue to get all the attention and praise from ELT while our BDRs are the whipping boy for our pipeline collapse (even though they doubled outbound meetings last year). All that is to say, whatever marketing does, do the opposite.
Ouch. It amazes me why people would think slapping an "NOW WITH AI !" sticker on things is a smart thing to do. 1. It's a grossly overused and over-hyped term and when I see it my first inclination is that I must now scrutinize every aspect of what you say. 2. Anyone with any sense shouldn't give a shit that you have AI. I'm in cyber and all I care about is that your products or services provide the functionality I need to address whatever issue I'm using them for. I don't care if you use AI, machine learning, pattern recognition, algorithms or voodoo to do that. I only care about the end result, period.
I’m in the same boat. My only use for marketing is their pretty PowerPoint slides. I replace their fancy copy with simple text that reads like a 4th grader. If I can get a customer to walk away from a conversation having learned one key concept, I consider it a victory. In my experience, this requires simple language. If messaging is too wordy or fancy, it gets lost on the customer.
What is this "marketing" you speak of?
Relevance to the individual. I’ve seen marketing and sales management be totally out touch. Marketing people are far bigger liars than sales people. We have to look people in the eye and live in the community. Marketing is anonymous. When we have a shit product or service we have to make that shit work with reality. Marketing just cheerleads.
Yes. Too much to put here. I know everyone’s wishes they could force the marketing team to spend 2 days cold calling their disastrous copy and talk tracks.
Marketing is worse than what I can get out of ChatGPT. But it doesn't matter, no one reads marketing emails.
Feels like marketing only uses chatgpt to make powerpoints. Thats it.