Nathan Bliss is Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Kinsta, a WordPress hosting platform that knows what it does well and continues to get better at it. “We don’t bend a lot on where we feel we fit in,” Nathan says. “It’s kind of like why you can’t Google a discount code for a Tesla. The price is the price. So that may sound a bit standoffish, but we ultimately feel that we want to provide that level of value.” Nathan’s previous roles include everything from account executive and solutions specialist to sales coach and regional sales manager, so he calls himself a sales and revenue guy “through and through.” That background gives him a unique approach to his current position as Vice President of Sales and Marketing, in which he combines his passion for recruiting top-tier employees with his knowledge of what strengths a company should emphasize from a selling standpoint.

Amy King’s path into marketing was a little unconventional. She got her master’s in art history, and along the way, discovered it was really about critical thinking. This ultimately led her to product marketing for ad tech and software companies. Amy is now the VP of Marketing at Zaloni, a data management and operations software company that helps customers streamline their data ecosystem by making it run faster, better and at a lower cost. Amy has a multi-channel marketing approach, relying on inbound marketing to get to know Zaloni’s customers and ensure her team is attracting quality leads. On this episode of Tech Qualified, Amy talks about how marketing at Zaloni evolved in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how inbound marketing became its most valuable source of leads. She also shares about the highly personalized and long sales cycle its prospects go through, using a mix of different content types, in order to get them from the marginally interested phase to wanting a demo.

From product marketing to corporate comms to sales, Lindsay Duran has finally settled down in marketing. As the CMO at Zilliant, a B2B data science and software company that assists large organizations with sales and pricing, Lindsay helps companies reimagine their approach to commercial decisions. Her experience in different business areas only helped her grow as a marketer, allowing her to fully understand the sales cycle and what “qualified” really stands for with MQLs. “Moving a prospective customer down the path to becoming an actual customer is really about taking the time to understand a company’s business … and helping them see how this is actually going to improve their employees’ productivity, decision making and their overall business performance,” Lindsay says. On this episode of Tech Qualified, Lindsay talks about her focus on finding highly converting MQLs and the in-depth content strategies she uses to provide value to customers in every industry. She also shares how she warms up prospects to the idea of overhauling a large portion of their business and what it takes to be a successful marketer.

When Michael joined Revenue Analytics as its Vice President of Marketing more than two years ago, he was a one-man team. Since then, he’s built out a small team of talented marketers, executed a complete brand refresh and solidified the company’s marketing strategy. Over time, Michael has found that rather than investing in sales and business development reps, content prevails. People don’t want to be told what their problem is; they want to discover it for themselves, and content allows them to do just that. “I like to tell our team when we’re creating something, pretend it’s for your brother-in-law or sister-in-law, someone you’re genuinely trying to help — not someone you’re trying to sell,” Michael says. On this episode of Tech Qualified, Michael talks about his trials and tribulations when building out the Revenue Analytics marketing team, and he explains what he’s learned along the way. He also shares how his team has weathered 2020 and what he’s doing to best support them (and himself) during these trying times.

Crystal always had a passion for marketing and knew that’s where she wanted her career to take her. After working at Hewlett Packard and starting two of her own companies, Crystal helped conceptualize The 20 — a marketing agency for managed service providers (MSPs) that helps with lead gen, sales and scaling their businesses. The name is derived from the 80/20 rule, “as our intention is to dominate the top 20% of the IT industry,” Crystal says. On this episode of Tech Qualified, Crystal dives into how she approaches lead gen for a service that requires customers to make major changes within their business and how she cultivates thought leadership at The 20. She also shares what her most successful marketing campaigns are and what it takes to be a successful B2B tech marketer.

Amber Herndon wears many hats. Whether she’s sitting in on sales calls, managing new clients, or brainstorming content strategy, Amber is always laser-focused on driving leads and building an engaging brand. While she’s living the typical startup life and wearing many hats in her role, her official title is Director of Marketing and Client Success at Signal Insights — a customized “daily digest” platform that delivers news, updates, and content trends on competitors and key accounts. On this episode of Tech Qualified, Amber talks about how you can transform discussions with prospects and clients into valuable marketing material, what she did to break through the noise of countless other B2B Martech platforms, and why you should always ask for forgiveness instead of permission.