In this episode, we’re joined by Udi Ledergor, CMO at Gong. Udi discusses the synergy between Gong’s demand gen efforts and brand plays, and lays out the content strategy that he uses to drive inbound and outbound motions that have created thousands of MQLs every month for a $2.2B B2B powerhouse.

• Ways the content marketing landscape is changing in our fast-paced, digital-first world
• How to build compelling content that reaches your audience on the channels they frequent most
• The three basic elements every successful content machine must include

“The biggest mistake that brands make is they start with what they want to say rather than what their prospects or customers want to hear. By starting from the customer side and working back, you can give them what they want in a way that also serves your brand.”

“99% of our content takes less than five minutes to consume. We’ve found that with today's attention span, especially of busy executives, that type of content is hugely popular. If you're going to create a 40-page ebook like we did 10 years ago in content marketing, the only ones likely to read it are your competitors.”

“LinkedIn is my cheapest demand gen channel. We can get thousands of downloads in a day and that doesn't cost me a dime. It’s completely organic. That's why I love this channel. I know that the people are there because they want to be, I'm not chasing them. I could not live without that channel.”

“Become best friends with your CRO or VP of Sales. You have to put your ego aside and understand that you are there to make sales easier. You can't build the right demand gen machine if you don't understand exactly what your sales team needs. If you manage to make sales’ lives easier, you will have built a successful demand gen machine. It’s that simple.”

(4:00) Udi’s Demand Gen Strategy

• Create “darn good” content based on insights they gleaned from millions of sales conversations
• Develop data-backed content to show sales teams what’s working and what isn’t working
• This content drives both inbound and outbound motions
• For outbound, they look at the prospects who are heavy consumers of their content and match their ICP, and then a sales rep starts a conversation. This drives about 60% of their pipeline.
• For inbound, the same content drives qualified buyers to their website, where they use conversational optimization to convert relevant visitors. This drives about 40% of their pipeline.
  

(6:12) Gong’s Marketing Team Structure

• Divided into two teams: Demand Gen and Product Marketing
• Demand gen: Content creation, marketing operations, events, ABM, digital marketing
• Product marketing: Product marketing, customer marketing
  

(16:56) Udi’s Uncuttable Demand Gen Budget Items

• LinkedIn page: Discovered their audience is active on LinkedIn, so they focus on creating content and engagement within that channel. This is Gong’s cheapest demand gen channel, as it’s all organic engagement
• Email list: Gong has built a large opt-in email list of people interested in receiving their content. They send tailored content to various reader personas to ensure they continue to engage them in a relevant way.
• Virtual events and webinars:
  

(22:17) Building a Successful Content Engine

• Three basic elements of a content engine: strategy, packaging, and distribution
• Excellent content must be relevant, interesting, and immediately applicable
• Content relevance must be immediately apparent to the reader. For example, call out the buyer person in the title of the content.
• Content should have some urgency about it to make it especially interesting. For example, a couple months ago when our new economy started to take shape, Gong noticed more CFOs were getting involved in purchase decisions. They figured other companies were experiencing a similar buying trend, so they created a template for how to get through your buyer’s CFO, and in days it became their most downloaded content asset ever.
• Most of Gong’s content takes five minutes or less to read. Their target audience (often bust executives) don’t have time to consume content.
• Gone are the days when you could plan your content calendar 6-12 months in advance. That content is either stale or detached from the market.
  

(29:14) Gong’s Website Strategy

• First focus is to provide clear, concise information about the company and the product in the aim of driving demo requests
• Second focus is to use it as a destination for all their demand gen content. They especially use the website to drive SEO performance
  

(30:46) Udi’s Most Memorable Demand Gen Campaigns

• Back in February when new privacy laws came into place, every company was sending an email out to their customers about their updated privacy policy. Gong decided to make it fun and engaging by using the subject line “Our lawyers made us write this” and including funny gifs in the email itself. The email was shared across LinkedIn and Twitter by Gong’s customers and generated a wave of social buzz
  

(36:22) Udi’s Philosophy on ABM

• Gong has a dedicated ABM function, and Udi believes this will become an increasingly common component for B2B marketing teams in the future
• There are lots of ABM tools out there, but you have to work hard to connect them all, and even then you don’t get a clear picture
• Udi believes there’s a big opportunity to use and integrate these tools in a way that makes them more effective
  

(37:38) Connecting Offline and Online Experiences

• Gong has been experimenting with several offline marketing channels, including billboards and ride share car advertising
• Offline channels have become more advance in how you measure ROI; ride share advertising, for example, enabled Gong to launch retargeted ads to people who rode in a car with a Gong advertisement based on information picked up from riders’ cell phones
• Buyers don’t go through the traditional funnel that we like to think they go through. Rather, they’re in a tornado of engagement with multiple vendors and consuming information in tons of touchpoints across their daily life
• Companies that can make an offline-online connection will get ahead
  

(39:19) Quick Hits: Getting to Know Udi

• Quarantine skill or hobby: Classical piano
• Alternative career: Someplace in the live entertainment industry. He’s dabbled in music, magic, stage lighting, and stage sound
• Favorite book or podcast: “Influenced” by Robert Cialdini. It’s the bible for any marketer
• Advice for a first-time CMO: Become best friends with your CRO or VP of Sales. If you manage to make sales lives easier, you will have built a successful demand gen machine.