Read Time: 2 min, 48 secs

Anthony Kennada is the CEO of AudiencePlus, and former CMO at some heavy hitting tech companies: Gainsight, Hopin, and Front.

At Gainsight, he was an early employee that rose to CMO (they sold for $1.1B). At Hopin, became the CMO of Europe’s fastest growing startup…ever.

He has the type of experience that few people have. And the battle scars to prove it.

FAVORITE STORIES AND TAKEAWAYS

1. Lessons from Gainsight’s Event Marketing

2. Hopin’s Insane Ride

3. Renting vs. Owning…Your Audience

We breakdown these down below 👇

BREAKDOWN

Lessons from Gainsight’s Event Marketing

Gainsight hosted a conference when they were only 20 people, and it changed the way Anthony thought about marketing.

They crafted an event laser-focused on a specific customer problem. This wasn't about broad themes or generic networking. It was about zeroing in on what keeps your customers up at night and helping them figure it out.

They dressed it up from a branding perspective. Got a cool venue. Landed some great speakers…over 300 people showed up for a nothing company (at the time).

The vibe was different than other conferences. There was a constant feeling in the room of “oh my gosh, I’m finally around other people who are going through what I’m going through.”

Anthony and the team had their ah-ha moment. “What if we kept creating events and content that is 100% focused on the problems our customers are trying to solve?”

“Would it sell software?”

“Let’s find out.”

Over time, they found that this created strong relationships with potential customers. So, when the time was right for them to buy a customer success software, they came to Gainsight first.

Create content that helps people solve problems. This builds trust. And trust builds revenue.

Hopin’s Insane Ride

Anthony was swept off his feet when Hopin approached him. They were Europe’s fastest growing startup of all time.

As an online events company, the captured every bit of the COVID boom.

Anthony assembled the best marketing team he’s ever had. Things were great. He started to think about how Hopin could own their audience and help customers own their audiences as well.

But before he made much progress, things started to unravel. COVID was losing it’s grip on the world. People started to return to in person events.

The writing was on the wall. Layoffs were being planned. Anthony was going to lose 40% of his team he had just hired.

In an unexpected twist, Anthony asked to be a part of the layoff. 🤯

He really wanted to build a platform to help companies own their audience. But this wasn’t on the roadmap for Hopin. So he decided that the layoff was the right time to make that change.

His career was going from rented to owned.

Renting vs. Owning…Your Audience

“Rented audiences are anywhere we don't own that relationship…we're renting access through a third party platform like LinkedIn, YouTube, or Spotify.”

Your digital landlords make the rules. These rules can change at any time. And the streets are crowded with a bunch of competitors vying for attention.

Owned audiences are anywhere that you get direct control over the relationship. Mainly places like your website and email list.

In this case, you own the house. You make the rules. And once people are in your house, it’s much quieter. You have their full attention.

Another major benefit to owning your audience:

You get a 1st party data set

• “Go beyond impressions and views to understand which content is captivating your audience at the individual and account level.”

• See what content is influence specific accounts and prospects

But there is one catch.

To own your audience, you have to be great at renting them.

Most people are going to find you on other platforms because they have exponentially more users than your site.

So you need to learn two things:

1. How to build an audience on social platforms

2. How to convert that audience to your own subscribers

“Companies that do really well are able to break through the noise.”

📚 Previous Editions

Justin Rowe - Co-founder / CMO @Impactable [Ep. 1]
Marketing Max - Founder @Growth Daily [Ep. 2]
Angela Kayal - CRO @Help Scout [Ep. 3]
Morgan Ingram - Founder / CEO @AMP [Ep. 4]

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