Build a Growth Machine with Jordan Gillott & Lauren Berkemeyer

PLEASE NOTE: This transcript has been created using fireflies.ai – a transcription service. It has not been edited by a human and therefore may contain mistakes.

00:03

Dom Hawes 

Welcome back to Unicorny, the antidote to post rationalized business books. This is the podcast for Senior executives who want to find out how other businesses are building value Through marketing. But last week on Unicorny, I was joined by co-host Sophy Norris, who is now group client director at Selbey Anderson. And we interviewed Nicky Davies Protolabs, director of marketing programs and operations at Protolabs in our conversation. 

00:30

Dom Hawes 

Nicky explained how thought leadership has evolved from the past, and we dived into the nuts and bolts of one of the aerospace campaigns. We looked at how it was conceived, how it was executed when they expected a return on their investment and what they actually got. We also discussed Proto Labs tech stack and how they repurpose and optimize content. 

00:48

Dom Hawes 

It's a fantastic episode, so please do make sure you give it a listen, If you haven't already. know I say this every week, but the quality just keeps coming. And today's episode is a must listen for every executive, because today we are going to explore how you, my dear Unicorny, can build a data driven growth machine. 

01:11

Dom Hawes 

Now, we're all being told that a modern marketing campaign has to be data driven because machine learning and data can supercharge your results. A data driven growth machine can give you an understanding of how your marketing investments drive revenue and they can sort of lead you into what to prioritize. It can free up time. It can make the life of a marketer easier, maybe even more interesting. 

01:34

Dom Hawes 

Well, that all sounds great, but how the hell do you build one? Moreover, how do you build a data driven machine that has a demonstrable benefit to both your company and your customers? Something that's going to help you be a maker rather than a taker? Well, that is what we're going to find out today. My co-host for today is the indefatigable Samantha Losey, managing director of Unity, which is an award winning communications consultancy focused on creating, cultivating and completing brands Through human insights and data led approaches. 

02:05

Dom Hawes 

That's going to be handy. And we're going to be interviewing two guests today. Jordan Gillott, YuLife's head of demand generation, and Lauren Berkemeyer YuLife's chief marketing officer. YuLife is a UK based insurer, tech company that transforms traditional insurance and employee benefits into life enhancing experiences. Employees by value and use. YuLife's mission is to turn financial products into a force for good. 

02:29

Dom Hawes 

And one of the ways they're achieving this is by building a data driven growth machine that helps them hit their KPIs, improve the wellbeing of their employees and give back to their customers. So that is what we're going to talk about today. And in our conversation, Jordan and Lauren go Through exactly how they designed their growth machine, how they use the model, the tech that supports it, and the data it delivers to ensure relevance. 

02:52

Dom Hawes 

Later on. We discuss the double edged sword of tracking and the guests explain why being agile is important if you want to tHRive in the coming 12 months. And finally, we wrap on the concept of giving more than you take. But before we get into all of that, let's learn a little bit more about YuLife and what it does. 

03:12

Dom Hawes 

So let's immediately say hello to my co-host, Samantha Losey. 

03:17

Samantha Losey 

Hello. It's so nice to be back. 

03:18

Dom Hawes 

And to Jordan. Hello. And Lauren. 

03:21

Lauren Berkemeyer 

Hi, great to be here. 

03:22

Dom Hawes 

It's great to have you here. Lauren, why don't you tell us a little bit about YulLife and the marketing set up there? 

03:28

Lauren Berkemeyer 

So I lead the marketing for YuLife and YuLife is insurance like you've never seen before. And really kind of stems of that theme, give more than you take. So we are an insurance company that inspires everyone to live their best lives, and this is in the lens of employee benefits. So what we do is we provide the critical benefits like life insurance, income protection, while also delivering an incredible app that incentivizes and rewards employees for healthy Behaviour. 

03:54

Lauren Berkemeyer 

And whether that's walking, cycling, meditation, it's really for everyone. And you can earn both financial rewards as well as make social impact Through planting trees or donating meals to the Ukraine. And the other element that's really important is supporting the well-being from a preventative standpoint, whether that is mental health support or virtual GP. And so it's really that kind of all in one incredible benefit that companies are offering. 

04:19

Dom Hawes 

So maybe you could help our listeners out. I give them a bit of an understanding of your marketing department, how you structured it and its scope. 

04:25

Lauren Berkemeyer 

So I've structured the team very methodically around individual expertise and that really ties into a squad structure. So we have revenue operations, we have demand generation, we have product marketing, then we have content PR and brand marketing design and account strategy. And that essentially that encompasses so far there's 20 individuals making up those groups and it's a very cross-functional and Cross collaborative, but really hones in on, on that expertise. 

04:51

Dom Hawes 

Jordan, you are leading one of the squads and dimension. Tell us about it. 

04:55

Jordan Gillott 

So in demand generation, we currently have a team of four. We have a demand gen marketer who's focused more on that performance marketing side. So more of the paired and we've got a PPC specialist that purely is PPC, and then we have someone who's focused on events. T YuLife we really seen a lot of value in events and then customer marketing as well. 

05:15

Jordan Gillott 

That's a part on campaign driving to our customers. 

05:17

Dom Hawes 

And your ethos, you know, metaphorically of putting in more than you take out actually is kind of very similar to one of our founding principles. I see the world in fairly polar terms. I choose to see people as either makers or takers generally, and now I won't take us anywhere into my personal or professional life. I'm only interested in collaborating with people who want to bring more than they take. 

05:38

Dom Hawes 

So I think we are all a perfect match today. I'm looking forward to this conversation. I was just saying to Samantha, actually, in our preamble to today's show that you shared an infographic with us depicting the demand gen machine that you've built, and I think that's really cool. 

05:52

Samantha Losey 

It is is incredibly cool and I'm super interested to hear about how it works and how it goes together and kind of how you guys designed it and then hear about it in principle. And for those of us who are kind of listening, who would like to see it, you can go to Selbeyanderson.com and it's there. Obviously, I'm sure it's a simplified version because there is a very, very big secret around the absolute version, I'm sure. 

06:11

Samantha Losey 

But why don't you guys explain for us a little bit about the model and how it works, Those who maybe aren't looking at it, even the simplified version. 

06:19

Lauren Berkemeyer 

Very early on we identified that, you know, the success and the growth of your life was the sum of the parts. And so we define this growth machine in alignment with sales, and we even coined the term Smarketing as it relates to how we're really working collectively as a team. And that success is all starts with the who are we speaking to and how are we targeting individuals in the most meaningful, relevant way? 

06:42

Lauren Berkemeyer 

I would say our growth driven machine has tHRee components. There is naturally marketing, which is a lot about automation, education, influence. We have a series of tools that enables us to identify who we should be targeting from a relevant perspective. So for example, a tool like Ocean Dot IO, that is a tool that will look at our audience and our current customer base and identify lookalike audiences. 

07:06

Lauren Berkemeyer 

So we essentially can then make sure that we use precision targeting. And we're very relevant to the audiences that we are speaking to. You know, a lot of the activity and whether that is events, PR, even awards and the content we build is all very much looking at our core ideal customer profile and making sure that we really are igniting and really giving more than we take and educating those audiences. 

07:28

Samantha Losey 

And on that, is that something that you guys refine, hone change regularly? What kind of update? I presume that when you've got such a base learning machine as a marketing hub, you can really refine those profiles and kind of bring them back all the time to new Behaviours, modifications and kind of really bring everything into the funnel in a much tighter way. 

07:48

Lauren Berkemeyer 

Yeah, I mean, that's exactly it. So we look at different data points to identify propensity. And what's interesting is that can be anything from a Glassdoor score because as I mentioned in the beginning, we're in this employee benefits space. And so if you look at, you know, what are employers using to attract talent, to retain talent, to really ignite the culture of their organizations, Glassdoor can be a real indication of both what businesses are doing well, and then what business, where businesses are failing and really identifying some critical challenge areas. 

08:17

Lauren Berkemeyer 

So I think there's many different tools and many different mechanisms. We also find there's a sweet spot in terms of when a new HR. Leader enters a new business, they are essentially coming in, looking at the tools that they're providing employees and essentially then identifying that actually we could be leveling up how we are supporting our teams. So it's constantly evolutionary. 

08:38

Lauren Berkemeyer 

And I would say as our business has grown, we then use the success of other organizations we're working with to guide and use that as almost best practice. 

08:46

Samantha Losey 

Yeah. Jordan this must be an incredible tool to be able to work with and use. And you mentioned events and kind of how well they work for you. Do you think part of the reason that they work so well is because the way the model functions, you've been able to really hone in on having exactly the right people with exactly the right kind of dynamics at those events? 

09:02

Jordan Gillott 

Yeah, I think so. We're constantly re-evaluating. Is this what we want to do? Is this right? And it's built in this model that actually is constantly evolving, like the market is constantly evolving. So we have to constantly evolve with it and I think at your point with events, you know, we do do a lot of market segmentation and try to understand who our potential audience is. 

09:23

Jordan Gillott 

And so, you know, it primarily could be that it's the right people come in, but it also could be that it's really good awareness to people that we're not targeting. To YuLife where the event is something that's really of interest to them. I think, you know, one of the big things that we've always tried to do with events is be topical and be relevant. 

09:40

Jordan Gillott 

So I do think it's a it's a mixture of both ensuring that we are relevant. But you know, using this tech stack to really hone in on who we want to target. 

09:48

Dom Hawes 

You mentioned the segmentation word and particularly B2B these days. I think a lot of people rush straight into promotion before they've actually done the basics and I think segmentation and then targeting maybe becoming a bit of a lost art. Can you talk to us a little bit more about your approach, like the segmentation and the data that you use to help the segment your market and then work out who you're going to target? 

10:08

Lauren Berkemeyer 

So when we look at segmenting our audiences, I think there's a bunch of different criteria. So I touched on Glassdoor. There's also what is the composition of that workforce, whether that workforce is frontline workers office based, you know, are they typically working in a warehouse and how do you then impact and support those individuals, you know, versus versus being in an office environment? 

10:30

Lauren Berkemeyer 

We also look at very simple things like renewal dates. When I say we've worked in our in scale up stage, but when when you talk about do you work for a startup or scale up? A lot of the times the question I get asked is, are you an and o an or We are. I would say we are playing in both spaces. 

10:45

Lauren Berkemeyer 

So it's, you know, really and I think we're really proud about is that we are targeting and segmenting audiences who have never bought insurance and protected their teams. And this is the small businesses of the UK. 85% of small businesses do not currently offer life insurance. So we have a mission to really help decrease that protection gap the way that we talk to those audiences is a much more holistic message. 

11:05

Lauren Berkemeyer 

They are at a less mature phase. So it depends on really the education that's required in the maturity that businesses that now when you are in or I would say that's where we're where the switch, so we are winning business away from the what you would call the £800 gorillas because we're driving and delivering more value maybe that they had seen before from a traditional insurance provider. 

11:24

Lauren Berkemeyer 

In that case, we oftentimes get much more media into the ROI, into the into the proof metrics. And we also look at vertical and we also, in many instances, need to rely on case studies and proof of concept to actually show before I would say take that leap to the wild card. Now I would say we're kind of out of wild card status, but, you know, it's really about talking and identifying the criteria that really makes us audiences tick. And Jordan has done a phenomenal job in that targeting and really not only driving that to events, but even as it relates to the thought leadership that you deliver from an e-book, it needs to 

11:57

Lauren Berkemeyer 

be actual content that doesn't feel like advertorial but feels like that these communities can really learn from. 

12:04

Samantha Losey 

We've noticed a lot that mindset plays a huge role in where they sit in the segmentation, particularly for us SMEs, where they're at the developmental stage is one thing, but also their mindset around growth. Is that something that you kind of have built into the model and have an approach around as well? Is that something that you segment by? 

12:23

Samantha Losey 

Because I think that's quite unusual. 

12:25

Jordan Gillott 

Yeah, absolutely. But targeting we identify the ones that are scaling and actually, you know have the same problems that we've had as a scale up and we've actually run a specific campaign to these people that the messaging really was, you know, we've been there so we can help you scale. I recently went to Edinburgh to film a case study with one of our clients who had joined YuLife with 32 employees and we're now around 350 employees and their uptake was still 80%. 

12:56

Jordan Gillott 

And they're just, you know, embedded us into their culture and really understood what we were doing. And so it definitely works a lot better when you've got people who are on that journey and want to scale and want to offer things for their people. It makes our job so much easier to target. 

13:11

Samantha Losey 

You have that difficult saying as well, don't you? When you spoke to the kind of the rational messaging, the ROI, the kind of the case studies, the things that speak to often that number cruncher who will make the decision ultimately about whether or not something is going to happen. But then you've got often in small businesses, you know, that CEO level who will want to be affecting the culture and will want to be affecting the kind of the direction at a much more emotional level. 

13:34

Samantha Losey 

What's the balance in terms of how you guys message that out? And do you find that you have to read more into the rational messaging because of your kind of position, even though ultimately your brand really speaks to the emotional component? 

13:46

Jordan Gillott 

I think that most purchases are made by emotional impact. And it's clear to us at YuLife, we're an emotional brand. We affect people's lives in a positive way. And, you know, I think that having that emotion followed by the rational buy is actually how we market. And I think we also, you know, work with personas as well. 

14:06

Jordan Gillott 

So around that messaging around that targeted is the different like the CEO that does want to affect the culture and is emotionally buy and you know we will tie that to that but then we also have the FD that might actually just want to see the ROI. Am I actually just want to see the numbers? So we kind of have messaging towards that as well. 

14:22

Jordan Gillott 

So we understand that there's a different segmentation of buyer. But I do think that the nature of our brand, the messaging always leads at the emotion. 

14:31

Dom Hawes 

Jordan's bang on here, follow marketers take note because it's easy to get caught up in the conversation about balancing emotional and rational messaging when it comes to marketing, You know, most people assume that finding a balance is important. Not so. That just isn't the case. As Jordan just said, you need to consider what your brand actually does. You need to consider what's actually on brand, what promise your brand makes, and whether your actions are keeping that promise YuLife's purpose. 

14:58

Dom Hawes 

Speak to the emotions of that customer so they focus more on that kind of messaging is how they demonstrate that keeping their brand promise. So all learning don't try to find a balance between emotion and rational just for the sake of it. Keep true to your purpose. Keep true to your promise. You will build your brand. You're listening to Unicorny with Dom Hawes, powered by Selby Anderson, the marketing group that helps complex businesses win the future. 

00:15:25:11 - 00:15:46:00 

Dom Hawes 

Coming up, Jordan and Lauren, explain how you can build your own demand generation machine. We also discuss how YuLife utilizes campaigns and how marketers can plan in times of great uncertainty. But first, Samantha has a question about how the different squads hunt, nurture and automate work and integrate within the model they've designed. Take a listen. 

15:46

Samantha Losey 

I noticed in the model you've got these kind of three components hunt, nurture, automate, effectively. How do the different squads,  focused on different components of the model or is it very integrated in terms of the way that you kind of come at utilizing the squad model that you have within the marketing team? 

16:02

Jordan Gillott 

I think we're all over the machine. I don't think any one team or anyone squad is supporting just nuture or just automate. I think that's the key of the model is everybody working together to achieve the same outputs. So I wouldn't say, you know, demand gen purely focuses on hunt, which, is a large part of demand generation, right? 

16:22

Jordan Gillott 

But we also play into nurture and we plan to automate as well. So I'd say that we're all on that journey together. 

16:28

Samantha Losey 

And that squad model. When did you bring that in? Did you bring that in really early? Didn't exist before. And what was it that made you want to kind of work with that? I presume that some of this model impacted the way that you wanted to structure the team as well? 

16:41

Lauren Berkemeyer 

The squad structure was inspired by our chief technology officer, Josh Hart, who naturally in a product organization, you build squads and you know, as marketing, as marketeers, marketing is very vast and there are many disciplines within marketing within that. How do you play to the strengths of individuals in the best way, but also deliver strong accountability? And this squad structure, really, which is very much a functional structure, enables us to really provide almost like these sub teams of accountability who really know what their north star is, but actually cohesively work collaboratively together to achieve ultimately that growth at the end of the day. 

17:18

Lauren Berkemeyer 

So I would say all of those individuals functionally have a role to play in this machine. You know, hunting is very much the discipline that is critical for our direct sales team to be successful. But I would say it's a marketing discipline as well, because if you're not proactive and you're not hunting for new leads and you're farming them in, one the quality is not going to be great and you're not going to be optimizing your total addressable market. 

17:42

Lauren Berkemeyer 

Whereas I would say this, the intermediary market, which is our other route to market, it's more of an education, it's more of a nurturing process. So this is where you go back to, you know, who is your audience and how do you really create a meaningful interaction with that audience on a broker level, intermediary level, it's they have not been used to change as readily as maybe an organization who to Jordan was talking about went from 50 to 350 and are looking at change all the time. 

18:13

Lauren Berkemeyer 

And it's happening every day. So that's been really important to really identify one way is not better than the other, but at the end of the day, you also need to automate the system. So for us, having a very, robust discipline around our CRM has been critical. We use HubSpot and we actually have a very cohesive view of the full customer lifecycle from lead to close and to actually like continuing to evolve our understanding of that customer Through key metrics along the way. 

18:45

Samantha Losey 

Tell us about how you approach hunting and particularly how targeting works for you in that. 

18:50

Jordan Gillott 

We actually are quite fortunate that we have a revenue operations team, right? And so what they've done is they've created territories and these territories are built around the data that we've collected. You know, Lauren sort of mentioned Gloucester Ocean Air like renewal dates, etc. and then what we kind of do is build them internally and to a propensity model, like are they likely to close with us? 

19:13

Jordan Gillott 

Are they looking for new benefits? You know, are a change makers, have they changed their insurance in the last four years? Are people on Glassdoor talking about how good their employee benefits or how bad they are? You know, and so then we can really identify that the accounts that we want to target, you know, and the larger ones, we can start to build our ABM and the smaller ones we can start to build out, you know, one too many and do vertical campaigns. 

19:36

Jordan Gillott 

And so it really is quite a smart way to to do that targeting because when not trying to play in in every single sector, we're really trying to hone in on what is worth our effort as a business. 

19:47

Samantha Losey 

How does the model work when you're kind of utilizing campaigns? Do you have campaigns that function across all of it? Do you do brand level campaign? How does that work? 

19:56

Jordan Gillott 

We have brand level campaigns. We want to get the message out there what your life is, but then we do start a tier down. So then we have that one too few, which is more verticals, campaigns. Where do we do? Well, we have a lot of data on what we've already closed, you know, who our current customers are, etc. And then, you know, the 1 to 1, which is more I value ABM that we you know, we use a propensity model to to work out who should we be targeting. 

20:21

Samantha Losey 

I often find that in models where you've got that kind of tier down, which is what you absolutely have to have. What can be tricky is the connective tissue between how, for example, a phenomenal ABM campaign maybe works with your PR team or works with you kind of and owned and content and they can be quite siloed. I presume that what you guys have managed to do is create something that's super integrated and means that actually you are pulling all the levers at the same time or the levers that you need to be pulling at the same time as opposed to the kind of the classic thing with a larger organization where you might have 

20:54

Samantha Losey 

something that activates in isolation and then you don't get all of the other kind of pieces of the puzzle coming together. 

21:01

Jordan Gillott 

Yeah. So what I've built actually is a campaign crew is what we call ourselves, and we meet every single Tuesday on a morning and we go Through all the actions of what campaign we need. And that campaign crew, it has the content team, it has the design team, it has the people from the and people that need to action that week and then everyone knows what they're to do that week. 

21:22

Jordan Gillott 

What is on their to do list as it were and you know where are they playing a part in those campaigns as well you know content producing these amazing ebooks and whatnot. But they don't release them. So then, you know, that that gets passed on to demand. GEN Well, actually the content that gets passed on to design and then that design article then gets passed on demand gen to build that campaign around. 

21:42

Jordan Gillott 

You know, we follow that same structure with all the campaigns, whether that be ABM whether that be a sector based or whether that be the big brand activations. 

21:50

Dom Hawes 

So for the benefit of our listeners, if they're trying to build a demand gen machine from the ground up, where we start? 

21:56

Lauren Berkemeyer 

At the very core of a demand gen machine are the people operating that machine. So you need really good talent who, you know, Jordan had incredible experience from a demand gen perspective, but that didn't stop there. The design needs to be strong. The revenue operational data capabilities need to be strong. This is from an individual competency. So I think there is a specialism that makes your team really great. 

22:19

Lauren Berkemeyer 

Sometimes what companies do is that they will bring on a Salesforce or a HubSpot and then outsource quite a lot. And I get that question actually from our VCs a lot like how have you decided what to outsource versus bring in-house? You know, I mean, I made a conscious choice to only outsource PR, So we've brought all of our specialism in-house and it really creates this incredible not only team camaraderie but a real accountability that's very clear. 

22:42

Lauren Berkemeyer 

So we operate on, we have OKRs and we have KPIs that we're tracking towards. And I think that that accountability and that trust amongst the team is so critical. But at the end of the day, you also need to have the tools that really help fuel that fire. Now, HubSpot, I would say most companies use 10% of HubSpot. 

23:01

Lauren Berkemeyer 

It's capable, it is, or really any CRM for that matter, many, many tools. And this is actually called a consumption gap where you consume something and you don't use it. It's so that's really important to really identify for us the key tools. Having a strong CRM that is operated uniformly across the business with the same level of quality and commitment. 

23:20

Dom Hawes 

I think a lot of people start from the tech first and then think, Oh, I got to find some people to run it. And it's I'm interested in your observation that actually all starts with the people and you build the tech around the people, not the other way round. 

23:30

Lauren Berkemeyer 

I actually like empower the people to find the tech rather than get the tech to then be operated by the people. If the people aren't passionate about the tech, you'll have a bigger consumption gap. So you'll have a bigger gap in usage because there won't be a passion to actually actualize in the value of that tech. 

23:44

Samantha Losey 

When you think about kind of how the tech is utilized, where does the kind of high level integration strategy come from that helps you to empower each of those individuals and their tech stacks to do all the things you need? 

23:56

Lauren Berkemeyer 

YuLife culture is is critical. And we start with our company values, okay? And then that feeds into what our overarching strategy is that we define as a senior leadership team along with inputs across the organization that then within those key strategic pillars, which we reinforce in an all hands every Thursday marketing that has very clear a clear role in achieving those results. 

24:19

Lauren Berkemeyer 

So we ultimately then take those key strategic pillars and then we define our own objectives and key results relative to getting towards those goal posts within those. So the OKR’ that we set our quarterly and those are typically like overarching cross collaborative OKRs, and then we have monthly KPIs that really feed into our overarching strategy as a business that we share back to the team more widely and to show that everyone's like on track with the activity and what we're delivering. 

24:48

Samantha Losey 

The challenge always with marketing is to measure accurately at a level in terms of all the different things that you're doing. Tell me, Jordan, about some of the ways that you guys measure. Tell me about some of the things that you guys are able to track with the model that maybe other businesses aren't and that they could look to think about measuring or think about kind of looking at how it feeds together ultimately. 

25:11

Jordan Gillott 

I track everything. It's one of those things, right? You know, so we track events, sign up, we track clicks on on ads, we track clicks on PPC, we track email up and, you know, deliverability rate, we track every, every single thing. And so, you know, whatever it is, whether it's a small email that goes out, whether it's a newsletter that goes out, whether it's one of our smaller events that some of our larger events, I will always ensure that I go back and have a look at what that open rate was, for example, because there's always something that you can learn from something we've previously done events and PPC like. 

25:43

Jordan Gillott 

Is that the best landing page that we put out there is the best content that we put on the landing page. You know, there's always something that we can keep learning from that's better. That definitely motivates me to do better. But I do think that there is also on the flip side of that is that sometimes you can get too caught up in trying to track everything as well. 

26:02

Jordan Gillott 

We did an ebook earlier on this year and it didn't perform as well as we thought it would perform. And we did all the things that you do when you launch a marketing campaign. And we actually took it back and we were like, You know what? The language on the title is not very good. You know, actually the the ads were fine, the creative was fine, the page search was fine, everything's fine. 

26:24 

Jordan Gillott 

But actually the bit that wasn't fine was the title of the e-book. So we changed the title of the e-book and then off you go. And actually it did really well. Some of our most successful ones this year as well. Actually, that wasn't something that tracking could really highlight to us. You know, it's never going to say to you your e-book is title wrong. 

26:42

Jordan Gillott 

But actually that was something that, you know, we got back together as a team, slowed down a little bit, reassessed, and that was actually something that, you know, we were able to do. So it's a double edged sword when it comes to tracking. 

26:54

Samantha Losey 

What is the one thing you couldn't live without. 

26:57

Jordan Gillott 

Easily data and to Lauren's plan, it this is the biggest dataset I've ever worked with at a company, and I think that's so, so powerful. And I don't think companies actually put in as much effort to data as they should. And I do think it comes from a mentality that you can win any business, especially in B2B, you can win any business, it doesn't matter. 

27:19

Jordan Gillott 

So doesn't you don't need to have that data. Actually, all you need to do is do a shiny ad campaign and everybody will come flocking. But in reality, that's not the case. Budgets are obviously about to get tighter. You know, people have different attitudes to culture and different attitudes choose towards benefits and and whatever else it is. 

27:37

Jordan Gillott 

But actually, when you've got that key insight, it can really support you not only to develop that lead and to generate demand around it, but it can also support the sales team. Then to actually close that lead as well. So I think if you marry all of that, the one I couldn't live without. 

27:54

Dom Hawes 

Well, Unicornys. There you go. You heard it here, Data. It's all about data. Thank you very much indeed for some really good insight. And I think there's loads of great learnings that we've got to that part of the podcast now, where we're going to get our crystal balls out.. But I don't think I've ever known such turbulent and uncertain times. 

28:12

Dom Hawes 

So what's the point in forecasting almost at the moment? Because like, who knows what's going to happen in the new year? So I know what I'm asking you here is almost impossible. But what do you think marketers need to pay attention to over the next kind of 12 to 18 months? 

28:27

Lauren Berkemeyer 

Lauren So I go back to my like kind of media editorial lens because I spent quite a long, long time in the in the media industry. And I think we don't do enough reading on what is happening in the moment in time. I think, you know, we built a machine that is very agile and therefore we need to pump into that machine what is happening and really how we are connecting and resonating and igniting our audiences to really help them. 

28:56

Lauren Berkemeyer 

I mean, we're in really challenging times right now, but what you don't want to do is create almost you want to be authentic in terms of how you are helping support our audiences. But but equally, you have to really hone in on, you know, what is happening in the world and what and how can how can we go on a journey with our customers in a meaningful way where, you know, the trust is continuing to be built, but we can help Guide? 

29:19

Lauren Berkemeyer 

It's very important that you set up the foundation and the infrastructure to be able to be agile and fluid in the way that you work so you can respond effectively to whether that's trends, themes, challenges, businesses are facing and just read, listen to podcasts and just really be learners of life because that is how you can be like, I think, a more effective marketer. 

29:43

Dom Hawes 

Jordan How the hell do you go around planning when the world so uncertain? 

29:49

Jordan Gillott 

You know, it's tough. Yeah, it's honestly the answer I think that is important to still keep playing in the space whilst a lot of people will dial down their budget and that's probably inevitable, you know, so it's easier said than done, you know, how do you manage this time? But I do think that there is still the need for marketing Through this time. 

30:12

Jordan Gillott 

There is still the need to to be connected with prospects. People are still buying, you know, and so it is about being smarter. And so one of the things that we've done is actually be quite targeted with our events. We've honed in more on that matchmaking events and the ones that actually we get success from and be very fluid around that. 

30:30

Jordan Gillott 

And I think that's in part being quite helpful to our budgets when not Through a difficult time. So, you know, I think in other business as well, I've seen it where, you know, December you book everything for the year. I think remaining fluid is probably going to be the key to that. 

30:47

Dom Hawes 

We started the podcast out talking about giving more than you take. Talk to us a little bit more about the ethos for your community of giving more than you take. 

30:55

Lauren Berkemeyer 

Yeah, I mean, for us, when we look at, you know, we look at our community and this is a community that is all about people, right? And this is a community that's giving more than they take every day. YuLife has all these features and and a bit of a rah rah celebration of our amazingness, which we believe. 

31:13

Lauren Berkemeyer 

But actually it's about, you know, how do we inspire, how do we educate, how do we guide our partners, our customers on this journey to really help support people? And so that at the end of the day, YuLife is all about inspiring life. And how do you do that? By giving more than you take, by really giving inspiration, giving value, giving new ideas, inspiring Through events that aren't about, you know, specific functionality, but more about how you might be able to think about like, you know, we recently had Davina McCall talking about menopause shine a spotlight on women's health That is really important. 

31:47

Lauren Berkemeyer 

The evolution of that ethos means that you build trust and that you are ultimately a brand that people want to buy from. So I think there is a patience to that, but there's also a real method in that as well. 

31:58

Dom Hawes 

Well, thank you very much indeed. It's been a really interesting conversation.  

32:02

Lauren Berkemeyer 

Yeah IT’s been a pleasure. Thank you. 

32:06

Dom Hawes 

Well, that's the end of today's show and there's loads and loads to get Through. So let's get started. Something that really struck me about YuLife approach is that from a distance, this growth machine or demand generation machine, it may seem complicated or like really difficult to implement, particularly for other brands and companies. You haven't made a start, but I certainly think it is something Lauren said at the beginning of this chat comes back really to one of the key principles of marketing. 

32:31

Dom Hawes 

So before they did anything, they considered who they were speaking to and how they were going to target those people. Basically, they oriented to the market and they oriented to their customer. So outlining that is the key piece of the jigsaw is the frame of reference. The basis is what you use to define everything else. So if you're a part of or you're leading a marketing team that's struggling to define your approach, start there. 

32:54

Dom Hawes 

And the hard part is already done. Next up, when I asked Lauren how to build a demand generation machine, the first thing she said was it starts with people, Well, how we use tech and data, especially today, AI is definitely getting more refined. They are still just tools. They need a healthy pulse, a good head and a human heart at the helm. 

33:11

Dom Hawes 

And these people, by the way, they need to be talented. They need to be trained. They need to be supported and motivated. If you want to get the most out of the technology, you can ask them to use. Otherwise, however clever your strategy or have a cutting edge, your tech is well, just doesn't matter. And finally, I want to talk about the importance of giving. 

33:28

Dom Hawes 

Lauren made a great point that giving to your customers, spotlighting issues, encouraging the wellbeing of people is good for your brand, but something we shouldn't forget. It's also good for your team. Throughout this episode, we've returned again and again to the importance of a motivated and talented team. If your team believes in your message and your purpose as a brand, they're going to want to come into work. 

33:50

Dom Hawes 

They're going to give their very best to your business. So if you give more to your people, they're going to give more back to you. That's all we have time for on the show today. A big thank you to Samantha, Losey, for joining me as a co-host. And of course, thank you to the amazing Jordan Gillett and the fabulous Lauren Berkemeyer from YuLife to being simply fabulous guests. 

34:12

Dom Hawes 

On next week's show, I'm joined by co-host the gargantuan brained Adam Greener from Digital Radish. And our guest is marketing supremo John Watton, VP of marketing for VMware. And together we're going to discuss how to scale a b2b tech business. In our conversation, John explains what you need to think about when you're building an integrated revenue generation engine. 

34:33

Dom Hawes 

We discuss first and third party data as a feeder for your engine, and we also talk about the importance of place in marketing and what's happening in the talent market right now. It's a great show if you haven't already. Follow this podcast and you'll hear our episodes first. Thank you for listening to today's show together. We're building a body of reference to make marketing work better for business. 

34:57

Dom Hawes 

Now it takes us 8 to 10 hours to produce each and every episode of Unicorny. Please take the time to share rates and reviews. Help us get found and help yourself at the same time because Unicorny is far more than a podcast. It's a community of leading marketing minds, and pretty soon we're going to be running events too. 

35:16

Dom Hawes 

If you're interested in joining our community, please get in touch by following the Unicorny page on LinkedIn or connecting to me on LinkedIn. My name is Dom Hawes, you've been listening to Unicorny with me. Dom Hawes powered by Selby Anderson, the marketing group that helps complex businesses win the future. Unicorny is conceived and produced by Selby Anderson with creative support from one fine play. 

35:39

Dom Hawes 

Nichola Fairley is the executive producer. Connor Foley is the series producer. Kasra Firouzyar is a superb audio engineer and editor and the episode is recorded at Turnmill Studios.co.uk. Thank you for listening and we will see you in the next one.