CMO Interview Series: Sarah Eppler

This one's one of our more unique interviews we've conducted recently. Sarah has a strong reputation in the marketing space and I'm excited to do this interview with her. I hope you thoroughly enjoy reading this as much as I've enjoyed putting this together! And btw, if you want to work with her, check out Sarah Eppler Co.

Moises

Sarah, do you want to give our audience a quick overview of who you are and your top 5 buckets of expertise in marketing (of course you have more haha).

Sarah

I’ve spent the majority of my 20+ year career building revenue-generating marketing functions for B2B and B2C, sales-led subscription-based businesses in the professional services, media, tech and most recently digital asset space. In most of these roles, I was responsible for all aspects of marketing from brand to customer acquisition & retention, product & content marketing, marketing operations & analytics and PR/communications and some inside sales. 

At the core of each role, I focused on building results-driven and data-informed strategies that accelerated internal efficiencies and top-line revenue growth.

I’m most well known for being a problem-solver, for asking difficult questions and for building world-class marketing teams.

I believe marketing is part of my DNA - I genuinely enjoy figuring out what makes people tick - why they do what they do and what it takes for them “to make a move.” That natural curiosity has served me well as I evolved as a marketer and leader. 

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5 primary areas of expertise:

1. Demand generation - This is definitely a broad category, but the majority of my time as a marketing leader has been spent on developing in and out of market strategies to inflect revenue performance and efficiencies.
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2. Brand marketing - I consider this to be part of demand generation, but it often finds itself living on its own (a fun conversation for another day). I’ve been part of or led 4 rebrands/refreshes that involved everything from me doing the work (interviews, product hierarchy, naming, messaging, etc.) to partnering with a brand agency. 
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3. ‍Product marketing - Really understanding the customer and developing a compelling and differentiated value proposition with corresponding messaging points to drive engagement with the brand was my first real foray into marketing and perhaps the most influential.
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4. Sales & marketing alignment - I never set out to “align sales and marketing” but realized about 10 years ago that more often than not marketing and sales are on different pages about how today’s buyers interact with brands and actually buy. This misalignment resulted in decreased conversion rates and slowing sales cycles which obviously has a significant impact on company performance. Building alignment and coordinated go-to-market strategies have since been a big part of my role as a marketing leader. 
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5. B2C and B2B audience development - Working at several media companies required me to stretch my brain and figure out how to efficiently build separate but complementary marketing strategies for different, but oftentimes overlapping audiences. The goals, KPIs and tactics can differ between B2C (smaller dollar, advertising model) and B2B (high dollar, subscription model), so while the challenge of building a marketing strategy for each isn’t difficult, knowing how to leverage each audience and brand to build the other can be.

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Moises

You’ve worked at all kinds of industries, at all kinds of companies - startups, mid-size, and multi billion-dollar ones. Which means you’ve worked with all levels of marketing budgets. 

In your experience, where do the most effective teams focus their marketing budget/attention?

I’d be curious to hear 2-3 unintuitive tips for an early-stage vs. mature company on how they can better invest in marketing to drive efficiencies. And not be distracted with their 100 marketing priorities.

Sarah

There is oftentimes misalignment between marketing and the business on where to allocate budgets and efforts to drive the biggest impact and that’s because there is a desire to jump to tactics and channels without investing in the foundational components that power successful tactics. 

So I’d say the tips I’d offer are the same for both early-stage and mature companies. They may manifest differently, but I’ve found doing these things will pay dividends in the short and long-run. 

1. Focus - do it. Both sized companies often try to do too many things such as being on a lot of channels which typically results in little impact. “Doing a little bit of everything, really means you’re doing a lot of nothing.” My recommendation is to narrow in on doing fewer things and doing them well - measure them and then expand to one more thing. So for start-ups this might mean - choose your target audience and stick to it, test it and then expand when you know definitively what worked and didn’t work. For mature companies this may be more about avoiding the bright shiny object where every “good” idea becomes a play.

2. Brand - invest in it. There are numerous stats that highlight the impact brand has on business/revenue success, yet most companies want to cut corners here because it doesn’t provide a fast response, like running a paid Googleor LinkedIn ad.  Again these will look differently depending on stage, but a start-up should ensure that its mission statement, value prop and messaging points are tight and consistent. Having these components locked down and showing up consistently in a few places will have far greater impact than changing their story every time they speak with a customer. For a mature company, the tendency is to not run brand campaigns because people “know us” — the reality is businesses have a nanosecond to capture and keep someone’s attention - showing up with consistent value messaging alongside a specific product campaign dramatically increases the chances someone will engage, remember, share and buy.

3. Data - balance the quantitative with qualitative. This too could go down a variety of rabbit holes, but I think marketing and the business have over-indexed on quantifiable data as the end-all, be-all to decision-making. It took a long time for marketing to be able to justify our spend and decisions. The introduction of marketing technology helped them overcome that problem. But I believe we’ve now over-inexed on this a bit and forgotten the value of qualitative insights such as customer interviews and feedback across social channels, Word of Mouth (WOM), that just can’t be measured in a traditional sense. The bigger challenge is getting the business (read: CFO and CEO) to understand the value in this, which is another re-education moment that marketing leaders have to own.

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Moises

You’re (famously) known for coming into a team and transforming corporate marketing from a traditional cost center into a growth-enabling, revenue-driving “superpower.” And you’ve done this repeatedly too!

Looking back at your career, could you walk us through some marketing principles that you hold true, which helped you consistently deliver these results?

Sarah

I love this question however I don’t think my answers are all that unique.

• Define the role of marketing. I've found that there is always confusion about what marketing is, what it is responsible for and how it should be measured. Marketing means something different to everyone. I’ve learned to address this starting from the interview process and then through the marketing strategy development process. I develop a Marketing Mission Statement that is reviewed, discussed and approved by leadership and then shared every time there is a marketing presentation (as the first slide). This is a subtle reminder that reinforces what marketing is there to do and how we’ll be held accoutnable.

• Learn the business. Speak with customers, speak with internal stakeholders, become friends with the CFO. See how they operate, what’s working and not working for them, and how they are being measured before making any decisions. No two companies or scenarios are the same, so the priorities of the team and the marketing strategy should reflect the needs and goals of others in and outside of the business.  

• Alignment to business objectives.  I always wear my business hat before my marketing hat and I coach my team to do the same. It’s the only way you’ll gain credibility with the C-suite. This means learning to keep the updates and discussions about what marketing is doing as it relates to impact on the business, and showcasing how marketing is helping the business achieve its goals without micromanagement at the tactical level.

• Don't underestimate the value of marketing fundamentals. Don’t skip the basics. There are lots of cool plays that marketing can run but the success of those plays very much has to do with the foundation that they are run on. Understanding who the customer is and their paint points, having standard messaging points that speak to those pain points in a consistent way, analyzing the funnel and determining where there may be roadblocks and driving towards agreed-upon metric(s) enables marketing to run efficiently and effectively and also successfully pivot when need be.

• ‍Communicate and overcommunicate. Wrapping all the above into one package - understand the business, align strategy to goals, set expectations and don’t waiver from what you know will work. Having a story to tell and making sure you are regularly communicating updates (monthly/quarterly) about business impact as part of that story is critical to gaining credibility as a strategic business partner and running a function efficiently and effectively.

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Moises

You’ve held several marketing leadership roles including Senior VP, Senior Director and Head of Marketing. Could you walk us through how the core roles/responsibilities differ between these roles at a mid-size / large-scale organization?

Sarah

I don’t think the responsibilities are really that different, but the reality is your bandwidth will be tested which impacts what you and your team can realistically focus on. Business goals, budgets, resources will always impact how broad or how deep you go into any one effort. 

I think the most obvious difference is how tactical vs. strategic your job will be and perhaps what parts of the business are a primary focus. 

In a start-up and even when building a marketing function for a scale-up, you’re wearing many hats - the focus is likely on building new business pipelines - quickly. During this time, work will likely focus on setting up a tech stack, sales enablement, and acquisition marketing efforts - hopefully, product marketing is wrapped up in there too. As a marketing leader, you’ll do the work as well as develop the strategy.

In a more mature organization, leadership (hopefully) includes a larger team that can own the execution work which leaves time for more strategic thinking with leadership. The types of marketing being done will likely expand with more emphasis on retention, expansion and brand awareness efforts.

Regardless of the company’s growth stage, Marketing should always have a seat at the leadership table and should be building strategies that help drive both short-term and long-term impact. 

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Moises

It’s 2023. Every company’s slashing marketing costs, and yet, they want to be omnipresent in their prospects’ minds. In your 20 years of experience, you’ve seen similar economic downturns to this year’s and so, my question is – 

How did you navigate such downturns for the companies that you’ve helped? Are there successes or pitfalls from those years that you’d like to share with us?

Sarah

What you should do and what actually happens is oftentimes different and will very much depend on whether you’ve been able to successfully get the rest of the leadership team on board about focus areas, plans and expected outcomes.

Typically the reaction when the economy turns and sales pipelines start to decline, is to try anything which tactically translates to go broad - in targeting, messaging etc., with the hopes that something sticks.

Early in my career, I ran that play (several times) and it never resulted in any meaningful or sustainable outcomes. Common asks were  “we need to run a campaign for x” …so I’d run the campaign and MAYBE we saw an uptick in leads, but most of the time they didn’t close or they churned shortly after. 

What has been effective during economic downturns has been looking at the data and narrowing focus. If the data shows that audience x closes faster, has a higher conversion rate and/or larger contract values, then doubling down on that group with a specific engagement strategy is where efforts should be directed. And wind down the channels that have low conversion rates.

It’s also common for businesses to say “stop with the branding campaigns.” This is actually the exact opposite of what you want to do. Keeping your business front and center with a steady drumbeat of value messaging (i.e., how you’re helping organizations navigate the difficult time, etc.,) can be incredibly effective in inflecting sales momentum.

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Moises

So Sarah, you’ve refreshed many company brands in the past. Walk us through what that’s like! I’m curious about the steps that you take, frameworks that you follow, etc.

Sarah

I learned a lot but it was a lot of work.  Primarily because access to the market is so important and just takes time. Interviews with clients and prospects to really understand what their pain points are, how they currently address them and how they like to engage with brands is really important in developing compelling and differentiated language and campaigns that buyers will pay attention to. 

What is often underestimated is the importance of getting your organization, especially the leadership team, on board - from the beginning. The CEO and the leadership team should have a rebrand or refresh as part of their OKRs or annual goals. What surprises many organizations is that brand is an operating system for how you do business. It impacts everything you do, and when done right it creates tremendous efficiencies across the company from what your contracting process is like, to how your recruiting team recruits, to how your social team engages with people in comments. 

As part of the POLITICO Pro brand rollout, the marketing team spent a lot of time partnering with other parts of the business to ensure everyone was bought into the new brand (and absorbing it). Aside from the socialization of how the rebrand was progressing to get feedback once we were ready to go live, we leaned into the competitive nature of the business and arranged a series of fun competitions including scavenger hunts in the brand portal, a “Spotted” contest of employees in their branded swag posted on social, an out of home campaign with bus wraps in DC and in newspapers, and ending with an American Idol inspired “Pitch Off” where sales associates pitched the new value prop in front of a live audience to win a host of prizes like AirBnB, airline and Uber gift cards. 

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Moises

Since you’ve literally built and trained marketing teams from scratch, I’ve got a big question for you! One thing that’s wearing off in today’s world, I think, is grit and accountability amongst marketers. Too many marketers are “silent quitting” as the cool kids say. 

Throughout your roles, how did you instill the idea of ownership within your best marketing teams? And I’m eager to hear if you have any tips for CXOs on how to make the right marketing hires from the get go.

Sarah

I’m maniacal about who I hire and I’ve been lucky to have really good people on my teams. I’m a tough boss and can ask for a lot, but I think my teams have responded to me because they trusted me and saw me as their advocate from the outset. Some of my approaches included:

• I set expectations very early - during the interview process. I have a management philosophy that I share and expect that they ask me questions (and others about it). There should be very few surprises when working for me.
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• Individualism is one of my strengths. I try to understand what makes each person tick - some are motivated by quiet praise while others prefer a bigger announcement - it’s important to recognize and respect that. 
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• Continuous feedback. I make sure I am giving feedback day in and day out. There are no surprises come review time. This gives them an opportunity to incorporate feedback in big and small ways.
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• Level up -  I delegate a lot to the team - running team meetings, putting together strategic plans, etc. - they learn by doing. 
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• Most importantly I make sure that when we are planning a campaign or I’m providing feedback I’m tying it back to a bigger goal or business objective. This helps them understand how their blood, sweat and tears contribute to a bigger strategic goal and the material impact it has on the business.

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Moises

Building off the last bit here, when interviewing a full-time or fractional chief marketing officer, are there CMO interview questions that founders should always have on their docket?

And are there red flags that CXOs should look out for when reviewing a CMO resume?

Sarah

GREAT question. I actually don’t think the questions of a fractional CMO should be all that different from a full-time CMO - the job is really the same, the time commitment may vary, but otherwise, the role itself is the same.

• What is your marketing experience and areas of expertise and how has it prepared you for a fractional CMO position? 
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• Tell us about when you had to pivot a company's marketing strategy because of data or market changes. How did you handle it, and what were the results? 
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• If budgets are limited, how should the business think about results? How do you determine where the budget goes?
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• How do you ensure alignment and communication with the internal team, stakeholders, and other department heads? 
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• How do manage disagreement among stakeholders? How do you drive consensus?
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• What are the top three metrics you believe are essential for measuring the success of marketing? 
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• Where do you see the future of B2B/B2C marketing headed, and how would you position our company at the forefront of that change? 

As far as red flags go, I think not having measurable results or business impact highlighted could be a warning sign. Additionally, a candidate with experience in 1-2 marketing disciplines could mean limited exposure to how a full-stack marketing function operates which is important even if full-stack isn’t something you’ll do for some time.

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Moises

Sarah, as someone who has held Executive marketing positions at several organizations, I can imagine that a big part of your role is about educating the C-suite and team leaders on modernizing their marketing.

Could you share with us some best practices around how you’ve done this before (without the political pushback haha)? 

And if there’s a young marketing leader reading this interview, how can she replicate your playbook?

Sarah

This is a really important question and the lesson I learned early on was to set expectations and gain buy-in early - don’t assume people know what marketing is, what good marketing looks like, etc. Everyone has different opinions about what marketing is and what it should do, so you’ll want to get ahead of those narratives and course correct as needed.

And I tend to leverage the “I’m the new kid” card and do some level-setting during my first 60-90 days observation presentation. In addition to outlining what I’ve observed and where the gaps are and the path forward to achieve whatever said goal there is, I also do three important things:

• Create a Marketing Mission Statement. First, that level sets on what exactly marketing is there to do at the company. It’s pretty comprehensive and it is the first slide of any marketing deck (quarterly update, etc.,) me or my team present going forward. The repetition helps drive the message home.
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• Be a storyteller. Marketers may live in metrics, but other functional leaders do not. Having a story about what marketing can do for the business and then weaving in updates to that story on a regular basis helps the rest of the business process the impact marketing is making.
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• Leverage industry stats. When explaining a new concept or strategy to others in the organization lean on industry or general knowledge stats that support the “why” behind your decision. Stats might include information on how people buy today, # of people involved in a purchasing decision, how far people are into the buying cycle before engaging with sales, etc. 
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• Metrics. Choose 3 -5 metrics (tops) and report on those and nothing else. This helps avoid unproductive conversations about KPIs and tactics and keeps the discussion focused on business impact. 

For young marketers I’d offer a few thoughts.

• Make friends with stakeholders across the organization and learn the business - have a 15-minute virtual coffee with them. There WILL be difficult conversations in your future and it is much easier to work through those when you have a rapport with them.
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• A common frustration of younger marketers is that they feel like driving through windows. The people who just “do” stuff vs. developing a plan or strategy. The solution to this is about learning to manage conversations. It’s common for stakeholders to come to a marketer and ask for an email campaign or press release because that’s what they assume will help them achieve their goal. When I started responding with “That sounds really interesting, tell me a bit more about the objective you are trying to achieve” my perception by others changed from being a doer to a strategic business partner. 

Speak the language of the business. Get familiar with the P&L statement and balance sheet and focus on the numbers that the business cares about (revenue, CAC, CLV, margins) and not the email open rate or the number of MQLs you produced. Those are important numbers for marketers, but they are irrelevant to the CFO, CEO etc.

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Moises

As we end this super-packed interview, Sarah, are there any words you want us to close off with?

Sarah

I truly believe that marketing is a business’s superpower - largely because businesses are not leveraging marketing in a results-driven way, and as a result, they are leaving money on the table. This is exactly why I started Sarah Eppler Co. - to help bold B2B, sales-led subscription-based companies accelerate their growth strategy. I’m confident and have first-hand experience that investing in marketing can be the single most disruptive thing a company (at any stage) can do to positively impact their bottom line.