We’re thrilled to announce that Matt Heinz, President of Heinz Marketing, will be joining TrackMaven’s Advisory Board. Here’s his take on the necessary skills for modern marketers, and how the great marketers of the future will step up to the plate of analytical responsibility.
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How did you get to where you are in your career today?
Matt Heinz: Lots of unexpected turns, moderate risks, and plenty of luck and serendipity. I’m a journalism and political science major from the University of Washington. No MBA, never even took a business class in school.
My first job out of school was covering the state government beat for a suburban Seattle newspaper, then I ended up at a PR firm, then Microsoft for a couple years, then two tours of duty at start-ups.
I’ve always thought that doing my own thing would be fun, but never expected to be doing what I’m doing now. That said, I love it. I can’t imagine doing anything else.
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With all of the changes in Marketing the past few years, what’s the most exciting development from your perspective?
Matt Heinz: Right now I’d say it’s the potential inherent in predictive analytics is really exciting, almost intoxicating for marketing geeks like me. Many marketers are just finally taking advantage of business intelligence – analyzing what’s already happened to direct the prospect’s next step.
Big data takes that to another level, allowing you to find patterns and predict behavior in a way that might be counter-intuitive to the “naked eye” but actually drives greater velocity and conversion among your prospects.
It can be complicated to design and execute, but the impact is enormous. And we’re just scratching the surface of its potential. So exciting. I told you I was a geek, right?
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These changes give marketers more opportunities — and challenges — than ever before. What does it take to be a great marketer today?
Matt Heinz: The skill set required for modern marketers is markedly different from what worked even 5-6 years ago.
Today’s most successful marketers are “math marketers” – meaning they start planning with a spreadsheet, not a PowerPoint deck or creative brief. They live and die by the numbers, knowing that success isn’t based on creative innovation but “hitting the number” that’s also important to sales and the business overall.
“Today’s most successful marketers embrace revenue responsibility”
Today’s most successful marketers embrace revenue responsibility, as well as all of the priorities, skills and risks inherent in that.
It’s terrifying and exciting, but it’s what’s required today of marketers who want to thrive and grow in their field, particularly in B2B.
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Content Marketing means a lot of things to a lot of people. How do you define it?
Matt Heinz: Content has existed forever, but the changes in SEO strategy and the emergence of social – where the cost of media is zero – has made it mission-critical for modern B2B marketers to maximize their pipeline-building potential at dramatically lower acquisition costs.
Content can take a lot of forms, but it’s important that marketers align their content plan with the buyer’s journey – meaning the stages they go through, the problems they have that need solving, the priorities and themes in their everyday jobs that allow you to use content to engage, build credibility, and ultimately drive velocity and conversion through your sales process.
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What is the single most common mistake you see with companies and content marketing?
Matt Heinz: Creating content about the company instead of the customer. A close second would be creating content based on your solution instead of the customer’s needs & desired outcomes.
“Sell the hole, not the drill”
Sell the hole, not the drill. Seriously, if you make that a mantra for your content strategy, you’re far more likely to stay on the right direction.
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With the number of marketing technologies growing every day, how do you recommend marketers keep tabs without drowning?
Matt Heinz: It’s not about the technology. Tools are just enablers of a great strategy.
You have to start with a foundation based on 1) what success looks like (sales, pipeline creation, leads required to feed the beast), and 2) how your customer insight (who they are, what they care about, what problems they have, etc.) dictates how you align with and accelerate progress against that decision-making journey.
We’re inundated with pitches from well-meaning tech companies with the “next great” solution. In isolation, many of them may sound great. But every one needs to be evaluated and triaged against 1) how it fits into your success metrics, and 2) whether it helps you accelerate velocity along that buyer’s journey.
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What’s your bold prediction for the next five years in Marketing?
Matt Heinz: The innovators and leaders in marketing five years from how will increasingly have little to no “traditional” marketing background and education.
“More of the successful marketers will come from the Moneyball mold”
More of the successful marketers will come from the Moneyball mold, will bring perspectives from other environments and increasingly analytical/metrics-oriented disciplines to drive innovation, focus and success.
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Shameless plug for us: What is exciting to you about working with TrackMaven?
Matt Heinz: Big data is scary, and it’s only getting bigger and more intimidating to marketing professionals. To do it right, you need to focus on the RIGHT data and FAST data.
TrackMaven provides both, and has a huge runway ahead to drive significant competitive insights and breakthrough marketing for those who listen, engage, dig, question, and otherwise demonstrate the curiosity and discipline necessary to convert data into results.
I’m extremely excited and humbled to work with TrackMaven on this journey.
For more content marketing strategies, download our Colossal Content Marketing Report for data on blog headline optimization, publishing frequency, social distribution, and more.