Leveraging Your Company’s Strategic Data Asset for an Unfair Advantage
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Shownotes
In this episode of Sunny Side Up, host Robert Hall interviews Chris Shakarian, a startup marketing leader, about the world of strategic data assets and their impact on modern-day marketing. Shak believes that companies can gain an advantage in the market by leveraging the strategic data assets generated by customers using their products. Rather than just talking about the value delivered, showing it through data is more effective in a world oversaturated with content and advertising. Chris emphasizes the value of software as a means to gather data and provide actionable insights. One example he highlights is Gong, a call recording tool that collects voice data and performs meta-analysis to provide insights on talk ratios and business outcomes. He also acknowledges the threat of ChatGPT, a generative tool for marketers, but argues that critical thinking and the use of strategic data assets are still crucial for differentiation from competitors. Chris stresses the importance of embracing the concept of a strategic data asset and using it for an unfair advantage in the market. By finding unique data within the product, picking insights that align with buyers’ needs, and exposing it through static forms or real-time dashboards, companies can create a unique marketing strategy that draws people in rather than just “shouting from rooftops.”
About the Guest
Chris is a startup marketing leader who’s brought numerous B2B software-as-a-service technologies to market, impacted over $100M in revenue and has had multiple exits to companies such as Google, Dassault, and RELX
Connect with Chris Shakarian
Key Takeaways
- Strategic data asset refers to the data and metadata generated by an organization from and on their customers
- It presents a powerful marketing opportunity to show the value a product delivers, not just talk about it
- Strategic data assets are critical to the future of marketing and tech as traditional playbooks and content strategies lose value
- Companies are always building some sort of strategic data asset, which is unique to them and at the heart of the value their product delivers
- Software is like a mouse trap that gets users to input data in the hopes of adding value and giving actionable insights
- Overcoming limitations and lack of resources in early stage startups
- Mining strategic data assets for insights is more powerful than static assets like ebooks or outreach emails
- ChatGPT could be an existential threat to marketers, but critical and creative thinking can differentiate them from bots
- Marketers need to embrace this concept for unfair advantage in the market
- Strategic data asset extends beyond product marketing and requires embedding into failed marketing motion
- Three key steps to leverage data: find unique data, pick insights aligned with buyer needs, expose data in a compelling way
Quote
“If marketers don’t want to become obsolete, they need to understand this concept and start embracing it using you for the unfair advantage of the market. If they don’t, they will become obsolete.”
– Chris Shakarian
Highlights from the Episode
Are strategic data assets significant in driving success for technology companies, and could you explain your perspective and provide a better idea of what these assets are?
Chris believes that strategic data assets are significant in driving success for technology companies. He defines strategic data assets as the data and metadata generated by an organization from and on its customers. This data is primarily used for product development, but Chris argues that it presents an effective marketing opportunity. He believes that strategic data assets are critical to the future of marketing and tech. Chris thinks that most software companies have something unique about them, and that uniqueness resides in their strategic data asset. The strategic data asset is the totality of the data and metadata on their customers, and it is at the heart of the value that their product delivers. Chris provides examples of how strategic data assets can be used in different types of companies, such as a call recording tool, an online booking platform, a tool to plug into other software tools, or an account-based marketing platform. He thinks that showing customers the value that their products bring is more powerful than telling them about it.
Can you explain how the value of data is not just limited to the information generated by tools but also the insights that can be derived from it, and how this concept can be applied to early-stage companies?
Chris explains that the value of data is not limited to the information generated by tools, but also includes the insights that can be derived from it. He gives an example of how a call recording tool like Gong can transcribe voice data, attribute it to media attendees, and perform meta-analyses such as talk ratios. By connecting words to actions to business outcomes, Gong provides valuable insights that are at the heart of the tool’s strategic data assets. These insights can be used by marketers to create compelling content and explore the data asset to dial it into their industry and company size. Chris suggests that providing live real-time dashboards of talk ratios and other impact criteria would be even more powerful and attractive to prospects than static assets like ebooks or outreach emails.
What sort of threat do you see that you’re facing as we compete against chat GPT, considering it’s a generative tool that CEOs and founders can use as a marketer efficiently in today’s market?
From Chris’s perspective, he believes that ChatGPT could potentially be an existential threat to marketers, as it keeps getting better and better. However, he thinks that it will only force mediocre marketers to do better in the short term. Chris has played with ChatGPT and noticed that even with the entire internet loaded into it from a specific point in time, it still lacks the depth of insight and a unique perspective that marketers bring to the game. He suggests that marketers should think critically about what they are marketing, understand the tech they are bringing to market, and understand why their audience cares about it. By doing this, they can come up with something way more creative than what GPT can generate. Chris is not too worried about ChatGPT until dark data becomes publicly available for exploitation by generative AI, which will not happen until we plug our brains into Neurolink. Until then, AI will be both a tool to use and a good forcing function that pushes marketers to be better.
Is there a threat of marketing becoming obsolete due to the quick commoditization of common marketing tactics and the lack of interest from prospects and customers toward content, despite being marketed as valuable?
Chris believes that there is a possibility that marketing could become obsolete due to the quick commoditization of common marketing tactics and the lack of interest from prospects and customers toward content, despite being marketed as valuable. He thinks that marketers are already experiencing diminishing returns on their playbooks over time. Chris remembers his experience at Buyer Zone, where they used to create buyer guides for SEO value, which would rank up high on Google.
However, he thinks that if he were to try that play today, it would not work as well, since bots value things differently and GPT can generate something way more compelling than what they did way back in the day. Chris thinks that content is already overly abundant, and tactics are easily copied and become commoditized fast. However, he believes that an organization’s strategic data asset is unique because it emerges from the unique code that the developer has built, the unique value the software delivers, and because it’s a private asset hidden from the world. If marketers don’t want to become obsolete, they need to understand this concept and start embracing it, using it for an unfair advantage in the market. If they don’t, Chris believes they will become obsolete. He thinks that he is not the only marketer who feels this way and that others share the same notion.
Why do marketers shy away from showing the value of a product despite the need to communicate its unique value in the context of PLG motion and diminishing returns on traditional marketing tactics?
When it comes to marketers shying away from showing the value of a product despite the need to communicate its unique value in the context of PLG motion and diminishing returns on traditional marketing tactics, Chris believes that it’s not necessarily true for all marketers. Some PLG folks prioritize demonstrating value and try to acquire as many users as possible into the product before figuring it out from a growth standpoint. However, he hypothesizes that sometimes it’s easier for marketers to just come up with personas, map out a hierarchy of needs, and elevate technical value into some value statements without really understanding the product in a super deep way. This way, they can put some sharp value language against the schema they came up with, throw together some screenshots, and be off to the races.
Additionally, the status quo is a thing and what everyone else is doing, such as getting product marketing to describe the value, is hard to deviate from. It might also be too intractable for some marketers to think of any other way of doing things if they’ve always done it that way. Chris suggests that understanding the product in a super deep way, understanding the value that users get out of it, and surfacing some proprietary data assets could be harder. Therefore, in many ways, it’s easier to talk about value for a couple of years until the CEO and board want to try on a new pair of marketing shoes that want to talk about value differently.
Can product marketing teams seize the opportunity to elevate themselves in today’s market, given the challenges of going technically deep and the need for marketers to show value and invest in a PLG motion?
Chris believes that in a traditional sales-led growth motion, the responsibility of elevating the product marketing team would fall on them. However, in a pure PLG motion, there is a growth hacking team that handles things differently. While product marketing may not exist in that realm, Chris agrees that they need to step up. He also believes that this extends beyond product marketing and into all functions, as it involves surfacing unique parts of a dataset and building something online. This strategy needs to be embedded into the entire marketing motion, from reaching out to prospects with something of value through data to building a pipeline. Chris asserts that this approach is essential for positioning the company in a believable, distinct, and unique way that emerges from the actual product itself, not just through a cursory positioning thing. This underpins how to believably market the product and create a magnet for people to come to it, rather than simply shouting from the rooftops and creating more data sheets.
What are how marketing teams and their counterparts can leverage their company’s strategic data assets to draw people in and create a magnet effect? Specifically, what measures can be taken to achieve this objective?
Chris suggests that marketing teams and their counterparts can leverage their company’s strategic data assets in three simple ways. Firstly, they can find unique and relevant data that underpins their product, such as trending topics by account or region. Secondly, they should pick a handful of insights from the data set that align with their buyer’s top pains or needs, so they can show them something they care about. Thirdly, they should expose some aggregate of that data in a way that creates the ability for people to come back to them, such as a real-time dashboard or data stream. Chris emphasizes that the closer to real-time the data is, the better. By doing these three things, marketing teams and their counterparts can draw people in and create a magnet effect.
Is there a book, blog, newsletter, website, or video that you would recommend to our listeners?
Shout-outs
Dave Gerhardt – Founder at Exit Five
Michael Krivicka – Founder and Director at whoisthebaldguy
Tom Fishburne – Founder at Marketoonist
Sunny Side Up
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