Episode Description

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Joe Chernov, CMO at Pendo, a company that’s on a mission to elevate the world’s experience with software. We discuss his career path so far, and how it’s evolved over the years from leading with content to leading with product. Now, he’s focused on finding a way to bring the two areas together seamlessly.

Key takeaways:

• According to Joe, there are essentially two ways to build a brand in B2B: the path of the dragonslayer or the patron saint. In the former, you’re fighting against something and existing in opposition to it, like ads, for example. With the patron saint approach, you’re standing to give rise to a new role or to strengthen a new role within a company, which is where Pendo has always operated in terms of product.
• Joe mentioned he once read a study that tracked every visitor to a grocery store in an attempt to find a pattern in the way people walk through aisles, and the answer was that there was no pattern. Applying this to the buyer experience at Pendo, Joe mentioned he tries to create a portfolio of different avenues people can use to discover the company such as free content about becoming a better product manager, or requesting a demo of the product. This way, there’s something for every style of grocery store perusing.
• Joe’s parting advice for marketers was to take the spirit of advice from marketing thought leaders, instead of taking it so literally. He believes we could all benefit from learning from the problem somebody is trying to solve and how they're approaching the solution rather than rushing to learn the specific tools that were used in finding the solution.