**This effort is part of the [Marketing Agility Project](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-com/-/epics/399) and is being lead by @sbouchard1 w/ @atflowers - please reach out to them with any questions.** ## B2B Enterprise Marketing has changed * **The physical events landscape will never be the same.** O'Reilly events are gone. They are only the first. * **Data privacy laws and heightened sensitivity to tracking are 18-24 months from changing cookie-based tracking forever.** * **The world was just forced to become comfortable with video even more than it already was.** Specifically, everyone now knows how to use Zoom-like tools with video, making everyone a potential producer and live-streamer. * **The demand for transparency and authenticity has never been higher.** * **Face-to-face interactions in sales and marketing will be 50% less for the foreseeable future.** But video will replace it. * **Content is getting shorter and playlists/content binging is mainstream.** See quibi, NetFlix, etc. ## Why we don't want to go back * **We pay other vendors to get in front of their audience - instead of building our own audience.** Every dollar we spend with Amazon, VMWare, Google, etc. accrues at least 50% to them, IMHO. Yes, those events have had a return - but we are already seeing a decline in that return (see declined AWS Re:invent Linear Attribution in 2019 vs. 2018 - despite a higher investment and better execution by the events team). * **We already have a strong backbone of inbound** - and the secret that we haven't talked about enough is that we have tripled the rate of emails added to our database in the last year. We HAVE a large audience to start from, so we can afford to change now. * **The people cost of an event-driven marketing motion is high.** In FY20, we were often on the edge of travel fatigue, burnout and productivity for our FMM team, PMM, TMM and events teams - not to mention sales, execs, managers. * **Nobody will be able to predict the return dates for events.** We will be in the business of timing the market - instead of being in control of our own destiny. * **We will be forced to make changes with data privacy momentum.** ## Where do we go from here? A manifesto for marketing * **We need to transition from traditional tactics to new approaches.** I recognize everyone is ALREADY doing this. Thanks! This Epic is intended to organize us and prioritize us - and to help us sustain the change. * **We need to produce and organize more video content, modular content and bite-sized content.** Long form is on the decline and we should be focused more on collections of content vs. produced long-form. * **We need to become world-class at virtual events of all sizes.** Everything from live-streams to large virtual events. It should be easy for a PMM to "go live", and second-nature for us to host a 1,000 person virtual event. * **We need to learn how to merchandise**. Our CTAs will need to show up contextually in our content. * **Everyone can contribute... to content**. Everyone needs to re-think their role as either a Content Creator, Curator, Re-mixer or Distributor. More on that below. * **We need to re-think our 'databases' and 'metrics**. What if it's more important to get subscribers, followers and views than MQLs and contacts in Marketo? I don't know if it is. But I suspect to do this right, we will have to change our key metrics, and how we think about audiences. * **Physical as last resort or highest touch.** What should think about how we use physical events/activities/meet-ups. There will always be a place for physical. But maybe we only use it at customers (ABM?), or small, regional groups? Or Ted-Talk style forums? ## To sum it up: We need to create the GitLab media/brand platform * **What do the best content creators in the world do to build audience?** * **What metrics do media companies look at?** * **How does this strategy lead to real business interactions?** * **Who can we learn from?**. ## How roles could change and stay the same - these are EXAMPLES. Would love your feedback on this. * **Product Marketing**: still the subject-matter-experts on use cases and product (in marketing), still supporting sales. Now, though, they become content creators and potentially personalities/experts. Videos interviewing customers. Video series on use case ROI, thought leadership, and real-life customer anecdotes. Maybe they curate playlists that include videos from PMs and community. * **Technical Marketing**: technical SMEs, focused on how-to content and demos. They create how-to series, 'go live' with short demos when they have created a cool scenario in GitLab. Similar to what they do today, but with more of an emphasis on quick, bite-sized video and interactive content. * **MPMs**: Campaigns focus on conversion from both our own brand platform (gitlab.tv), but also trying to pull new users/viewers into GitLab.tv. How do we bring more eyeballs into the platform? What conversion points should we have in the platform? They come up with the CTAs and the merchandising strategy for those CTAs. Maybe this is similar to our campaigns today, but more agile with dynamic content. * **Field Marketing**: Content distributors, focused on their regions and target accounts. Micro-campaigns push out relevant content to engaged audiences in our regions and target accounts. Also, sometimes creating regional-specific content so they can have a German language playlist on GitLab.tv. Social activation regionally. Small high-touch events with actual prospects and customers to help sales. * **SDRs**: Content distributors and curators, enabled to curate content they think will be relevant to their target contacts. Product guides, ready to answer questions. Greenfield targeting with GitLabTV content offers. Sometimes content creators for small audiences. * **Content Team**: Similar as today, but with a more integrated content strategy. Blogs point to video, videos point to blogs. Thinking like beat editors? * **All-Remote Team**: I think of All-Remote as a pretty interesting analog for the future. All-Remote is essentially an editorial 'beat' for us, and that team plans the content, produces much of it and curates their content stream, playlists, etc. Similar to what PMM and TMM are doing for Use Cases. They also think of ways to get that content placed. You often hear, for example, the Washington Post Finance Editor being interviewed on NPR or CNN or somewhere else. That's how we have to act. How can we extend our brand reach beyond just our media platform? * **Community Team**: This team would solicit contributed content from our communities - core, meetups communities, edu, open source, etc. They would be able to offer visibility to content creators through gitlab.tv - an audience, if you will, for community members who want to share. ## What happens next *2020-03-25 until 2020-03-31: **Gather feedback from marketing team.** What makes sense or does not? What other ways do you think roles change? What should we keep from existing motions? What other changes/transitions/assumptions should we challenge? **PLEASE POST COMMENTS BELOW** *2020-03-30: **CMO Staff will discuss this and create a first set of actions.** We already have a lot of this content on GitLab YouTube and Unfiltered. We already have a vibrant blog. We already have use cases started. We already have All-Remote started. We are already starting ABM and micro-campaigns. We are already planning. What MVCs can we take to try a more media-centric motion with what we already have in place? Thanks for reading! **PLEASE COMMENT BELOW BY 2020-03-31** *Here's a mock-up of what our homepage might look like in this new world. And, yes, I basically just Photoshop Hacked the TED website ;-). https://www.ted.com/