CMO Chats with Marni Puente, CMO of SAIC

Hi, everyone, and welcome to CMO chats. My name is Marnie Puente, and I’m the Chief Marketing Officer at SAIC.

Marnie, what does your company do?

Great question. SAIC is a premier Fortune 500 company. We’ve got about 24,000 employees. We are a mission integrator serving the government. We serve the broad government, everything from Defense, Space, and civilian intelligence markets, and we’re really focused on advancing the power of technology and innovation to serve and protect our world. In doing that, offer high-end solutions in engineering and professional services.

Thank you so much. As the Chief Marketing Officer at SAIC, what is your current main marketing focus?

I’ve been here for about seven months at SAIC, and a big area that I’ve been focused on since I started is establishing a growth marketing capability. We were doing a lot of good awareness level activities, like brand level at the top of the funnel, as marketers like to refer to, but really starting to establish things like account and deal-based marketing to help drive down funnel growth activity. In revenue, the CMO is oftentimes referred to or synonymous with the chief growth officer, and so that’s really the role I see that I play, working closely with business development to position myself for top opportunities and help drive revenue growth.

Thank you. Can you tell me about a particularly innovative or successful marketing campaign that you’ve run recently?

Absolutely. Again, being fairly new here, we are in the midst of a brand refresh that I’m particularly really, really excited about. We have a fabulous CEO, Toni Townes-Whitley, who set a strategy and vision. And as the CMO, my job is to align with the corporate and business strategy. In doing so, define what it means to be a mission integrator, brand around that, and really own that space. 

And so, we’ve done some comprehensive research as part of this brand refresh, sort of an outside-in view of what our customers are saying, and looking at the market and looking at areas of growth, for instance, civilian mission, advisory, and I’ll also say from a brand campaign perspective, it’s a great time to go out with a new brand, not only in the wintertime month when things are a little slower, but also it’s an election year, and that is always an opportunity for any government contractor to be thinking about. Because no matter who wins the election, there are always a number of transitions and new political appointees. It’s a really good and strategic time for us to be able to go out with a new brand that addresses our client’s toughest problems,

Absolutely. And what an interesting year for you to start at SAIC. So with all of these opportunities, yeah, absolutely. Now, actually, let’s flip it. What are your biggest marketing challenges at the moment?  

Yeah, you know, I would say a lot of my challenges are very similar to what other CMOS face and other companies that I’ve been at. I mean, every CMO will say, ‘Hey, I don’t have enough budget, I don’t have resources’. I think one of the things, though, that is helping to solve that is being able to do more with less is really looking to leverage automation and AI, and so that’s something I’m looking to do at SAIC; already in the process of doing that. 

But another struggle that we as CMOS often have is being able to quantify what we do, right? I’ve been on so many CMO peer exchanges, etc., where we talk about how you really quantify and what the metrics are. The traditional metrics, while still very important, looking at KPIs, such as impressions, page views, etc, are all going to be really important for us as marketers, and we understand that. What I’m finding is when I am talking to the executive leadership team, so other C-suite leaders in the company or the board, for instance, what matters more to them is what are we doing at the end of the day to drive forever new growth? I’m really focused on tracking marketing influence wins and moving in that direction. That’s really where we want to be. Is that driving down funnel growth? It’s a challenge but also, I think, a fantastic opportunity in this growth marketing capability that I’m building,

Absolutely, and I think you may have already partially entered my next question, but how does SAIC stay ahead of its competitors when it comes to marketing?

Sure, yeah, it is something we, as marketers again, are always looking at. Absolutely, the brand refresh is a great opportunity to do that right because this is what I’ve just completed. I believe it’s the biggest outside-in view of the company in terms of how we rack and stack against our competitors, what our customers are saying, you know how we can differentiate, and what’s the white space, etc.

As part of the brand refresh, we’ve embarked on both qualitative and quantitative research with our customers and key prospects. We’ve done conversion analysis with something like 600,000 data points. We have a lot of research, and what we’re doing is looking at that and really trying to understand where the white space for SAIC is. How can we differentiate? How are we? Where are we credible, too? Because that’s something that’s so important in the brand. And then, I think those are all things that will help us really stay ahead of the competition. The other thing, just on a personal level, that I’m really excited about is that I’ve returned to B2G business, government marketing, after about seven, eight years more, on the commercial side, and so I see a real opportunity looking at what I’ve done in consumer, retail, and other industries, is to apply some of those practices to, you know, in the commercial space, to the government space, and so I think that’s another way to stay ahead of the competition. Is it not just to do what everyone else is doing but to look into other industries and say, ‘Hey, what can we do a little bit differently and bring to B2G marketing?’

Absolutely. Using your own experience to make that even better. What do you believe are the biggest opportunities available to CMOS today that may not have been available in the past?

Without a doubt, it’s the technology. I feel like we’ve been saying technologies are evolving more rapidly than ever before, but it’s true, especially with Gen AI and how it’s exploded. Leveraging things like AI quantum computing not to replace marketers but to augment what we do. It’s just such an exciting time to be in this industry and see the ability to transform the ability to leverage these technologies to enhance our creativity, augment the worker, and provide real-time insights and marketing analytics that we’ve never had before. So, I think technology is just going to continue to transform the industry. The challenge is to stay on top of it and its rapid pace. It can be a challenge, but it’s also so exciting, and I can’t wait to see what’s ahead.

Looking more towards the future, What do you believe the future of marketing looks like?

It’s always hard to predict. I do think we’re going to see a lot of automation, taking mundane tasks off the marketers’ plates to allow them to be more creative, focused on strategy, and, again, provide insights like never before. It’s just going to continue to become more and more data-driven. We’re already starting to see that automation marketing channels certainly enhance customer experience, and these real-time analytics allow us to pivot on a dime. It’s pretty incredible when you’re putting an ad campaign out and getting that real-time data, and you can pivot instantly. That is something that we’re starting to see pop up more and more, particularly in certain industries, and I think we’ll grow and become the new norm. This is just a super exciting time, and it’ll continue to evolve.

Now, this next question is my favourite. If you could describe the role of a CMO with one word, what would that word be and why? 

I love this question, too. I think I’ve been asked this before, and it’s always an easy one for me. I’ve said it a few times already, and it’s growth again. You know, the CMO is often synonymous with the chief growth officer. As marketers, we have such an advantage because we’re obsessed with the customer, right? Our job is to be obsessed and be that customer advocate. We bring a really unique opportunity and vantage point into the organisation and then can leverage that right to be able to create these buyer personas, increase customer intimacy, and understand what that buyer journey might look like that will ultimately drive down funnel growth for our organisation and generate revenue growth as well. I would say growth for sure.

One of my favourites. Thank you so much. Marnie, one last question for you: what career advice would you like to share with other marketing leaders? As well as for up-and-coming marketers.

I love this question because I personally love serving as a mentor to many and being able to give back. I’ve had so many incredible mentors in my life, and so I often share career advice and what’s worked well for me. I think being open to new experiences and opportunities, you just never know where they’ll take you. I certainly haven’t had a linear path in my career, and I know many haven’t. And so I think just being open to those experiences, I would say. 

Also, looking outside of your own industry for best practices is a good idea. It’s easy to get siloed into, for instance, government marketing. But looking at other industries, it can be consumer retail or other highly regulated industries like banking and energy and utilities, etc., and saying, ‘Gosh, they’re solving some of the same problems,’ and you just really get fresh perspectives. That’s something that has served me well. 

Finally, I would say to establish strong networks and mentors. I would not be where I am today without the incredible mentors that I’ve had in my career. I’ve learned a lot from them, and I’ve kept in touch with them over the years, and so really lean on those folks, and you know, learn from them and continue to evolve.