CMO Chats with Muriel Raffatin, Head of Global Field & Partner Marketing at Talend, a Qlik company

What does your company do?

Talend is a Qlik technology company with a mission to accelerate the time to value and data monetisation efforts. Our purpose is to be the leader in modern data management and product management. We offer the most complete end-to-end platform in the market, combining leading data integration, data governance, and quality capabilities. Our platform also delivers the most flexible solution that supports the widest variety of deployment architecture, data environment, and technology. Finally, Talend’s value lies in being a trusted provider that delivers transparent pricing and quicker returns on investment.

What’s new for your company in 2023?

In 2023, our key focus is to accelerate time to value and data modernisation efforts with two initiatives. We have recently released additional features and capabilities to enhance our cloud management and simplify integration with the new Talend Cloud Management Console. Secondly, we have improved connectivity for data modernization by bringing additional certified connectors.

As the CMO in your company, what is your main marketing focus currently?

Talend’s current marketing focus is to understand the needs of our target audience, which includes CDOs, architects, and engineers. We want to identify where they consume information and how we can help them better understand new technologies and processes in order to provide the best value possible.

We aim to engage with them in a more strategic and relevant way. To achieve this, we are using what we call intent data. This allows us to not only identify who we need to target but also how and when we should engage with them to make the most impact. In today’s B2B marketing environment, having access to more data about when our audience is ready to engage with us is critical.

How do you measure success and ROI in your department?

I would say that all markets are always facing similar challenges. Today’s approach is to be extremely revenue-driven and engage with marketing communities to make them understand how we can impact business. As marketers, most of our KPIs are the end of the prospection and sale cycle. Our KPIs are mainly focused on audience engagement, creating and influencing marketing-sourced pipelines, and how we ultimately impact the revenue.

But speaking to your customers, hearing from your customer, and the voice of the customer is most important to keep them engaged during this time. If you don’t know how their needs are changing, especially during these times, how will you meet those needs? How will you pivot to how their needs are changing in the future?

How do you measure success and ROI in your department?

Returning to my earlier point, as marketers, it’s essential to adapt to new tools and utilise the available data. One success factor we’ve noticed is that it’s no longer effective to engage with audiences at an early stage. Instead, we’re seeing a lot of activity when our audience consumes our data, such as webinars, whitepapers or eBooks. Thanks to these pieces of intent data, it enables us to engage with prospects at the right time and increase the chances of success.

When we partner with our SDR team or business development team, we’re able to utilise this data to reduce the sales cycle because we engage with our audience when they are ready to have a certain type of conversation. We also increase the conversion rate by engaging with prospects who share similarities with our existing customers.

What are your biggest marketing challenges at the moment?

It’s hard to say we have only one challenge, but I would say the biggest challenge is to strike the right balance between how much to invest in brand awareness and how much to invest in pipeline creation and revenue generation. While it’s easier for a marketer to measure the immediate impact on investment to create pipelines, it’s harder to measure the efficiency of your brand awareness efforts.

It’s important to note that if people are not aware of your brand, it will be difficult to convert prospects into customers. With this, the challenge is to find ways to justify marketing investments and strike the right balance between building brand awareness and generating revenue.

How does your company stay ahead of its competitors in terms of marketing?

Our niche is all about Talend’s data management, ensuring our customers get the best value from their data. To compete better, we aim to provide additional value to our customers. We employ a combination of window sales and blue ocean strategies. At some point, we need to compete where our competitors are and demonstrate that our product is better. We also need to find a whitespace where we can become the standalone leader. Messaging is key for us, and we spend a lot of time adding something unique so that our customers can easily understand and appreciate the value we bring.

What does the future of marketing look like?

I believe that it’s difficult to predict the future of marketing as it can tend to look like a circle—sometimes, we have to restart. However, I believe that the future of marketing lies in striking a balance between being data-driven and maintaining a strategic business mindset. While data is crucial for informing marketing strategies, it should not be the sole factor in designing them. It is important for marketers to embrace data and new technologies while also keeping in mind the human aspect of marketing and understanding the business. In the future, marketers should strive to make informed decisions that are a blend of data and strategic thinking.

How does your company integrate sustainability into its overall marketing strategy?

Inclusivity has been a huge part of us. We, thought leaders from our HR team, published a number of papers on DEI (Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion), for example. That’s something that we’re passionate about, talked about, and something that we participate in. That’s one area that we’re really using in sustainability and ensuring that our audience is aware of the fact that this is an important social responsibility for us.

What is the role of the CMO in one word? Why?

I would compare our situation to that of a chameleon, as our environment is constantly changing and we must adapt to these changes. Having a 360-degree view of our customers and business is crucial, and it’s important to keep an open mind and stay aware of our surroundings. Our customers are evolving, and their methods of interacting with brands are changing as well. As B2B marketers, selling our products can be complicated, as we have different strategies and work with various types of customers. We need to be able to oversee all of these aspects in order to deliver our products, effectively engage with our customers, and create a successful marketing strategy.

What career advice would you like to share with other marketing leaders?

A key factor that I think is really important is being a business leader. Any marketer should really understand their product, their buyer, and how sales are engaging on the field site in order to set up the best marketing strategy. Without understanding the project and being a good business leader, marketing will be more complex.