Norman Guadagno is currently CMO at Acoustic, where he is helping reimagine marketing technology. Over the past two decades, he has held a number of marketing and strategy roles with a deep focus on business transformation, marketing acceleration, and brand building. Norman was previously SVP of Marketing at Carbonite, helping to successfully transform that company from B2C to B2B. He has also held senior marketing positions at digital marketing agency Wire Stone (now part of Accenture Interactive), Microsoft, and Oracle. 

Episode Summary

This episode features an interview with Norman Guadagno, CMO at Acoustic, where he is helping reimagine marketing technology. Over the past two decades, he has held a number of marketing and strategy roles with a deep focus on business transformation, marketing acceleration, and brand building. Norman was previously SVP of Marketing at Carbonite, helping to successfully transform that company from B2C to B2B. He has also held senior marketing positions at digital marketing agency Wire Stone, Microsoft, and Oracle. 

On this episode, Norman shares the video strategy that many marketers are sleeping on, the depth of thought that went into Acoustic’s recent website redesign, and why SEM is his #1 uncuttable budget item.

Key Takeaways

SEM and SEO have to work together.
You can’t just appeal to the rational side of your audience. You have to also appeal to the emotional side as well.
People forget how video humanizes marketing through the “show” aspect of the “show don’t tell” side of marketing.

Quotes

“Nobody sees through BS faster than another marketer. There's a level of transparency, honesty, and integrity that I think marketers need to bring to the table when they're marketing to their peers.”

“I have been and will continue to be–and the numbers prove it–a believer in search. SEM works no matter how you slice it. SEM is not a one and done. You have to water and trim the plants every single day because it really requires attention. You have to understand the market. You have to be thoughtful about what you’re investing in and continue to iterate.”

“Our website is conceptually the center of our demand creation universe. No matter what else we're going to do, we're trying to bring people back to the website to spend time there or to download content or complete a ‘contact us’ form. I look at the website as a living, breathing, entity and the second you take your eye off it and say, ‘it's good,’ you're wrong. You have to cultivate it and think about the experience that you're delivering and be willing to change things.”

“For a first time CMO, I’d give the following advice: You are going to make mistakes. That's part of the deal. Don't forget that in the making of these mistakes, that’s how you start to learn what's actually going to resonate with your audience and you can't be afraid of that.”

Episode Transcript

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