Lynn Morton - Traitify

Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Demand Generation Club Podcast. I'm your host Franco Caporale. Our guest today is Lynn Morton, Vice President of Demand and Growth at Traitify. 

Traitify found growth applying visual-based personality assessments during the hiring process for high-volume workforces. Now the company is expanding product offerings focusing  on helping companies engage and grow employees once they are onboard.

In her role, Lynn sets the strategic direction for marketing initiatives. Her efforts resulted in 130% growth in 2020 during the height of the pandemic.

Lynn has extensive experience leading SaaS companies in their marketing efforts to accelerate growth. In her career, she has successfully built brands while driving pipeline growth,  and establishing companies’ products and services as solution of choice. Her experience also includes building out the strategy and customer experience offerings across B2B, healthcare, nonprofit, and consumer verticals in her 9 years at a top Baltimore agency, R2integrated.

Transcript

Franco Caporale:

Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Demand Generation Club podcast. I'm your host, Franco Caporale. Our guest today is Lynn Morton, Vice President of Demand and Growth at Traitify found growth applying visual based personality assessment during the hiring process for high volume workforces. Now the company is expanding product offering, focusing on helping companies engage new employees once they are on board. In her role, Lynn sets the strategic direction for marketing initiatives. Her efforts resulted in 130% growth in 2020 during the height of the pandemic. Lynn also has extensive experience leading SaaS companies in their marketing efforts to accelerate growth. In her career, she has successfully built brands while driving pipeline growth and establishing companies' product and services as the brand of choice. Her experience includes building out the strategy and customer experience offerings across B2B, healthcare, nonprofit and consumer verticals. So I'm really happy to welcome today Lynn Morton, vice president of Demand and Growth at Traitify. Lynn, it's fantastic to have you on the episode today. Thanks again for joining us.

Lynn Morton:

Thanks for having me. I'm really excited.

Franco Caporale:

Tell us a little bit about your background, your career trajectory. How did you end up becoming the VP of marketing at Traitify?

Lynn Morton:

So I think I've taken sort of a non-traditional trajectory maybe from where I originally intended. I like to call myself a storyteller. My background is in theater. I have my BFA in theater. I was a director by trade. I ran a theater company while doing a marketing career. And I got into marketing because I was doing some internships in college at some performing arts organizations. And it was sort of as social media was coming up and I was like, "Hey, there's this really great opportunity where all me and my friends go to plan to do things and why aren't we utilizing that to help expose these... Our communities to these really amazing artists that we're hosting in our organization?" And it kind of took off from there. I've always been one to help promote my friends bands and things like that. And marketing to me has just been a way to tell stories.

And so I went from telling stories on stage to telling brand stories. And I worked at an agency for a really long time heading up strategy, working on some products that I guarantee you, you're probably using today or would covet. And I worked several years with Microsoft when I first started my agency career. And for me, I loved working the agency. I loved the creativity, but what I was looking for was to make more of an impact and have some more ownership. So I moved brand side. I've always been a lover of tech startups. And so I found a tech startup local to me that's called Traitify.

We're a human insight platform. And so we help enterprise businesses leverage human insight to do better hiring. So usually that comes in the form of assessments and the insights that come out of those assessments so we can help people optimize their talent experience. And so I've been the VP of marketing here at Traitify for about a year and a half now. I started in December 2019, so I had all of these amazing, wonderful plans for what 2020 was going to do and what was going to happen and then COVID hit. And so it's been such an amazing learning experience over the last year as a marketer and really tested sort of my ability to pivot, if you will, and still create and deliver what marketers need to while navigating some really incredible challenges for not just our business, but the world.

Franco Caporale:

Yeah. You started a very interesting time at Traitify. Perfect timing.

Lynn Morton:

I did.

Franco Caporale:

How is your team today? How big is your team and the company in general?

Lynn Morton:

Yeah, so we've gone through some shifts over the last year. And so all in all, I've got three on my team, including myself. We were a little bit bigger prior to COVID because the SDR team was part of my team. But unfortunately we had to make some tough choices about what our programs were going to look like moving through COVID. And as I mentioned, we focus on enterprise businesses that do specifically high volume hiring, focusing on restaurants, retail and hospitality. And so given... We've obviously pivoted and expanded beyond that, but we had to recognize that our core audience wasn't necessarily buying because we helped them hire and that was not what they were doing in that moment. So we've expanded into manufacturing and logistics, healthcare, et cetera, in a way to sort of overcome a lot of that. But we had to kind of blow up. I literally blew up my entire plan for 2020, if I'm honest, and was able to sort of scrounge up a new way to approach what we were going to do.

Franco Caporale:

And you guys are probably going to see now the opposite wave coming back as soon as hospitality and retail restarted full fledge. I'm sure you guys are getting ready for it.

Lynn Morton:

It's fascinating. So I sort of have this idea of the applicant wave, but what's actually happening right now is what we sort bat around and call the candidate crisis where because we focus on high volume roles and what's happening within that industry, there's definitely a talent shortage that's happening right now. So it depends on sort of what segment of the industry you're focused on, where some people are focused on gangbusters and trying to get the best talent in to reduce turnover. And some people just want candidates. So we've definitely seen recovery for sure. But I would also say that doesn't mean that the industry still isn't facing major challenges as a result of what's happened in the last year.

Franco Caporale:

Absolutely. And from my conversation with you, what really struck me as an interesting topic in all your experience at Traitify was about your ability to bootstrap literally an ABM strategy and ABM program with a limited budget, including all the peoples that you had to do. So I want to unpack a little bit that specific topic. How do you guys are able to run an effective ABM program that is the goal of many startups, but without over-investing in platforms and data and other solutions?

Lynn Morton:

So I definitely focus on what are the foundational investments that I need to make. And so there's things that I need to put money into. And I just sort of accept that. I need to put money into a CRM. I need to put money into a marketing automation platform. And for us, we use HubSpot for both of those. I need to put money into a contact database such as Zoom info because I can't get around those. I need to have those things, where they're sort of nice to have. And the things that make ABM a lot easier are the places that unfortunately I have to get smart and sort of hack around, right? And so the approach that I've taken in terms of where I make my investments is, okay, hey, what are the elements of ABM that I need to accomplish? And are there ways, sort of non-traditional ways, that I can still get those things while without it really impacting the program as a whole?

So I really leverage partners who can bring stuff to the table with me without having to make the investment in a full orchestration platform. So some examples of that that I do is I have a programmatic partner called Brazuca where I can do matching to my target account list on those contacts through Livegram. I leverage a content syndication partner called Integrate where I can add in my intent data to the leads that are coming in. So I actually... Not only am I doing content syndication program, I know... And if I get really, really targeted with my intent terms, I know that the people that are coming in are more likely to buy and convert because I've gotten intent data attached to that. And then within that I also try to take those different elements and then break them down into ways that I can get smarter and more intelligent.

So I was talking about content syndication programs. I also think about what sort of content I am putting into those programs and sort of how do they represent different phases of the buying funnel. One thing that I've really hit home with my team is I'm really inspired by Gartners. They call it buyer enablement and thinking about buying jobs. And I think as marketers we've for years focused on the funnel, and it gets talked about as a really linear process. And I think in some cases it is. I think in some cases it's not. And so I try to think about what are the buying jobs and what are the content that I can align with that and what helps people get further down the road when it comes to actually completing a purchase and working that into these programs and layering that in as a way to not only hook them but push them more into the hands of sales.

Franco Caporale:

Are you also investing in any inbound type of strategy in parallel to your ABM program or not? And if not, why not?

Lynn Morton:

So what's funny is I think if this were two years ago and I was back at my agency, looking at the program that I do now, I would've thought I was crazy. But getting into it and sort of being on the brand side of things and getting my hands dirty, I'm probably one of the few companies out there that isn't investing really heavily in Google ads. We don't have a Google ad spend. I focus a lot of my ads spend more in programmatic display and that CRM matching. So I'm focused on my target account list as well as on LinkedIn. I'm doing CRM matching, and I forget... Tailored audiences or custom audiences. I can't remember what LinkedIn calls it off the top of my head.

So that way I know that I'm hitting the people that I'm trying to hit. Where Google ads are really hard for us is, as an assessment company that has a personality assessment, some of the keywords that we would rank for or that have really high volume, where I could get scale out of a Google Ads program are also things that your everyday consumer would be clicking on and clicking through to and technically converting on our free demo because people like to take personality quizzes or in our case an assessment.

So for us, it was a sort of hard decision to make. Or I shouldn't say hard decision. It was sort of an unexpected outcome of the industry and market that I'm working on. Because we've got... It's very niche. We've got a really tight ICP. And I've got a limited budget, so I've got to spend money in the places where I can actually hit the people that I know a hundred percent are my buyers. And with Google ads, Google ads just can't deliver that for me.

Franco Caporale:

That makes sense. And so what are these channels that you are leveraging today? You mentioned some of the contents indication display ads. How are they working for you and kind of how are you orchestrating those channels?

Lynn Morton:

I think when it comes to my channels, the big sort of lens that I take is this a channel that will allow me to market to a specific person? And so on top of the funnel awareness, I have a PR agency that I work with that focuses on very broad, but that's to position us as a thought leader. And so when it comes to our marketing channels, I mentioned I use programmatic display with email match. We use social ads specifically only LinkedIn. We don't utilize Facebook. We didn't see really good results for us on that. So we've doubled down and focused on LinkedIn. All of our campaigns have some sort of tailored audience, audience matching associated with them on that, content syndication. I'm not audience matching, but I am pulling from intent, which is then filtered down based on our ICP. So literally every lead that comes in through our content syndication programs, my sales team is like "I would love to have a conversation with them."

So that means I'm getting at least from an ICP perspective and getting people that sales wants to talk to. And then those go into our target account list. And as we move further down the funnel, we start going into sort of the combination of outbound, which is email, calling and LinkedIn connections, things like that where we start to get a little bit more one- to-one within the type of communication that we do. And this is where we start to get into much more detailed segmentation within the target account list. So looking at how they came in for us, are they part of our content syndication program? Are they part of our target account list that we've been working? What their role is, how that relates to the products that we're selling. Because we have a couple of product solutions within our larger platform. And within that, that's where we're really looking to either do one of two things, sort of educate and nurture with content or get them to open a discovery meeting with sales.

And so because we are a really nimble team and had to make some challenges in this sort of phase of our funnel, any communication that is more on the education nurture side, it's from the Traitify brand and it's more of a marketing spin even if it comes out of our growth team. Our growth team is also responsible for any sort of off-the-bat sales ask, "Hey, would you like to learn more or take our demo?" And we actually make those coming from our individual sales people. So we really have that. We put our sales people front and center with the prospects because we want to start a relationship before they even start talking to them physically.

Franco Caporale:

And so when that handoff happens, when are you triggering that one-to-one communication? Is there a system or a specific filter triggers that you use to make that transition?

Lynn Morton:

Yeah, so we have sort of... When a discovery meeting happens, it's where we actually put them into our pipeline, and we've got some triggers around when a discovery meeting sort would fall flat, if you will. And we would sort of close lost the discovery, if you will. But we've put them in there so that way we can better see what's happening. And the handoff to sales happens the moment that somebody asks for either a discovery or a pitch or a demo. Usually the customer... A discovery meeting is something that sales people want. It's not something that your customers want. They just want to get into the sales process.

Having worked at the agency for so long and bought a bunch of tech, I know whether or not you're a right fit for me, most of the time. I just want to talk to a salesperson. But there has to be some sort of... We sort of set our sales team up for success where they can move from a discovery right into a pitch very, very quickly on that. I think as our programs expand, that will probably add more layers in. But in that piece, that's where our handoff to sales happens is once somebody raises a flag and says that they do want to learn more, isn't just engaging but actually voicing that they want to get in touch with us.

Franco Caporale:

And once an account and account becomes an opportunity, how do you manage from a marketing perspective that bottom of the funnel? What is your role?

Lynn Morton:

That's where we really start to move into more of a sales enablement first perspective. I definitely see that there's opportunity for us in the future to add some... Kind of bring in some of the higher level awareness stuff to support that. Because it's always good to have content and sort of your name in front of people while they're in the sales perspective. But again, we're a small team that's trying to scale. So I got to focus on where my efforts are making the most impact and not just what are the nice to haves. You've probably caught on that I haven't mentioned orchestration platform in any way, shape, or form, because one, they're really expensive and they are nice to have right now. So going back to your question though, we definitely move into more of that a sales enablement and as the deals become bigger and further down our pipeline is where it starts to become much more custom and personalized.

So I think some of our strengths on our side, if I had to rank them, one of our top strengths is we are really great at creating really dazzling assets very quickly that can be personalized very quickly. So I've got video content creators in house because we just have people who have a lot of different skills embodied in one person. So we can pump out custom videos. We can pump out custom PDFs, et cetera very, very quickly. And that makes our really sort nimble team seem much more powerful than we are because we have utility players and though design doesn't live on our team, I utilize them a lot. Sales, us and product all utilize our design team very, very quickly. Or sorry, to very high volume. Sorry, go ahead.

Franco Caporale:

I'm sorry. No, I wanted to say because you're talking about bootstrapping all these initiatives, when do you decide that it's time to scale that and scale this whole program after you've made all these very strategic bets in different directions?

Lynn Morton:

Yeah, I think when I start making some of those larger investments to make it easier for my team is when I've got... I've been able to prove out a really, really high ROI on what we're doing right now. We haven't broken anything. The system is working. We're getting these opportunities opening for us and we have a really long sales cycle of at least six months, generally, can be five sometimes, also depends on the customer. We've had sales cycles that easily take a year. So when we're working on these programs and sort of evaluating how they're working, we're looking a lot on engagement through too and whether or not they're opening opportunities for us.

And so as we start to see sort of the flood of opportunity that we're expecting in this Q4... Because we've been working on this for the last year or so in different variations, but I'd say our sort of current mix we've been working on in 2021, as we start to see the flood, then we'll start making additional investments to either expand what we're already doing. So hey, am I going to go spend more on contents indication and get those leads in because that's a really great source for us? Or am I going to start investing more in tech because my team can only handle so much or am I going to invest in more team members? I think when we see what starts to come in, we'll start to determine how we make the investments out of the results of this program.

Franco Caporale:

This is really, really helpful. I love your strategy of leveraging partners and kind of find this all this solution without having to go all out and buy expensive platform. But really using this strategic partners in the most effective way. I think this is a great strategy. But I have one more question for you, which is something I like to ask to every guest is, what is really top of mind for you, top priority, something you're trying to solve or something that keeps you up at night?

Lynn Morton:

Yeah, so I mentioned earlier about how my plan just got completely blown up, and events were a huge spine of that plan, that original plan. And I've experimented with some virtual events in the last year, and they're just not delivering the amount of opportunity that I was seeing from in-person events, at least in terms of opening opportunities for our sales people. And so I think the thing that I'm sort of, "What am I planning for ?" in H2 and beyond, is what role are events going to play again for me because I think everything... Events are starting to happen again, in- person events are starting to happen again. And they were such a valuable part of the marketing mix, especially for our industry prior to COVID. And so what impact are they going to have moving forward? Because I think people's attitudes are just so different about in-person events and participating in them, even though people are really excited to sort of get back to normal,. I don't know what's going to happen with events.

And so I'm sort of preparing myself to be as nimble as possible within that, which is super fun because events are a high-dollar investment. They're not cheap in any way, shape or form. And as I've mentioned today, my strategy is very much driven by a... Trying to be as lean as possible on the financial side of my investments. So for me that's definitely something that I'm thinking about and how do I plan for that? And if things get derailed, where can I sort of reallocate those investments to keep this program, our dimension program, pumping out what it needs to, so sales is happy? Because let's put it this way, if sales is happy, then I've done my job and if sales isn't happy, then okay, I got to look at what I'm doing and fix some stuff.

Franco Caporale:

Live events are hard to replace with anything. I think we are all looking forward to going back to in-person events.

Lynn Morton:

I mean they were always just so important for me, even from just a professional development perspective. And I think some companies have been doing it well, but I even noticed some of the events, the virtual events that I've been as an attendee and I am staying away from vendors and that's not good. But I think a lot of that can also be indicative of the buying cycles. And so as people... As things start to open back up and as people's budgets start to expand again, they're going to be more... There's going to be more opportunity to buy. So you've got to be where they're going to go buy.

Franco Caporale:

Absolutely. Lynn, I really enjoyed our conversation. Thanks again for joining us in this episode.

Lynn Morton:

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.