Neda Talyai - Heap

The guest of this episode is Neda Talyai, Head of Demand Generation at Heap. She will discuss about using data to drive better demand generation results.

Transcript

Franco Caporale:

Hello, and welcome to the first episode of the second season of the Demand Generation Club Podcast. I'm your host, Franco Caporale. If you missed the last season, you can check every episode at demandgenerationclub.com. In the upcoming episodes, we'll interview demand generation and B2B marketing leaders, and we'll focus on a different topic for each episode.

Franco Caporale:

Our guest today is Neda Talyai, Head of Demand Generation at Heap. Heap is a digital product analytics platform for those who need to understand how users interact with their company's product, site, or digital experience. With Heap, organizations of all sizes can remove technical bottlenecks and gain a single comprehensive view of their customers. In the last 10 years, Neda has served in growth roles across sales and marketing. Before Heap, Neda was VP of marketing at Splash, overseeing demand gen, marketing ops, digital marketing events, and more. Prior to Splash, she established Candiio, a boutique consulting agency where she supported growth strategies across top of funnel and bottom to strengthen customer acquisition and retention. Neda has held marketing roles at Tableau, Armoire and Fierce. She's a fearless leader who believes in growing people and companies. So I'm really happy to welcome today, Neda Talyai, Head of Demand Generation at Heap.

Franco Caporale:

Neda, it's great to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Neda Talyai:

Thanks for having me.

Franco Caporale:

So I would like to ask you right away a little bit about your background. What was your career like? What were your previous roles and what is your role today?

Neda Talyai:

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to start with where I'm at today, which I am currently at a company called Heap. We are a digital product analytics platform and we help a mix of different companies, industries, look at conversion rate optimization, how is their product performing? We help them measure things like engagement, adoption, and really look at how to improve results.

Neda Talyai:

How I got here, my path has been a little bit interesting. I started early in my career as a salesperson. I worked for a leadership and development company in Seattle and I transitioned into working at Tableau, now owned by Salesforce. And really, I would say I grew my career there in terms of like, how do I work on a daily basis? I got brought onto the demand gen team. I was working in field marketing with our enterprise sales team and really kind of moved into integrated campaign management, where I was focused on growing our enterprise and IT audience.

Neda Talyai:

And actually then did a stint at a small startup to sell online women's rental clothing to just kind of test out my skills. And shortly after that I actually started my own consulting company where I was working with a mix of companies to go out and work on things like customer engagement. What is the actions that customer success people are taking? I worked with a cool data streaming company on their content strategy and some demand gen efforts. And I've really just kind of made my way through. And I had the opportunity to join Splash a couple of years ago, which was an event marketing platform company, and to sit as their VP of marketing, which really gave me a really great purview of over all of marketing. And that's really what led me to my role today.

Neda Talyai:

So I've kind of seen all of the marketing mix. I've seen a lot of the sales mix and it's been a really great way to kind of like test the skills, explore new areas and just find my place in demand, which is where I think I thrive and where I really enjoy marketing the most.

Franco Caporale:

And you have been at Heap for about two or three months now, what was your initial impact and what were your first priorities there?

Neda Talyai:

Yeah. Digest and absorb as much as I can. The first priorities were just really to understand our business in terms of like, what is our go to market motion? Where do we need to improve? And how can we actually do a better job of executing demand generation programs? And so I've spent really the last three months focused on looking at, one, what are we doing? How do we do it? Both across marketing as well as sales. Because you're sitting in that demand role, you're really understanding what's happening at the very top of the funnel. Also what's happening mid funnel, how are we executing? And then what's happening obviously with our closed-won and lost data and what can we do? Where can we get better? Where can we be more strategic? And working the structure into place.

Neda Talyai:

So some of the first things were like, figure out digital, right? From a marketing perspective. How do we improve? What's coming inbound from a digital perspective? What's happening across our paid channels? How do we improve volume there knowing that it's a very cost-effective way to drive inbound leads? And really generate a pipeline from that channel. It's something that I know works. I've seen it done really well. And that was one of the first things that I prioritized.

Neda Talyai:

In addition to that, I was really looking at the demand team and kind of just assessing, what do we need to do to be successful and really grow the team? And so we've been doing quite a bit of hiring and just moving people into different types of roles where they're focused, for example, on integrated campaigns. We've transitioned one of our demand gen marketers into a growth marketer, who is really focused on driving our product-led growth. So we've made some structural changes as well as role changes to help us move the needle on where we want to go in the next year.

Franco Caporale:

And Heap is a very fast growing company, so how do you approach now 2021? What is kind of your plan compared to last year, obviously from what you were able to gather in these few months?

Neda Talyai:

Yeah. So we're definitely going to be focused on a tighter go-to-market motion in terms of what we're saying, who we're saying it to, and what exactly is the sales motion and marketing motion behind that? So we're really looking at our business segmentation and audiences personas, it's kind of just going back to the drawing board. So a lot of work has been done in the last three months to really set us up for our new fiscal year, which will be starting here on February 1st, 2021. So we're excited about that. And as far as top priorities, it really isn't just like doing a really good job executing. From a marketing perspective, our team has grown, which is awesome, but with that comes the growth pains of how are we going to do things? How does that change the way that we work together?

Neda Talyai:

And one of the things that I'm kind of dead set on is making sure we have a really healthy motion and that we're all kind of marching to the same drum beat at the end of the day. That it's smooth and it feels more of a dance rather than where we're at right now, which is a little bit more, this team is doing this, demand is doing this. But I really want to see coordination improve because I believe that will help us do a better job executing, and execution is one of the areas that I want to see us improve. And part of what we're doing there is putting in the right structure and in building out some process for our team so that we actually know how to work best together. So we're doing a lot of team process, also just a lot of open conversations about what is and what isn't working, so that we can start off the new year with a really sound plan to go and execute.

Franco Caporale:

That's awesome. And what kind of tools do you use to help you with this execution and to track all of your processes?

Neda Talyai:

Great question. So we recently brought on a project management tool because that's something that as you're growing a marketing team with different campaigns and different programs, one of the things that keeps everyone kind of coordinated is just project planning, project management. And so we are actually working through right now, the right structure for our project management tool so that everyone knows how to use it. And part of that project management aspect is also the communication. So that tool will help us better communicate as a team, as well as with the rest of our organization so they'll know what's happening. They'll know when to ask to get involved or where to go for information or links. So we're actually super excited about this effort.

Franco Caporale:

What is the tool that you guys are using?

Neda Talyai:

Yeah. We're using Wrike.

Franco Caporale:

Oh, nice.

Neda Talyai:

Shameless plug for Wrike. Wrike got acquired, I believe by Atlassian, but we'll be using Wrike for our internal project management.

Franco Caporale:

Yeah, I like to hear names of the tech stacks. I think people love to hear what other demand generation professionals are using in their companies, so I always like to mention them.

Neda Talyai:

We evaluated quite a few and we went with Wrike because we knew we would grow into it. So my goal here is to keep our processes as simple as we can today, but knowing that this tool will also be there as we grow and as we expand our marketing team and as our company grows as well.

Franco Caporale:

Perfect. And what do you guys use for marketing automation and CRM?

Neda Talyai:

Yeah, so our tech stack, we use Salesforce and Marketo. Big fan of Marketo. The rest of our tech stack, we've got a number of tools, but my favorite addition to the tech stack is actually Heap, which is obviously I work for the company. Of course I'm going to say this, but the reality is I've been at a couple of companies now. In my last company, Splash, we also were using Heap and we were able to do some pretty cool things with marketing programs.

Neda Talyai:

And we're recently right now in beta, we've got a Heap and Marketo integration, so we can do some pretty cool targeting. We can do some really great segmenting and we can really build our personalization at scale with this new integration. So it's something our team has been playing with quite a bit for the last three months and it was actually one of the first things I got involved with during my first week on the job. I started working on our Marketo Heap, what are we going to do? How are we going to do it? And it's actually taken off and it will continue to grow and be a major part of our business. So it's very exciting.

Franco Caporale:

And obviously data is a huge part of what you do every day. So can you tell me more about how you are approaching all of this significant amount of data that you probably have access to, to drive better demand generation processes and results?

Neda Talyai:

Yeah. So I think my love for data probably started early in my career at Fierce, where I had to go in and do obviously all of the... I was a BDR, and then I moved into a BDR manager living on the marketing team. And I ended up doing a lot of our reporting in terms of conversion rates, what was coming in, how were things converting? What's moving to closed one? And one of the things that I learned very quickly was, why am I doing this every month or every couple of weeks in Excel? It was a super big pain. And that's when I started searching for products and that's actually how I found Tableau. And then I quickly fell in love with the tool, which ultimately made me want to work there. And at Tableau, I learned a lot just about the data streams and just where different data comes from, how you can use that to actually do your job better as a marketer.

Neda Talyai:

And I always said, what if I just had this piece of data? I could do these things. And that's a mix of attributes that larger organizations have probably had for a long time, but smaller companies weren't really accessing data like that 10 years ago and doing targeted programs based on tech stack that we can now get from tools like Clearbit or Zoom or DiscoverOrg. So the ability to target with the data that comes from different sources has been game changing, I would say, just as a marketer.

Neda Talyai:

And so when we think about the role of product usage data and especially for those of us in kind of the SaaS world, understanding where people are falling off from the signup trial page, where they're in your product and what's actually happening. And not having to go ask engineering or partner with product marketing, who partners with product management, who partners with engineering to get a flag installed in the product, has been a differentiator, I would say, and it will continue to be a differentiator for us and for others who are looking to grow their usage, grow adoption, grow engagement, because you really understand like where your customers are having challenges and where they're falling off.

Neda Talyai:

And so being able to take data like that and feed it into Marketo to build programs and be able to share that data with Salesforce, where our sales team is working, we can all have better and smarter conversations. So this is what's super interesting to me and something that we're taking baby steps right now, but definitely something that I see us being able to grow and scale our business off of.

Franco Caporale:

And what are some of the segments that you are able to create with this data that you use? Because obviously you have data on the product use, on the free trial, on the conversion or where they come from. Can you give me an example of some of these segments that you are kind of able to target this way in a very specific way?

Neda Talyai:

Yeah. So we've got a couple of different things going on. So one of the segments we're looking at is kind of the top of funnel, people who are coming into the free product, in our free trial, and just understanding what's happening, and we're breaking that down by our business segment. So what's happening in some of our SMB business first, mid market or enterprise, how are people engaging? What are the things that they're having challenges with in terms of like, is it how you're installing? Is it how you're building dashboards? Is it how you're running queries? Where are you getting stuck? And so we've got targeted email campaigns going out that help guide the user on a different journey. So that's one way.

Neda Talyai:

And then another use case is on the customer side, right? So kind of similar in that vein, which is, where are customers getting hung up? What's happening with a specific segment of our customers or a specific industry? Are there any insights or product updates and features that we want to tell them about or show them? And so we're using a mix of what we know from our CRM and then that CRM data is also pushed into Heap so that we can actually build different segments that would then feed into Marketo. So we've got kind of this closed loop processing going on where we're feeding information, learning, sending it back to activate on in terms of our marketing teams, sending that back to sales or customer success to act on. So it's a really good process that we've got going.

Franco Caporale:

And I assume testing is a big part of what you do every day. Can you tell us some of the campaigns that you've tested in this program? That you've tested in these last few months at Heap that has worked or didn't work.

Neda Talyai:

Yeah. So kind of on that same vein, just taking that story a bit further, for customers who sign up for the free trial, we added in multi-touch email marketing program from a nurture perspective. And so we saw that people who weren't installing, when they received these emails... Our goal was, our hypothesis was these people will be more successful if we emailed them and gave them tools or support, right? So that's a pretty basic one. And the reality is we did see a lift and we saw a pretty significant lift. So that was one test that went well.

Neda Talyai:

One of the tests that didn't work so well, and that actually was good thinking and something that was a good learning for us is we tried to really pinpoint people who were doing a very specific action, but there were some updates to that segment that we didn't think through. And so we sent some messages out to existing customers where maybe they had a conversation a week before with our CSM and maybe it wasn't as relevant and the message wasn't quite right, which also gave us a good reminder that when we're running programs on behalf of other teams in our organization, we really need to make sure that our message is honed and it doesn't feel too "businessy". Because as I said, these people could have had a conversation yesterday. So that's just, it's something else that we're taking into consideration more. That learning was, I think, two or three weeks after I started, but it was definitely like, okay, yeah, that totally makes sense. So things like that are going to help us in the future.

Franco Caporale:

And from what you can see on the data, what are some of your top lead sources today? Where is most of your good traffic coming from?

Neda Talyai:

That's a good question. This is something we've been digging into. We get a lot from organic and our paid channels from Google are working really well right now. So we're very excited about that. I would say those are kind of the two that we are most excited about. We're putting a lot of effort into just our organic traffic and bringing in more from SEO. But I think SEO and SEM are kind of the two that we're leaning into the most.

Franco Caporale:

So are you guys pushing more on inbound versus any kind of ABM type of strategy?

Neda Talyai:

Well, I will take this to you as a shameless plug. So we're definitely focusing a lot on inbound, but we're definitely hiring. So I just recently hired a field and partner marketing manager, who's going to come on to the team. And then in addition to that, we are looking for an enterprise marketer, so that job posting is going to go live. And I will be looking to grow our audiences in a number of ways, but those are the two right now that are working best. We're living in this virtual world, but I know field marketing works. I know live events work.

Neda Talyai:

I think there's still a lot of room to be done there in terms of, how do you get rid of Zoom fatigue? How do you make things more interesting? And just the total volume, the sheer volume of online events right now is just really overwhelming for people. So I'm really trying to look at, what is the right time? What is the right frequency? How do people want to digest information? What is of interest to them? And that's something that the product manager and the engineer, I know them, but I really want to intimately understand them. And that's something that I'm continuing to learn and hope to really dive into in the next month or two to really understand what is important to them and why.

Franco Caporale:

Perfect. Awesome. So I have a couple of more questions for you before I leave you. First one is, how do you track marketing attribution? Do you look at first touch? How's your report?

Neda Talyai:

Yeah. So right now we're definitely looking a lot on first touch. That's what we're doing from a business perspective, which completely makes sense for about 200 people. We are looking at how to get more specific and really probably move to a multi-touch model and then your future. But that's where we're at as of right now. And in terms of what's successful, I know that it takes multiple touches to move somebody into a sales cycle and to move them into the closed one. And one of the things I like to see is exactly what's happening and when, and what are people responding to. And as your marketing programs grow, I know that becomes more complex. And so that's something that we're going to be working on from an operational perspective. Amongst a lot of other things is to just get tighter in terms of, what does this look like? What areas of the funnel are people moving and what is moving them? And then how are they progressing and what is progressing them outside of the conversations with sales directly.

Franco Caporale:

And speaking of which, can you tell us a little bit how you work with sales? Do you have meetings with the SDRs? Do you have a regular meeting to discuss goals? How is your relationship structure?

Neda Talyai:

Yeah. I think I spend more time with our sales team than I do my marketing team. I've spent a lot of the time over the last three months working as closely as I can with sales to understand what's happening in their world, how they work. And so marketing is responsible for forecasting. So we forecast out what's going on from an inbound perspective. And so we are part of our weekly forecast meetings. I am part of our pipeline meetings as well as others on my team. And gosh, I meet with the BDRs in my team. So there's three of us right now who are really kind of moving the needle on the demand engine, I would say, and we're responsible for the reporting. So we meet with them multiple times a week. We have open Slack channels where we're constantly chatting back and forth.

Neda Talyai:

I have one-on-ones outside of the group meetings that I have with some of our sales managers. And because we're in a growth phase, you have to keep the conversations going. However we can do that, we'll do that. So live one-on-ones, Slack, regularly reporting meetings. It's very regular. I honestly think I spend probably 60% of my time either with or in sales types of conversations, in addition to working with AEs one-on-one on like, hey, what if we tried this from a deal perspective? Or would this work? Or what about this price point? Especially as we're working on our pricing model. So I'm in a lot of these conversations.

Franco Caporale:

Fantastic. One last question is, can you leave us with a deeper advice about really looking into the data and leveraging data to drive better demand generation? What is something that everyone should go and look right away?

Neda Talyai:

Oh, this is good. Okay. So I'm naturally a skeptic when it comes to data. I always want to see the source of the data. I want to see the actual, how is this formatted, right? The number is one thing, but I really like to look at where is it coming from? How is it being processed to validate that it's accurate? So I think one of the things that I see regularly is people are looking at these numbers, but it's really what's behind the numbers that makes it valid. And so I'm sure that most people will do this, but the data validation becomes so important when you're looking at conversion rates. The definitions that we have around data and how we're articulating the output is so important as well. How we're calculating things. Because I've seen it so many times that before I start looking at numbers I'm like, is this accurate? Show me the underlying data. And that's something that I think as a marketer, you should be looking at and questioning and making sure that it looks, it's not just looking good or looking bad, but you understand why.

Neda Talyai:

And then the processes that you have moving that data. If it's leads coming in or you're looking at your total lead volume and something looks off, okay, well, how is it being processed? Do you have the right fields? Do you have the right information being upended to it? Right? Are you capturing things a hundred percent? And so I think to me the operational piece becomes critical to having data right. So I think that my advice is don't just look at numbers, look at the processes behind them. Validate the data that's there so that when you're doing your reporting, you're reporting out on something that you can validate and you believe on. Because I see often people throwing out numbers and I've seen it also not be right, which causes people to make business decisions that they maybe wouldn't have made if the data was validated and checked. So that's my guidance there.

Neda Talyai:

And even if you're running campaigns, right? Like keep data into Marketo, let's validate that that segment is actually capturing the people of segment, the people that we think it should be capturing. So how can we check things?

Franco Caporale:

I think it's a great advice because I've seen it too many times. People are making the wrong decisions just because the data that they were relying upon was wrong.

Neda Talyai:

Yeah.

Franco Caporale:

Neda, it was absolutely great having you as a guest on the episode today. I really enjoyed the conversation. So thanks again for joining us.

Neda Talyai:

Thank you, Franco. It was great to be here and I really appreciate it. And I appreciate the questions, I think it was a lot of fun.