By Tony Silber
The most important part of media sales isn’t talking, it’s listening. You have to know marketers’ objectives as well as they do. And then you hav to help activate those objectives through a carefully calibrated campaign proposal. With those things in mind, we asked Gabi Donchez, senior manager, demand generation, at Rubicon, the digital marketplace for waste and recycling serving the public works community, for her perspective on buyer-seller dynamics. Here’s a transcript of our Q&A, lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Gabi Donchez.
Fox Tales: From your perspective, what are the driving motivations of most marketers these days? Qualified leads? Top-of-funnel awareness? Both? Specific KPIs for ROI?
Gabi Donchez: I do think it is a mix of both, at least for marketers in the enterprise and government software spaces like myself at Rubicon. Qualified leads are always the goal, but we usually have to play the long game to get there. We do a lot of content marketing and thought leadership pieces to drive brand awareness, and over time that results in qualified leads.
Fox Tales: What tools are marketers looking for/using? Automated marketing? Deep data capability? Digital channels?
Donchez: We’re always looking for ways to automate and effectively report on all of our marketing activities, without sucking up too much of the team’s time. Nowadays the marketing mix is so vast, it is hard to compare results across different channels and campaigns without a laser-focus on reporting. An organized CRM system is step one, and syncing with a Marketing CRM or other marketing platforms is ideal. It is a wonderful thing to be able to show marketing’s influence on sales opportunities clearly in CRM reports!
Fox Tales: What are you hearing about print media and where it fits?
Donchez: I think print media is making a huge comeback! It’s always been relevant, but has been overshadowed by digital advertising and platforms in the past decade or so. Just in the past few years, and especially since the pandemic, people are getting overwhelmed with digital content and are looking for ways to unplug. We’re also getting overwhelmed with digital ads and becoming almost numb to seeing them. Rubicon has seen great success in the past year with print advertising and content marketing. We have been able to show that ROI and brand awareness from these channels is getting to be as strong as ROI from digital ads alone.
Fox Tales: Give us a sense of the value of working with companies like Fox Associates–dedicated sales operations.
Donchez: I greatly appreciate working with a media rep like Bill who is familiar with Rubicon’s brand and helps us craft a strong print and digital marketing plan to meet our needs and budget. His team is also great about providing us with new opportunities throughout the year and keeping me on track to meet deadlines. It is like having another person on my team to help manage our projects and ensure our campaigns’ success!