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Marketing leaders are under pressure.

Generate pipeline. Build an audience. Improve conversion rates. Hit revenue targets. Create a brand that stands out in the market.

Oh, and do it all with fewer resources than you had the previous year. 

We spoke with Carin Van Vuuren, CMO at Greenhouse Software, and Meagen Eisenberg, CMO at Lacework, about some of the biggest business objectives on their plate and how they鈥檙e using competitive intelligence to achieve them. Here鈥檚 what they had to share.

You can catch Carin and Meagen鈥檚

1. Align the entire GTM function

As the executive responsible for go-to-market, one of Carin Van Vuuren鈥檚 most important jobs is to keep every team within her GTM rowing in the same direction.

But it鈥檚 not usually the case. Marketing throwing things over the wall. Sales working on a completely different priority.

That鈥檚 where Carin uses competitive intel to bridge the gap.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a perception that sales and marketing don鈥檛 always work well together,鈥� said Carin. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 powerful about looking at competitive intelligence through the same lens is it breaks down these barriers.

It makes teams feel like we鈥檙e actually going after the same problem and doing it in a way that is aligned with what our goals are. We have a common goal, a common strategy, shared intelligence, and shared victories.鈥�

鈥淲e have a common goal, a common strategy, shared intelligence, and shared victories.鈥�

鈥� Carin Van Vuuren, CMO at Greenhouse Software

With a common goal, strategy, and intelligence, Carin鈥檚 marketing team can now provide value to reps in the field selling against competitors with responses to use, messaging tweaks, and proven competitive strategies.

(Some of the top CMOs joined 暗黑网 at Compete Week to share secrets and tips for leading marketing functions in the most competitive industries. We pulled together )

2. Contribute to deal velocity and increase seller confidence

As a CMO, Meagen Eisenberg cares about win rates deeply. She doesn鈥檛 shirk the responsibility of this metric solely to sales.

And what gets measured, gets worked on. Meagen measures this, and other deal metrics, as part of the KPIs within her marketing team.

鈥淭he way you measure product marketing and competitive intelligence is deal velocity. If you have an impact, you鈥檒l shrink the sales cycle,鈥� said Meagen.

Because of this, the work her competitive intelligence team commits to directly focuses on these outcomes. The work all starts by increasing their sellers鈥� confidence.

They set the field up to nail discovery, handle objections, understand customer needs, and then position their solution accordingly. 

鈥淵ou have to be an expert in the space to be confident. That鈥檚 a big part of why we spend time on competitive intelligence, battlecards, and have 暗黑网鈥� that confidence builds pipeline and deals.鈥�

If you鈥檙e arming the field to nail discovery and position your company appropriately, you鈥檒l help the buyer make a quicker decision. And quicker decisions equals more productivity.

鈥淭he faster we close a deal, the higher our win rates, the more productive our reps are. If you could do a deal in a month that was taking six months, now you鈥檙e doing twelve deals instead of two. I鈥檓 looking forward to the increase in productivity.鈥�

3. Support executive decision-making

Markets 鈥� and competitors 鈥� are always moving.

New customer announcements. New product releases. Acquisitions.

It requires a full focus to bring the most important insights from these movements to the executive team.

鈥淥ur competitive team meets with our CEO weekly. They go into new learnings and what we鈥檙e seeing in the market. It鈥檚 valued all the way to the top,鈥� said Meagen.

This is one of the major inputs to really understand how to direct the company, where we鈥檙e going to compete, and where we鈥檙e going to play.鈥�

Similarly, Carin鈥檚 executive partners keep a finger on the pulse of the market and competitors.

鈥淢y colleagues in the C-Suite are using 暗黑网 themselves to stay current and understand what the dynamics are within the market,鈥� said Carin.

Another way that both Carin and Meagen are bringing competitive intelligence to the C-Suite is through win-loss analysis.

This involves reviewing the data, trends from win-loss interviews, and even bringing in the seller who ran the deal to get their perspective.

Learn from other CMOs differentiating in their market

If you鈥檝e made it this far, odds are you鈥檙e keen to learn what other CMOs leading functions in competitive markets are doing to keep their business ahead.

Some of the top marketing leaders joined 暗黑网 at Compete Week to share their best secrets and tips to outperform the competition.

Grab the