This episode of The Get podcast really made me think. I interviewed Khalid El Khatib, who’s the Head of Marketing and Communications for Stack Overflow. Khalid discusses his career journey, and how he has structured his organization to serve not just Stack Overflow’s developer community, but also its paid SaaS products.
You’ll hear about:
- Avoiding the mistake of under-investing in brand awareness, especially in PE-backed companies
- How CMOs can articulate the value of a brand investment to CEOs and CFOs
- How CEOs can overcome confusion as to whether they need a CMO or a demand gen director
- Looking around the corners when hiring, and staffing up ahead of a growth curve
- Experimenting with freelancers before hiring in-house
- Reserving regular time on the calendar for marketing to meet with other business functions – creating a forcing function for “finding synergies wherever they exist”
- The wisdom of hiring someone who fulfills the job 90% and is motivated to stay long enough to fulfill all of the job
Favorite quote: “If you don’t make a brand investment, you can wonder why competitors are beating you and why demand generation isn’t working….A rising tide lifts all boats and an investment in brand awareness is that rising tide.”
This is Episode 7 of The Get podcast, now in Season 4. This season, we explore the theme ‘Solving for the Scale Journey.’
The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions. Listen and subscribe here.