MarTech360 Interview With Jason Lyman, Chief Marketing Officer at Customer.io

Jason, can you tell us about your marketing journey through the years and what aspects of your new role at Customer.io you are most excited about?

Before transitioning into B2B technology marketing, I worked as a strategy consultant for L.E.K. Consulting for four years. At the time, we advised many Media and Entertainment companies who needed help understanding how burgeoning technological advancements (i.e., online streaming, smartphones, etc.) could be leveraged in their businesses. Seeing the role that new technology could play in a company sparked my interest in marketing! I knew I wanted to work more closely with these products and help end customers understand the power of innovation.

I’m inspired by efficiency and using data to drive progress and innovation, which is why I am excited to be on the team at Customer.io. I believe that the tools we offer empower organizations to streamline their workflows, drive productivity, and ultimately help more brands find success. I can’t wait to change perceptions of the power of our platform and help educate prospects and customers on the impact we can provide them.

Tell our readers more about Customer.io and what is the scope of user journey orchestration your platform provides.

 Customer.io is a market-leading customer engagement platform for tech-savvy marketers. Our initial product, Customer.io Journeys, helps you deliver unique customer interactions on mobile and the web by automating campaign execution across key channels like email, push, in-app, and SMS. Recently, we launched our second product, Customer.io Data Pipelines (CDP), to connect your customer data to every product in your tech stack. We designed Customer.io Data Pipelines and Customer.io Journeys to work together seamlessly so you can build a unified view of each customer and create automated campaigns that send targeted messages to users based on their behaviors and preferences. It’s a powerful tool for driving personalized engagement in all stages of the customer lifecycle.

Customer.io has a diverse customer base that loves its product. What excites you the most about working alongside Product to accelerate growth?

Customer-centricity is foundational for marketing success. By really understanding our customers’ needs and challenges, we can better understand their “hair on fire” issues and the role that our product can play in their organization. Given that we capture this real-time view of customers, the marketing team maintains a strong, collaborative relationship with the Product team so we can communicate those insights with the appropriate product leaders and work to get them integrated into product development efforts. It is so rewarding to see your efforts translated into new functionality that increases the value of our product suite to existing customers and provides you with a new, powerful narrative that you can market to prospects.

What are the biggest challenges CMOs face these days, and how should they work effectively with their teams to maximize the value and impact of the marketing function?

CMOs are under increasing pressure to demonstrate marketing investments’ ROI and optimize marketing budgets accordingly. As a leader, they need to foster a performance-driven culture and maintain a strong focus on analytics. While there is certainly a creative side to marketing, and some marketing activities might be harder to measure, the reality is that metrics should drive and inform every marketer’s decision-making process. By using data to make informed decisions, CMOs can be confident that they are making the right choices for their organization and that their campaigns accurately showcase the value they provide.

What three tips would you share with B2B Marketing leaders looking to make a real difference in the Martech industry?

When looking to make an impact in the Martech industry, B2B marketing leaders should focus on three key areas:

First, you need to prioritize customer-centricity within your teams. Understanding the needs and challenges of your customers is crucial for success. You can exceed their expectations by developing innovative solutions that address their core issues and build strong relationships that drive long-term growth.

Next, you must embrace data-driven decision-making. In the rapidly evolving Martech landscape, it can be difficult to discern which trends and strategies will drive the most impact. By taking a data-driven approach to decision-making, you can identify market trends and build conviction for your decisions more quickly, maximizing the impact of your marketing investments.

Finally, you should foster agility and adaptability within your organization. To stay ahead of the competition in the Martech industry, it’s important to be able to pivot your strategies and tactics in response to new trends and market conditions. By fostering a culture of agility and adaptability within your marketing team, you can rapidly respond to changing customer needs and capitalize on new opportunities to drive growth.

The press release announcing your appointment says – “to help more teams deliver transformative experiences to customers.” What strategies and tactics do you intend to employ to do this?

I am deploying strategies to keep our customers at the forefront and rely heavily on customer insights to prioritize marketing tactics. By understanding customers’ needs, challenges, and goals, we can tailor our messaging and campaigns to articulate how we deliver value and address common pain points. This approach helps us build trust and loyalty, which leads to long-term relationships and repeat business.

What Is a Customer Data Platform, and how does it fit into the Martech stack?

A customer data platform helps marketers collect and organize customer data from various sources, such as CRM systems, marketing automation tools, and website analytics products. By consolidating this information into a single place, these solutions can create a single, centralized customer profile, which offers a holistic view of customers’ behavior and preferences. These products play an important role in your Martech stack because they connect your data with every product you might want to use. Therefore, the data in each application is always accurate and up-to-date, improving overall decision-making.

We believe having access to good data is essential for marketers today, so we recently launched Customer.io Data Pipelines (CDP) to increase the reach of this powerful technology. By combining Customer.io Data Pipelines and Customer.io Journeys, our customers can now deliver memorable interactions with personalized messaging across all your marketing channels.

In today’s climate, there is a lot of instability, from budget cuts to layoffs to the state of the economy. How do you see marketing teams leading the charge/navigating this complex environment?

When the market landscape constantly shifts, focusing a company’s energy on delivering value to our customers is important. Because our customers face their own challenges, we must stay attuned to their evolving needs and be agile in our efforts to support them. Taking this empathic approach will build up brand loyalty and foster long-term relationships. Finally, it will help teams avoid unimportant distractions to the business and provide more clarity when making difficult decisions.

Given the tight connection between the marketing team and existing customers, marketers have a unique point of view that needs to be shared more broadly to increase understanding and empathy internally. Also, marketing teams can foster collaboration and alignment across the organization. This means working closely with other departments, such as sales, product, and customer success, to ensure we are all aligned and focused on the same objectives.

Is there anything you’re currently reading, or any favorite books, that you’d Recommend?

While I enjoy a good book, I have been listening to a lot of podcasts lately. One of my favorites is the SaaStr podcast. It is full of interviews with operators and investors who share personal experiences in scaling a SaaS business. The podcast guests are transparent about what worked and did not, so you can quickly learn how these insights might apply to your business. With more than 600 episodes, you can quickly scan the topics discussed and find those guests who are speaking about the “top of mind” issues that you are facing in your role today.

Thanks, Jason Lyman!