MarTech360 Interview With Daniel, Chief Marketing Officer at Cordial

Don’t try to be the smartest person — surround yourself with smart people who complement your skills. Diversity makes the team better. Listen and learn from your team

Daniel, can you tell us about your professional background and your current role at Cordial?

I often remark that I’m the only CMO (I know of) with a degree in anthropology. While at college, I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I figured understanding people would serve me well. And it has! I’ve had a wide-ranging marketing career that I’m proud of. I spent time working in museums. I ran digital marketing for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the IndyCar series. And now I’ve been in the software world for the past 11 years. I enjoy the constant challenges the software space provides — embracing a growth mindset has helped my leadership style.

I got my B2B start at ExactTarget, which then became part of Salesforce. My first CMO role was at Return Path; then, I served as CMO at Conga, Terminus and ReachDesk. I joined Cordial at the beginning of 2023.

The company’s culture and environment instantly attracted me. My colleagues at Cordial intentionally build an authentic culture and reflect the word “cordial” both internally and with the brands who trust us to help reach their customers.

While Cordial is a B2B SaaS company, we sell mainly to B2C brands. Retail, e-commerce, travel — these companies rely heavily on digital channels to communicate with their customers and prospects and drive revenue. I’m always looking to borrow B2C practices for B2B, and I have a front-row seat with our client base.

What sets Cordial apart from other companies in the same industry?

Cordial is the only true marketing platform empowering brands to fully automate their marketing strategies and connect with their customers in meaningful ways. Cordial’s uniqueness lies in its real-time data-driven approach to enabling personalization across channels. Unlike other platforms, Cordial’s technology brings all of a brand’s data together seamlessly and allows marketers to respond to individual customer behaviors, leading to incredibly targeted automated messaging.

Cordial’s robust integration capabilities, advanced analytics and seamless automations dramatically enhance marketers’ abilities to understand and reach their audiences. And because we automate so much of the manual work that bogs down a marketer’s day, they can concentrate on what I see as the key to any good marketing. Whether you’re in B2B or B2C — you’re still people marketing to people. When marketing technology does its job really well, marketers can get back to the storytelling and connection-building at the heart of their profession.

How does your experience in sales, cloud, and marketing automation contribute to your role as a CMO?

Marketing to marketers is the best challenge you can have in my role. My background in email marketing and ESPs helps me in a few ways. First, I’ve been in the shoes of marketers who need Cordial. Second, I’ve seen — from the inside — how other companies in this space approach the problems we’re all trying to solve. And because I’ve spent a decent amount of time in the martech space, I’ve also heard all the ways these companies talk about their solutions. It’s easy to sound the same as everyone else. It’s harder — and better — to try new things, even if it means they’re not all home runs. And even though far removed from the nonprofit and B2C roles, I find myself incorporating a lot of my learnings from those spaces.

How does Cordial help businesses improve their customer communication and engagement?

Cordial powers data-driven messages that create lifetime customers for future-thinking brands. We use real-time data to enable marketers to create highly personalized and relevant content across channels like email, SMS/MMS, push notifications and in-app messages. By understanding customers’ individual preferences, behaviors and interactions, Cordial enables companies to deliver messages at the right time and context, fostering deeper engagement and enhancing the overall customer experience.

How does Cordial’s data platform utilize predictive intelligence, and what are some practical use cases for Cordial’s predictive intelligence in marketing and customer experience?

Cordial’s data platform leverages predictive intelligence to anticipate customer needs, preferences and potential future actions. We can forecast trends and user behavior by analyzing past behavior and applying machine learning algorithms. Surfacing those insights to marketers means they can make better, data-driven decisions about how to best reach every customer.

Customers willingly give brands an enormous amount of data — from their browsing and buying behaviors to the times and channels they prefer. But too many marketers fail to use the data that lands in their lap because the processes — to access, analyze and glean insights from their data — are too cumbersome. They’re manual or require tapping on IT’s shoulder for assistance. With Cordial, marketers can design powerful messaging journeys built with a customer’s preferences and behaviors at the center.

Some practical use cases include predicting customer churn, recommending products based on previous purchases or browsing history and identifying optimal times and frequency for engaging with a customer. Because the platform integrates with all of a brand’s data, marketers can also automate messages based on inventory changes — featuring a new product that matches a customer’s category affinities, for instance, or letting them know an item they’ve searched for or put in their cart in the past is back in stock or has a reduced price.

Also Read: MarTech360 Interview With Christy Marble, Chief Marketing Officer at Pantheon Platform

How does Cordial’s segmentation tool utilize real-time data to create audience segments, and what types of customer behavior does Cordial’s segmentation tool consider for creating audience segments?

Cordial’s segmentation tool uses real-time data to create dynamic audience segments that continuously evolve with customer behavior. Segments are not static but dynamic, adapting instantly to changes in preferences, interaction, purchase history or even real-time actions like clicking a link or browsing a specific product category. Our segmentation tool considers a wide array of behaviors and patterns, allowing marketers to create rule sets and apply filters to their heart’s content across all their customer data. By doing so, it equips businesses to target customers with highly relevant content that resonates with their current interests and needs, enhancing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

How do you approach networking and building professional relationships? Do you have any tips for our readers on how to make meaningful connections in their industries?

I am a considerable introvert so this has been a challenge. But I also realized I feel more comfortable in a 1:1 setting. Our work environments feature some brilliant people, so that is a good place to seek out relationships or mentorship. If you are comfortable being somewhat vulnerable, reach out to people you admire and ask for help. You’ll be surprised at the outcome. And the worst case? They say no. And finally, be yourself. You’ll attract the right people.

What advice would you give to other Marketing leaders which helped you personally?

My biggest fear as a leader is what works in one quarter won’t work in the next. You need plenty of different voices in the room to build and maintain marketing success. Don’t try to be the smartest person — surround yourself with smart people who complement your skills. Diversity makes the team better. Listen and learn from your team. Foster an environment where everyone has a voice and feels empowered to share ideas. Innovation comes from unexpected places, so stay open-minded.

My role as CMO is to keep things moving, remove obstacles and give my team what they need to thrive. I let marketers be marketers — an approach that has served me well.

Be a mentor, and be mentored. I mentor many people and would not be where I am today without mentors who believed in me. I’m very proud of the marketers I’ve had the opportunity to mentor who are now in leadership roles.

What is the biggest problem you or your team solving this year?

I feel like we’ve been in a state of transition since Covid and it still feels uncertain. Our team is focused on providing value to our clients, telling great stories and positioning marketing as a group that is demonstrating value to the company. You know, the usual for a marketer.

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

I try to read broadly to expand my knowledge, fuel my interests and maintain my curiosity. Lately, I’ve loved an app called Blinkist, where I’ve been listening to all kinds of nonfiction books. Some are more philosophical, some align more with my day-to-day — making the most of my work life and creating positive change. I’m trying to use my time well and build helpful habits that improve all areas of my life.
As far as my favorite books, I have a few different ones that hit on different interests:

• • • Creativity, Inc. A wonderful guide on leadership and leading creatives.
    • The Four Agreements. And I add one of my own: Be kind.
    • This is the book I read whenever I need a reset.
    • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Is there a better book to read in your 20s while backpacking in Europe? I don’t think so.
    • The Sirens of Titan. I live in Indianapolis, where there’s a lot of local love for Kurt Vonnegut.
    • The Alchemist. I’ve probably read this novel six times by now, and it hits my heart every time

Thanks, Daniel!