MarTech360 Interview with Mike Bernard, Chief Marketing Officer at Vendavo

“To drive growth for your brand, fight really hard against the urge to overcomplicate how you communicate with potential buyers. Communicating value simply is challenging but when you do, you’ll have a leg up on everybody else who hasn’t put in the hard work.”

As a marketing leader focused on driving sustainable revenue growth through cutting-edge martech and impactful messaging, how do you balance optimizing technology with fostering a team culture that shares your drive for continuous improvement and success?

Marketing organizations are successful when they combine strong messaging with world-class marketing technology. Armed with a message that resonates, technology allows you to share your offerings with the right buyer at the right stage in their buying journey. From there, consistency and appropriate follow-up become key. Other necessary ingredients include setting expectations, clearly communicating those expectations, and proper training.

It’s important to prepare your team before you start a new campaign or a new project. Everyone should be clear on what you’re attempting to accomplish as you roll out the new initiative and how their roles support it. To effectively drive toward your goals, ensure the team executes as they should and iterate on the initial plan to continually improve as you go along. Getting everyone aligned, communicating progress, and inspecting and iterating along the way is the formula for success.

Mike, can you tell us about your professional background and your current role at Vendavo.

As Chief Marketing Officer at Vendavo, I have the honor of leading a group of exceptional marketers and business development professionals. Vendavo is the global leader in price management and optimization, CPQ, and rebate and incentive management software for some of the largest manufacturers and wholesale distributors in the world. We help our customers with flexibility and control as they manage and optimize large price lists, and quote quickly and accurately while negotiating all aspects of a deal. We deliver all of this in a way that is simple for their customers to understand, allows for buyer-seller negotiation flexibility, and protects our customers’ margin.

At the end of the day, we help global organizations satisfy their customers and deliver the financial results they need to grow their business while they deliver the products that make the world go round.

Also Read: MarTech360 Interview with Jon Hewson, Managing Director at Audience Store

What differentiates Vendavo’s AI-powered pricing and sales solutions from other pricing software in the market, and how do these solutions integrate with existing enterprise systems to drive sustainable profitability?

Vendavo offers a full suite of pricing, selling, and rebate applications that help global B2B brands manage complex pricing and selling. Our technology powers all levels of price optimization strategies, from simple cost-plus mark-ups to value-driven segmented approaches, and delivers timely price guidance to sales teams to ensure every deal is profitable. We also provide rebate and incentive management solutions to help our customers grow market share and foster strong relationships across the supply chain.

Vendavo products use AI in a number of places across the commercial process, including enhancing sellers’ ability to deliver good-fit quotes to their end customers more efficiently, negotiate accurately, and close deals profitably. We do this in a way that is open, transparent, auditable, and controllable. Skewed, unclear results have no place in price improvement measures so combining AI with human expertise and validation is crucial. AI’s role is to help pricing professionals and finance teams do their jobs faster with greater insights, accuracy, and scalability.

With customer-centricity being a major focus for businesses today, how do you personalize Vendavo’s marketing strategies across different global markets, ensuring they align with regional pricing challenges, industry nuances, and varying customer expectations? How do you measure success in these diverse markets?

Vendavo partners with some of the largest B2B brands in the world. Customization and personalization across our marketing strategies are an absolute requirement – whether that’s by geography, role or buyer persona, customer pain points, or other organizational segments. Our go-to-market strategies include omnichannel campaigns that address large manufacturers and distributors’ challenges.

As we develop compelling, good-fit messaging for these different segments, we also must consider regulatory requirements for serving their needs and communicating with them. For example, European buyers face very strict privacy rules on how data is collected and how AI is used. Security, transparency, and control regarding how people’s data is being used are required for compliance. The requirements aren’t as strict in the US as in Europe, so our approach is to ensure European compliance for all our strategies, regardless of customer geography.

Similarly, the economic landscape and resulting business challenges vary by region. Inflation has been higher in Europe than the US in 2024, for example. The war in Ukraine has impacted lives and businesses to varying degrees. Europe faces high energy costs. Sustainability regulations are moving throughout legislative bodies at different speeds, and labor laws are always evolving. All these issues and many more impact how businesses price and sell their products in that region. We make software that allows organizations to understand and quickly pivot how they price their products to meet the evolving challenges across different regions.

Vendavo operates in a highly competitive landscape with rapidly advancing technology. How do you ensure that your brand’s narrative stays future-focused and differentiated, especially when trends like AI, predictive analytics, and machine learning become more commonplace across industries?

It’s all hands-on deck when it comes to keeping our brand competitive. We cover the basics like ensuring color, design, language, and tone are differentiated from our competitors. Also important is how we adapt to technology changes and, more specifically, how AI is impacting how we work.

Our focus is on producing content that is original, thoughtful, and not easily duplicated by something like ChatGPT. That being said, marketers must also sit at the forefront of understanding technology changes, find ways to efficiently leverage that technology, and think through the ramifications of how new technology impacts our work and the overall market. That’s one of the things that makes marketing fun! In many cases, we can adopt new ways of working at a quicker pace, compared to others in the organization, because we recognize that much of what we do is dependent upon or will be altered by changes in technology, specifically AI.

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

For 2025, my team is focused on differentiation. How can we reach our market in a unique and powerful way? Too often, we develop unique positioning that is very soon copied or adopted by competitors. This isn’t new and we recognize imitation is the sincerest kind of flattery. But it does mean we need to stay out in front, drive our message, and deliver our unique points of differentiation.

The rate of change is accelerating, so we must be vigilant about evolving as fast as or faster than the market and pivoting when necessary. The stress comes when the pace of change necessitates adaptations be made faster than what is needed for the message to take root.

What advice do you have for other leaders who are looking to drive growth for their brand?

Do everything in your power to avoid jargon, buzzwords, and general corporate speak. Instead, talk about what you do, what problems you solve, and who you solve them for with straightforward language. Too often, when I look at websites, social media, or other pieces of material, I don’t understand what they do or how they do it because the message is so complicated or obtuse. Tech is especially guilty of this. To drive growth for your brand, fight really hard against the urge to overcomplicate how you communicate with potential buyers. Communicating value simply is challenging but when you do, you’ll have a leg up on everybody else who hasn’t put in the hard work.

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

Business strategy and leadership books are great. But right now, to relax, recharge, and keep the creative juices flowing, I’m reading fiction. I have a stack of half-read business books on my desk that I will get back to at some point but my switch to fiction has been great. I’m reading Michael Conley’s newest book, The Waiting Period. Prior to that, I finished Break Every Rule by Brian Freeman and What Have We Done by Alex Finley.

Thanks Mike!