Mastering CMO Leadership with Heidi Melin, CMO at Workfront

Being a CMO is a tough job, especially in the weeks and months after stepping into a new organization. Few people have mastered stepping into a new CMO role quite like Heidi Melin, CMO of Workfront. Heidi has more than 20 years of senior marketing experience. Previously, she has served as the CMO of Plex Systems, Eloqua, Polycom, Taleo, Hyperion, and was the group vice president of marketing at PeopleSoft. On this episode of Marketing Trends, Heidi shares her best practices for taking over as CMO. She also discusses how to optimize work management, how to build a great marketing team, and much more. Links: Full Notes & Quotes: http://bit.ly/2lLFEPM Heidi’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/heidimelin/ Workfront: workfront.com/ 5 Key Takeaways: - To build a category, it's important to focus on the voices that people trust most: Analysts and industry influencers. - "Look at marketing as an opportunity to ensure that all of your business processes are connected. If you haven't centralized your work process, you're missing a big piece.” - Heidi Melin - A CMO should focus on three primary objectives: First, developing a strategic plan and cascading goals to the marketing team, second, aligning the budget to those goals, and third, focusing on the actual projects and initiatives. - “Positioning and developing a brand platform is all about the company. Generally it's led by a marketing team, but frankly, it has to have engagement from across the company in order for it to become real.” - Heidi Melin - Great talent can be found anywhere. Marketing leaders can look outside the traditional markets to find very capable marketers. Bio: Heidi is the CMO of Workfront. Prior to Workfront, Heidi was the CMO of Plex Systems, Inc., where she was responsible for strategy and execution of all marketing efforts. She also previously served as CMO at Eloqua, Polycom, Taleo, Hyperion, and was the group vice president of marketing at PeopleSoft. In addition, Heidi served as a public company board director for Accelrys. --- Marketing Trends is brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Pardot, B2B marketing automation on the world’s #1 CRM. Are you ready to take your B2B marketing to new heights? With Pardot, marketers can find and nurture leads, close more deals, and maximize ROI. Learn more by heading to www.pardot.com/podcast. To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com.