DRIVE PIPELINE FROM SEO | Carla Chicharro, Director of Revenue Marketing @ Mitiga Solutions | #11

00:00:00: Welcome to a new episode of the Masters of Search Talks.

00:00:03: I'm super happy to introduce today's guest, which is Carla Cicciaro, who is Director of Revenue Marketing at Metiga Solutions, one of Europe's most innovative climate tech companies specializing particularly in climate risk intelligence.

00:00:20: What makes Carla particularly fascinating is her long journey from the travel and hospitality tech industry, especially at Logify, where she stayed a couple of years, now switching gears to climate tech.

00:00:35: So Carla, first of all, thanks so much for doing that.

00:00:37: And thanks so much for joining today.

00:00:39: Can you give us a quick intro about your current role at Metica Solutions?

00:00:44: Yeah, of course.

00:00:45: And thank you so much for having me and for the invitation.

00:00:48: Really happy to be here.

00:00:50: And if you don't mind, I'll start with a little bit about me first to put some context into Matiga as well.

00:01:00: So I'm a growth marketer at heart.

00:01:04: For the last twelve years, I've specialized in SaaS startup.

00:01:08: So as you mentioned, Logify is one of them.

00:01:12: So what I've done there is building marketing functions that drive real revenue.

00:01:17: And that's brought me to my role title let's say today.

00:01:22: and what that means is like not just generating traffic or leads but actually like pipeline and measurable impact.

00:01:30: right my sweet spot has always been writing.

00:01:35: so content SEO and then I discovered organic growth let's say because I love that mix of creativity but also data.

00:01:48: And over the years, I've touched different sides of marketing from performance marketing, which for me was a very eye-opening experience to CRM, lifecycle, growth, and all that.

00:02:02: But what connects all of that, all of those, let's say, chapters in my professional experience is curiosity.

00:02:12: I've always been drawn to figuring out how to turn really messy funnels into clean scalable systems.

00:02:23: And now at Matiga Solutions, I get to apply that in a whole new context.

00:02:29: So as you said, we're a climate risk intelligence company.

00:02:33: The team is built of climate scientists, people that have multiple PhDs, not just one.

00:02:45: Wow, but it's in some way.

00:02:49: Data engineers, high performance like computing experts, all that, and us marketeers as well.

00:02:57: Our mission there is to turn all of this research that the internal team had into actionable insights that can impact.

00:03:10: This is globally, let's say worldwide.

00:03:13: So I joined as director of revenue marketing, as you said.

00:03:18: I reported to the VP of revenue along with sales and customer success.

00:03:25: So the way the company sees it is we're not just doing marketing for branding, let's say.

00:03:33: We're also doing it in the form that eventually it's going to bring revenue.

00:03:37: So my main goal is really like scaling demand, pipeline, and there is a side of branding as well.

00:03:46: And as you can imagine, it is a very regulatory driven industry.

00:03:53: It's a very niche industry, right?

00:03:57: But that for me is very exciting because it's also like not just growth for growth, but also about building trust.

00:04:06: and resilience in the face of what we're all going through, which is the face of climate risk.

00:04:15: But applying that into a business landscape, let's say.

00:04:20: Very nice.

00:04:21: Thanks so much for the introduction.

00:04:22: I think you already mentioned a lot of things that we should dive into each individually.

00:04:27: First thing that I find interesting, how is it working with people in a day to day that have multiple PhDs?

00:04:37: very interesting to put it some way, unique, interesting, intimidating.

00:04:47: But at the end of the day, so those are like the key words, let's say, right?

00:04:52: Because they know so much, but at the same time, they know so much about their field.

00:05:00: And there are experts in that, but they don't, well.

00:05:04: I'm not going to generalize.

00:05:05: there are some people that do but most people they don't know how to translate that into simple words.

00:05:10: let's say and you know keep in mind that our audiences are people that work in this field.

00:05:18: so they are looking for climate tech solutions of course but at the same time a lot of them are might be consultants.

00:05:25: they might you know go through different types of solutions and climate tech might just be one of them which means that They get that the technical keywords.

00:05:36: Yes, but if we can translate that into more approachable and simple terms It'll be easier for everyone to understand what we do, right?

00:05:48: so that's That's our function in marketing and that's why I like yes, it's intimidating on one end, but at the same time it's It's exciting because it's like I get to pick their brains and I get to use that to build.

00:06:04: Pains content and anything around that.

00:06:07: so so it is.

00:06:08: it is very interesting.

00:06:12: But that's what ultimately makes a lot of companies that are especially operating in let's say let's put it simply complicated fields.

00:06:21: successful right or what separates the successful runs from the not successful ones.

00:06:26: acknowledging that.

00:06:27: Even though we have super experts of the field inside the company, our customers, it's just one of many fields they have to deal in their day to day.

00:06:39: And it's something where they probably have less knowledge than we.

00:06:42: So we have to somehow translate all that knowledge into actionable stuff.

00:06:46: Is this also something where you Because you just i mean you you've you've been very long at logify and now at mitiga you are i think a couple of months in or almost a year something like that.

00:07:01: What's the something where you felt like?

00:07:02: this is the first strategic pillar of how you build up the revenue marketing function.

00:07:08: really.

00:07:09: Shaping that mindset we have to translate our knowledge into something actual for customers.

00:07:15: Exactly, yes.

00:07:17: Keep in mind that when I joined Logify, so Logify for those that don't know, it's a property management system for vacation rental hosts, which means that the audiences of Logify are people that manage vacation rentals anywhere in the world, right?

00:07:35: I don't have a vacation rental, right?

00:07:37: I didn't even have a property back then when I joined.

00:07:43: I was writing about things I had no clue about because I was not even an entrepreneur.

00:07:48: So, you know, you can imagine it's the same thing.

00:07:52: It's the same application to climate technology just with the complexity that there are a lot more technical terms and a lot of jargon.

00:08:00: There are so many.

00:08:03: What do you call it?

00:08:05: I don't know what you call it in English right now, but you know, there's like these words where it's like IPCC, CSRD, like all these terms, exactly acronyms.

00:08:15: So, so yeah, like I agree, I think, and in my team right now, we have a product marketing lead and a content marketing lead.

00:08:24: And the three of us, none of us have technical background, right?

00:08:28: So, however, we do have B to B SAS background.

00:08:33: And I think that is something that is very important because we see We see it as, yeah, it's a product that we have to, we have to turn into, you know, revenue.

00:08:46: It's the same thing.

00:08:46: It's the same project, just with those complexities, right?

00:08:50: And that's why, to your point, like, it's very important to work closely with our scientists, our data engineers, our strategy team.

00:09:00: We have a strategy team, right?

00:09:02: That's also for me was, New it was like.

00:09:06: Oh, okay.

00:09:07: Cool.

00:09:08: Like someone is actually looking through like the vision of the company where the business is going all that it makes things a lot easier.

00:09:16: and in that team they have advisors of specific products that we offer for example in Climate risk reporting, right?

00:09:28: So having that those like key people that know about that because they were consultants at some point pushing for these regulations, let's say, like these reports that you have to basically do generate.

00:09:44: It makes things easier for us because we're like, okay, guys, what is this CSRD term?

00:09:50: Explain it to me.

00:09:53: I'm a baby, let's say.

00:09:56: I'm a toddler.

00:09:58: Explain it to me like I'm your mom.

00:10:00: it's.

00:10:01: I will say it is hard because they still explain it in in complex terms but at the same time we're like okay let me let me record this and then I'll come back to you.

00:10:11: So yeah I think building revenue marketing teams I think you need to have people that are like have that mindset of this is a challenge that I need to take on.

00:10:22: and this is It doesn't matter that I have no clue about this, but I'm willing to learn and I'm willing to put in the effort to work together too and deliver this together.

00:10:37: Yeah.

00:10:37: Super interesting.

00:10:38: By the way, the thing you mentioned with how you ask your tech people, can you explain this to me in very simple terms?

00:10:47: One of my favorite use cases of chat UPT or Claude, can you explain?

00:10:53: um, uh, diminishing returns to me as if I was a five year old or if I was your mom or your grandma.

00:11:01: Yeah.

00:11:02: I think it's really, it's a really cool, uh, cool use case.

00:11:04: Yeah.

00:11:05: That that was actually one of the not hiring questions, but post hiring questions or like onboarding questions that I would ask everyone in the, in the team, um, at Logify because.

00:11:18: Even then, like, Logified, people didn't really understand it.

00:11:21: They're like, oh, it's Airbnb.

00:11:22: And it's like, no, it's not really.

00:11:26: And I would ask the new hires, like, explain it to me like you had to, you have to explain it to your mom or your grandma.

00:11:35: So, yeah.

00:11:37: Very nice.

00:11:38: Now we already crossed Logify multiple times because you obviously worked there for quite some time, I think for around or almost ten years or eight years.

00:11:50: Maybe can you share a little bit about your journey there?

00:11:54: Because I mean, over the course of so many years, I can imagine that your roles changed a lot.

00:11:59: I mean, I could also see it in your LinkedIn profile, but just Where did you start and where did you end, so to say?

00:12:07: Yeah.

00:12:08: So I started, it was like a whole ride.

00:12:12: And it was.

00:12:14: the reason also why I stayed for so long is because maybe not every year, but almost every other year, it was a whole new company.

00:12:21: So keep in mind that I started there when it was a series A, or it was just about to confirm the series A. very early stages.

00:12:33: I was employee number eighteen and I was a content strategist.

00:12:38: I was hired to be a content strategist.

00:12:41: Curiosity also about that role is that it was supposed to be one role and the CEO decided to hire two people for it.

00:12:51: and the way we ended up splitting it is that she, my colleague, ended up focusing more on writing.

00:12:59: She was really, really great at writing and I focused a little bit more on strategy and eventually SEO.

00:13:05: So that's how it started.

00:13:08: Literally writing blog posts as well.

00:13:11: Doing SEO when it was all about still about keyword stuffing.

00:13:18: And, you know, learning the craft hands-on, let's say, because, you know, in the early stages, you do everything.

00:13:26: You have many hats.

00:13:29: That's how I started.

00:13:31: And then how it evolved.

00:13:35: Basically, it was very, excuse the pun, but it was very organic, how it all happened.

00:13:42: Because once we started generating content in English, because our main market was the US, we started seeing that what we were

00:13:55: writing and what we

00:13:55: were creating because we were also creating freebies and we were creating different assets as well.

00:14:02: We saw that it was converting into pipeline.

00:14:06: It was converting into customers.

00:14:07: Like we were able to link that and we were like, okay, so we have our website in five different languages.

00:14:16: What if we replicate the same thing in the other different languages, right?

00:14:20: So that's when, you know, we started doing more like, I wouldn't really call it like SEO, internationalization or SEO, I don't know, as different names, right?

00:14:33: Like multi-language SEO strategies.

00:14:35: In the beginning it wasn't really that, it was more like a test, right?

00:14:39: Eventually it did become into each market, each language, because it was more of a language thing, eventually it then became uh market thing because you know we're talking about you know Germany.

00:14:52: it's not the same in Germany Austria and Switzerland right but it all started that way where it's like.

00:14:59: let's let's give it a go.

00:15:01: it worked out really well.

00:15:02: um for example we didn't even have France uh French sorry um we didn't even have that language.

00:15:09: the rest Spanish Italian and Germany.

00:15:12: I German sorry we're already there.

00:15:15: so we're like let's add more to.

00:15:17: it worked well but France and French was actually a huge thing because we had an assumption.

00:15:26: we thought there are vacation rentals in France.

00:15:31: There are different businesses there so let's try it.

00:15:36: and we went all in meaning we were like okay we're going to translate the website we're going to create a lot of content on this Plus, our product is going to be translated.

00:15:45: Plus, we're hiring sales, customer support, and everything.

00:15:50: It was a bet that the company did.

00:15:52: And in the first six months, it already performed way better than, for example, German.

00:15:59: Because in German, again, initially, it was just test translating, kind of localizing.

00:16:05: But after a few years, we realized that it wasn't enough.

00:16:09: We had to talk about things that actually mattered for the hosts in Germany, for example, right?

00:16:16: So that's when I would say it was more like SEO, multi-language SEO strategy and all that.

00:16:25: And, you know, I had the opportunity to build different teams because at that point, that's when I built the content team in different languages.

00:16:35: When we saw that we were converting that content into at least leads.

00:16:43: We saw that, you know, we were creating workflows for it.

00:16:47: We were creating landing pages.

00:16:49: You know, we were testing different things and we saw, okay, we need someone to, because at that point it was just me, we need someone to own this.

00:16:58: We need someone to create these workflows.

00:17:00: We need someone to be testing different landing pages and all that.

00:17:05: And we expanded the team there.

00:17:06: We hired, so Lifecycle or CRM or I think it has different names in different companies.

00:17:13: We called it Sierra.

00:17:16: And we ended up hiring one for each stage of the journey, one for acquisition and conversion, another one for activation, and then another person focused on retention and renewals.

00:17:31: So yeah, that was all because with the content, it was converting.

00:17:39: And then another thing that we saw is that Paid was there, but I initially I wasn't reporting like they weren't reporting to me.

00:17:46: They were in parallel and Content or SEO was performing way better than Paid at Logify.

00:17:58: Maybe not to this day.

00:17:59: I think it's already outranking a little bit Paid, but It's very close.

00:18:05: It's almost a fifty-fifty share.

00:18:08: So I'm very proud of that because it all started in our blog post, right?

00:18:15: And you know, eventually when I left, I built a team of twenty-five people.

00:18:19: We had so content.

00:18:22: We had CRM.

00:18:24: We had growth.

00:18:25: We had performance marketing and a brand team, which was Brand strategy, but also creative.

00:18:34: So we had our own designer.

00:18:36: We had our own video editor Social media as well, which you know over the years we tested social social media so many times and it wasn't until the last year year and a half Before I left that it actually worked.

00:18:53: and it was because you know In the US they started using influencers and we there were influencers and I think it was a generational shift that happened in the industry where Millennials were finally able to purchase.

00:19:10: So yeah, I left as head of marketing and you know over the years it was like content strategist inbound marketing manager then marketing manager, which was just something like, okay, because you're not managing paid, you're a marketing manager, but you're not the head of the team.

00:19:31: And then eventually I was managing everything, so I was promoted to head of marketing.

00:19:37: But yeah, that's my run at Lotify.

00:19:41: And yeah, I was there for eight years.

00:19:44: So I was there through Pre Series A, Series A, Series B, and Series B Plus, let's call it, because it wasn't exactly a Series C. And what that means is that I saw the company grow in different stages.

00:20:00: When I left, we were three hundred fifty people in the company.

00:20:05: So yeah, it became a lot more, let's say... corporate, but not really because it's still.

00:20:11: it's still.

00:20:15: What a journey.

00:20:15: It's like there were so many things that I want to a little bit more.

00:20:21: I think one of one of the key things you mentioned about your multilingual approach and that in my view, a lot of people get wrong is internationalization versus localization.

00:20:34: And you made this different this difference specifically.

00:20:37: So What would you explain this to a five-year-old?

00:20:43: What's the difference?

00:20:44: And what's the difference in terms of your experience from internationalization or translating to actually localizing content to different markets?

00:20:54: Yeah.

00:20:55: So I'm not going to put it in a way for a five-year-old because it's very complicated.

00:21:02: Then for my mom.

00:21:04: It may be later.

00:21:05: Let's start with you and me, and then let's see if we can translate it for a kid or your mom.

00:21:11: But the difference is that translating can work maybe for some type of content.

00:21:20: It can work.

00:21:22: Yeah, I think for some type of content, it can work because if, for example, you're talking about your product, a new feature that you've released.

00:21:32: translating or and a little bit of localization I think can work if it's just a product update.

00:21:39: Another thing would be if you're trying to position that product to that market right or that language.

00:21:47: Then I do think that you need not just localization which you can start there at least.

00:21:54: I think you also need to look into the market as a whole.

00:21:58: so I think it's very important because you will see that the audiences, even if a company is like, this is who our ICP is.

00:22:07: These are our personas.

00:22:10: The complexity, though, is that every market might be different in terms of who you want to target to.

00:22:21: At Logify, for example, there are a lot in Italy.

00:22:26: There are a lot a lot of BNBs.

00:22:29: So there are a lot of families that own their own BNB and they're considered in logifiers like ICP as small property owners.

00:22:41: And the way they manage or the way they access Logify or a software like Logify is very different to someone in the US who is so used to SaaS subscriptions, software, everything that for them it's like.

00:23:00: you don't even need to sell me what what a software is or likes what a software like this can do for me because I know that it's already going to save me time.

00:23:10: but in Italy for example or even Spain I consider they're more or less similar in this sense.

00:23:17: They're used to using notebooks.

00:23:20: They're used to using maybe an Excel.

00:23:23: And they're fine with it because they have, it's not like they have a thousand guests a month, right?

00:23:28: So they're able to use that.

00:23:33: So like you need to approach them in a different way.

00:23:37: It's not about saving time for them.

00:23:39: Because they're like, well, yes, you're saving time.

00:23:43: It's not that bad for me.

00:23:44: Like I don't mind it because it's cheaper for me to use this notebook, right?

00:23:49: So so all of this like you find out when you start talking to your customers, right?

00:23:55: And we started assessing them differently and I know this is like more of a product marketing approach, let's say, but it needs to translate into your content.

00:24:05: because if I write about saving time to Italians in, you know Italian property managers at Logify, they're gonna be like, that's great, but that's not a pain point for me, so I'm not gonna subscribe and I'm not gonna pay for this.

00:24:24: But if I then approach it another way, which maybe is about scaling, maybe it's about, I don't know, delegating, maybe, you know, there were things like families that were trying to give their businesses to their their kids or their grandkids and and those grandkids are trying to modernize and scale and make you know things like that then it will resonate with you.

00:24:56: so so yeah i think translating is okay in some settings.

00:25:02: in general i would at least recommend localization.

00:25:06: but if you want to scale seo especially if you want to end Even or any any sort of organic growth if you want to scale You do need to know your audiences and your markets because they're all different.

00:25:22: Super

00:25:22: interesting.

00:25:23: I think this is already maybe it's not the first but it's one nugget definitely that you have to have a really deep understanding of your customers because I think actually you did a. So i have to be honest i think you did a very good job in explaining the different also to a five year old.

00:25:40: because if i say the five year old hey you know.

00:25:44: your older brother likes to play more with a PlayStation and you like to play more with Lego or Duplo or whatever.

00:25:51: So you have completely different interests.

00:25:53: So you might want to go to different shops.

00:25:55: This is like, this is target group knowledge, right?

00:25:57: And in another family, maybe it's the other

00:25:59: year round, right?

00:26:00: Exactly.

00:26:04: Exactly.

00:26:05: Although five year olds probably shouldn't play PlayStation, but that's for another topic.

00:26:10: That's not our expertise.

00:26:11: No judgment.

00:26:12: No, no, no, no.

00:26:14: But I mean, one point you made, and I think this is something that probably people listening to this already feel eager to understand better.

00:26:22: You said that you saw actual impact to pipeline from the content.

00:26:26: So from SEO and from organic growth.

00:26:28: And I think this is something that a lot of people don't see yet.

00:26:32: And they haven't experienced how this feels.

00:26:35: And I think it feels magical, but I'd like to just Maybe understand a little bit.

00:26:41: What do you think?

00:26:42: What did you do differently?

00:26:44: Because I mean this is something that a lot of people struggle with and I'd like to give them a helping hand on what they can assess.

00:26:54: What should we do differently so we can replicate what Kala has seen with Logify.

00:27:01: At Logify, I tried to replicate this in my next experience after Logify, which was a burto.

00:27:08: And I'm trying to replicate this now with Matiga.

00:27:12: But I'm seeing differences already in this business.

00:27:16: But basically what I saw is that if you write a blog post and you don't have any sort of conversion path, I feel like you're just writing a diary entry.

00:27:32: right?

00:27:32: So we made sure I was very on top of this, my quantity will agree and will confirm, but I was very on top of the fact that every single piece of content needs a next step.

00:27:49: So okay, you're writing a blog post about, let's say, here's a real example.

00:27:56: So we were writing about Airbnb the amenities that Airbnb like to rank higher.

00:28:06: So if you have a property listed on Airbnb and you have these amenities and you haven't yet showcased it on your listing, you should because these are gonna rank you higher, right?

00:28:21: So this is a blog post, which is very helpful.

00:28:24: Yes, it's educational.

00:28:29: Yeah, it's informative.

00:28:30: But at the same time, what can I give you?

00:28:34: So what can I give the user out of this besides just knowledge?

00:28:39: So in that case, we generated a checklist.

00:28:45: But we could have perfectly generated an ebook.

00:28:48: We could have perfectly generated a course.

00:28:52: We could have generated a freebie.

00:28:55: It's kind of like what we're seeing these days on LinkedIn, where people are like, yes, I'm giving you a nugget of truth, but then at the same time, I'm giving something away.

00:29:05: Leave a comment and I will share it with you, right?

00:29:08: It's the same application.

00:29:09: So I give you something and I'm also giving you another thing.

00:29:15: But in return, I'm getting your contact details, right?

00:29:19: I'm seeing that you're interested in this field and this topic.

00:29:25: And I will use that to my advantage, right?

00:29:28: Like this is not just charity, let's say it is a business at the end of the day.

00:29:34: So I'm giving it to you because I want to help you, but at the same time I want to help myself and I want to learn about you and I want to give you my product eventually.

00:29:44: So what I did is that always offering a freebie once we had that contact information.

00:29:53: So the moment that they filled in the form, basically, we landed them on a landing page.

00:30:00: That landing page was like, yes, thank you for downloading.

00:30:04: But it was very much focused on what we wanted them to do next, which was either start a free trial or book a demo with sales.

00:30:13: So how we saw it is that we have your attention now.

00:30:18: We need to make use of this attention.

00:30:20: We need to try to squeeze it to the maximum.

00:30:24: So, okay, we land in the landing page.

00:30:27: You then have all of the information for you to try to get to, you know, persuade you to get to do the next step.

00:30:34: If you don't at that moment, we're going to follow up, you know, with the sequence.

00:30:39: So we had a very, it went through different versions of like a lead nurturing sequence.

00:30:48: very much tested several times.

00:30:50: every time we had someone new we tested it again but that sequence actually started with an email from the CEO just saying thanks.

00:31:03: like this is my baby thank you.

00:31:05: I'm so proud and all that.

00:31:07: and funny enough that email looked really Badly in the sense that it looked like someone was writing it.

00:31:15: For me, that was genius.

00:31:17: But for most people, it was like, Carla, this looks like spam.

00:31:20: That email brought us most of the trials, right?

00:31:26: So I was very proud of that spammy looking email that converted really well, right?

00:31:32: So again, like right, but with a conversion path in mind, and then think about what is the next step there also and always follow up like yeah we after that nurturing sequence we had sales on top of it and we tracked what they were looking at.

00:31:50: you know like all the signals right so you know.

00:31:54: of course when there's a lot of volume eventually you don't have time to look at all of the signals but when you're getting started that gives you you know content ideas it gives you a lot of information.

00:32:07: i find it really fascinating when i listen to you talking because you have this.

00:32:15: you're rooted in this deep passion for content for writing also but then at the same time you have these growth marketer treats like always tying everything back to revenue thinking about the next step.

00:32:31: these are all things that make total sense to me and that.

00:32:34: When we, for example, support clients with organic growth, it's the same things that bring in the most results.

00:32:39: But the thing I see is that a lot of people in SEO and content, they don't think like growth marketers, they primarily still think like editors or writers.

00:32:49: What did you do to build up this mindset?

00:32:51: What are like your mental models?

00:32:53: So if someone listens to this and feels like, yeah, I'm an editor at heart and.

00:33:00: But I don't know how can I become a growth marketer?

00:33:03: I don't know how to do this.

00:33:04: like what what what's like the path that you made also like in your thinking and all of that

00:33:14: Great question because I wouldn't say it was anything super concrete like it's not like I had One mentor or you know like I didn't.

00:33:27: I guess the thing that helped me first of all curiosity a lot of curiosity, and second, opportunity to test that curiosity.

00:33:39: So I think I was very lucky at Logify that I was able to test everything that I was curious about, but also my hunches, like hypothesis, right?

00:33:51: Like what if we tried this?

00:33:52: Let's see what happens, no?

00:33:55: So I think building that, You know now with AI people are getting a bit lazy, right?

00:34:02: Because it's like it's everything's there, but I think if you use AI to build that curiosity You know like I don't know research things that have nothing to do with what you do.

00:34:13: I think That's what I do in my free time.

00:34:18: But I did read you know different newsletters.

00:34:23: I'd say my biggest reference at Lodgeify was HubSpot, Shopify.

00:34:31: So I did study like what they did and that's where I saw, okay, they're doing it for, like especially Shopify.

00:34:39: They're doing it for e-commerce.

00:34:42: Yes, they're doing it for B to C kind of B. Is this similar to the audience that we have at Lodgeify?

00:34:50: Like they are entrepreneurs at the end of the day.

00:34:53: So could they have, you know, translatable?

00:34:56: content right.

00:34:57: so I'd say like also comparing.

00:35:02: Look at different examples.

00:35:03: look at different sass.

00:35:05: look at different AI companies.

00:35:07: look at Compare yourself.

00:35:09: Okay.

00:35:10: What are they doing?

00:35:11: Right?

00:35:12: Is there anything I can copy?

00:35:14: and I'm very you know, I tell my team this I Nothing is new anymore Even in art.

00:35:22: I feel like everything was copied.

00:35:24: It's just it was Improved on.

00:35:28: so I feel like that's something that you need to do like look look it Inspire yourself in different things.

00:35:35: I Wouldn't say copy as in copy as is at all.

00:35:39: That's not what I'm promoting.

00:35:41: But maybe there's something there that you can grab and you can translate to your Company audience brand whatever.

00:35:50: it is not because that's what I did like.

00:35:54: Let's see what happens if I try this thing that Shopify did or Mailchimp did and see if it works.

00:36:01: So that's the secret.

00:36:04: Test everything and be very curious

00:36:08: about everything.

00:36:13: think about when you mentioned this idea of a creative strategic mindset, because I read this interview you did and you mentioned this idea.

00:36:21: There was also lots of other cool stuff in the interview, but that struck with me because I think some people see this as opposites.

00:36:29: So you can either be strategic or you can be creative, but creativity, some people still attribute something like a little bit chaotic a little bit all over the place etc.

00:36:40: whereas strategic has this feeling of very streamlined very like clear path.

00:36:46: so how do you how do you bring this together?

00:36:51: that reminds me that i once did a job interview and they asked me are you more creative or analytical?

00:36:57: and for that job the job i was applying to this was like two i don't know.

00:37:02: fifteen years ago the the job i was applying to was very analytical.

00:37:06: so i was like I guess I'm analytical and they brought me this exam that I had to complete and I was just like, I have no clue how to do this.

00:37:16: So I will say I'm a little bit more creative and I had to train myself and learn how to be more analytical and eventually strategic.

00:37:29: But I don't think there's a difference.

00:37:33: It's one or the other.

00:37:33: I think it can be both.

00:37:38: How I see that is that you know.

00:37:40: for example for marketing I think you have to be both Original enough to grab attention.

00:37:49: So that could be creative.

00:37:51: It could be unique.

00:37:51: It could be maybe in someone's You know subjective mind, it's not creative, but it is unique, right?

00:37:59: So it has to be something that's unique enough to grab attention but it has to have a purpose.

00:38:06: And I feel like that is the strategic side of things.

00:38:12: There has to be a purpose behind it that's gonna move business forward.

00:38:16: I don't know, I grew up writing.

00:38:19: I thought I was gonna be a designer at some point.

00:38:23: And over time, I've had to learn how to create reports and all that.

00:38:29: And I think that's how I build up my strategic side.

00:38:34: But as well, I think it was because I was able to test so much that I started learning, okay, what works and what doesn't, you know?

00:38:44: And even like in day-to-day setting, I think you can be a creative, strategic person.

00:38:54: Because for example, I don't know, when you're writing a LinkedIn post, I keep repeating LinkedIn because I've been investing some time on that.

00:39:04: And I think I have it as a top of mind topic.

00:39:06: But something as simple as writing a LinkedIn post, the creative side is finding the hook, the comment, the word, the sentence that's going to get people to stop scrolling.

00:39:22: But then a strategic side is making sure that that content is not just fluff.

00:39:28: And it's tying back to you as a personal brand or your company.

00:39:33: Like, what is your company's positioning?

00:39:36: What is it that you actually want to convey?

00:39:38: So again, purpose.

00:39:41: So yeah, I think, you know, creative strategic mindset means that you don't have to choose between art and science.

00:39:49: You merge them.

00:39:51: Kind of like a Matiga or... Merging that creativity, you know, gets the attention and strategy, make sure that that attention translates into something which hopefully is revenue.

00:40:06: It makes a whole lot of sense.

00:40:07: And I think this there's a lot that people probably have to process around this but also with like the link and post.

00:40:17: it's a great example because you can do a very creative post very cool and lots of attention but in the end.

00:40:23: People feel like hey but it didn't translate into anything meaningful for the business.

00:40:28: probably you're lacking a little bit of strategic thinking behind what you're doing there.

00:40:32: so would you agree that like the strategy.

00:40:36: somehow defines a little bit the corridor you want to work in and the creativity is like just maybe jumping but ensuring that you're jumping into the right direction exactly

00:40:47: exactly.

00:40:48: yeah yeah you can.

00:40:49: you can be chaotic and creative let's say but organized in an organized manner.

00:40:55: yeah that's you put this so nicely um but now drawing this back to metiga i mean you as you said it's like it's.

00:41:03: it's a it's a regulatory driven market and it's a market where I can imagine like compliance is a topic etc.

00:41:13: some like EU regulations.

00:41:19: You're a creative person and you're also strategic person.

00:41:22: but how do you approach like the scale up of your marketing efforts there given that it's a very regulatory driven market.

00:41:32: So, you know, the difference with other markets, let's say, or other industries is that it's a bit harder to test things that you think might break, you know, in hospitality, it can't break really.

00:41:52: Like, there's nothing that can break there, but, well, I don't know, maybe there are, but like, it's easier to test.

00:41:59: Here, it's a bit harder to test.

00:42:01: You really need to look into all of the possible consequences which I think in all tests you do have to have a plan behind.

00:42:13: but you know the most important thing here actually is credibility and trust and that's what we're leaning more towards.

00:42:22: so I can't just wing an experiment.

00:42:26: I have to make sure that I could try it, but I have to make sure that it won't break the trust of my customers.

00:42:34: It won't affect the credibility that we're building as a brand.

00:42:40: One of our main pillars is science you can trust.

00:42:46: Everything we write has to have scientific rigor.

00:42:51: Even if we're trying to put it in simple terms, it still has to be.

00:42:57: It has to work for climate scientists as well.

00:42:59: They have to look at it and be like, yes, that is correct, right?

00:43:04: And as you said, regulatory driven, yeah, there are mandates, there are frameworks, there are laws, but at the same time, that helps us because it gives us structure, right?

00:43:17: So you can see it, the thing is you can see things in different ways.

00:43:22: You can see that as a negative.

00:43:23: but I like to flip it into a positive because it's like.

00:43:27: that is my guideline like I can use that while if there's nothing like that I'm starting.

00:43:34: I have to wing everything and I have to build that great like credibility from scratch when no one else is talking about this right and that is harder.

00:43:43: I feel here we're like okay these are the complex terms most people like.

00:43:50: even if they're working in this Don't even know like how that applies to their business.

00:43:55: Let me be that voice of like, okay, I have this and we translate it for you.

00:44:00: Let me show you like how this is going to affect you how this is going to help you and Maybe without anything in return.

00:44:07: It's like in the beginning, right?

00:44:09: We'll be here when you're ready, right?

00:44:12: so it's you know focusing on that trust and you know building that the credibility as well, I think The fact that we have these very intelligent people internally helps us a lot, but also having those mandates also helps us to create that structure.

00:44:34: And another thing that we're trying to build is education.

00:44:39: As I've already said, all of this is very new, complex.

00:44:47: There are a lot of things that haven't been updated yet.

00:44:51: and our world is changing so fast.

00:44:54: So we need to ensure that at least we know how to apply these things and how to translate it to the world.

00:45:05: That's really at credibility, trust, which is more or less the same, education and internal alignment.

00:45:12: So we can deliver all of it.

00:45:15: You mentioned that the world is changing really fast and you also dropped the obvious keyword of AI earlier in another response.

00:45:25: I'm curious, how do you feel about AI, like in content and marketing?

00:45:28: Are you rather worried or excited?

00:45:31: And do you like, where do you use it?

00:45:34: Because I feel like a lot of people are talking about it, but not... too many people share actual workflows or tips like operationalized knowledge.

00:45:46: So I'm curious to hear what your thoughts about it.

00:45:50: Yeah.

00:45:51: So I'd say I'm more worried about AI, like its impact over the society overall, more than how it is going to affect or is affecting already marketing, right?

00:46:04: That worries me more because in our setting, in marketing and content, let's say, I think the way I see it is that it's a great co-pilot, let's say.

00:46:17: Oh, I just thought that maybe I'm thinking of that because Microsoft's AI told us called co-pilot.

00:46:24: They did great marketing.

00:46:25: There

00:46:25: you go.

00:46:25: That's branding.

00:46:27: You don't even know.

00:46:28: But I see it as like a partner, let's say.

00:46:33: I think it makes us faster at things that before would have taken us maybe more time.

00:46:39: I don't think it would have been impossible to achieve the things that AI achieves, but you know, it would have taken us way longer to get there.

00:46:48: So I think it's helping us with that.

00:46:50: It's also helping out with like manual work as well.

00:46:54: And I also have like a hot take is that, which is that, you know, if as a marketer, AI can do your job, I feel like you probably were not doing marketing right.

00:47:09: I feel like maybe you were just typing maybe, right?

00:47:14: So I think, I don't think it's going to replace us if that's the question too.

00:47:20: But I do think that marketeers that don't know AI will be replaced.

00:47:25: So that I do see.

00:47:27: And in terms of application, we're using it for creating, for example, content pillars.

00:47:36: So, you know, when we first started, there were so many things that we wanted to talk about.

00:47:42: We knew that the climate scientists wanted to talk about volcanoes, let's say, that's one example.

00:47:48: There are so many other things that they wanted to talk about, but volcanoes, they were especially really, really, really interested in letting the world know about that.

00:48:01: And we used AI or Chatchapiti in this case.

00:48:05: We used Chatchapiti to put some order into our thinking.

00:48:11: Once it created the outputs, from there we worked on that because it wasn't just like, oh, great, thank you, Chatchapiti.

00:48:18: Let me do this and just do this.

00:48:20: And that's it.

00:48:20: No, there was thinking behind it as well.

00:48:23: It's like, OK, this is a good output.

00:48:25: Let's look into more and then, you know, iterations and iterations of that.

00:48:29: So that's one application.

00:48:31: The other one, which is not really related to Matiga yet, but I'm testing on my own is I have two GPTs that are working really, really well for Maple.

00:48:44: One is create content for me for LinkedIn based on specific topics that I give it.

00:48:54: I think it generates really, really good content.

00:48:57: I always have to rewrite some things, of course, to give it to the human side.

00:49:01: But the other GPT that I have is it grabs that, and it tells me what freebie to create, or what to give away.

00:49:11: And I was like, wow.

00:49:14: For me, it was just fine-blowing.

00:49:15: I was like, OK, I don't even have to think of how to create that freebie.

00:49:21: Because then it also gave me ideas of what freebies like how to create it exactly Like for example the SQL scoring that I shared the other day.

00:49:31: It gave me like exactly what to put in it and I was like Hmm because but also it does have a lot of context of my background.

00:49:42: It has a lot of context on the scoring systems in that specific case like that I have built in the past, you know, so context is very important, but those are just some examples of applications that we've used.

00:49:53: And I think for social media, it's a really great tool for generating content on social media, especially.

00:50:03: Not so much in blogs, I would recommend.

00:50:07: Okay, nice.

00:50:08: Thanks so much for sharing the insights.

00:50:12: So when you started

00:50:13: at

00:50:14: Meetiga, you wrote a post where you talked about your new role.

00:50:19: And one of the things you mentioned is that you want to tightly align marketing with sales and product and strategy and partnerships.

00:50:28: And I feel like this reads very well.

00:50:31: And a lot of people would say, hey, yeah, of course, like aligning.

00:50:36: all these functions makes total sense.

00:50:38: But there's this big question of how.

00:50:42: So how do you actually do it?

00:50:44: So do we do meetings with like, pan people from all different departments and but like, and can you share a little bit about how you structured and how you how you how this looks like in the day to day?

00:50:55: Yeah.

00:50:56: So being fully transparent, this is still a work in progress.

00:51:00: Okay, because yeah, we are Trying to find the best way for all of us, right?

00:51:07: But for me alignment is not just, you know Fancy word something that looks good in your CP, you know, it it's actually showing up.

00:51:20: Sorry, it shows up in your calendar meaning you have meetings with all of these.

00:51:24: Yes But also in the decisions.

00:51:29: so in the decisions and in the comments meaning like when someone from sales or marketing says something, everyone is aligned and agrees on that.

00:51:40: It's not like, wait, what?

00:51:41: What did they say?

00:51:42: So I think that's how it's visible, that alignment.

00:51:48: In terms of actual app, how does it work?

00:51:53: With sales, for example, it means that I'm or my team is actually in the pipeline reviews.

00:52:03: We're looking at what's converting, where deals are stalling, we're calling it out.

00:52:12: Why are these deals still in prospecting stage or why are they still in the new phase?

00:52:20: And having them share, okay, they're at this stage because I'm missing this and that.

00:52:26: Okay, then I see, okay, then you need a case study.

00:52:29: I'll produce that case study for you.

00:52:31: I'll share it with you.

00:52:33: And that way, you know, we're aligned because we're working together towards closing that deal together, right?

00:52:40: Product, we sit on roadmap discussions.

00:52:44: Something that I loved is that when I joined, I was really surprised because product every week shares what the roadmap is and where they're at in that roadmap.

00:52:55: So so the with the whole company not just marketing, right?

00:53:00: So that that's very refreshing Because you you know, you know, what's coming what's not.

00:53:07: there's no question there, right?

00:53:10: And that way we're also not surprised when okay, we have to launch this new thing.

00:53:15: Oh shoot I have only two days to produce this.

00:53:18: No, there's nothing like that because we were aware every week and strategy It's making sure that what they're seeing in the market, for example, what they're seeing with competitors, we're putting that into practice in our plans, our campaigns, content, anything.

00:53:40: So that means we have, we used to have a weekly meeting.

00:53:44: We're now doing a monthly meeting because we saw that we're aligned.

00:53:48: There's a lot of discussion, internal discussion, a lot of chats.

00:53:54: So we're fully aligned there.

00:53:55: And partnerships, they are very collaborative with different teams.

00:54:02: I'm in calls with one of our biggest partners, which is Microsoft.

00:54:08: So I joined those calls as well.

00:54:11: We work together in co-branded campaigns.

00:54:14: So yeah, for now, it means being in all of those meetings.

00:54:20: It means being in the room, people are making decisions having the opportunity to give your you know point of view as well and your what you believe in.

00:54:31: and um yeah I just I just think also we are pre-series like series A as well.

00:54:39: um so we are a small team and we're able to do these things now right in the future we might not be able to have that much time bandwidth all that but because we're already building this, like we're already building like an alignment, let's say, like a trust thing between us, at least having a channel on Slack or Teams, whatever.

00:55:04: I think we will have in the future to align all of us together and all that.

00:55:09: But yeah, I think marketing is not just like a separate function.

00:55:14: I don't think it is.

00:55:15: It has to be like a connective tissue, let's say.

00:55:21: across all of these departments.

00:55:23: So I think that's what keeps us moving towards the same direction.

00:55:29: What I'm also hearing between the lines is information flow, right?

00:55:33: Yes.

00:55:34: The flow of information between the different stakeholders.

00:55:39: Perspectives I mean people might otherwise.

00:55:41: I just want to make this point.

00:55:43: otherwise might hear okay meetings.

00:55:45: everybody is very restrictive with meetings now.

00:55:49: but I think the key point here is rather really understanding what the other functions are working on getting everyone together and like.

00:56:00: Making sure that you're moving in the same direction right

00:56:02: exactly.

00:56:03: it's not just meetings for meetings right like it's a meeting with a purpose.

00:56:08: either to share what we're doing, see where there are gaps, or sometimes we're like, do we need this meeting?

00:56:16: Can it be a Slack message?

00:56:18: Sometimes it becomes a message instead of a meeting.

00:56:22: But when you do need to discuss things, debate, let's say, I do think you need a meeting for that sale.

00:56:29: Very nice.

00:56:30: Kala, we are already approaching like an hour of talking and it has been like time has flown.

00:56:36: So it was really interesting already.

00:56:38: I would like to wrap things up a little bit and I always want to like at the end, I want to give some actionable advice.

00:56:47: You have already given a lot of actionable advice.

00:56:50: I want to be very clear about that.

00:56:52: But still, I think If someone is listening or watching this running marketing at a climate tech company or maybe generally in the compliance or more regulatory space, what would be like your top three pieces of advice for this person for building a strong marketing function?

00:57:14: Yeah, great question.

00:57:16: Oh, can't give up, give away my playbook just in case competitors are listing.

00:57:24: I'm still in Matiga, so I can't give that away.

00:57:28: No, I'm just kidding.

00:57:28: But I will share three pieces of advice.

00:57:32: So first, I think it's building credibility.

00:57:38: I think in regulated industries or yeah, regulated industries in general, like trust is the currency.

00:57:47: I think you can't just create clever campaigns and all that, though I will challenge it because we did do memes and we did some ads, LinkedIn ads with memes and it worked out really well, but it still has to tie back into the regulation or the mandate and all that.

00:58:11: So like, yes, you can be human because there are humans behind it, but make sure that everything is you know, well written, it's the acronyms that they're looking for.

00:58:24: all of this, right?

00:58:25: So credibility show up as credible and reliable.

00:58:30: Second, I think it's key to have cross functional alignment.

00:58:34: I think like all of these frameworks, relations, all of this evolve constantly.

00:58:44: So you really can't work in a silo because you know it's really hard to be on top of everything on your own or on your like your team on its own.

00:58:53: It's easier if everyone is looking you know towards it and we share that information together.

00:58:59: so I think at least you need marketing sales and product moving together especially product two and third revenue accountability.

00:59:12: I think it's really easy to get lost in.

00:59:15: like I wrote a blog post, I got a lot of engagement in my post.

00:59:22: All of these vanity metrics, traffic, for example, has not become a vanity metric with AEI.

00:59:29: at the end of the day try to find a way to link marketing to business outcomes whether that's maybe just adding a form so that way you can track contacts for example or like leads that come in you know try to tie it always back into something that makes an impact towards the business.

00:59:51: otherwise I think it's just noise or something that's nice to have.

00:59:56: and you know like Finitech is just as technical as marketing to developers, to government agencies.

01:00:06: It's just as technical as all of those.

01:00:08: But the playbook, I think, is the same.

01:00:10: So be accurate, incredible, be useful, and earn the right to be heard.

01:00:18: Because there's so much information everywhere, like you can ask chat to be there all day, or perplexity all day.

01:00:26: But yeah, if you feel like that credibility and all that, you're going to be the source of truth.

01:00:31: So that's going to translate it to everything else.

01:00:36: Very nice.

01:00:36: I think this was very actionable.

01:00:38: And although you mentioned that you can't share your secret source, I think it's uh very very good advice from there.

01:00:47: yeah more or less.

01:00:48: um kala thanks so much for doing this.

01:00:51: i think it was a very insightful talk and i'm pretty sure that everyone actively listening to this or watching this uh could took away a lot of like very also i think new school very modern and also actually very timeless advice.

01:01:08: so i think the things you shared it's like it's very foundational also like mental models about marketing and how to build this up.

01:01:17: If people feel like I like her way of thinking, I like to follow her more, what's the best place to reach you or to follow you?

01:01:28: I'd say now is my LinkedIn.

01:01:30: I'm trying to build my personal brand out there.

01:01:34: So I'd say my LinkedIn page.

01:01:37: So yeah, Carla to Cheryl on LinkedIn, you'll find me there.

01:01:42: Very nice.

01:01:42: We also put your profile in the video description below, so it's easier for people to find you.

01:01:48: Other than that, I'll say it again, thanks so much for doing this.

01:01:52: I hope you will keep crushing with Metiga.

01:01:55: I think based on what I heard and based on what I've seen, you are more than set up for success.

01:02:02: Thank

01:02:03: you.

01:02:04: Thanks so much.

01:02:05: Keep crushing.

01:02:06: Hope to speak soon.

01:02:09: Yeah.

01:02:10: Thank you so much.

01:02:11: Thank you so much for having me.

01:02:12: It was really really insightful.

01:02:15: Yeah, it was really really helpful to talk to you.

01:02:18: It was nice.

01:02:18: Thank

01:02:19: you.

01:02:20: Thanks so much kind of.