Transcription ****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.**** [intro music] Kenneth Kinney 0:16 Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective. I am Kenneth shark Kinney, your host and Chief Shark Officer. Let me tell you about two amazing sponsors who make this show possible. I'm a rather particular shark and only work with the best. First of all, let's talk a little bit about inbound. I've worked with a great team at Invoca for several years now from marketing to sales and commerce to CX, Invoca's active conversational intelligence platform enables revenue teams to create better buying experiences, drive more leads and increase revenue. Trusted by top brands like Dish Network, Mayo Clinic, Mutual of Omaha, and ADT, the Invoca team are doing some amazing work in turning conversational data into automated action to enhance digital touchpoints in human interaction. Secondly, let's talk about outbound. I've worked with the amazing team at Drips and I hope that you'll take a look at drips the founders of conversational texting where they use conversational AI to help you reach customers where they're most responsive. And that's when their phones and working with major brands like three day blinds, liberty Mutual, Credit Repair, and Ganesco, Drips is leading the way for some of the biggest brands in the world to improve engagement rates and outcomes for their prospects and customers. Thank you to Invoca and Drips And now back to the show. So buying a company part of it can be easy the dollars are available. But merging two brands is more than just a logo. It's culture technology, current customers of both companies and so much more, especially when it's a subscription type platform. And it's got to be done right to make your current customers happy. Support the ones that may renew with you. And all the while making both companies merge and improve. Deana McPherson is the Chief Marketing Officer at invoca, the leading conversation intelligence platform, and on this episode we'll discuss conversational data martech and adtech. Creating a better customer experience acquiring the merging with one of your competitors from brand people culture and technology standpoints. First party data that many marketers don't know is first party data, making sure both sets of customers are happy, beautiful Santa Barbara, Boilermakers and a lot, lot more. So let's tune into the CMO from one of my favorite companies with what is obviously one of all of our favorite sharks, and that would be me on this episode of A Shark's Perspective. Kenneth Kinney 2:28 Deanna, thank you so much for joining us today on A Shark's Perspective. Tell us a little bit about your background and your career story today. Dee Anna McPherson 2:34 Sure, well, first, thanks for having me. I'm a big fan of the podcast and it's always great speaking with you. So thanks for having me on as a guest. Yeah, a little bit about my background. I started my career in PR, worked at many agencies like Edelman, and Ogilvy, and then worked in house for our PeopleSoft during a very exciting time, we were getting taken over like in a hostile takeover by Oracle, and then made the jump into broader marketing roles about a decade ago first with Yammer that was a pioneer in the space that's now dominated by slack and then went on to lead marketing at Hootsuite. moveable Inc, which is another marketing technology. And then I joined invoca about a year ago, right at the start of the pandemic. So fun fact is I've never even met my team in person yet. Kenneth Kinney 3:25 Oh, that's so sad. Well, that's a pretty damn good pedigree, though. When you list the name. She just dropped off between Ogilvy Edelman, Hootsuite, Oracle, PeopleSoft good names that people in the space know, well, you're originally from Indiana, and you're a boilermaker. What makes what makes a Hoosier State kind of person moved to San Francisco. Dee Anna McPherson 3:44 Well, it was kind of a, it did a little loop around the country. I started my career in Chicago. And then I thought, Okay, well, you know, I'm NPR, New York's the center of the media world, you need to be there. So I just picked up and moved to New York. And then I moved to Dallas with an opportunity with Adelman to go run an office. And then they said, If you turn around the office in two years, you can choose anywhere you want to go. So I said, All right. Well, you know, I work in high tech communications, and Silicon Valley is the center of that world. I want to be there. So I moved out here and in 99, so I guess you could say I'm a California now. Kenneth Kinney 4:22 But when you were in Dallas, you became a massive Dallas Cowboys fan. Right? Dee Anna McPherson 4:26 You know, that's my one big regret is I never went to a cowboy thing. Oh, it's God's country Kenneth Kinney 4:31 underneath. I know. I know I heard is just like it is something to expand is something to experience indeed. So let's talk a little bit about invoca. And one of the great interesting things that's come up recently is you guys acquired dialog tech, which was big news in the space. So I'm really want to dive into that acquisition and talk about really merging two tech companies. I've worked a little bit in m&a before, and even under the best circumstances, it's hard to reassemble all the teams but when you think about it, from martech and ad tech space is a lot more challenges as well. So what are the challenges and the opportunities that you've uncovered as you've gone through this transition when you're managing to subscription type SAS brands, ad tech brands that come together? Because it's not always taking the exact two pieces that fit together? The puzzles don't always merge perfectly. Dee Anna McPherson 5:20 Yeah. So in this type of acquisition, we, you know, we were fierce competitors, we were each other number one competitors. Yeah, so the first thing you think about is, is how are the people in the culture is going to mesh because that is really fundamental, right, it's key to success, keeping the customers happy, you know, kind of keeping the team's productive. And so we spent a lot of time in due diligence, you know, really like looking at the values of the companies and, and sort of diving into, you know, explore as much as you can, you know, before before the deal close. And we found that their culture is very complimentary to ours, even though invoke is based in California, people always say you kind of feel like a Midwestern company, you kind of have that Midwestern vibe. And, and so I think it fit really well with the dialog tech folks. And you know, Greg always says, the two, the two roles that you worry about, most are the people who've been, you know, the sales consultants, or the SES, and the person who does competitive intelligence. And when we talk to because they're their most, you know, kind of fierce competitors. And when we talked to them, they were like, We just want to win, and we'll win more together. So you know, the first thing that that we looked at is really, how do we treat the people coming in? How do we, you know, kind of take care to make sure that we're listening, and not just sort of dictating, here's how it's going to be and we really make this a true, like collaborative partnership. That was a, you know, a big piece of it is the culture and the people Kenneth Kinney 6:48 to that point about the Midwest as well, you're from Indiana, or CEOs from Georgia, you've got a head of sales in Denver, you can call yourselves whatever you want, just as long as you keep that office in Santa Barbara, we will right there on the coast on the water. So what are the challenges as well, and the opportunities that go with merging the brands that you see, because although these are not 50 year old companies, you both have built up a fair level of trust in your field. And so like with any brand, from a basic marketing standpoint, it's trying to merge those two levels of trust and make sure that they're your customers and their customers see it as one brand. What are you sort of encompassing as you go through that from a brand standpoint? Dee Anna McPherson 7:29 Yeah, we're looking at sort of a roadmap and a time horizon where things will transition, we wanted to make sure that we didn't do anything drastic immediately. Our number one concern is making sure that the dialogue tech customer base, you know, really felt embraced by imboca, and had either the same or an elevated experience as a customer of the combined company. So one of the things for example, we decided, seems like a small decision, but I think it is, it represents the way we were thinking about it, we've decided not to change over there. The email addresses, for example, we didn't want dialogue customers to suddenly be getting emails from invoca. So we're continuing to market to the dialogue, tech customers through the dialogue, tech Mar tech stack, the customer facing employees are continuing to communicate with a dialog tech email. And then over time, we'll begin to transition that but we didn't want the customers to feel jarred by this. And we want to have time for them to settle in. And then for them to see that they're going to get an elevated experience as a result of the merger of the two companies. Kenneth Kinney 8:38 Typically when you think through that, and from your own past as well, where you've seen this like with Yammer and everything with PeopleSoft. How do you look at that, from a timeline standpoint? Are you thinking this is a six months to a year? Or is this multiple years because that's a really good point about keeping email addresses to have some sort of familiarity, I think so often, that a lot of acquisitions I've been part of or worked with are seen, there's a very quick rush to change the logo. Yeah. But there's not always the rush to improve the experience. Dee Anna McPherson 9:08 Right, right. And that's really our primary focus is improving the experience. From the branding standpoint, we decided we'll leave the dialog tech website up. But it's really just for things that will be a value to customers, for prospects for net new customers will be marketing the invoca platform to them, but so we've kind of redirected pages on the dialog type of website that are specifically for prospects. But if it's for customers, we're leaving it up. And then we're keeping the dialogue tech logo on there, but we're just saying is now part of invoca. So that there's clarity around, you know, around the company and the new structure, but we want to elevate the customer experience. So we're leaving that alone. For now. We will transition over time, you know, probably I'm thinking, you know, around a six month timeframe, we'll start to make some more transitions and And then, you know, we've said publicly that we will continue to fully support that island tech platform over a multi year period. And we're currently working with customers to understand, you know, like, what's the best migration path, we want to make sure that, you know, we're listening before we're making final decisions? Kenneth Kinney 10:18 Well, so as I mentioned earlier, I had worked with clients over my career that had worked with several invoca competitors as well, including dialog tech, and each have their own positive idiosyncrasies. They each have some, some bells and whistles that the other one doesn't. But when you look at merging these two ad tech technologies together from a customer standpoint, how do you go about it to make certain that it continues from a technological perspective, elevating that experience for their customers, whether it be yours or theirs? And as you migrate the two together? Dee Anna McPherson 10:51 Yeah, I think one of the things that's been easier about this acquisition is that we both deeply understand each other's business with our technology teams have been able to immerse themselves very quickly in each other's platforms, and do an analysis and say, Okay, which one is a better platform to focus our energy for future development. So we've decided that the dialogue tech platform will remain with customers for you know, a two to three year horizon, but that the imboca platform will be where we focus for future development. But there are technologies and features that dialog tech had that imboca didn't have. And so having that engineering resource, we're going to accelerate our roadmap and development of that functionality. And so as we kind of entice customers to migrate from dialogue, tech to invoca, you know, we think they'll get, you know, a much stronger platform and you know, will will, they'll be able to get a whole lot more for the same price that they've they've paid will lock them into current pricing. Kenneth Kinney 11:54 Having worked with invoca, in dialog tech as well, it's always been important to me from a performance marketing standpoint, in particular, a lot of what your technology is starting to do and really emerged with is giving marketers the capability to leverage technology and the right kind of ad tech to improve customer experience. And so many people think when they think call intelligence type platforms, they're typically thinking of somebody calls into a call center, then how do we optimize our ads, this can also though, optimize a lot of customer experiences his teams are finding out. So tell me about that, how you're integrating that customer experience field into a lot of the conversation of where people can advance with leveraging this kind of technology, Dee Anna McPherson 12:38 we're really looking at how conversation data can help improve the entire buyers journey from the initial landing on your website from a marketing campaign to when they jumped to the phone call? And then how do we improve the conversion on the phone call? And then afterwards, how do you take all that data that you're learning from customers, as they call in to improve your digital journey and the overall customer experience? So you know, if you think about it, marketers, we spend so much money, doing things like, you know, surveys and focus groups to kind of learn what what a customer is thinking yet, most marketers aren't really tapping into this goldmine of first party data into their calls, customers are taking, you know, they are taking time to call in and they're sharing all kinds of insights about your product, your pricing, your competitors, you know, their motivations. And I think especially in a year, like we've had this last year, where consumer behavior was all over the map and buying behavior was changing, it's so important for marketers to keep their finger on the pulse of what's happening. And there's no better way to do that, than using that first party conversation data. And I think it's a really under leveraged asset that most marketers don't tap into. Well, most marketers just don't know that it is first party data. And it becomes something routed to either a call center or a customer service team. But then you ask them, you know, you know, when you drive people to your website from a marketing campaign, what percentage of them convert via the phone, most of them will tell you, I have no idea. And then, you know, it's really illuminating once you get access to that call data. And you find out that all these campaigns that you think were performing at a certain level, were really performing at a much higher level, because the conversions are just not happening online. They're happening on the phone. So that you know, kind of overall visibility and attribution. That's, you know, sort of where we land with a lot of marketers, but then as they get more sophisticated, they start tapping into that call data to say, Alright, now what can I learn about improving the digital experience? What can I learn about improving, you know, my product, my service, well can I learn about, you know, the broader market that can help, you know, our company strategy, our product strategy as well as our marketing strategy. And then the final leg of that too is you know that we have all this call call data. The other thing that happened in May for invoca, not only did we close the dialog tech deal on May 11, but we also launched a whole new product line in Boca for sales. And that's all about using that conversation data to actually improve the agent performance, so that you're improving the overall customer experience, as well as improving conversions by tapping into that data, to use it to train and improve agent performance. Kenneth Kinney 15:41 Explain the audience who may or may not think, you know, we saw you talked about consumer behavior before, one of the things that I still think a lot of marketers don't understand is the need for people to be on the phone. Not everything is done from an e commerce channel, or just a digital click and buy somewhere. How do you explain this? Or do you even need to explain this to people who may not understand the importance of phone calls as part of the buying process for a lot of complex sales? Dee Anna McPherson 16:09 Yeah, so the customers that we serve, do tend to understand the power of that human touch. So we really focus on industries that are, you know, complex purchases, high consideration, that's Kenneth Kinney 16:22 a huge market. Dee Anna McPherson 16:23 It's a huge market. So if you think of things like financial services, if you think of things like insurance, you know, health care, industries, high end, ecommerce, so for example, barbecue guys, summer's getting started, a lot of people think about buying, you know, a new barbecue or outdoor equipment. Well, you know, if you are sort of a low end, maybe you're like me, and you want to buy a $500 barbecue, they don't want to talk to you. But if you're thinking about a, you know, $20,000, custom build out, they want to talk to you, because they could probably give you a better experience and upsell you, if you're a contractor that can provide, you know, really repeat business, they definitely want to take that opportunity to build the relationship with you. So we do focus on industries where they understand, you know, the value of the human connection. And I think, you know, what we found during the pandemic, there were a lot of things where you typically would buy something in person. And rather than just jumping straight from in person to digital, the phone became even more important. And so, we are seeing a lot of companies now thinking of, you know, using the phone as a channel to create that, that kind of human, you know, human touch and allowing that expertise that, you know, might replace the in person experience. Sure. Kenneth Kinney 17:41 So what are the biggest challenge you see now in positioning a martec tech platform, like invoca, most people already have large tech stacks, a lot of Moran equated, but just like we were talking about a lot of this being first party data when somebody gets on the phone with you, you know, a lot of marketers really don't even know what kind of garbled mess they have internally, that their IT team is trying to stitch together. So this becomes a challenge for any ad tech player or martec player to come in and say, we've got this cool, great technology. And it becomes a challenge to market that as well. What do you sing is a continued challenge and how are you overcoming positioning yourself as a b2b ad tech platform? Dee Anna McPherson 18:22 Yeah, certainly, there's a lot of Mar tech and ad tech out there. So just getting that share of mind with with the marketer is, you know, certainly a challenge. And the way we approach it is really, you know, we realize that what we need to educate, you know, our prospective buyer on the problems that they have, that that we could solve. So a lot of marketers have spent, you know, a lot of money and effort gathering every bit of data they can about a digital journey. But when it comes to jumping to the phone call, it's a total black hole. And you know, most of our customers have, you know, 30% or more of their sales being done over the phone. So that's just a huge gap that they have. And then when you start to point that out, and ask them questions, like, you know, do you know how many of the phone calls that you drove from your campaign are converting? They're like, yeah, I have no idea. Do you know, when you drive, you know, when you drive from a website to a phone call? What percentage of calls aren't being picked up or answered in time, which is like the number one frustration of consumers when they call him they're not getting, you know, getting a quick answer and quick resolution? Do you know that no, have no idea. So once you start opening their eyes to these like significant gaps, they then they get it pretty, pretty quick and, and it's very illuminating. And they can see, you know, pretty quick impact on their business when they just start taking a look at what's happening in these conversations. And then over time, as I said, as they get more sophisticated, they can really start to tap into that data. And it gives the marketer I think, a real seat at the table to go and and represent, here's the voice of the customer. Here's what's happening in the market. Here's the buying behavior and changing consumer behavior that we're seeing DNI s of everybody on the show, what is your favorite kind of shark and why? Okay, so I wouldn't say that I know a whole lot about sharks. And I wouldn't say that I unlike you, I'm not really looking to encounter sharks in the wild. But there's one shark that I encountered in the wild. And it was a, it was a leopard shark and it was in really shallow water. It wasn't it wasn't doing so hot. So it was a really cool experience. My son was maybe five at the time, it was about a decade ago. And and then the kind of park ranger came out and was assisting it. So it was really cool to watch it and, and they're not menacing. So I would say that as that's my favorite shark. Kenneth Kinney 20:52 Good choice. Well, the end it's a special time the show. Are you ready for the five most interesting and important questions that you're going to be asked today? I hope so. Alright, number one. martec or ad tech? Oh, martech. Okay. Number two, San Francisco or Santa Barbara. Oh, that's a hard one. I'm gonna say Santa Barbara. Yeah, there's, it's not even close. Number three, IndyCar racing or NASCAR? Dee Anna McPherson 21:29 Well, I'm gonna say NASCAR. Even though I'm from Indiana, we have Kenneth Kinney 21:33 a setup because I know what's coming. Dee Anna McPherson 21:35 Yeah. We were hosting an event tomorrow with Julia landauer. Who's a NASCAR racer. Kenneth Kinney 21:40 Fantastic. So what made you go that route? Dee Anna McPherson 21:44 with Julie. We just saw videos her She's amazing. She's her contents. Incredible. She's super bright. And yeah, she just really grabbed our attention. Kenneth Kinney 21:54 Good. Alright, number four great schools in your area. Stanford, well known school or Purdue. Oh, I got I got to go with Purdue gotta go to home school. Yeah, of course. Much better basketball most most times anyway. Alright, number five, in the most important question that you're going to be asked today is biscuits or cornbread. biscuits all the way. All right. So Deanna, where do people go to find out more about you the Invoker platform? Of course, they can listen to a shark's perspective and hear about invoke as well. But where do you want them to go to find you? Yeah, I Dee Anna McPherson 22:30 mean, you can find us on invoca.com you can follow us on on LinkedIn. We have a number of events coming up to you know, learn more about invoke and you can find that all on our website. Kenneth Kinney 22:41 Deanna, thank you so much for being with us today on A Shark's Perspective. Dee Anna McPherson 22:47 Thank you. It was a pleasure. Kenneth Kinney 22:51 So there was my conversation with Deanna McPherson, the Chief Marketing Officer at invoca, the leading conversation intelligence platform, let's take a look at three key takeaways. From my conversation with her first, culture is likely already a top initiative with your brand. But merging two brands together, I've gone through this personally, it is of utmost importance. And why is it so important, because when you really merge all these people together, one, you want them to be happy. But two, it's going to help drive a better performance, and a better experience for your own customers. Second, with any acquisition, it's extremely important to help both sets of customers feel like they're part of the new family. One thing she mentioned that's critical is this support. In this case of the platform they bought, they're going to help support those teams for some time look. And with some brands, they may have turned your brand down in the past, some went with the other company, and they're maybe a bit confused about what happens next. Or even if they're looking at you for the first time. It's really up to you to earn their trust so that they want to buy or in this case renew with you. So it's not just about acquiring your competitors customers, it's also making certain that they enjoy an amazing customer experience. Third, and as she said, and you've heard me say this before, most marketers aren't leveraging the first party conversational data that comes with a phone call. It's not just customer service either. What can you take from a conversation that helps you with ad performance customer experience, improve your strategy, improve agent performance? There's so much it's a lot more than just a phone call? Got a question? Send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective, calm. Thank you again for the privilege of your time. I'm so thankful for everyone who listens. Thank you to the amazing sponsors and invoke interrupts. So let's go out there and have some amazing conversations and join us on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective. [music]