I'm Teri Donovan, and I've been in the tech marketing industry for over 25 years working for brands such as Cisco and Sony. During my career I’ve worked in tech media, branding, thought leadership and influencer marketing. I have also led enterprise, C-level and channel marketing.
In my role as Director of Field Marketing for EMEA at F5, I’m focused on empowering and inspiring a team of talented field and channel marketers to deliver business value in partnership with our stakeholders in the sales organization. Together, we are focused on changing legacy perceptions of the F5 brand, driving demand and value engagement with our customers.
In B2B tech, you often see marketing programmes that are bland and safe. I don't think there's any excuse for that. One of the things that I see as a key responsibility is to make sure that our marketing activities stand out from the crowd.
To achieve this, we focus on prioritising the outcomes we are driving for customers, rather than just the technical features such as speeds and feeds. Many vendors miss this point, which can result in losing their audience early on. Successful brand engagement stems from understanding your audience and incorporating valuable insights and fresh perspectives into the approach.
A key opportunity in field marketing is to leverage one’s proximity (and therefore understanding) of the customer to hone and land the right message. For example, F5 has a series of events called AppWorld, which kicked off in Las Vegas before regional events took place across the globe. In EMEA, we don't control all of the messaging - there are core global messages to deliver - but we bring to life our narrative by integrating local perspectives, technology use cases, guest speakers with local market context and market insights. That's the real role of B2B field marketing: bringing to life your brand’s story, and making it relevant for local customers and channel partners.
My most memorable experiences of being provocative have consistently come from driving to think differently and changing the status quo. Changing the way people leverage data, not only as a results indicator, but a core tool to support decision-making has consistently been a game-changer for driving sales and marketing alignment. Though it might seem simple to champion a data-driven approach, all too often marketing planning conversations start with what’s gone before – what worked, what didn’t – which leads typically to small incremental improvements. A shift instead to explore untapped opportunities, new audience segments and unchartered topics of interest can open so many doors to a marketing strategy that cuts through.
As soon as you bring credible data and insights into the equation, you have more productive and thoughtful conversations, exploring where you can truly do things differently and shift the needle – from where to focus budget, who to work with and where to optimise your strategy, message or creative execution. Real customer insight and data focuses the mind and strengthens marketing's strategic position to steer new conversations in the business.
I was reminded recently of the Sony Balls ad, created to launch Bravia TVs during my time at the electronics brand. The concept came from a simple understanding that despite all the incredible technical features available that made your viewing experience so great (which would typically be the focus), one of the core proof points that mattered to the audience was great colour reproduction. It was a courageous move by leadership at the time to push a concept that departed from our typical tech-led approach, but it resulted in a stunning piece of creative that stopped people in their tracks, (more critically) smashed business targets, and was recognised even in the last few weeks as the second most-loved TV commercial of all time!
I’m a big fan of doing more simple, meaningful marketing.
I’m a big fan of doing more simple, meaningful marketing. If you can use data to champion and agree on where to prioritise, as well as to show the impact of this approach, not only do you have greater internal alignment, and clear impact on the bottom line, but you also have strong partnership to forge new paths. So provocation, as I say, often comes from getting people to think differently and sometimes that’s changing a behaviour, challenging the status quo, or leading others in more meaningful conversations that drive for shared success.
I previously led a CXO marketing programme, which was principally about changing the narrative. Starting with the customer at the centre, we researched and categorized the shared pain-points of our audience (from attracting the right talent to keeping your business secure from security threats) and built a narrative that talked to these. Critical to note here that not all conversation tracks needed to end with a product feature message. We built a value proposition grounded on real-world issues faced by the customer, offering vision, new perspectives and solutions to those issues. The result was a shift in perceptions of the brand, conversations became more focused on business outcomes (not just a product-led pitch), and mutual benefit came from true value exchange with real customers at the heart.
The start-point is to really understand customer pain points – an outside-in approach. Bringing internal executives, industry influencers, customers and peers together as a human voice for the brand will inevitably make for much more engagement with your audience. Tell real-life stories about real value that's been delivered through your products and you’ll help your customers see the value you can bring.
At F5, I see strong storytelling from our subject matter experts and executives who are bringing our Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP) story to life by sharing data-led stories about how we have worked together with partners and customers to enable great outcomes and results. This storytelling approach to what we do in tech and B2B marketing is something that really inspires me, because you get straight to the heart of the good your company does.
I've touched on this already, but for me, it is that step change in demonstrating the value-add of marketing. It's a difficult challenge because perfect attribution is the holy grail of marketing! However, marketers are experts in many areas, not least telling complicated stories in relevant ways. If we can support the shift to making more data-informed decisions, can help identify the space for innovation, and can articulate the impact of our efforts, we are winning. A key part of my role is empowering people to make sure they are confident to challenge, that they are armed with key data points to ask the right questions and can show our combined impact.
We need to ensure that marketing teams are equipped with the right tools and that they have the space to shine and the permission to try new things. I am blessed to have incredibly talented people around me at F5, and I want to double down on making sure they are set up for success.
Experimentation and a desire to test and learn is key. It's not about failure, but learning fast.
In probably all marketing teams, there is just so much to do! Everybody's focused on getting through the next project, delivering the next thing. There's so much pressure on all marketing teams today but it's so important to take time to pause and reflect, so that you can appreciate where you've moved the needle, see what’s working (and what’s not), and where you might need to push the boundaries next time around.
As a leader, if you want to encourage a bolder approach, you must give room to experiment, take risks and sometimes to learn from mistakes.
As a leader, if you want to encourage a bolder approach, you must give room to experiment, take risks and sometimes to learn from mistakes. Inspired by some of the best leaders I’ve ever worked for, I try to focus on building a vision, removing barriers, fighting for the right tools and resources, and then get out of the way! When you've got incredible people in the team, you need to provide this freedom. Equip people, empower people, let them deliver their best, and you’ll learn with them.
People.
People are at the heart of everything.
If you just push out product message after product message, your brand and your message will be wallpaper. Be people-first and you’ll engage people. Bring human emotion, whether that’s humour, customer stories, peer perspectives - whatever it might be that's right for the brand.
And for the people within your marketing organisation, give space for ‘intelligent creativity’. The wonderful world of AI may be perceived by some to provide all the creative answers we need, but reinvention of what’s gone before will never match the ideas and true innovation that empowered marketers can bring.
So whether you’re thinking of how to engage people, or how to empower your organisation’s people to create, it's people that really make B2B marketing changemaking.
Firstly, don't think of yourself as B2B marketing! It can put limitations on your creativity. We are all people first, engaging on topics that matter to us – in B2B marketing space or otherwise. Secondly, try new things and leverage the data where you can to inform what you do, how you do it and to learn as you go. Push those boundaries and see where it might take you.
Changemakers spotlights innovative B2B marketing leaders who are driving industry transformation, where we explore bold strategies, disruptive ideas and the power of marketing. Meet more Changemakers here.
To re-form your industry, we must re-form ours first. From our visceral point of view on creativity to our incisive approach to strategy, delve into our provocative thought-leadership on how we’re aiming to subvert B2B’s status quo.
