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Emily Butler discusses balancing brand and demand generation, sharing insights from her transition from agency to corporate life. Emily also provides tips on understanding customers and measuring success. The discussion covers marketing strategies in the complex aerospace industry and building brand awareness internally.
Emily is a Sr. Director of Marketing at Honeywell Aerospace Technologies where she leads a team of demand and digital marketers in the Americas. Emily has 24 years of experience leading high-performing B2B marketing teams. Before Honeywell Aerospace Technologies, Emily was the head of digital marketing and demand generation at a full-service marketing agency working with brands such as Symantec, Spirent, Model N, ServiceNow, BroadSoft, Infovista, Sage, and several startups acquired by Cisco and Oracle.
“Your brand really starts with internal marketing. So for your brand to be successful your entire employee base needs to believe the message, they need to live it, they need to breathe it.”
-Emily Butler
One of the biggest changes in Emily’s approach since transitioning from an agency to Honeywell has been gaining a new level of empathy for her former clients, especially when it comes to drumming up budget for new ideas and proofs of concept. Being inside a large organization has helped her better understand the cycles it takes to gain buy-in for initiatives. She has also found that aligning marketing and sales goals is much simpler when you’re working within the same company compared to an agency model.
Emily recommends that teams stop measuring success solely on MQLs and instead start measuring pipeline and revenue. She advises getting to know customers directly through VoC sessions and joining sales calls to understand their journey without guessing. Documenting the key moments that matter most to customers and prioritizing resources accordingly is also important. Regularly revisiting value propositions to ensure they are aligned with changing customer needs can help shift the focus from leads to truly understanding the end customer.
Emily finds that balancing brand and demand marketing is one of the biggest challenges marketers face today, made more difficult by budget pressures and an emphasis on short-term results. However, she believes brand marketing is still critical even during these times, as it builds long-term equity and attracts a wider potential customer pool. Some strategies Emily has used to address this challenge include measuring success through pipeline and revenue rather than just MQLs, investing in brand messaging further down the funnel to promote transparency, and regularly revisiting value propositions to ensure they are compelling and competitive for customers. She also advocates choosing strategic moments like leadership changes to push for a focus on the brand when needed.
When developing marketing strategies for the aerospace industry, Emily thinks carefully about how to factor in the many unique challenges that the sector faces related to supply chains, customer expectations, product availability, and regulatory approvals. She notes that supply chains in aerospace are among the most complex globally and disruptions can quickly impact what products can be delivered. As a result, Emily stresses the importance of close collaboration between marketing, sales, and supply chain teams to stay abreast of the latest developments and be transparent with customers. The marketing messages and campaigns need to focus on products the company can realistically provide given these dynamics that are largely outside of their control. Transparency with customers on efforts to remedy supply issues is also important for maintaining relationships and closing deals.
Emily finds that the best time to advocate for a focus on branding internally is during times of change at the company, such as a change in leadership or when customers are expressing more dissatisfaction. She emphasizes starting with internal marketing efforts to build employee belief in and commitment to the brand message, so it becomes ingrained in company culture. Data showing how brand awareness attracts a wider potential customer pool and drives long-term demand can also help sell its importance. Choosing strategic moments to have those conversations when the benefits of branding are more readily apparent makes the case more compelling to those obsessed with short-term metrics. Aligning brand and demand efforts and measuring success holistically also helps make the case.
Emily recommends the book “The Micro Stress Effect” by Rob Cross as a must-read for high performers and those at risk of burnout.
–Chris Walker from Refine Labs for interesting content on demand generation, dark social, and content strategy.
–Alison Wyrick, Sr. Director of Innovation at Honeywell for her expertise in understanding customers and running best-in-class VoC sessions.
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