Interview
The Gist
- Incorporate diversity. Diverse internal voices lead to inclusive marketing.
- Understand buyers. Direct interaction with customers builds empathy.
- Foster openness. Embrace uncomfortable questions for marketing evolution.
In this CMSWire Contributor Q&A, Deanna Ballew, the senior vice president of product at Acquia, joins us. She's an experienced hand in the martech industry, with a particular interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the realms of marketing and customer experience. Her most recent article for CMSWire, “The Intersection of DEI, Marketing and Customer Experience,” tackles some of the most important aspects for marketers and customer experience professionals. She shares her seasoned perspectives on making marketing efforts more inclusive and accessible.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Dom Nicastro: Hi, everybody, Dom Nicastro managing editor at CMSWire, here with our latest contributor video interview, and it's going to be Deanna Ballew, SVP of product, DXP at Acquia. What's going on Deanna?
Deanna Ballew: Oh, all the lovely things of martech technology, spring weather, just a big mix of things right now.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion: Key Factors in Evolving Martech Landscape
Nicastro: I love it. Yeah, we were talking off there of covering the martech space for like, 10 years now. I mean, I remember the big topic back then was, you know, build or buy or, you know, best of breed versus suite. And there were some tense conversations going on there. And it's like, that felt back then, like new and exciting. And now, it's like, That's old news. We got AI, we got, you know, DXPs. It's just like crazy how it's evolved, right?
Ballew: You have over 10,000 martech vendors in play that we have to always new, emerging innovative solutions to come forth. And that's why I've been working in the martech space for so long as well.
Nicastro: Awesome. So your second article with us is on a very important, obviously timely topic, diversity, equity and inclusion in the rapidly evolving landscape of marketing and technology. So those intersections, and where sort of DEI comes into play? I'm glad you got on this topic. It's huge. We don't cover it enough, frankly, we got to do more. So let's get into it. Your article number two, discusses the very roots of DEI and how it applies to marketing. So you know that how does the intersection of marketing and technology industries like those two industries kind of impact DEI in general, you know, like in driving improvements, in customer experience, would you say?
Ballew: Yeah, well, I think in general, where marketing is right now is we have to meet our buyers or customers or users where they're at, and our buyers and customers, they are diverse. And so in order for us to do that, we need to understand where they are and what they're doing at that moment. So whether that be, you know, a busy father buying groceries and needing to access a mobile app, or that's a hearing impaired buyer, within a business in a B2B buyer, we need to understand what they're trying to achieve and meet them in that space, because that is their expectation. And as marketers and our journey I'm meeting them, one size does not fit all. And so that is where this intersection comes into play is how do we meet our customers and their diverse experiences, while still working within our own internal organizations? And so my you know, my piece or my position on here is, we need more diverse voices internally, in order to meet our customers where they're at.
Related Article: 5 Ways Diversity and Inclusion Impact the Customer Experience
Recruitment Practices and Technology: Key for Inclusive Marketing
Nicastro: Yeah, Ain't that the truth, right, to speak right from the heart, get people on the team. And that goes back to the hiring process, right, and looking, making sure you're working with your HR teams, to drive best practices in recruiting and hiring, where you put your ads, how you put your hiring ads. So that almost like it's a great point that goes back to the very art of recruiting to ultimately lead to better marketing.
Ballew: Yeah, most of the recruiting the way that you write your job descriptions, the way that you interview, also just the way that your company itself evolves and who you are as a brand. So your brand matters, not only to your customers, but it matters just as importantly to your employees and what they want to be part of.
Nicastro: Yeah. So technology obviously plays a role in this and you're with a technology vendor. So like personalization, right? In delivering these inclusive experiences to customers with all these diverse backgrounds, abilities. Can you sort of elaborate on that role of technology itself in driving personalization and how DEI kind of factors into that? And when it does.
Ballew: Yeah, so personalization, in order for us to deliver personalized experiences. And to do it at scale, we're making use of so many different technologies, some that we offer an Acquia others that we integrate with. And that technology enables us to then create these very one to one personalizations, however, that's being fed by data, data that we are occurring throughout all of the different interactions data that we are getting from other algorithms, other systems.
And that is where these two really intersect is how do we create the technology and serve the technology at scale, and to do it right with the right campaigns and structure, but the right messaging with the data that we're also capturing? So it takes a very unique, cross functional team internally, to be able to set forth those right rules and to understand what they're after.
Adapting Martech for Diverse Buyers Amidst Socio-Political Changes
Nicastro: Yeah, exactly. And of course, like you talked about, in the article, you talked about the evolving demographic of the martech buyer, right? Women making up an increasing percentage of B2B buyers. So all those traditional, you know, thoughts like oh, this buyer is Mostly this person or this, but we got to stop that, we got to stop that, things are changing. So how can vendors, you know, sort of adapt to meeting the expectations of all these new demographics, especially regarding, you know, like socio political issues and corporate citizenship, things like that?
Ballew: Yeah, I mean, we I just mentioned, the landscape is now over 10,000 different options. And so it's no longer like, will I buy it, which one will I buy. And so if you think about our new buyers, especially as they shift from IT decision makers and to CMOs and to Chief Experience officers or Digital Officers alike, that demographic is different, as well as the generational change as we get more and more different generations making those buying decisions.
And so as we think about those decisions, we need to also understand what motivates them to make a buy what's going to differentiate us as a vendor to ensure that we are doing things that they're going to be proud of. So a big piece of what I mentioned with personalization is taking care of data and taking care of their data and their customer data.
And that matters when it comes down to the credibility of the brand and the social and economic viewpoint of the vendor. Like they care about their carbon footprint. They care about how their data is being treated, these are all things that will impact not only them, but their customers and their users. And so because they care about them, and their buyers care about them, we as vendors also have to care about them. And that is a big decision factor for very diverse buyers that we now have.
Related Article: How Can Generative AI Improve DEI in the Customer Experience?
Kickstarting Inclusive Marketing: Embrace Diversity and Customer Empathy
Nicastro: Yeah, exactly. You know, finally, like if there is a place to get started, if there is a foundation, because I know a lot of marketing teams, customer experience, teams are saying, we need to do better at this. But we're just not sure. Do we hire a consultant? Like how do we begin to just just the very ground level to bake in more inclusive marketing campaigns? Content hiring, like, where's the what do you think is a good simple starting point for our marketing team?
Ballew: Yeah, I would say that your there would be two key starting parts for me, one, get as diverse set of team that you can internally and ask them their perspective, the more diverse voices you can get at the table, whether they're not on marketing or not on that team, they're going to bring you a new perspective. So share with them your ideas on their campaigns, what you're thinking about, have them poke holes, get really candid feedback from as many diverse voices within your organization.
And then secondarily, you need to go out and you need to talk to your buyers and your customers directly. So whether you decide to use an external firm or you use, you know, any of maybe your expertise internally for customer experience, or user experience, or researchers go actually talk to those customers, listen to them, see how they're interacting in their own environment. If you can do that and build that empathy. If you don't have that experience, you can do a lot of empathy building, for your marketing team by just getting out in the world as well.
Facing Uncomfortable Questions: A Vital Step in Achieving Inclusive Marketing
Nicastro: Yeah, it's amazing what you discover when you do that, right. Because you can roll out the best program, the best content, it gets rave reviews, but there's a small section of folks that it affects differently. And you only find that out by talking to them. And you might you might bake in something different to that largely successful campaign. But you might tweak to cater to that audience and their needs.
Ballew: And I think the biggest thing is going in with the mindset that I don't know at all, we are not yet this diverse team that I would like to be eventually. So go in with that mindset and that curiosity to say like, we know, we're probably missing things, let's go out versus I think I have all my bases covered. And if you approach it in that manner, they're going to open yourself up to a lot of new opportunities.
Nicastro: Yeah, I agree. 100%, I was I was part of a DEI task force within our brand. And it was, you know what it was? For me it was a series of uncomfortable questions. Right? That's uncomfortable to ask. No, don't hold back. Just ask it. We have to get it out on the table. We have to discuss it. And that was the biggest lesson for me is start getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, you know, and that helped us that helped us work through those initial pain points. Right. So I think that's perfect. A great point to start getting out there and just having an open dialogue. It's huge.
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Deanna Ballew, Acquia SVP product DXP and most importantly, forget all that CMSWire contributor, that's the title that you should be selling. Thank you for another article. We hope people enjoy and thank you for this interview. Little extra that will plug into the piece. Thanks so much.
Ballew: Thank you as well.
Nicastro: Alright, have a good one.
