Who would have thought that over a 3-year period I would have participated in Tealium’s annual customer conference in three different roles, in 2015 as a customer, in 2016 as a speaker and in 2017 as event host?
I joined Tealium in December 2015 as a business consultant to contribute to bringing the value of the company’s universal data hub to the forefront of the conversation. My role as business consultant involved development of customer journeys to articulate our offering to prospective customers, facilitate business justification by calculating ROI, event speaking and attendance at digital planning meetings in many customer and prospect organisations. This summer the opportunity arose for me to transition to managing Europe-Middle East-Africa (EMEA) marketing. My previous manager at Tealium, Simon Taylor, often comments that as a former customer and a consultant I actually know how to use the product, demonstrate it, and ensure a return on the investment is realised!
Marketers moving from in-house roles to vendor-land is a well trodden path, I have switched between the two in past, moving from managing UK marketing at Netgear to Webtrends back in 2007. Never before though have I been able to leverage all my experience as a customer and share this insight at the vendor organisation. The VP and MD of EMEA at Tealium, Lindsay McEwan, kindly stated that I bring realism to the business and a customer and marketing insight that all vendors need.
My challenge now is how to retain a high-level perspective for the entire vision. My first thought is to continue to remain close to frontline as possible, evolving the synergy among my colleagues in the sales teams and solutions consulting team. My aim is to leverage my existing relationships throughout the company to ensure that the marketing efforts of Tealium reach far and wide. It is an inclusive approach to get everyone thinking about our brand and products through the eyes of our customers and the industry at large. Never before have I had such a unique opportunity to utilise my marketing instincts and marry it with experience in a data-driven way. Tealium is all about ensuring that data is captured in real-time and enriched to create meaningful customer engagement in a timely, relevant manner. The expectations on me are high, but I am relishing the challenge – this type of natural fit may be a once in a lifetime opportunity and I am going to treasure every second. The right product at the right time in the right place never felt as real as it does to me right now.
