Episode 1: Welcome to the Marchitect (Casted & PMC)

Lindsay Tjepkema: The tide has turned. B2B buyers' and sellers' interactions have changed. Welcome to The Marchitect, a new podcast series for B2B product marketing executives. I am Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO and co- founder at Casted, the first amplified marketing platform for B2B marketers, and a proud partner of the product marketing community. We are very excited to be bringing you this special series that focuses on amplifying the expert perspectives, insights and opinions of this brilliant community. Each episode will feature in- depth advice from executives who will tell you how they built impactful teams, optimized go to market efforts, and enabled customer- facing teams. The Marchitect is an easily digestible way to learn from your peers as you aspire to be an architect for growth. Welcome, and enjoy this episode.

Rowan Noronha: Hey, it's Rowan Noronha, founder of The Product Marketing Community. When I'm not chasing my three kids and obediently listening to my wife, or leading a team of product marketers, I run this community which has been my side passion project for the past five years.

Lindsay Tjepkema: I love it, and I hear you with the chasing kiddos and chasing dreams. So let's get into one of those dreams, this Product Marketing Community which all of us, myself very much included at Casted, are so, so, so excited to be partners with you. Tell us about this Product Marketing Community. What is it, what is it all about?

Rowan Noronha: Thanks Lindsay. I founded the community in 2016 alongside Gartner, SiriusDecisions and Pragmatic Institute.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Just small names.

Rowan Noronha: As a destination for product marketing leaders to just gather and share ideas. As a product marketing leader myself I realized there was a lack of support for such a crucial growth- oriented function and so I wanted to give my fellow product marketing leaders the support and frameworks that we need and deserve, so that we could build winning teams, unite our overall business, and be quite frankly an architect of growth and today we do this by way of a newsletter, on- site virtual events and now a podcast and when I started this thing, I envisioned a world where every B2B product marketing leader fulfills their transformation from being a cost center to being an architect of growth or as we like to call them, marchitects.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Marchitects. Let's dig into that a little bit because that's a fun little word that has a lot of meaning and I love how you're addressing it and who you're addressing it. It's an awesome audience, it's an awesome community event, it deserves more attention. So what is a marchitect?

Rowan Noronha: Well it's architect and... Architect of growth meets marketer. When I was growing up, I was a little bit like George Costanza from Seinfeld. I thought I wanted to be an architect and I ended up going down the path of being a B2B marketer but going back and revisiting my architectural dreams like Costanza. When you're designing a space, an architect has to balance a vision for what a building could be against the needs of those who are going to inhabit it, and so they need to combine imagination with the practical, technical knowhow required to build what they dream responsibly. So architecture is a combination of soaring inspiration and skillful execution. So as a product marketer aka marchitect, we share these qualities and challenges. So great product marketing leaders should be builders who design how customers will leap from their current reality, corporate inaudible from their status quo if you will, to a new solution. So marchitects, aka product marketers first have to understand customers, markets, and deliver resources that inspire both sellers and buyers to take action. So these folks, product markets, need to deploy the tools of go to market functions, of sales, marketing, customer success, to build a supportive foundation for business growth and customer values. So the next decade of B2B marketing evolution, it's going to be driven by marketing leaders who embrace and develop this marchitect role as the revenue team, their own revenue team's best advantage in this digital first, customer first world. So to sum it up, a marchitect, it's an individual who has mastered the foundational pillars necessary to excel at product marketing, uses that foundational knowledge to build up others and their teams, and finally be their business' overall architect of growth. As such we created this podcast called The Marchitect.

Lindsay Tjepkema: That's such a fitting name, right? So they're pragmatists and dreamers, they're visionaries and people who know how to get it done, so... That's fantastic. You're bridging a lot of gaps here and you're bringing worlds together. This role brings people together, brings departments and visions together into reality, and you are leading the charge and carrying on the conversation and bringing those individuals together. So about this podcast, which is where we come into play together and I'm so, so, so excited to be co- producing this together and be working on this together with you and with Casted. So let's talk about this. Tell me about The Marchitect. What is this podcast going to be all about?

Rowan Noronha: So first and foremost, thrilled to be partnering with you on this initiative. Every marketer needs to know about Casted. Look up Lindsay, look at Casted, and partner with her because you won't be sorry. You need it in your arsenal to be an architect of growth, but-

Lindsay Tjepkema: Oh thank you.

Rowan Noronha: Getting back to the overall podcast, right now, post- pandemic especially, marketing, it's at the center of transformational change in nearly every B2B company. The tide truly has turned. B2B buyers' and sellers' interactions have changed. So customers, their expectations, spending, behaviors, it's shifting constantly and CMOs and product marketing leaders need to build impactful teams, they need to optimize their go to market efforts, and enable customer facing teams. They need to enable the revenue engine during these transformational times and so this podcast, aptly called The Marchitect, will hopefully help them do all of that. The podcast is going to feature marchitects from Salesforce, Microsoft, Gong, Atlassian, Drift, LinkedIn to name a few. These marchitects are shaping, truly shaping the discipline of product marketing and they're driving growth for their B2B companies and so our guests, these marchitects, are going to share their personal insights and experiences in three critical areas, people, strategy, and revenue enablement, and I'll elaborate a little bit on each. So from a people perspective, how do you build, manage and measure the product marketing function. From a strategy perspective, how do you unite the business around an optimized go to market strategy that more often than not product marketers lead that charge along with the CMO. Then from a revenue enablement perspective, how are you enabling not just sales but how are you enabling the entire revenue engine. So the marketing team, sales, customer success, support. How are you enabling them to engage today's B2B customer and today's B2B digital first customer? So we look forward to hosting B2B CMOs, product marketing leaders as they chart their course towards being an architect of growth or marchitect.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Marchitect. Truly you... The people that are in this community and that you're having on the show are really, really incredible. So kudos to you for this community that's been around for a few years and for taking this leap into podcast land. I am so, so, so excited to just be even a part of it and to be able to kind of watch from the sidelines as you're doing such cool stuff. So thank you for being here and for partnering with us and we can't wait to see it all come together on The Marchitect.

Rowan Noronha: Thank you Lindsay. Looking forward to partnering with you and the gang and you guys are crushing it at Casted and seriously, whoever is listening to this, go check out Casted. You need to have them as part of your arsenal.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Aww, thank you sir. Thank you. That's the show. Thanks for joining us. Make sure to visit productmarketingcommunity. co to subscribe and get more information on how you too can become a marchitect at your organization.