Latane Conant, CMO of 6Sense and author of No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls., is passionate about empowering marketing leaders with effective technology, predictive insights, and thought leadership. As a self-proclaimed recovering software saleswoman, Latane’s keenly focused on leveraging data to ensure marketing programs result in deals—not just leads. Prior to 6sense, she was CMO and a sales leader at Appirio.

Latane Conant, CMO of 6Sense and author of No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls., talks with Ian Faison about the importance of personalized marketing. On this episode of Demand Gen Visionaries, Latane explains her techniques to optimize sales by shining a light on what she calls “the dark funnel”, how her team uses marketing and sales data to generate unified revenue opportunities, and the importance of taking high-risk high-reward chances when unique marketing opportunities present themselves.

• The best demand gen will make people feel something. You need to create a genuine connection with your customer to accelerate their desired results
• Contacting a potential customer should be personalized and scaled. Cold emails aren’t going to work anymore. You need to stand out.
• Shine light on prospective clients that might be hiding in “the dark funnel”. Dive deeper into client relations to turn prospects into valued customers.
• Shift your mindset from demand gen to demand capture. Make the experience unique so you organically retain customers.
• Over time, you earn the right to take risks and trust your instinct. Sometimes you have to trust your gut and dismiss outside influences.

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• “I think the best demand gen makes people feel something. It creates a connection.”
• “I'm just going to blow this thing up and prove that if we put prospects and their experiences first, we can generate a f***load of pipeline and succeed, and do it in this new and different way.”
• “We decided early on not to have sales ops and marketing ops, but to have revenue ops. As a revenue team, let's always be finding our ‘red’ and always be bringing issues and conversion points forward that aren't performing because that gives us a chance to go and fix them.”
• “I just always encourage people. If your gut is telling you that it's the right thing to do, it probably is, and sometimes you gotta take those risks.”
• “I would challenge the new-world order to be thinking, not about demand generation, but demand capture. Because if you uncovered ‘the dark funnel’, then you actually see the demand right in front of you.”

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