File "less pointless emails" under "things every employee wishes for.

" Take that, and add

"no more waiting around for a response" (and the accompanying internal debate on how
long to hold off before following up) and you have a more streamlined and productive work
communications system.
Meet Slack, a communications tool seeking to do just that, enabling teams to message each
other in real time, among other functions. A plethora of options for customization, a sleek
design plus bells and whistles like shortcut Giphy embeds have made Slack a leader in the
space. The tech and investor community has caught on. In April, just about a year after
launching publicly, Slack was valued at 2.8 billion.
SEE ALSO: The CMO behind Equinox's bold and provocative ad campaign
The man on the marketing side is Bill Macaitis. Macaitis came to Slack as marketing
employee number one in late 2014. Before landing at Slack, Macaitis was instrumental in
leading his former employers to success. Take Zendesks IPO during Macaitis' reign as
CMO, for example, and Salesforce's tripled revenue during his tenure as SVP of online
marketing and operations.
Mashable chatted with Macaitis to get the scoop on what it's like to be a Silicon Valley CMO,
why customer experience is king and how companies can leverage marketing to achieve
extreme growth.

Q&A with Slack CMO Bill Macaitis

1. If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self that pertains to your
career in marketing, what would it be?
I would tell myself that a brand is the sum of every experience a customer has with your
company, and a strong brand will always generate long-term growth and revenue. It's
important to think about the entire customer lifecycle and relentlessly improve the
interactions customers have with your company. I would also tell myself to maintain a
hunger for learning some of the best marketing tactics are developed with each new year
and to focus on becoming a true leader, developing and inspiring your teammates to do
the best work of their careers.

2. What's the most unexpectedly important skill from your past that you've found
plays into your success?
My dad and I did a lot of home improvement jobs together around the house. He was
always giving me life lessons: "Bill, lecture #23: If you're going to do a job, do it right; lecture
#34: You need the right tool for the right job."
When a job didn't proceed as planned, my dad persevered until we got it right. He had a
certain grit and humor to him that he passed on to me.
One year when I was little, I was helping my dad build a long breakwall for my grandma's
cottage in Michigan. It was a difficult, dirty job. We were working in the water, dredging
sand, anchoring the wall and building it piece by piece.
Of course, no job ever goes as planned we were constantly improvising and tackling
obstacles that arose. But we stayed at it and eventually, after a week of work, we got the job
done (and right). My grandma was delighted and she made us my favorite lasagna to
celebrate its completion. It was the best tasting lasagna I ever had.

Throwback: A young Macaitis (right) works on a home improvement project with his dad
IMAGE: COURTESY OF BILL MACAITIS
3. What are the three biggest trends that you see in B2B marketing today? What do
you envision for the future?

Testing: So much of what we do in marketing can be tested and quantified now:

ads, homepages, content, pricing, positioning, channels, etc.

You have to check your ego at the door and let data help drive informed decisions
You have to check your ego at the door and let data help drive informed decisions. In
the future, I think we will continue to expand both the breadth of what can be tested
and move testing further within the product itself.

Content lifecycle nurturing: Marketing teams need to understand their role is not
simply to get customers to the front door, but rather to stay with them for their
entire lifecycle. Content can play an extremely significant role in that lifecycle and

marketing plays a key part in distributing that content throughout their lifecycle.
Content should be genuine and helpful, not crappy brochureware.

Customer centricity: The voice of the customer has never been stronger with the
rise of social. Companies are increasingly understanding the power of word-of
mouth marketing, and how that begins and ends with a great experience for their
customers. More companies will move toward customer-centric metrics like Net
Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction. These metrics are a great
proxy for organic word-of-mouth growth and healthy long-term hyper-growth.

4. Your career in marketing spans over 20 years, and you've moved from B2C to B2B
side. What are some key learnings you've been able to apply across the board?
Customers, regardless if they are the consumer in "B2C" or the business in "B2B," are
ultimately regular people who want to have a great experience with your brand. Marketing is
often the first interaction a prospect has with your company and you need to be cognizant
that you are delivering a great experience.
The other key learning is the importance of being a good manager. There is an important
stat that the number one reason people quit a job is because of their manager. To that end,
I've always tried to improve my skills as a manager by reading articles and books and
listening to podcasts on management. My role as a manager is to inspire and empower
people to do the best work of their lives.
5. You joined Slack in late 2014 as the first marketing employee. Can you tell us about
how your marketing department is structured today, and how it has grown since you
began?
We are up to almost 20 people now, spanning across comms, pmm, editorial/content,
advertising, ops, customer references, field marketing and nurturing. My role as CMO is
somewhat non-traditional in that I manage all of the customer-facing teams at Slack. That
includes accounts (sales), marketing and customer experience (support). By grouping these
three teams together under one leader, we are able to ensure a great, consistent experience
for our customers with smooth communication between teams.
We do approach everything we do with this customer-focused mindset and base all our
decisions on what will be the best experience for our prospects and customers. We don't
have a commissioned sales team, for example, and we have about four times as many

support people than sales. We have a single point of contact through the pre- and post-sale
process and offer a fair billing policy where you get credits back if people stop using the
product.
6. Slack is in and of Silicon Valley. What are some of the main challenges to being a
CMO in the startup realm?
I love what I do. I feel so incredibly fortunate to work in Silicon Valley and for great
companies that are materially improving people's lives.
That being said, the CMO role will always have its challenges. I think the main one, which all
CMOs face, is the constant battle to not focus on short-term results but rather always build
for the long run and do what is right for the customer.
For many companies, there is so much pressure that is applied by either the CEO or the
board on short-term metrics that it can mislead marketers to the wrong tactics.
One of the things that really attracted me to Slack was the commitment from our board
members and Stewart Butterfield, our CEO, to build a long-term business that revolved
around our customer's success and making their working lives simpler, more pleasant and
more productive.
7. In interviews, you've said numerous times that customer experience is vital. What
role does marketing play in driving this customer experience? How do you take
user/customer feedback into consideration and ensure a top-notch experience?
Customer experience and growth should not be viewed as competing forces or a zero sum
game. A great customer experience will yield happy customers who recommend you more.
Additionally, word of mouth recommendations are usually the best converting lead sources.
Marketing has a huge role in that experience and is often one of the first touch points that a
customer has with your brand. It is critical that they have a great first experience.
A robust marketing tech stack is a powerful resource to deliver a great experience. There is
great software right now that allows you to target the right people, test messages and
experiences that work, score leads so you understand when is the right time to reach out to

them, nurture people through the buying process and onboard them successfully into your
product.
Moreover, marketing is often in the best position to track and report on the customer
experience via NPS and Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSAT). These surveys allow you a
constant flow of feedback to help shape your product roadmap and improve on poor
experience areas.
8. Transparency seems to be a big part of the Slack ethos. You participated in a
Reddit AMA, and recently released stats surrounding inclusion and diversity at
Slack. What are some other ways you aim to present a cohesive brand image and
drive it home?
Developing your brand tone and voice is an important first step to delivering a cohesive
brand. At Slack, we focus on being humble, authentic, humorous and human. A big part of
building trust with your brand is being transparent, which should be the basis for every
interaction. For Slack, that manifests itself in the big and little things the welcome
message when Slack is loading, the way we respond to tweets, even our release notes.
9. In your LinkedIn description, you call out an emphasis on pairing sophisticated,
data-driven marketing strategies with beautiful, emotional brand development to yield
hyper revenue growth. Can you expand on your how you implement both of these
tactics, and how they complement each other?
I'm a strong believer that today's CMO has to have a blend of both data-driven domain
expertise as well as the ability to create captivating brand experiences.
On the data-driven side, you need to build out your marketing tech stack so that you have
the optics to understand what is working and what is not. As a marketer you should be able
to measure brand metrics (aided/unaided recall, share of voice, sentiment, etc.), funnel
metrics (visitors, leads, opps, pipeline, ACV), and customer success metrics (NPS, CSAT,
daily active users).
On the flip side, I've often thought of lead gen as short-term lead creation and brand as
long-term lead creation. Maintaining focus on the longer-term horizon allows you to build up
brand equity a powerful differentiator and competitive moat and motivator for word of
mouth referrals.

10. Let's focus in on growth. You were CMO of Zendesk when it went public, and now
Slack is on a similar growth trajectory. How can companies leverage marketing to
achieve similar high growth?

Marketing can be the fuel to the fire which can amplify the growth trajectory of a company
Marketing can be the fuel to the fire which can amplify the growth trajectory of a company.
Word of mouth, PR, advertising, content marketing, conversion marketing, lifecycle nurturing,
events and customer evangelism are all key components to accelerating growth and moving your
company into new segments, verticals and geos.
Building the best of breed teams out and equipping them with a modern day marketing tech
stack can mean the difference between hyper-growth and average growth.