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Tell us about yourself, your company, and the role you do.
My name is Satu, I’m based in Finland (Espoo) and I’ve been with Fujitsu for 7 years now. For the last 4-5 years my role is the Marketing Automation & Digital Marketing Specialist where I focus on implementing and developing Marketo, as well as any other integrated technology that is needed to help the Sales & Marketing teams.
Have you built your career around martech?
Although my career may seem short in terms of time served, I have a long history with Marketing Automation. In fact, my first job was as an MA Consultant for a value-added reseller of HubSpot and I’ve been working in MA ever since. When I moved jobs, my next role was working in Pardot locally, where I was approached by the Global team who spotted me and asked me to join them and now I work with Marketo.
There was never a plan to specifically build a career in martech. I’d studied Strategic International Marketing Management but I’ve always had a knack for understanding how technologies and platforms work. I also have a personal interest in Digital Marketing, Social Media use, Data Analysis and Automation and so the work suited me.
Have you noticed any changes since you began working in martech in how it is perceived by your company?
Yes. Marketing understands better now that it is the customer who is in charge of their buying journey. Marketing needs to understand the customer’s pain points in more depth to create messaging and communications which resonate with the customer. Customers won’t appreciate receiving irrelevant jargon.
I find I’m talking with business decision makers more and they want to be more data driven in their decision making. The data sits at the heart of what Marketing are doing.
What does martech success look like?
Fujitsu ActivateNow is a Fujitsu event that was conceived and produced in the middle of the pandemic. It had to be global and purely digital. I lead the technology team and collaborated closely with the events team, the branding team and the Marketing teams across a truly global remit of Asia, Europe, Oceania and the Americas, all from my flat here in Finland!
I’m hard to impress but it was great to see how capable my team and the company was at bringing together people through technology. Our team silos went away. We taught the technology across the business. In some cases, starting from scratch. We made it happen and the event was a huge success.
We delivered a seamless customer experience, where the integration of the martech was crucial. Our strong Spine now allows us to see data right across metrics such as: when customers joined the event talks; what they watched; if they talked with Sales; and what materials they downloaded, among others.
This now allows us to orchestrate unique customer journeys; tailored, optimised and value orientated. That feels like real success.
Are there any additional technologies you are looking at in the future?
Evaluation and Engagement Tools. We need to go beyond static landing pages and assets and understand what tools exist that allow a customer to interact with us in a more meaningful way and create value for the customer from that engagement. Our techstack needs to be seamlessly integrated to allow us to optimise and orchestrate the customer journey better as well. This year I want to be able to improve our offering here.
How has the rest of the business embraced martech?
We aim to work on a ‘Try Fast, Fail Fast, Succeed’ way of thinking in our business. When the data is trusted from Marketing I find myself working in a more global environment, cross-countries and regions, cross-discipline, on projects that have a huge impact on reaching our customers. I’m working with senior people I’d never thought I would have been 4-5 years ago.
Who do you look to as a world leader in martech use? And why?
I really respect the B2C world and the companies who do customer personalisation really well. I’d like to see more B2B companies apply the lessons from best use cases, such as Polar (fitness devices) here in Finland who know about me. I’m not just a runner, I’m a long distance runner. They provide me with tips, events and data tailored to me. I’m interested to see how B2B companies can automate experiences based not only on what you know about my role in general, but from me as a professional in my organisation.
If you are not addressing my personal challenges, if you’re not good at communicating value, if you are too email or too social media focused, you’ll not win me over.
How do you invest in martech training?
With so many different cultures and regions in the business it is difficult to put an exact optimal ratio or % on how we spend martech budget across people vs. the technology. But, to me, 1. You can never overcommunicate and 2. You can never be over trained!
What advice would you give others looking to deploy and build their careers through martech?
Don’t be too attached to doing things the old way. Try new things. Put your bias aside. Always you must put the customer at the centre of whatever you do. Orchestrate journeys for the customer, not because you have some jargon to tell them but because you want to genuinely create value for them. Also, just because you can automate something, it doesn’t mean you should. Think hard about what to automate and how it helps Marketing, Sales and your customers. Trust the data! But remember, Keep Calm and Carry On.
