#263 Marketing Strategy | Dave is joined by Jason Lyman, CMO at Customer.io, a customer engagement platform used by over 7,500 companies. Jason has led marketing at Dropbox, BetterCloud, and now heads a 30-person team driving growth across both PLG and sales-led motions.

Dave and Jason cover:

How to structure a B2B marketing org for scale, alignment, and channel ownership
Why events are their #1 channel and how creative formats drive real pipeline
The KPI + OKR system they use to prioritize work and measure marketing’s impact

You’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of how to design your team, focus your strategy, and invest in channels that actually drive results.

Timestamps

(00:00) - – Intro
(02:34) - – What Customer.io does and who they serve
(03:34) - – Growth story: from bootstrapped to private equity-backed
(05:34) - – Team size and breakdown of the 30-person marketing org
(07:34) - – Balancing PLG and sales-led within one team
(09:34) - – How the org is structured: focus teams vs. centers of excellence
(11:34) - – Aligning team goals to sales motions and funnel stages
(13:34) - – How Customer.io prioritizes internal marketing requests
(15:34) - – Avoiding the “who bangs the table loudest” trap
(16:34) - – Cross-functional alignment with sales and product
(18:34) - – KPI vs. OKR: how Customer.io uses both
(22:50) - – Examples of key KPIs for the business
(24:50) - – How OKRs cascade across the org
(26:50) - – Why structured goal setting leads to better marketing impact
(28:50) - – What channels are working: events are back
(29:50) - – Examples of creative event formats that build community
(31:50) - – Building pipeline without pitching at events
(33:50) - – How Customer.io defines and tracks long-term influence
(36:50) - – The decline of SEO and rise of AI-influenced buying
(38:50) - – Why positioning is more important than ever
(40:50) - – Product and marketing alignment in a modern org
(42:50) - – Selling both the product and the roadmap
(43:50) - – Jason’s one wish for marketers: better customer data
(45:50) - – Personalization, adaptability, and breaking through the noise
(46:50) - – Closing thoughts

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Today’s episode is brought to you by Zuddl.

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Head over to zuddl.com/exitfive to learn more.

Inside Customer.io’s B2B Marketing Strategy: Org, GTM, and Growth Channels with Jason Lyman

The Dave Gerhardt Show