#393 | Dave interviews Katie Miserany, Chief Communications Officer and Head of Marketing at SurveyMonkey, about why the company rebranded to Momentive to go upmarket and then reversed the decision after going private. Katie explains why sales believed nobody would spend six figures with a company called SurveyMonkey, what changed under the new CEO, and why she now sees the monkey as an advantage. She also covers her path into marketing from communications, why more comms leaders are moving into C-suite marketing roles, and the advice she followed when she took over the function: get close to the growth team and ask your basic questions early so imposter syndrome doesn't cost you the learning.

Timestamps:

(00:00) - Why Katie Feels Like She’s Gotten Twenty Years of Experience in Seven at SurveyMonkey
(05:41) - Why Sales Thought Nobody Would Buy From a Company Called SurveyMonkey
(07:06) - Creating Our Brand Vision and Bringing it to Life
(12:33) - The Campaign That Didn't Move the Needle
(17:04) - Everyone Knows Us - The Version of Us From 2009
(20:08) - The Tactic That Lifted Click-Through by 73%
(25:19) - The Journey From Comms to Head of Marketing
(31:18) - What Comms Actually Does
(37:14) - How to Determine if You Need a Meeting vs an Async Update

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter

Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:

Optimizely - the AI platform for marketers. Build your own AI agents or pull from a directory of 50+ pre-built ones for marketing use cases. Their new Virtual Teammates can join meetings, complete tasks, support campaigns, and keep your website optimized. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive.

Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, letting modern marketing teams build fully custom sites that perform in AI search with no developer needed. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.

Zoom Webinars & Events – The virtual event platform built to help B2B marketers run webinars that actually drive pipeline, with branded registration pages, live engagement features, and built-in tools to repurpose sessions into clips and content. Learn more at zoom.com/exitfive.

Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand gen agency helping high-growth cybersecurity and enterprise software companies show up earlier in the buying journey, combining AEO, modern paid advertising, and a dedicated go-to-market engineering team. Podcast listeners get two free media planning sessions to find out what channels are driving the best ROI. Learn more at compoundgrowthmarketing.com/exitfive.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Visit hatch.fm to learn more

Why SurveyMonkey Pivoted Away From Its Enterprise Rebrand (With Katie Miserany, CCO & Global Head of Marketing)

The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)

Why SurveyMonkey Pivoted Away From Its Enterprise Rebrand (With Katie Miserany, CCO & Global Head of Marketing)