Christina Del Villar: 5 Non-Intuitive Ways To Grow Your Marketing Career
By: Kage Spatz
Tags: Mentorship, Career Advice, Marketing Strategies, Marketers, Business

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I have always had an entrepreneurial mindset — whether it was focused on how to get more readers on my paper route, how our school fundraiser could increase donations exponentially, how I could convince everyone that Girl Scout cookies just tasted better, or how our high school Junior Achievement company could pay for my college. I was lucky to have been born and raised in the Bay Area and work my entire career in Silicon Valley. I worked with some amazing industry leaders like Elon Musk, who really helped me see the potential in almost anything.

What I recognized early on though, was that I was NOT the idea person. I wasn’t the person that was going to come up with the next big thing, the new cool gadget, the billion-dollar making software. Instead, I learned that I was, was a strategy person. I was the one that was going to take those big ideas, products, and solutions to the market.

I remember listening to Elon talk about building a commercial space ship that might someday go to Mars. And I thought to myself, I want to build metaphorical rocket ships for marketing and sales to achieve and exceed all expectations. So instead of sitting in think tanks and on skunkworks teams kicking myself and saying things like, “Why didn’t I think of that?”, I focused on the audience, the market, the viability of the product or solution, and how the heck we were going to get it to market.

I recently had an executive peer of mine told me I had been hired to build a fast boat to go to market, but instead, I had built a rocket ship. That’s really where my passion lies — getting solutions to market, and then scaling them rapidly and aggressively.

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting and what lesson you learned from that?

During the first Gulf War, back in the late early 90s, I was working in the Petroleum Engineering Department at Stanford as a Project Manager. One day I received a phone call from someone saying they were doing some student research on the war and implications of the war, our petroleum reserves, and more. It was the same day that my neighbor was loading up her big SUV with “Stop the war” signs for a local protest. As she drove away, I saw the “No blood for oil” bumper sticker on her SUV. I saw a lot of irony in that. So when this poor student called up to get an opinion on things, I had a lot to say. Mostly about the lack of understanding of all the products that petroleum goes into. I shared a long list, including vinyl that makes up bumper stickers, SUV car seat upholstery, the paint on protest signs, etc. I wasn’t making a plea for more petroleum usage or going to war, I was just trying to say that there was more to it than just gas. I hung up feeling pretty good about what I had relayed and thought surely I had been helpful to the person; giving them an angle they maybe hadn’t thought of before.

Imagine my surprise when I was watching CNN that night and saw a quote attributed to a “Spokesperson from Stanford University” that was verbatim what I had shared on my call earlier. Oops. Apparently, the person, while technically a college student, was actually an intern at CNN doing research on the Gulf War for an on-air report. I had a lot of explaining to do the next day when I got into the office. And while the University appreciated my views, they kindly ask that I not speak to reporters on the subject in the future. Lesson learned — always know who you are speaking with, and why.

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

Without stating the obvious, marketing is hard. We put our hearts and souls into our programs, projects, and campaigns, and often don’t get recognized for our contributions to the overall company performance. If things go great and are successful, sales get the glory. If things aren’t going as planned or targets are missed, marketing gets the blame or gets thrown under the bus.

A tipping point for me was when I started working at Oracle. As a database company, I suddenly had access to a ton of data. Behavioral, demographic, intent, and more. Having access to this data allowed me to show my results, explain the impact marketing was having and showcase the value add.

Once I had access to data and was able to make recommendations based on the data, it made my job much easier. From then on I started focusing on the data to help me tell the story internally of marketing’s successes. But going beyond that, I think it’s important to recognize that even internally you might have different audiences. And the data and outcomes speak to these audiences differently, so you need to think about who needs to see your results, and how.

For example, while at Intacct we used to have a monthly check-in with Sales to update them on our programs and the results. We would start the presentation at the top of the funnel, sharing the number of prospects and leads, then on to MQLs, SLQs, and so on. By slide 3 the Salespeople were bored, tuned out, and getting fidgety. So much so, I don’t think they ever really heard the final outcome of closed deals and revenue numbers attributed to marketing. So I decided to flip the presentation. Start with how many deals closed and how much revenue came in from the programs and campaigns. We didn’t really even need to go back further up the funnel, simply because sales heard what they needed to hear. $$$$. This made for a good lesson in presenting only the pertinent info to my audience in a way they could understand, digest it, and was meaningful to them. It also had the added bonus of cutting the meeting time in half.

What do you think makes you stand out? Can you share a story?

What makes me stand out are really two things. First is my approach to marketing strategy and the second is my approach to not just my teams, but everyone in an organization. I look at both of these holistically.

From the strategy side of things, I spent years building a process and framework for how to develop and implement effective go-to-market and marketing strategies. I call it the G.R.I.T. Marketing Method. It all starts with the overall corporate strategy, and aligning that with the customer journey, so that marketing professionals can build better programs, have more influence, and clearly articulate the value they bring, not just to their own role or department, but the company as a whole.

From a personnel standpoint, it doesn’t matter to me which department you are in, we all need to be working together, like a well-oiled machine. To that end, I engage with, mentor, and coach people across organizations at all different levels, in a variety of roles. Key areas I like to focus on are setting expectations and attainable goals, being transparent, and making sure to talk about everything in context.

While working with the engineering team for Shotgun at Autodesk, I wanted them to reprioritize a feature. Instead of either forcing it on them or pulling rank, I explained to the lead engineer why I wanted it done, how we were going to market it, the expected revenue outcome, and how it would help us meet our goals. So I gave him context for why I wanted to shift things. I also made it clear that his team would be critical in meeting our revenue targets. It was the first time anyone had tied revenue to engineering outputs for him like this. His team was able to understand the role they could play in the overall success. It was a win-win-win.

My forthcoming book isn’t about how to build marketing programs per se. It takes this framework and helps marketing professionals and others, in sales, product, engineering, customer success, learn to better navigate the internal politics and structure to have more influence and impact and grow in their careers.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Ah, yes. Definitely. As I just mentioned, I have a book coming out in the summer of 2021 called Sway: Implement the G.R.I.T. Marketing Method to Gain Influence and Drive Corporate Strategy, which provides a framework to work smarter by aligning more closely with the customer journey, corporate goals, and overall go-to-market strategy. While originally written for marketing professionals, it’s applicable to most everyone, from product managers to sales to solopreneurs. It walks through some of the ideas I’ve discussed so far about how to align better with the customer journey and corporate strategy to be more effective.

It also gets into the who, how, and what of ensuring your results and recommendations are seen by the right people, in a way that is meaningful to them.

My hope is that people who read the book and implement some of the ideas will be happier, more productive, and have a more direct career trajectory, all while increasing effectiveness and results to the overall company goals.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?

I was just thinking about this today. I went to a college-prep high school, and we had a lot of cool options for courses, including some that covered different aspects of business, like econ and marketing. Pat Casey was our business teacher and ran the Junior Achievement for our school. His mentorship helped me understand my options in college and beyond. I am forever grateful for his guidance as it has led me to where I am today. And yes, the companies I was part of in Junior Achievements paid for my first few years of college.

Who do you consider to be your hero?

I don’t have many heroes, but Jimmy Carter is definitely one of them. Talk about being authentic! Politics aside, he is a gracious person whose life goal is to make the world a better place. I was lucky enough to meet him a few times, and he was kind and funny. It’s a rare trait that people will keep going, doing what is right when everything else is going on the toilet. He stands by his convictions.

I once waited eight hours in line to meet him and have him autograph a book for me. When I finally got up to him, I didn’t want to waste his time since there were still tons of people behind me and I knew he was late for his next engagement. Instead of rushing me, he insisted on having a conversation with me. We ended up talking for several minutes before I moved on. He was genuinely grateful that I had come to see him. That’s the kind of authenticity I think consumers, whether B2B, D2C or everything in between, would like to experience.

Wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. What advice would you give to other marketers to thrive and avoid burnout?

I have been doing this for over 25 years, and still love it. For me, there are always new products and offerings out there. There is new technology to make our jobs easier while making us more effective. I recommend always learning the latest, whether it’s a new tool, a new channel, a new paradigm. Also, understand what skill gaps you have and try to minimize those. Or partner internally with folks who have complementary skills and work together as a cohesive team (these folks don’t need to be in your same department). I also recommend becoming embedded in the go-to-market strategy, as this will provide you better insight into the overall goals of the company and more long-term opportunities.

And please, consider having outside interests, whether it’s reading, cooking, hiking, or my personal favorite, glassblowing. Make sure you have balance in your life.

There are hundreds of memorable marketing campaigns that have become part of the lexicon of our culture. What is your favorite marketing or branding campaign from history?

I wouldn’t say there is one campaign or company in particular, rather I like companies that are able to listen, understand their customer, and pivot. We saw a lot of this in 2020, where companies were presented with exceptional challenges in the ways people think, the way they buy, the channels they look at. Companies that knew their customers well were able to shift and pivot their strategy.

If you take Chobani for example, their first thought was about the kids whose one meal a day might have come from school, and with homeschooling were no longer going to have access to even that meal. They quickly set up accessible pop-ups and gave away lunches, no questions asked. As a customer of theirs, seeing that their immediate concern was for those less fortunate than I, made me love their products even more, and beyond that, made me appreciate the company and their executive leaders. They continue to pivot from both a product and strategy standpoint to meet the needs of their consumers.

If you could break down a very successful campaign into a “blueprint”, what would that blueprint look like?

Part of my G.R.I.T. Marketing Method covers what I call RPM, which shows how to build repeatable, predictable, and measurable programs and content. You basically start with a pillar piece or umbrella piece, and from there use it in multiple campaigns, in multiple formats, across multiple channels, for a variety of audiences. All the while aligning to your customer journey and go-to-market strategy.

Take for instance a webinar you do with an industry leader. Now take the content from the webinar and create an eguide. Then chunk up the eguide into multiple blog posts. Maybe put a different wrapper on it for different audiences. Then create emails for prospects and customers to disseminate the content. And you can certainly develop social media posts for each of these pieces. So what started off as a webinar now lives on in 10+ other pieces of content, with even more reach. By strategically thinking about who the content is for and mapping it directly to the customer journey — what they need, how they will use when they need it as part of their journey, and the format — you can develop better content and less of it, that can be repurposed and reused.

Companies like Google and Facebook have totally disrupted how companies market over the past 15 years. At the same time, consumers have become more jaded and resistant to anything “salesy”. In your industry, where do you see the future of marketing going?

I am a big fan of AI and how it will ultimately help marketers automate 1:1 marketing. That way you will \, hopefully, always be sharing the right message and content at the right time to the right person. Sounds a bit big brother, but it should create a better experience for the prospect in the long run. Only giving them what they need or want when they need or want it.

All that said, I don’t think the fundamentals of marketing changed that much. You need to understand your customer and always be keeping them in mind when developing products, defining strategy, creating marketing campaigns, selling, and ultimately getting them to adopt your products or solutions.

Can you please tell us the 5 things you wish someone told you before you started?

Empower yourself. No one is going to swish a magic wand over you and say “You are now empowered. Go forth and conquer.” I admittedly waited for someone to empower me and at some point realized it was up to me to empower myself. No magic wand or pixie dust needed. Take control over the go-to-market strategy. A bit controversial, but I believe that Marketing should own the go-to-market strategy, including defining the product roadmap (from the standpoint of prioritization, viability, and pricing at minimum). The way it is set up now, Marketing is often not part of the go-to-market strategy, yet they are responsible for the execution and success of it. Start by understanding the customer journey, then align that with the corporate goals, and map your programs to align. Build influence and trust as early as possible in your career. Don’t think you need to have years of experience before you can start influencing. Find mentors, sponsors, and allies in every role and company. Focus on the corporate strategy and align your programs to these. Then share results from this perspective. And remember who your audiences are and what they want to hear and see. Be a storyteller. This goes without saying and we’ve all heard it ad nauseam, but it really is key to helping your prospects and customers identify with you. I work mostly with B2B companies, so this is really critical as you are building a relationship and partnership with folks for the long term. Own a revenue target. Trust me, it will make you a better marketer. You could even go as far as thinking about yourself and the team as a Revenue Knowledge Center. Marketing knows which programs and areas we should be investing in as well as divesting from. We know when to pivot. When a company is behind the target, who do executives go to for help? When there aren’t enough leads or pipeline or revenue, who gets called in to fix it? Who knows which programs and channels perform the best, or worst? Who can influence programs and tactics in almost every facet of the customer journey, adding value and having a huge impact? Who knows which levers can be pulled, why, and when to increase lift and conversion? Who knows how to flip a huge in-person event into a virtual event without missing a step? That would be marketing.

Can you share a few examples of marketing tools or marketing technology that you think can dramatically empower small business owners to become more effective marketers?

Drift is a great chatbot that lets you automate almost the entire funnel. Sure it takes some thought to get into the best flow. And yes, you will need to develop or repurpose content. But once set, it can be completely automated. From the minute the prospect comes to your site, everything they see and access, and the flow itself through the funnel, can be automated.

Any tools that are leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning are also critical to automation. And there are new ones every day. It’s only going to get more sophisticated, but with that comes automation.

What books, podcasts, documentaries or other resources do you use to sharpen your marketing skills?

Marketing Profs. I joined this organization a long time ago. And while they do focus on B2B marketing, they develop and curate some amazing content.

American Marketing Association. When I finished my MBA, this organization lagged with tools, techniques, and programs. But now I find them to be a wealth of amazing information, resources, and tools.

I love Neil Patel and Eric Sui’s podcast. They have short snippets of useful information on almost any subject as it relates to marketing.

Shoutout to Neil and Eric, they are outstanding! One more before we go: If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

From a marketing standpoint, the idea behind the book Sway and the G.R.I.T. Marketing method and framework is to make marketing professionals more productive, therefore increasing revenue, and ultimately increasing GDP. That would be a great goal.

Thank you for taking the time to do this and for sharing so many fantastic insights with us!