Tell us about yourself.

I'm Laura Whitehead, Executive Vice President of Marketing at iManage. My team is heading towards 40 people and we're spread across the globe - London, Chicago, Bangalore, Toronto and various other locations. We're in the midst of transforming our business from what had been traditionally an on-premise business into a high-growth SaaS organisation that puts the customer at the centre of all our operations to ensure we can enable our customers in driving value. From a marketing perspective, along with other functions within the business, that's what we're all centred upon.

How do you see your role as a B2B marketer in driving broader sector or industry change?

I think what's really important around driving change is having an understanding of the holistic bigger picture - where the whole sector or sectors are heading and how we can add value to that conversation. Over the last few years, ensuring we take a data and research-led approach has been critical. The market we serve is lawyers, accountants, knowledge work professionals, so they expect us to understand their complexities of their work and for us to engage in a way that delivers value add insight and perspectives.

That data research piece has formed the backbone of what we've been doing through our campaigns and thought leadership. Making sure that what we put out there isn't just relevant but really impactful and can address both their present needs and help inform future innovation opportunities. Marketing has really changed from being seen as just running events and focusing on a feature / function product message to really providing critical insight that enables decisions that will impact our customers' businesses. That's a real shift in the role of marketing and the impact we get to have.

Another critical aspect has been placing the customer voice at the centre of what we're doing. This has been key in helping to inform and lead markets in the changes they need to make and give people the confidence to make those decisions. Whether it's using platforms like G2 Crowd to share authentic customer voice and experience, or through our advisory boards and user groups, having customers help lead and drive conversations gives people confidence around change.

The trust-building piece has never been bigger for marketing. It's not just about technology anymore - it's about how we show that you can trust us with your data, not just your money.

With everything going on around AI, that's becoming even more critical. The role of marketing is key because we've got to ensure we're giving our customers and prospects the confidence that they're not only investing in the right technology for their organisation but working with an organisation that has the trust, credibility – particularly in security and governance, and understands the entire impact of these technologies on their business and their clients.

This continues to cement marketing as a key strategic voice to drive the market forward. The trust-building piece has never been bigger for marketing. It's not just about technology anymore - it's about how we show that you can trust us with your data, not just your money.

What's the most provocative idea or strategy you've implemented in your B2B marketing and what was the response and the outcome?

It's funny - when I saw this question, I thought, "Oh god, I don't know that I have done anything really provocative!" But thinking back, there are a couple of examples that stand out.

One was actually a few years back where I was head of marketing and we'd created a new module around enhancing the value you get from data around specific contacts. I think I was a marketing team of about one at the time, so I was doing this all myself. We decided to do some direct mail, which wasn't always seen as impactful. We created a Berocca-themed campaign where the whole ingredient list was around the product launch components and benefits. That got great attention - both positive and negative. We actually had one person reach out to the CEO saying they'd received these tablets and were they safe! I had to have a conversation with the CEO about it, but he actually liked the campaign and the impact it had.

Another example was in 2018, pre-all the Gen AI hype. The company had acquired an AI business and wanted to drive awareness that we had extended our capabilities with AI. We were going to an industry event and, much to the disgust of people who were very against robots, we hired an actor who dressed up in this really quite freaky humanoid outfit. You would have thought there was a famous celebrity at this event - you could not get near him for people trying to take selfies. Before we brought this out, I thought this would either completely crash and burn with everyone telling us a robot was a really stupid idea, or it would be amazing. The social component was incredible with everyone sharing photos.

The key to all of this though is you can have great provocative ideas or broader strategies, but you have to think through what's next. With the Berocca tablets, we made sure we had a very obvious call to action so we could continue the conversation. It's about making sure it's part of a broader conversation - you can balance being creative and out there initially and then bring that into a more measured approach as you continue the dialogue.

Within my team, when we're doing any sort of planning - whether it's annual planning or campaign strategy - we try to start with just throwing ideas out there. It doesn't matter what they are or how out there they might be. We want everybody throughout the team to have the confidence to share thoughts because sometimes you might go a long way from that initial spark, but it can be the spark that gets you to where you need to be. Bringing creativity into everything we're doing is really important to me.

Can you share an example of how you've used storytelling to provoke or shift perceptions in your industry or in your role?

My head of content always asks "What's the objective?" whenever I come up with an idea. You can't and shouldn't ever be just creating content or telling stories for the sake of it. I always try to have at the core: when we tell a story, who's it for and ultimately what's the outcome we want to drive?

Something we've worked on at over the last four years or so started with a brand refresh in 2019. We focused around making 'knowledge work' our brand promise. In doing that, we were really looking to shift perceptions within the legal and professional services industry to centre around knowledge work. While knowledge work isn't necessarily new, the industry didn't necessarily think of itself as a knowledge work industry - they thought of themselves as the legal industry or the accounting industry.

We went out and did significant proprietary research and created a knowledge growth maturity model - a strategic framework for organisations to evaluate and evolve their best practices, addressing everything from people, process, data, and tech around how they can continue their knowledge work journey. We then created content around that model and ran industry roundtables and events where the knowledge workers and their organisations themselves tell their stories about how they've evolved through knowledge work maturity. iManage provided the framework and tool for them to assess their maturity, but it was their stories that explained the different challenges and how they're looking to progress.

At a more granular level, we do a lot with customer voice through videos and quote carousels on LinkedIn, which get such high engagement because we're in an industry where people want to hear from their peers. We recently created a "Little Book of Document Management" which was really about providing a guide to break down misconceptions around document management and answer fundamental questions we know our buyers from newer segments have. It's about identifying the challenges or questions your audience wants answered and using stories to help address them rather than just providing a product data sheet.

What is the biggest change needed in your view in B2B marketing right now and how do you feel like you're contributing to that shift?

I think we've seen what Jon Miller, who established Marketo and was their CMO, talks about as an over-rotation on demand gen, where B2B marketing just piled everything into that portion of the funnel. I've seen that very much within our own organisation. I'm a brand person at heart, so it's always pained me.

What we're starting to see and what I'm certainly driving is trying to get that balance through what we're calling 'brand gen' - how do you really build that longer-term brand trust that can directly correlate to what you're seeing in short-term pipeline generation? We're looking to continue building and investing in thought leadership and brand domain authority that can really help to communicate and engage with our buyers before they even know they're buyers.

By spending decent time in that space, by the time you get much further down the funnel and when buyers have raised their hands, you're in a much better position to drive them through the funnel. For us, that's meant changing how we've communicated and worked across the organisation with this approach - not just with sales, but with rev ops, customer success, and experience to make sure they're aligned and supportive.

What's really interesting is when you start to go into new markets where you don't have that brand piece in place. We're a very well-known brand within certain markets but not in others. Looking at that type of data can really help support the conversation internally around how you need to balance both brand gen and demand gen to drive sustainable growth.

How do you encourage your team or organisation to think more boldly and embrace change in their marketing approaches?

Building trust with stakeholders has been critical, and using data and insight to support that. From the team perspective, I've got different levels of experience in the team, so a lot of it is about giving them the confidence to challenge themselves and push in conversations outside of marketing. We share feedback and experiences within the team to build that confidence.

You can follow a marketing playbook, but that can get dull.

We try to keep what we do sometimes light and creative to get some excitement. You can follow a marketing playbook, but that can get dull. Focusing on being curious and testing - asking "what if we did it another way?" - is really important for ensuring a team starts to embrace things differently. Whenever I've listened to podcasts or read something interesting, I always share it with the team. In doing that, you can also show your own vulnerabilities - "I didn't know this" or "I hadn't thought of that."

My team is growing significantly and there's a lot of change within our business. Just recognising that it can be a tough job and that you can make mistakes - and that's okay - provides that foundation for a team that's going to step up and be bold and challenge things.

What makes B2B marketing 'changemaking', in just one word?

Authenticity. Coming back to that trust, being seen as someone who is authentic, really wedded and grounded in approach, and can be that trusted authority - that's ultimately key to everything. 

What is your one piece of advice to future changemaking marketers on how to be more effective in their roles?

Be curious and be open - and be tenacious, don't give up. It can be a tough gig. But be confident in your thoughts and know that you deserve and should have not only a seat at the table, but you are critical in driving conversations forward across the organisation.

I'm seeing more and more that the role of marketing is evolving in that way - we're not here just to do the creative and the events, but we are guiding and informing strategy across the whole organisation. Experience isn't the be-all and end-all - you can get a long way, whatever experience you've got, if you've got that right mindset. Ask questions, listen (people are very bad listeners), and be open.

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