Kexin Chen

Vice President, C-Suite Marketing, Salesforce

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Salesforce Vice President, C-Suite Marketing, Kexin Chen on Event Marketing Strategy

May 23 @ 10:00AM PST

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How do you measure your own success in your role? How much have those performance indicators evolved as you grew within your role?

Kexin Chen

Salesforce Vice President, C-Suite Marketing • April 25

In terms of defining success, more top line KPIs are aligned to the targets set for pipeline and ACV (annual contract value) and my team's marketing contribution. Since my team focuses on building new C-Suite relationships for a set global list of top accounts, we're able to measure and hold o......Read More

920 Views

What are the pillars of your demand-generation strategy? Key channels and approaches? How to you align the different stakeholders in these processes?

Kexin Chen

Salesforce Vice President, C-Suite Marketing • April 25

The audience I target are primarily Fortune 500 C-Suite. In this case, we take an account first approach and weigh events more heavily than digital in our marketing plans. For integrated marketing plans, bringing in the functional experts to inform the strategy from the start is critical. General......Read More

794 Views

What's your advice on improving a historically tense relationship between functions?

Kexin Chen

Salesforce Vice President, C-Suite Marketing • April 25

For historically tense relationships, one of my coaches has given me a fantastic framework: 1. Take a step back and request time to address your relationship. Request the time to discuss this so they aren't blindsided and have time to think about what they'd want to share. 2. In the m......Read More

793 Views

What are some examples of the types of insights you used to gain insight from internal stakeholders?

Kexin Chen

Salesforce Vice President, C-Suite Marketing • April 25

I think the best way to gain insights from internal stakeholders is to: 1. Ask them directly. It's easy to jump into transactional work and I like to have an initial meeting where I spend a few minutes to understand their priorities, how they define their personal and team's success, ho......Read More

605 Views

What are some of your top strategies in driving alignment with Sales?

Kexin Chen

Salesforce Vice President, C-Suite Marketing • April 25

For sales and marketing alignment, I find understanding their core KPIs and joining their regular leadership cadence meetings allows you to understand the top of mind challenges/priorities. As you see how pipeline is progressing and the health of the business from the field leadership calls, you'......Read More

555 Views

What's a good way to approach decisions that other teams feel they should own vs. Demand Gen feels they should own?

Kexin Chen

Salesforce Vice President, C-Suite Marketing • April 25

A successful integrated marketing plan takes a village of marketers across a myriad of functions and specialties. When there are unclear swim lanes, I tend to like to address where the confusion lies and build a slide that defines the RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed). If this ......Read More

555 Views

How do you align internal Stakeholders?

Kexin Chen

Salesforce Vice President, C-Suite Marketing • April 25

As a marketer, knowing your audience is critical. Internal stakeholders are no different. I view them as your internal audience. Generally, I will schedule an initial kick off call to learn their priorities, areas of concern/learnings if it is a run rate program, and their communication preferenc......Read More

528 Views

How do you manage people who don't necessarily report to you? This could be while giving feedback on a piece of work? Or getting them to prioritize the project you're running.

Kexin Chen

Salesforce Vice President, C-Suite Marketing • April 25

You don't need anyone to report into you to be successful in leading a program/initiative/campaign. My recommendation of aligning to stakeholders also stands with collaborators. I recommend an initial meeting to get to know each other and communication preferences including their preferences on r......Read More

502 Views

What is the best cadence for gathering stakeholder feedback in preparation for a launch?

Kexin Chen

Salesforce Vice President, C-Suite Marketing • April 25

In preparation for a launch, I like to consider the key milestones and create a workback plan that includes who we need to update and when. To help ensure there is strong documentation, we often create a single source of truth deck and project plan that allows us to keep all of the most pertinent......Read More

491 Views

What are some ways you navigate the pivot from engaging with colleagues from a place of collaboration and ideation towards a stance of execution and accountability as deadlines approach?

Kexin Chen

Salesforce Vice President, C-Suite Marketing • April 25

With the start of every program, ideation is critical in inspiring collaboration and partnership. As we get ready for execution, I always recommend a few of these tips: 1. Have an identified person who runs the project management and ensures there is clearly defined roles and responsibiliti......Read More