Kexin Chen

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 ourselves accountable to the ability to drive new C-Suite relationships and expand our footprint within the top accounts. Qualitatively I also check in with my key stakeholders to ensure my teams are aligned ...Read More

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 preferences. Getting specificity and clarity on the role they'd like to play the expectations they have on how they'll stay up to date on the project are critical to your and the project's success. I tend to over ...Read More

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. Generally I recommend having a clearly articulated goal/vision with clearly articulated outcomes of success. Then opening the space for ideation to build the strategy jointly helps create the initial alignment ...Read More

For historically tense relationships, one of my coaches has given me a fantastic framework: 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. In the meeting, both sides share a rating of 1-10 with 10 being an incredible relationship, where they stand. Have a discussion on how to raise the rating and what is needed from both ends. Be vulnerable and share where your chal ...Read More

Despite working at a Fortune 500 company, we're relatively simple. We use a good amount of our own technology (IE: Marketing Cloud for invites at large scale events, Salesforce CRM, Slack, Tableau). For event logistics and project management towards an event, we primarily use Google spreadsheets and Quip. We've also explored Asana to support this as well. We also have our go to agencies and vendors for event production and work with them via Slack. Given how big our event portfolio can be across ...Read More

I think the best way to gain insights from internal stakeholders is to: 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, how they see our teams partnering and how they like to be kept up to speed on projects? I like to state my personal communication preferences as a way to get a gauge on what I may need to alter about my style based on ...Read More

For ROI, it's helpful to know what the outcome of the event is meant to accomplish (IE: generate, progress, and or close pipe).Can impact the content strategy and the audience criteria you target. It can be for both, but having clarity here also helps with aligning your criteria for ROI. We currently look at the spend efficiency of a program so that is looking at our Marketing Pipe divided by the total cost to run the program. To ensure we are efficiently spending, I also keep an eye around Host ...Read More

I'm pretty loyal and like to spend a few years at a company since I believe it takes at least 3 years to settle and see your impact to fruition. I'm at a Fortune 500 and still the fruits of my labor are finally unfolding from work I put in place 6 years ago. For this reason, my general framework is: What am I looking to do 2 roles from now? Helps me get out of a specific time frame and more focused on what I aspire to be doing and the skill sets I need to learn to get there. Is there opportunity ...Read More