The Customer Journey Isn’t a Funnel––It’s a Spiral
Learn from Sun Lee, CMO at BigPanda, about why she thinks of the customer journey as a spiral.
BigPanda Inc. enables its customers to organize and mobilize the world’s DevOps and ITOps data. BigPanda’s Incident Intelligence and Automation platform, powered by AIOps, empowers some of the world's largest brands to keep business running, prevent service outages, and improve incident management to deliver extraordinary customer experiences. BigPanda’s platform is critical for organizations across industries and for enterprises of all sizes—from small and medium to Fortune 500 companies—to power their digital services.
Guest Bio
BigPanda CMO Sun Lee’s proven marketing leadership draws on her rare combination of analytical depth and creative brilliance. She is igniting BigPanda’s go-to-market engine and leading the marketing team.
As CMO of Sisu Data, Sun built a thriving marketing team and revitalized the company's branding and messaging. She brings a visionary approach to marketing from her leadership as a vice president of marketing at Pure Storage and SurveyMonkey. During her four years at SurveyMonkey, she led the company’s radical rebrand and contributed to its successful 2018 IPO.
Sun holds a BFA from the Art Center College of Design and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business. She also brings her expertise as an advisor to Gyaan, a revenue platform company. Outside of work, you’ll find Sun spending time with her family and on a quest to discover the best fried chicken and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Guest Bio
BigPanda CMO Sun Lee’s proven marketing leadership draws on her rare combination of analytical depth and creative brilliance. She is igniting BigPanda’s go-to-market engine and leading the marketing team.
As CMO of Sisu Data, Sun built a thriving marketing team and revitalized the company's branding and messaging. She brings a visionary approach to marketing from her leadership as a vice president of marketing at Pure Storage and SurveyMonkey. During her four years at SurveyMonkey, she led the company’s radical rebrand and contributed to its successful 2018 IPO.
Sun holds a BFA from the Art Center College of Design and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business. She also brings her expertise as an advisor to Gyaan, a revenue platform company. Outside of work, you’ll find Sun spending time with her family and on a quest to discover the best fried chicken and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Episode Summary
This episode features an interview with Sun Lee, CMO at BigPanda, a software company that enables organizations to organize and mobilize the world’s DevOps and ITOps data.
In this episode, Sun shares why she no longer thinks about the customer journey as a traditional funnel, why it's important to “go big or go home” on events, and the importance of face-to face human interaction.
Key Takeaways
- The traditional funnel may not be the best way to think about the customer journey; it is more like a spiral.
- It’s better to invest heavily in a few meaningful events, than to do many events each year.
- As a new CMO, don’t be afraid to be vocal on what could be better across functions.
Quotes
“One thing that I always tell people is the traditional funnel is dead. When you interview with a startup CEO, they will tell you, we have a pipeline problem, we have a sales funnel problem, or we have a product marketing problem. They have a lot of problems, they're trying to classify that into a certain org or function.
And the one thing that I say is, it's actually all of the above. Because how people buy these days, it's not like you become a stage one prospect, you become two or three, four, and then you're down to, and then one activity will move you through the funnel. Like the concept actually doesn't exist. So if you look at the customer journey that we have from a BigPanda perspective, it's like a giant spiral.”
Episode Highlights
- *(03:41) The Trust Tree: Structuring the team to match the customer journey
- *(13:17) The Playbook: PMM budget as a priority
- *(32:54) The Dust Up: Brand tensions moving into new markets
- *(36:00) Quick Hits: Sun's Quick Hits
Episodes Transcript
- The traditional funnel may not be the best way to think about the customer journey; it is more like a spiral.
- It’s better to invest heavily in a few meaningful events, than to do many events each year.
- As a new CMO, don’t be afraid to be vocal on what could be better across functions.
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