Jeremy Bloom of Integrate Discusses Demand Marketing and MarTech Leadership

Announcer 0:01

This is MarTech Interviews, a podcast from DK New Media, publishers of MarTech, the leading publication for sales and marketing professionals to research, discover, and learn how technology is driving business results. Your host is Douglas Karr.

Douglas Karr 0:19

Well, welcome to another in our interview series with MarTech. This is Douglas Karr, of course, and we have on the line today, we have CEO, Chief Executive Officer of Integrate. We have Jeremy Bloom on the line. Jeremy, welcome, sir.

Jeremy Bloom 0:35

It's good to be here, Doug. Thanks.

Douglas Karr 0:36

Yeah, absolutely. Great to have you. And I'm going to read the, it always sounds chintzy when I'm reading bios, but of course, yours is intriguing and we want to talk about it, but we'll say, founded by CEO Jeremy Bloom, entrepreneur and former pro athlete, Integrate Software is tackling a big challenge facing B2B organizations. How to scale sales pipeline and increase revenue generated by top funnel marketing programs. With annual recurring subscription revenue nearly tripling this past year. Wow. Fantastic. The company is experiencing a rapid expansion in its marquee customer base of mid-market and enterprise organizations, including Dell, which is also a client of mine. So I love hearing that. Salesforce, which we talked about, Salesforce, which we talked about, I've worked for Workday, Iron Mountain and ServiceNow. Well, congratulations, Jeremy. That's incredible.

Jeremy Bloom 1:28

Thank you very much. It's been an incredible seven-year journey with the company. And just like any startup, you go through a few different iterations of what your go-to-market is before you really kind of nail it. You know, in 2014, when we took software to market to focus on orchestrating the top of the funnel marketers, because that's really where you see most of the systems and confusion and noise. That's really when the company started to take off and build a tremendous amount of strength.

Douglas Karr 2:00

And for everybody listening, give a rundown of that. Give a scenario, you know, of one of your clients and how they're utilizing Integrate.

Jeremy Bloom 2:12

Sure. Yeah, we work primarily at the enterprise level. So those companies that you know are large enterprise companies and they're marketing different product lines. And the way they do that is through ad tech. And anyone who's seen the Chief MarTech slide or the Loom Escape slide knows that there's just a lot of vendors, a lot of point solutions that try to help marketers accomplish driving, applying, driving demand and ultimately getting business. And so what we do is we help synthesize all those disparate systems together so that they're talking in a single language. And so what we do is we have open source software that's connected into a lot of the main software providers and also ad tech providers in media. So what used to be kind of a very difficult and laborious exercise to understand what's working or what's not is now relatively easy for our CMOs and our marketing ops departments to log in to integrate, chat with our customer success and say, you know, I spent $5 million last month to generate demand. What's working, what's not, you know, what publishers are driving pipeline, what pieces of content are driving pipeline, and then, you know, get into account-based marketing. What accounts are actually in market? What accounts should I be targeting? What accounts should I just be putting into a nurture track? So that's what we call demand organization at the top of the funnel.

Douglas Karr 3:44

And are you doing that, and just from a tactical standpoint, is integrate, you know, software that's basically working on the back end and then feeding that data into a CRM like Salesforce?

Jeremy Bloom 3:57

That's right. So it sits above Salesforce. In the funnel, it sits above Marketo and Eloqua, marketing automation platforms like that. And so we see every lead first before it gets put into a CRM, before it gets put into marketing automation. And our software will eliminate the bad leads, you know, so disconnect email addresses, wrongful numbers, you know, anything that would create an invalid lead so that we're not muddying up the waters for sales. And then once that lead has been approved as a sales or marketing accepted lead, then we'll make that data more intelligent for the salesperson. So, you know, if you're a salesperson at Salesforce, when you sit down on Monday morning and you have 100 leads, those 100 leads will be stack ranked based off the predictability of the close, based off which companies are in market, which companies are showing the strongest signals to convert. So we're really trying to use intelligence and machine learning to better predict, you know, which leads are going to close, which leads are not, and helping be, you know, lock arms with sales to make their jobs easier and more effective.

Douglas Karr 5:03

Well, and it sounds like it's working. That's fantastic. I, and, and some recent, you know, obviously with your, your growth and your success, you've recently secured investment from some leading pioneers in the space as well, right?

Jeremy Bloom 5:21

Yeah, this is our fourth round of funding. So we, we've raised over $35 million of venture capital. And typically, you know, when we raise, that's kind of the headline, but it's, it's really the sub headline in this. Primarily for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that for the last four consecutive quarters, Integrate has been cash flow positive. And as you mentioned, during that period, we've, we've grown, we've tripled revenue. Um, but the real headline is four CEO founders, one of which you worked for and helped build ExactTarget, uh, Scott Dorsey. Um, you know, Scott Dorsey and, and Reggie Bradford and David Parnston and

Douglas Karr 6:00

Dan Springer.

Jeremy Bloom 6:00

I mean, these are four guys that just completely changed the DNA and fabric of, of marketing. And collectively they've, they've delivered, you know, close to $5 billion worth of shareholder value because you have the founder of ExactTarget.

Oracle, um, you have the CEO of the Christian Frontier that was acquired by Adobe. And then you, uh, have the founder of Responsys that was acquired by, by Oracle. And Dan's now the CEO of DocuSign. So, you know, these are four guys that really, truly understand our industry. And they also understand how many companies, um, are out there trying to do something. And, you know, they bet on us because they, they believe that we're poised to be that, that next big breakout company. So we're humbled, um, and, uh, you know, we're really excited to, to welcome those guys to our team.

Douglas Karr 6:51

Well, you've already done a lot and having those, those power players on the line with you. Wow. That's, that's, those are some great phone numbers to have in your Rolodex. Of course, we're not in a Rolodex anymore. Sorry.

Jeremy Bloom 7:06

In the iPhone, right?

Douglas Karr 7:08

Well, and, and, and taking on this investment obviously provides you guys an opportunity for, um, you know, incredible growth and some, some research and development. You know, how do you think the marketing technology landscape is evolving and, and, you know, how are you going to invest this money to, to get the most return on, on those investors, uh, investment?

Jeremy Bloom 7:31

Yeah, very good questions. I'll, I'll tackle the first one kind of on our roadmap first. So we, we've really, we are the market leader in demand registration, and we really focused on the, uh, demand generation side of that. Um, so that's content syndication, that's call centers,

Douglas Karr 7:47

um, which is a large source of,

Jeremy Bloom 7:49

of, uh, a marketing value, uh, to, to B2B. But we're, we're tackling some big areas next. Um, we're, we're already live with a beta event in events. So now event leads,

Announcer 8:00

when you

Jeremy Bloom 8:00

scan a badge or you host a webinar, those, those, those are software. And we're also live with a, with a beta product display,

Douglas Karr 8:09

uh,

Jeremy Bloom 8:09

obviously programmatic display with, with a lens towards, uh, account-based marketing is, is, is a, a big source of generating demand in the full distribution model. So we're, we're kind of head down to the team focused on how do we continue to automate the entire top of the funnel and, and move across it. So, so that's, that's our focus. Um, as far as an industry focus, you know, the macro view of marketing over the next five years, you know, I'm, I said, I'm pretty bullish on leveraging natural language processing and machine learnings to, to bring a tremendous amount of intelligence that marketing departments have never had before about not only, you know, who their prospects are, uh, but also when their prospects are in market, um, down to the level of who are the decision makers at those accounts and how do you think about engaging and not through traditional advertising, but through content, thought leadership, those things. So,

Douglas Karr 9:01

you know, I think as, as, uh, machine learning

Jeremy Bloom 9:03

continues to evolve and, uh, our people will probably be the third or fifth industry to pick it up, but, you know, we, we certainly have a lens into that. Our chief product officer, um, studied machine learnings in college and then, and then worked in that industry for some time. So we have a nice, you know, little headstart in that, in that department, but I think it's going to,

Douglas Karr 9:26

you know, it's

Jeremy Bloom 9:27

probably a three to five year, uh, horizon until we really pick up.

Douglas Karr 9:31

Ah, that's fantastic. Now, um, we had mentioned at the beginning of the show that you were actually a former pro athlete. I'm curious to hear about that.

Jeremy Bloom 9:43

Yeah. So when I was 10 years old, growing up in Colorado, I told my parents that I wanted to ski in the Olympics and play in the national football league. And, uh, both my parents have a healthy disregard for the impossible.

And so they, they said, yeah, you know, you can do it if you, if you, um, uh, believe in yourself and attack your dreams. And, you know, the thing that really stood up, stood out to me is, is, uh, the use of the word just kind of attack your dreams. You can't just dream about it. You got to attack. So, you know, I was really lucky, had some great coaches and tremendous teammates and some, some good luck along the way and did both. So I skied in two Olympics for the United States as a freestyle snow skier. And then after my second Olympics was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, uh, spent a couple seasons there and a season with the Pittsburgh Steelers before, you know, jumping across the fence and starting to, to, to build my entrepreneurial career.

Douglas Karr 10:37

Well, it seems to me that there's a lot of, uh, parallels between the two as well.

Jeremy Bloom 10:43

There is. There's a lot of parallels when you think about management, especially on the NFL side. And I, you know, I was two very different management philosophies, uh, at the Steelers and the Eagles. Um, the Eagles were very, so, you know, more, more of a dictatorship than, than, um, you know, a democracy and they motivated by fear. And I just never felt like arms with the teammates.

Douglas Karr 11:10

And,

Jeremy Bloom 11:10

you know, even though we probably had the, uh, the most talented roster in the NFL, Donovan McNabb and Brian Dockin, Brian Westbrook, all these great guys, we never went past the first round of the playoffs. But the organizational management structure, the Steelers was a complete, it was put on its very bottom. It was up. The team kind of set the goals and objectives. We had a very dynamic leader in, in Mike Tom, the head coach, you know, really one of the best leaders I've ever been around. And you just could lock arms. I mean, it just, it really felt like a collaborative culture.

The year that I was with them, they won the Superbowl and with an inferior. Then we go, so I think, you know, I'm a set with, with culture. I'm obsessed with team dynamics as a CEO and founder. Fortunately, I've been, been able to bring in just a really great team, uh, especially the C team around the table. These guys all have great pattern recognition and offer up great advice and guidance for the business and, and below them all the way down to our newest employee. It's just, we really focus on bringing a high caliber person in on the culture side and someone with great character. Um, and we have five cultural pillars that we, we build to, but, but it is important.

Douglas Karr 12:25

And it's

Jeremy Bloom 12:26

something that we, we spend a lot of time on thinking about and, and operating to it integrate.

Douglas Karr 12:31

That's, that's amazing. And I think, you know, not just, uh, obviously on the leadership side, that's going to have a huge impact on an organization, but I even think from an entrepreneurial standpoint, because you, you know, you, you really do as a, you know, I'm not talking, I'm not a pro athlete. In fact, uh, if you see pictures of me, I'm the reverse of a pro athlete. Uh, but, but, uh, you know, you, I, I do know from back in the day when I was wrestling, um, you know, that, that it was a war against your own head a lot of the times and entrepreneurial, uh, you know, being entrepreneurial almost seems like the same thing that you've got a lot cheering against you, obviously, you know, competitors and, and sometimes industry and sometimes even, um, analysts, you know, but, but you have to keep pushing forward and, and you just know that you have to keep pushing that huge boulder up the hill, you know, if you want to win. And it seems, it seems that it's almost a natural progression for a pro athlete to get into the entrepreneur, to get into entrepreneurship.

Jeremy Bloom 13:32

You're spot on. I think the biggest challenge for a founder is just managing his or her own psychology. And that, that psychology changes as the company evolves in the early days. It's, you know, you wake up in the morning and you think you're going to take over the world. And then when you, and you get a couple of phone calls and you've gotten, you're thinking, gosh, I'm not going to be able to make payroll.

Douglas Karr 13:52

You have

Jeremy Bloom 13:52

to,

Douglas Karr 13:53

you know,

Jeremy Bloom 13:53

be able to, to, to deal with those psychological ups and downs. And you, you know, you're right in the sense that athletics really kind of helped me for that because, you know, I, um, was really lucky to do some, some, some great things. I also failed much more than I ever did. And it was during those, those inevitable points of failure that I had to kind of

Announcer 14:16

figure

Jeremy Bloom 14:16

out how to use those as constructive roadmaps to calibrate the compass to ultimately where I needed and wanted to go. So it, it, it did give, I think it was an advantage for me to, to be able to compete at a high level and to be able to just deal with those psychological shifts.

Douglas Karr 14:32

Oh boy, this is a incredible conversation. Uh, thank you for sharing that. Cause I think it's an important message, uh, to everybody out there in the space. You know, I remember, I remember those tough days, you know, Scott, Scott and I, you'll have to ask him one time about the, the weekend where we just literally were, uh, we had an outage and I think there was about 10 of us that stayed for about 40 hours straight, you know, taking care of everything. And, and, uh, it was, it was a life changing event, you know, that, that it transformed the company. It transformed the leadership of the company and, and, uh, but people don't know how close that, you know, sometimes how fragile sometimes these businesses are. Um, so yeah, yeah, yeah. Great, great conversation.

Jeremy Bloom 15:17

And yeah, I know the psychological challenges, you know, for, for CEOs and founders, especially if you, which I think we have it integrate to attract, uh, people that have founders mentality. I mean, there's lots of people integrate who, who, you know, you would, you would talk to and say, gosh, this, you know, they're passionate

Douglas Karr 15:36

about

Jeremy Bloom 15:37

what, what they're doing as, as any founder. Absolutely. So you're right. I mean, in a sense that, you know, any, anybody can face those psychological challenges at a business and it's always a fun exercise and I'm a student of the game. I've never, I mean, perfected, but it's during the hard times really what, you know, I actually typically feel the most alive and

Douglas Karr 15:57

most,

Jeremy Bloom 15:57

you know, engaged,

Douglas Karr 15:59

you know, cause

Jeremy Bloom 15:59

it's at that point it's, it's a little bit more survival,

Douglas Karr 16:02

a lot harder to,

Jeremy Bloom 16:03

you know, give that 110% every single day when, when things are going so well, it's something we have to remind ourselves.

Douglas Karr 16:10

Well, I'll tell you what, uh, you know, in between now and, and your next, uh, tripling of, of, uh, revenue, you're going to have to write a book about this. This is, this is, this is a great conversation.

Jeremy Bloom 16:23

Oh, I, I appreciate that. That's all right. You know, it's, it's easy when, when, uh, when, when you see up good questions

Douglas Karr 16:29

on

Jeremy Bloom 16:31

the phone to talk about, so kudos.

Douglas Karr 16:33

Uh, thank you. And, and let's, let's, uh, I, I definitely want our listeners, you know, for, um, you talked that your target market is enterprise. Um, talk a little bit more about that so that people listening know, you know, who, who should be calling you today.

Jeremy Bloom 16:49

Yeah. Yeah. So our target market is, is really enterprise B2B marketers. Um, but we do have some middle market customers as well. So if you're generating over 500 leads on a monthly basis and you have a nurture track set up through Marketo or Eloqua and sometimes HubSpot and you're interested in, in chatting with our team, just go to integrate.com, shoot us a note. We'd be happy to set up a call, do a blueprinting system together and help identify some, slow down some gaps in systems and, um, find a potential path to work together.

Douglas Karr 17:19

That's fantastic. Well, we'll put that information in a blog post, uh, as well. That's going to accompany this podcast. Uh, Jeremy, uh, thank you so much for taking the time today. This was a incredible conversation. Thank you. Well, congratulations again on all of the success and growth of the company, as well as the, uh, the attracting of the stars in the industry that you're, you're attracting in investment as well. Um, well, well deserved, sir.

Jeremy Bloom 17:47

My pleasure, Doug. Appreciate the time.

Douglas Karr 17:50

Absolutely.

Announcer 17:51

The MarTech Interviews podcast is recorded at DK New Media's state-of-the-art podcast studio at the Speakeasy in downtown Indianapolis. Subscribe at martech.zone. Sponsorships and marketing services are available through dknewmedia.com. Bye. Bye.

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