An interview with Olga Karanikos, Marketing manager at SalesScreen
We sit down with Olga Karanikos, Marketing Manager at SalesScreen. SalesScreen is a global gamification platform that keeps modern teams motivated, rewarded and engaged on a mission to help their clients create the sales atmosphere of their dreams.
How did you end up at SalesScreen and what problem does SalesScreen solve for its clients?
I spent most of my career working for companies in the education space - from international to higher education - and wanted to work with new audiences. I've always loved working with my sales counterparts and found the way SalesScreen serves sales people across industries very intriguing and made the switch. SalesScreen is a sales gamification solution that helps leaders build motivated teams which achieve their goals. The visualization, recognition and motivation capabilities work together to improve low employee engagement, low productivity and high turnover.
As the VP of Marketing, what are your main responsibilities at SalesScreen?
I oversee all marketing across a variety of channels but ultimately, my focus is on increasing our brand awareness and generating demand. Over the past year and a half, I've worked with my team on moving from traditional lead generation to generating pipeline and revenue.
To get a bit more technical, what are some of the acquisition channels that have worked well for SalesScreen and why do you think that is?
It's all about creating relevant and educational content that gets in front of our target audience at the right time so we can move them more effectively and efficiently through the buying process. Content and product marketing produces the right content and we lean into digital marketing to get the message across in both organic and paid channels.
What role does your Marketing team play when it comes to organising, operating and improving your marketing-sales funnel?
We work in lock step with our sales team to create messaging that helps them through each step of the buying journey. That messaging and positioning carries all the way through our customer success team so that we deliver on the value and promise that we sold.
At ColdFire, when we look at our clients' Marketing strategies, they vary greatly. Some have found a single, scalable client acquisition process while others thrive on a mix of top-of-funnel strategies. If you had to summarise the high-level LeadGenMarketing strategy of SalesScreen, what would it be?
There's never a silver bullet in marketing - our acquisition strategy relies on a mix of channels. We know that people get their information from multiple channels before they convert so we spread our efforts across channels where we generate the demand and then really optimize the experience on the channels where we know the demand is captured.
What is a Marketing technique that you've used at SalesScreen or at previous companies which you believe is underutilized at most Marketing teams - and why?
Messaging and positioning should be constantly revisited, massaged, updated, and iterated - all of your tactics will only perform well if you're striking the right chord with your message. Your audience's pain points are constantly changing and you need to change with them.
Marketing can happen using combined tools and methodologies. Which has worked better for SalesScreen and why do you think that is?
The number of marketing tech options are astronomical - there's always a new tool or vendor popping up. It can be a challenge to create the right stack for your team but I find the most fundamental foundations to be a healthy CRM + marketing automation tool that you then layer on top of with more specific items you might need to manage your SEO, social channels, paid ads, and more
Has your Marketing team experimented with some kind of cold outbound strategy (like cold email)? If yes what was the general outcome and if no, why not?
Our cold outbound is managed on the sales side but we do help with the messaging built into various sequences.
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