Brewing Success with Tony Uphoff: The Future of Marketing with Demand-as-a-Service

On this very special episode of The Pipeline Brew podcast, host Matt Hummel welcomes Tony Uphoff, CEO of Pipeline360. Their conversation spans topics such as Tony’s extensive career in tech & media, the transformational potential of Gen AI, and why we might be witnessing a shift away from SaaS orgs as buyers work to untangle themselves from platform overload.

Tony’s experience leading organisations like Thomasnet.com, UBM TechWeb, and Business.com offer the conversation a unique lens on how disruptive technologies reshape industries. This perspective helps him draw parallels between Gen AI and the early days of the internet. Both technologies experienced rapid adoption with their fair share of critics early on. 

Additionally, Matt and Tony discuss critical shifts in business models driven by the millennial workforce and the digital first purchase process. We may no longer be living in a SaaS era as companies begin to lean into simpler service offerings, with Tony advocating for “demand-as-a-service,” or outsourcing marketing complexity to achieve better outcomes. 

Stick around to “What’s On Tap” to hear Tony’s experiences as a grandparent and his first impressions of Matt during a memorable snowy encounter in Boulder.

Tony Uphoff is Chief Executive Officer of Pipeline360. He also serves as an analyst at Cloud Wars, a technology analyst firm that covers the latest trends and best practices in digital transformation. He additionally serves as an advisor and mentor to several tech and digital media companies. Prior to joining Pipeline360, Uphoff served as President and CEO at Thomasnet.com, where he led the turn around, growth and successful sale of the company to Xometry, a publicly traded, on-demand manufacturing marketplace for $300M in December 2021.

Uphoff has a strong track record of building, growing, and leading tech, data, media, and marketing services companies, with other notable leadership roles at UBM TechWeb, VNU Media, The Hollywood Reporter, InformationWeek and Business.com. 

[00:00:00] Matt Hummel: Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Pipeline Brew, the podcast that meets at the intersection of people and pipeline. We’re bringing you fun yet insightful conversations where you’ll not only hear from marketing experts, but also get to know them as well.

[00:00:22] Matt Hummel: Hey everyone. Today I’m super excited to be joined by a very special guest, Mr. Tony Uphoff. Tony is the CEO of Pipeline 360, joining the company in late 2023. Actually about a month before I joined. In addition to his role at Pipeline 360, Tony also serves as an analyst for Cloud Wars and the Acceleration Economy.

[00:00:43] Matt Hummel: Couple that with his background leading companies like thomasnet.com, UBM Tech Web. And business.com. Tony brings a very unique perspective on both the history as well as the current state of our industry. Tony, welcome to the show. How are you? 

[00:00:57] Tony Uphoff: Hey, Matt. Great to be on the show with you and [00:01:00] special guest designation.

[00:01:02] Tony Uphoff: Honored, my friend. Honored to be here. Well, 

[00:01:04] Matt Hummel: as you’ve reminded me, since day one, it’s due time. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, just kidding. Just kidding. No, it’s, it’s, it’s fun. It’s fun to have you on the show and this is gonna be a great conversation. So. Tony, as you know, we like to kick off each show with a little icebreaker to get the ball rolling.

[00:01:19] Matt Hummel: Only this time I’m gonna mix things up a little bit. Are you ready for that? Ooh. Okay. I’m ready. Alright, so you’ve lived on both coasts, having spent considerable time in New York City and now calling Southern California home. I’d like to know, which do you prefer and why? 

[00:01:36] Tony Uphoff: Wow, so born and raised in Southern California, some 18 years on the East Coast.

[00:01:42] Tony Uphoff: All things being equal. We love New York City, but I’ve gotta say, being back in Southern California is fantastic. So can I say both? 

[00:01:52] Matt Hummel: I mean, it’s, you’re kind of skirting the answer, but I, yeah. You know, you are my boss, so I’ll let it slide. But what I won’t [00:02:00] let slide is, let’s say the Knicks are playing the Lakers.

[00:02:04] Matt Hummel: Who are you pulling for Lakers? 

[00:02:06] Tony Uphoff: Over the Knicks. Okay. Dodgers over the Yankees. 

[00:02:10] Matt Hummel: Yep. 

[00:02:10] Tony Uphoff: Yep. But I root for all four teams. 

[00:02:14] Matt Hummel: Okay. That’s fair. Well, as a Dallas native, although I’m no longer a Dallas Mavericks fan, because your Lakers made a trade of the century. Luca. Luca. Luca. 

[00:02:25] Tony Uphoff: Yeah. 

[00:02:25] Matt Hummel: But I digress and I don’t want to cry on camera, so I’m gonna move on.

[00:02:29] Matt Hummel: Yeah. Before we dive into our special topic at hand today, Tony, I think it’d be helpful for our listeners to better understand your background, you know? Yeah. Do you mind walking us quickly through sort of your journey to where you are today and, and any of the, the lessons you learned along the way? 

[00:02:43] Tony Uphoff: Yeah, Matt, thanks, and I’ve just been incredibly fortunate to grow up in the business information industry with a particular focus on technology.

[00:02:53] Tony Uphoff: So I grew up at publishing and media companies that produce brands like Information Week and PC [00:03:00] Magazine and other major periodicals that really helped create the modern technology industry as, as we know them and as a result, Matt, I, I kind of realised, looking back on it, I, I grew up at this intersection between technology and media, so it gave me a ringside seat for almost every major technology transition.

[00:03:20] Tony Uphoff: And really help me understand the impact, particularly technology was having on business. And so you mentioned thomas net.com and business.com, and I also got a chance to run CMP Media. I’ve run brands as divergent as Publisher of Information Week and also served as publisher of the Hollywood Reporter.

[00:03:41] Tony Uphoff: So I’ve had a, a broad and varied career. I think what I’ve learned along the way is. Really touching on that thread of the impact, the disruptive impact that technology can have on business and having seen the cycles where let’s say a new phenomenon [00:04:00] comes along and there’s that funny moment, Matt, where it feels both under hyped and overhyped at the exact same time.

[00:04:06] Tony Uphoff: Perhaps we’re living through that again, right? With the mainstreaming of artificial intelligence, I can look back and, and remember the dawning of the internet. Where people would say, oh, this is just a passing fad. This’ll go away. This is not a big deal. And so I think what that experience has given me is the ability to understand when one of these market transitions is coming, how to analyse that, understand if it’s real or perceived, but then also hopefully help the companies that I’m involved in and then the customers of those companies harness the power of that market transition.

[00:04:41] Tony Uphoff: If it’s a, a new or emerging or an accelerating piece of technology, let’s say. 

[00:04:46] Matt Hummel: That makes a ton of sense. It’s interesting, you know, I was, I was just jotting down talking about the intersection of, of tech and media and you think back to your early days to where we are today and use the word disruptive to describe technology [00:05:00] and you know, now we’re living in this, to your point, over-hyped and, and probably also under hyped era of gen ai.

[00:05:06] Matt Hummel: Have you seen any other technologies? In your journey that have seemed as significant as, as gen AI feels today? 

[00:05:14] Tony Uphoff: Yes and no. I would say the obvious one would be the internet itself. 

[00:05:18] Matt Hummel: Mm. 

[00:05:19] Tony Uphoff: And I remember, you know, I, I was running a company called CMP Media at the time that the vast majority of our revenues were print and we’re talking in the hundreds of millions of dollars, very profitable.

[00:05:30] Tony Uphoff: And we embraced the internet when it first became commercially available. I think technically speaking, I may well have been the creator of the very first email, commercial email newsletter. It was written up in the New York Times, believe it or not. It was called, oh, no kidding. Ironically enough, talk about an Oxymoron Information Week daily, and it was an email newsletter that that was ad supported.

[00:05:51] Tony Uphoff: And so I think, you know, we embraced all those things really early. I think similar to what we’re feeling with Gen ai, but for very different [00:06:00] reasons. You could get an early look at this. And to an extent, we were in the front seat of the rollercoaster, right? We were a company that we demonstrably took it through digital transformation, but our industry radically changed very, very quickly as the internet accelerated.

[00:06:16] Tony Uphoff: And it was that moment map where literally you would have customers when we’d go out and start selling our website and other companion products to the print products. You’d have some customers that would openly laugh, oh, the internet, we talked to our ad agency. The internet’s not gonna be an advertising medium.

[00:06:34] Tony Uphoff: You, you guys are overhyping this. And then you could start to see glimpses of how rapidly this was going to change. And it, and it literally did. And I have friends of mine that, you know, frankly weren’t able to make that transition. It was also a career defining moment where you realised, if I pretend this isn’t happening and I could survive staying, let’s call it just in one medium in print and not embracing this [00:07:00] new medium.

[00:07:01] Tony Uphoff: And you saw people that did that and they, they flatline their careers not to be crude about it. If I compare that to Gen ai, I think there’s a similar dynamic where. The adoption curve is happening so fast, Matt, it’s exponential. I don’t think I ever remember seeing something go from zero to over a hundred million users as fast as chat, GPT, let’s call that the proxy for for gen ai, which has been absolutely stunning.

[00:07:31] Tony Uphoff: Where I think there’s a difference is the internet was an access medium, certainly creative, but it is and was a distribution medium. Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:40] Matt Hummel: You 

[00:07:40] Tony Uphoff: and I are connected over the internet right now. Our listeners to this podcast are connected over the internet, so it’s in its own way. It’s not unlike a dial tone.

[00:07:49] Tony Uphoff: You connect people and that people can do things across that fiber, if you will. Ai. Is for the first time that, that I’ve ever seen the true [00:08:00] automation of knowledge work where we can actually have something, take the creative input and start to act as human-like to create on behalf of, you know, human automation if, if I can use that phrase.

[00:08:15] Tony Uphoff: So differentiating. Equally stunning. And boy, you can see the implications back then of the internet and the companies that decided to ignore it paid a price. You also saw, you know, a gold rush and not everything that came out with the internet was for real. And a lot of, you know, people thought it was gonna be, you know, certain applications or brands or approaches that were gonna work.

[00:08:38] Tony Uphoff: I think that’s where the two are similar. I think the difference really is this whole idea of the generative part of Gen ai. Boy that is really new and I think it holds such extraordinary potential, some of it being realised. I. I would argue Matt, we’re in the first inning of this. 

[00:08:57] Matt Hummel: Yeah. Yeah. I think I’ve said this before on the show, but one of my [00:09:00] early guests, Greg Verdino, runs an AI consulting firm and, and spends a lot of time with marketers, but just businesses in general.

[00:09:07] Matt Hummel: And his point was that very thing, it was gen AI is the most under hyped thing. Yeah. And at the same time, the most over-hyped thing. And I think you’re right, and it certainly changed, I think, where we were six months ago even, uh, in terms of how, how we’re thinking about it, how we’re using it. There’s also been a lot of, I don’t know if MythBusters is the right term, but I think, you know, companies who weren’t, didn’t have a, an AI first product or AI in their messaging were the, the sense was they’re gonna get left behind.

[00:09:36] Matt Hummel: And I think some of that’s, you know, you realise that’s just hype. Yeah. And AI in and of itself. Isn’t gonna change the world. It has to be done in ways that, whether it’s adding value or increasing efficiencies or make, you know, it can’t just be a thing that we say we do. It has to actually make an impact.

[00:09:54] Matt Hummel: And I think that’s where a lot of companies are, are that’s starting to click. 

[00:09:57] Tony Uphoff: Yeah. I think, you know, where I would [00:10:00] compare the internet and Gen AI at at another level. Matt, when you were saying that just popped into my head, is I. It’s the application in the domain, if I can use the geeky terminology, where the value’s going to come.

[00:10:13] Matt Hummel: Yep, yep. 

[00:10:13] Tony Uphoff: On its own, the internet is just a, a, a compute layer on its own. Artificial intelligence is simply a compute layer. It’s how you use it. And, and interestingly enough, one of the things that we’ve been tracking is, you know, is that as the mainstreaming of AI takes over, and particularly through Gen ai, you’ve seen this resurgence.

[00:10:35] Tony Uphoff: Of channel partners, because what a channel partner can often do is they understand your domain. So it’s not a general understanding of gen ai. Pardon that phrase. It’s the domain expertise of being able to say, oh, I know how to apply gen AI to a demand gen business. Here’s how you would do it. Yeah.

[00:10:54] Tony Uphoff: That’s where the value’s gonna come. Just generally having access to it is like saying I have [00:11:00] access to electricity. Great. That makes sense from somebody else, right? Yeah, 

[00:11:04] Matt Hummel: well said. Nicely. Since you are my boss, you’ve been doing this a little bit longer than I have indeed. But, but I’ve, you know, I’ve, I’ve lived through machine learning, which again has been around longer than we’ve talked about it as machine learning and, and blockchain.

[00:11:18] Matt Hummel: And I was at organisations that really tried to fully embrace both of those, and yet the use cases seemed much more limited. What we’re seeing with Gen ai. And so I think the parallels you’re making in terms of the impact that it, it not only could but more, most likely will have on frankly, the world at large.

[00:11:37] Matt Hummel: You know, the internet compared to ge, to generative ai, I think will be phenomenal. I think one of the lessons too that I, that I’m, you know, taking away, we talk to a lot of marketers about this is. You know, you think back to your early days when the internet came out, and if you’re like, ah, that’s, that’s emerging.

[00:11:52] Matt Hummel: I don’t need to worry about that. And, and you use the term flat mind, I think not only marketers, but just practitioners in general. You’re seeing it across so many [00:12:00] professions. If you’re not paying attention to what’s going on, if you’re not really leaning into it. You’re gonna get left behind. 

[00:12:06] Tony Uphoff: You know, Matt, as you know, one of the attributes that we look for when we recruit and hire new people for Pipeline 360 is this all elusive nature of curiosity.

[00:12:17] Matt Hummel: Mm-hmm. 

[00:12:17] Tony Uphoff: And you know, I think that’s what you’re saying and, and I think from a career point of view, if you talk to people who have had long, sustained high level careers that I’ve been fortunate to have, you are developing as you continue to go along and in your career. If you look at it, it’s that innate curiosity.

[00:12:35] Tony Uphoff: Yeah, I wanna understand this Jet ai, how might I use that? Hey, that’s kind of cool. How would we apply that in our industry? I think that’s the, the cornerstone to it, because otherwise you’re a mercenary and it’s drudgery to hell. I, God, I gotta deal with something new. And yeah, so I think that’s really something I’d call out for a lot of your listeners, whether they’re struggling to try to figure out where Gen AI fits or anything else.

[00:12:59] Tony Uphoff: Just [00:13:00] be a student of the game. These are, you know, in some cases, disruptive, in some cases, mainstreaming technologies that will and are having an impact in digital marketing and B2B period. Love that. There’s no debate to that. Embrace it. Have some curiosity about that. Doesn’t mean you have to become an expert, but I think a, it’s enjoyable ’cause you’re learning something new and there’s a creative aspect to this, but going back to your point of the career, you wanna make sure you don’t put yourself in that career cul-de-sac where you didn’t learn about something and now you don’t have as many options as you develop your career over the long haul.

[00:13:33] Tony Uphoff: A 

[00:13:33] Matt Hummel: hundred percent. Well, I want to transition, so you know, you talked about as you’ve progressed in your career, just the disruptive nature that technology can have. On the business world, and I know you’ve been talking a lot recently about a major market disruption that you’re seeing. Can you walk us through what you are seeing?

[00:13:51] Tony Uphoff: Yeah. One of the reasons that I was so intrigued to join Pipeline 360 and to work with you and the, and the [00:14:00] team that had been assembled there is. I think we’re really at a very unique transition in what we think of as B2B digital marketing, and I think we’re there for a few different reasons and let me list a few of those trends than where I think things are gonna start to go.

[00:14:16] Tony Uphoff: We have currently 15,000 MarTech solutions available to B2B marketers out there, which is. To suggest a ludicrous number would be an understatement. And if we’re really honest, Matt, I think sometimes we’re, we’re afraid to say this out loud. The value between buyer and seller, right? The, the buyer of those systems to the seller of those systems accrues purely to the seller.

[00:14:43] Tony Uphoff: Most buyers really still struggle to go to their CFO or their VP of marketing and say, Hey, we signed up for Platform X and look at the value we got. And part of that’s the still new and nascent nature of some of these systems. But the reality of it is we built all these [00:15:00] systems, but we’ve really not created incremental value for marketers out there.

[00:15:04] Tony Uphoff: You got a couple of other things. We now have it completely digital first purchase process. So in B2B, 80% of the purchase process is done before a buyer engages with a sales rep. So that’s a radical shift and change. Is taking place out there. And then I think the third one I would list, Matt, is a demographic shift.

[00:15:27] Matt Hummel: Hmm. 

[00:15:27] Tony Uphoff: So a lot of that buying, you know, is being now led by the millennial generation, certainly still in concert and in context with the baby boom generation. But as of 2017, the millennial generation was of the same size and of the same power in the workforce as the baby bone generation. Demographers have never seen anything like it because those are the two largest generations ever created.

[00:15:51] Tony Uphoff: So run the math on that. You now have marketing departments that are cutting back on staffing. They’ve invested in [00:16:00] technology. They’re wasting way too much time, 10 trying to get disparate silos of technology to communicate with each other, but they’re being asked to do more with less. So we believe that there’s an interesting from two shift that’s taking place here that companies are gonna start to move away from as many licensed platforms.

[00:16:20] Tony Uphoff: They wanna strip out the complexity and what they’re looking for, Matt, is really outcomes they wanna service. I don’t want to license another platform. I want the outcome of what that platform should be delivering for me in our part of the world. Demand generation, we think of this as demand as-a-service.

[00:16:40] Tony Uphoff: Hmm. That the idea that many of our customers are gonna say, Hey Matt, you take out the complexity you deal with trying to figure out how to get display advertising to work with content syndication, to work with intent data, to work with nurturing services and deliver it to me as a service. That’s really what I’m looking for.

[00:16:59] Tony Uphoff: [00:17:00] So. That is I think, a very profound shift in the way that marketing, and particularly in B2B is going to start to move. And I wanna be clear what I’m saying about platforms. I’m not suggesting that platforms completely go away, but I think you are gonna see a redefinition as an example. You’re starting to see some consolidation in what I think of as general purpose SaaS platforms.

[00:17:27] Tony Uphoff: Still growing are deeply vertical software as a service platforms, but the general purpose marketing SaaS platforms are actually in a state of consolidation and a state of decline. I think the secondary thing that’s starting to happen as a result of that is through the influence of AI map. We’re starting to see software.

[00:17:48] Tony Uphoff: Transforming into labor. Hmm. And what I mean by that is you’re starting to apply some of these more advanced technologies to do many of the things that companies had to hire multiple people to do, to [00:18:00] reconcile data, to create something, to connect something, to manage APIs. And I think that’s another aspect of this, that that starts to get really, really interesting.

[00:18:11] Tony Uphoff: Anyways, more, more than your straightforward question implied. As you can tell, I’m pretty fired up about it. We really believe this framework of demand-as-a-service, which is a strategy we’re building out, is going to become much more of an industry norm as companies are gonna look around and to say, you know, I, I don’t wanna manage a tech stack for a living.

[00:18:33] Tony Uphoff: I don’t have three or four people that can spend all day reconciling data and, you know, dealing with the individual silos of all of our individual components of marketing that drive demand gen. I want a company to do that for me. 

[00:18:46] Matt Hummel: Yeah. Well, so much to unpack there. So I, I love what you’re talking about.

[00:18:51] Matt Hummel: You know, one of the biggest selling points for MarTech and really tech in general is the efficiencies it creates, right? Yep. Do more with less. The challenge though, and I think is what [00:19:00] was what you’re highlighting, is that as marketing teams have shrunk, right, and, and teams in general, there are fewer resources to do the same, if not more work.

[00:19:08] Matt Hummel: And so technology’s brought in to help bridge that gap. The reality is technology in and of itself doesn’t solve anything, whether it delivers outcomes or not, which I would contend to your point, it really most don’t. You still need somebody to run that software. You still need somebody to set up the strategy, and so I think what you’re describing is probably what the CEO of Microsoft was referencing when he recently said.

[00:19:32] Matt Hummel: The era of SaaS as we know it is over. Would you say based on, you know, what you’re seeing, I think you called it software or service as software, um, which I think again would be, would be helpful to just double click into that for our listeners. I think when you started to unpack for me what organisations out there like a ServiceNow, for example, are doing, it’s not that we’re saying SaaS is dead.

[00:19:55] Matt Hummel: It’s truly as, as the CEO O of Microsoft said it’s, it’s the era of SaaS as we know it [00:20:00] today is over. Is 

[00:20:01] Tony Uphoff: that, is that a fair, absolutely fair say. Okay. If you think about it to an extent, as you noted earlier, I, I can play both the CEO of the company, but a bit of an historian because I, I’ve been around it.

[00:20:11] Tony Uphoff: I’ve seen these transitions before and I’ve seen technologies that get introduced, become evolved into something new and something different. If you think about the early days of the personal computer industry. It was a be all and end all. And you know, it was this, you know, magical productivity tool. And then the internet came along and it’s like, well wait, now I can hook up to different things.

[00:20:36] Tony Uphoff: So it’s now much more of a communications device and then cloud computing came along and change the paradigm, you know, so we’ve, we’ve been through these eras before, but it, it can be very difficult, Matt, I think, to see them as you’re in the midst of it. So if we think of the evolution. Software as a service.

[00:20:54] Tony Uphoff: No two ways about it has been a remarkable growth market and, you know, no need to [00:21:00] overstate the value that’s been created. I would argue a lot of that value has accrued to the sellers of products and services opposed to the users. But put all that aside for a minute. It’s been a very vibrant market.

[00:21:13] Tony Uphoff: I think what’s happening in its implicit in Satya NA’s statement is. Software as a service is starting to give way to service as software. What that really means at a practical level is that companies are looking for expertise and domain knowledge embedded in the software. Right? Where this gets interesting is in a marketing business like ours, we think the manifestation of that is demand-as-a-service.

[00:21:41] Tony Uphoff: Now, when you start to add things like Agentic AI. Other tools in the gen ai, you know, toolkit. Now you can start to look at transforming software into labor and having it do tasks and function in ways that could help and augment the human team that [00:22:00] you have. So that team that you were describing that, you know, boy budgets are coming back for marketing, but guess what’s not coming back?

[00:22:06] Tony Uphoff: The ability to add more people you’re seeing. Major tech companies that are doing incredibly well, very, very profitable. They’re laying people off, right? What they’re doing is they’re looking for effectiveness through the use of these advanced technology tools. And I think you’re gonna see more and, and, and more of those kinds of examples.

[00:22:27] Tony Uphoff: One last point I would make, uh, Matt, if you, if you go back to Mark Andreessen’s, you know, famous white paper that he wrote called Software’s Eating the World. This was produced many years ago now, I think it was, you know, maybe 2010, 2011. I heard him on a podcast recently update that where he said, what’s happening now is vertical software is eating the world.

[00:22:51] Tony Uphoff: And I think you’re gonna see more and more of these vertical tools and applications. If you think about what demand-as-a-service is, it’s [00:23:00] really vertical software. That’s actually what we’re describing. It’s the use of advanced technology to deliver a marketing outcome. In this case, it doesn’t have to be on-premise software.

[00:23:10] Tony Uphoff: It doesn’t have to be done at a, in a platform model. It’s delivered like a utility the way you would subscribe to electricity, if you will. Yep. Or a lifeblood of your business. 

[00:23:20] Matt Hummel: So interesting. You referenced the stat earlier around the digital first buyers and how 80%. Or more, depending on what study you’re looking at, of, of, of bio research takes place before they ever want to engage with a, with a human.

[00:23:33] Matt Hummel: And now maybe even with a, with an ai and I don’t know what to call an AI person, an AI bot. I don’t know if they’re gonna take offense to that, but A bot. A bot, yeah. Yeah. So I think the interesting thing there is that one that has created a ton of demand for gen AI products, and yet our research shows.

[00:23:53] Matt Hummel: Nearly 80% of B2B buyers are actually frustrated with, you know, what they describe as [00:24:00] thinly generated, thinly created poor quality AI content. To me though, the positive thing of that, what it says is that buyers still want and need good information. They need really good content. And so it’s funny ’cause you think about digital first buyers, and for me, my mind always goes to, oh, you’ve gotta be so innovative, you’ve gotta start thinking.

[00:24:20] Matt Hummel: Into the future, and you’ve gotta have all these great tactics. That’s not inherently wrong, but at the end of the day, what it’s really saying is you have to address the needs of your buyers. And of course, you have to do it in, not only in an educational way, but in a, in a compelling and creative, you’ve gotta still stand out.

[00:24:37] Matt Hummel: But you know, I think that was a big reason as we, as we looked ahead at our demand-as-a-service offering that we’re starting and putting a lot of emphasis around content creation. Yeah. So I’d love to hear your take on. The importance, and maybe this is intuitive, but there’s still, there’s still something to unpack here that I think a lot of people forget about that, that connective tissue between content and ultimately demand [00:25:00] outcomes.

[00:25:00] Tony Uphoff: Yeah. Matt, I think it’s such a key area to, to unpack and, and to really provide more analysis and understanding of, so. As you know, close to 47 cents of every dollar spent in B2B marketing is on content. Mm-hmm. Because it is the primary driver to create a permission-based opt-in that you can turn in ultimately to reach, engage, and create a customer.

[00:25:25] Tony Uphoff: Right. So when you look at that, the vast majority of it is not steered via data. It’s steered based on. Product managers determining kind of the specs that they want mentioned and or other things out there. So I think we’re at an era where we haven’t really applied data to the type of content and, and to make sure that that content answers the needs of those buyers and can perhaps even anticipate the needs of those buyers through the use of, of data every era that [00:26:00] technology revs, you know, that marketing adopts.

[00:26:03] Tony Uphoff: The laws of physics of marketing don’t go away, right? So in other words, you know, yes, gen AI is a new tool in the toolkit, right? The use of data applied to content and to create performance driven content is a relatively new tool in the toolkit. But what hasn’t, hasn’t changed is exactly the point you’re making.

[00:26:22] Tony Uphoff: Buyers have criteria that they’re looking for. There’s a high degree of risk in a B2B purchase, very different than most consumers. Most retail products, there’s not that much risk if I end up buying the wrong shirt or I end up buying, you know, the wrong soda, right? There’s not a tremendous amount of risk, right?

[00:26:44] Tony Uphoff: If I sign up for the wrong B2B service and I make a decision on behalf of my company, that’s wrong. I could be risking my job. Hmm. So there’s a whole different mindset. So understanding. The type of content that is going to not just [00:27:00] engage somebody, but to give them the confidence to take the next step, to give them an understanding of both your brand and your offering simultaneously.

[00:27:09] Tony Uphoff: That I think is, is really where the content needs to go. I think the other thing I would mention is Gen AI is an augmentation tool. And I think this is where it can get easily confusing ’cause it looks like a Gen AI and the tone of voice of Matt Hummel write a blog post on topic X, Y or Z. And yes, gen AI can come up with a reasonable, you know, 60 percent-ish of the way there.

[00:27:43] Tony Uphoff: But to anybody with a reasonably trained eye, especially the more specific you get into the domain, it’s gonna lack a nuance. A tone of voice that is probably easily identifiable as gen ai, but it’s simply not gonna engage. [00:28:00] So forget whether I can see that it’s gen AI or not. It’s not going to engage the audience.

[00:28:04] Tony Uphoff: We still need that understanding of human intelligence to apply here. I’ll give you a fascinating corollary to, uh, stick with me for a second. ’cause it’s a bit far afield in the last era of robotics that were adopted. In, uh, the automotive industry, a lot of the major car manufacturers went so far that it was almost, you go inside these factories, you almost didn’t see people.

[00:28:28] Tony Uphoff: There was so much robotics that was applied and on the face of it, it looked like the right move. It seemed like it was economically feasible, and they could reduce costs that way. What ended up happening, which is really surprising is, or perhaps not surprising, there was a, a significant limit. The significant limit was choice and variability, subtlety and nuance.

[00:28:53] Tony Uphoff: So the, the cobot industry was created where they developed robots that worked [00:29:00] with humans. You know, we need to add this feature on this model. The color needs to be able to match to this color. There were subtleties in the business that they actually ended up reintroducing human beings into the process because purely robotic didn’t work.

[00:29:17] Tony Uphoff: I think we’re gonna see a similar dynamic with Gen ai. I mean, I don’t know anybody that’s turned their content creation over to Gen ai, but I think if people are experimenting with that, it’s the wrong way to look at it. I think it can be a productivity boom and it can help you tremendously, but I think as a way of augmenting what people create, that that’s the way to think about the, the remarkable advances of that technology.

[00:29:42] Matt Hummel: I love that. And it, it, it segues to a question I wanted to ask you. You know, a lot of marketers, as I’ve been out, you know, I’m a marketer obviously, but talking to other marketers in the field, there has been a tremendous amount of pressure put on them to be able to deliver to, to truly, you know, I hate to say [00:30:00] it, to do more with less.

[00:30:00] Matt Hummel: And one of the things that they’ve heard oftentimes from their CEOs or other leaders is, Hey, I know, I know your resource gap. I know your budget gapped. Just use Gen ai. Just, we just, we still need content. We still need to create demand. My question for you is, obviously you’ve been around the marketing world for a while.

[00:30:19] Matt Hummel: You’re a great marketing partner, put on your CEO hat. What advice would you give to marketers out there? There’s a lot of, I. Talk right now around what is the role of marketing? What role should marketing play? Has it become relegated to just a pipeline creation function? And that’s its sole focus as a CEO.

[00:30:38] Matt Hummel: You are a CEO, even a multi-time CEO. If you just put that hat on, what advice would you have for marketers? Who are really trying to, to pave the way, not only for themselves and the impact they can have, but for really, I call it the future of marketing. 

[00:30:51] Tony Uphoff: Yeah. I, I think it’s such a great question, Matt, and, and I think upfront what pops into my head as you ask the question is, I think regardless of your function, but [00:31:00] let’s stick with marketing for a minute.

[00:31:01] Tony Uphoff: We have to differentiate between efficiency and effectiveness. And I, I see over and over and over again, companies flip those. They sacrifice effectiveness for efficiency. Hmm. Right. I’m gonna do more with less. And at the end of the day, they sacrifice effectiveness. Are you doing good marketing and do you have the metrics that define what good marketing means?

[00:31:28] Tony Uphoff: Yeah. So that’s the first step. The other is, I would argue, and some would probably argue against this, but I would argue that in B2B marketing, the center of gravity shifted. That demand gen is B2B marketing today. So it used to be back in the days when we called this lead gen and, and it was, it was kind of a below the line marketing budget and the CMO really didn’t get much involved in it.

[00:31:55] Tony Uphoff: You had a little separate team that kind of looked at it. I would argue that what’s happened [00:32:00] is demand gen has become the center of gravity and everything opinions around that said a different way all marketing. Is performance marketing today. If you think that you’re marketing for any other reason than to drive gains with current customers and new customers, I would question why you’re marketing now.

[00:32:22] Tony Uphoff: Occasionally somebody will say to me, well, we’re a public company and we have investors, and all those kinds of things. Investors are just customers. That’s all they are. So I think we’ve had, we’ve come from an era where the idea of demand generation or lead generation was considered kind of lowbrow. If you’re a, if you’re a fancy marketer, I don’t think that’s the case anymore.

[00:32:43] Tony Uphoff: Yeah. And so I think part of what you and I are touching on here is a, a few things, right. I think we’re still struggling to figure out the difference between efficiency and effectiveness in marketing. Right. And that’s not new. But I think, you know, going through another technology paradigm, perhaps it’s, it’s [00:33:00] raising its head again.

[00:33:01] Tony Uphoff: But I also think marketers struggle a little bit with understanding how these pieces fit together. Might have brand advertising, could have a vet advertising, could have field marketing, could have all kinds of different things. But the reality of it is all of this should be coordinated with one common goal.

[00:33:22] Tony Uphoff: I wanna retain high quality customers and I want to gain new customers. That’s it. Because if you’re not doing those things, if you’re not growing, you’re dying, as they say. Yeah. So the goal of marketing has to be focused on customer retention and customer growth. I. 

[00:33:38] Matt Hummel: I think it’s, it’s such a unique but also compelling point of view.

[00:33:42] Matt Hummel: You think about B2C marketing or B2C in general, right? You’ve, I always reference the brand Coke. I think they have a extremely powerful brand. I’ve referenced this a few times, but I love their polar bear ads that they run during Christmas. I. Koch has a great brand, not because they want people just to feel good about their [00:34:00] product.

[00:34:00] Matt Hummel: What are they trying to do? They want to acquire new customers and keep their existing customers and frankly get their existing customers to buy more. And so thinking about demand at the center. Of everything you do. It leaves room, frankly and creates a real need, demand, if you will, for those other things.

[00:34:18] Matt Hummel: All in support of ultimately growing 

[00:34:20] Tony Uphoff: your customer base. You probably know this, but in the offices of of Coca-Cola and Pepsi, every Monday morning, literally every Monday morning, they look at point of sale, sell through data. Yep. And look at market share reports. So you talk about companies that are demand driven and they can tell you.

[00:34:40] Tony Uphoff: Up to the day where that movement is in those kinds of businesses. So to your point, make no mistake about it, those clever, fun Super Bowl ads are done for one reason. Yep. That’s to drive demand for their product or service. And you know, perhaps Matt, I know you know I have great friends of mine like you and others [00:35:00] that are really experienced in very talented marketers.

[00:35:03] Tony Uphoff: I, I know in some areas they, they, they kind of don’t think of themselves as demand generation. They think of it as, you know, a much more holistic view of marketing and I think that’s right. I think we do have to take that view. My point I’m making is I think that the central nervous system of B2B marketing today begins and ends with demand generation.

[00:35:24] Tony Uphoff: Yeah. If you’re doing things that aren’t driving demand, you need to think about again. The difference between efficiency in your marketing and effectiveness in your marketing. 

[00:35:35] Matt Hummel: Love that amazing. So Tony, as you know, I like to talk to each one of my guests a little bit about their, their personal life, get to know them on the personal side as well.

[00:35:44] Matt Hummel: So thank you for all your tremendous insights professionally on both the business world, disruptive technology, a little bit of the historian point of view, and then the, your last thoughts just on the central nervous system of, of really why. All marketing is performance marketing today. [00:36:00] So a couple questions for you on the personal front.

[00:36:02] Matt Hummel: So, and nothing, nothing too hard for you, so those who know, you know, you’ve got a couple of grandkids. What makes being a grandparent so special? 

[00:36:12] Tony Uphoff: Boy, if I could find the words in it. I have tried Matt to explain to friends of mine who are not yet grandparents how to explain it. But I think it’s two things.

[00:36:22] Tony Uphoff: I think it’s two things to see your. Child, your adult child as a parent was something I was totally unprepared for. Hmm. I was excited, like, oh my gosh, you know, we’re gonna have a grandchild and how great is that? But to see our daughter as a mother, to see our son-in-law as a father, it, it feels just otherworldly to me.

[00:36:45] Tony Uphoff: It, it, it’s a, it’s a sense of joy and awe that I, I, I was really unprepared for. And I guess the cliches apply too, which is. Hey, you get to hang out with them and then here you go. So, uh, we fed [00:37:00] them some sugar and they’re all good, but all kidding aside, I think there’s just something just magical about.

[00:37:06] Tony Uphoff: Also seeing another generation of your family. Yeah. That, that’s getting created and having that extraordinary connection with them. 

[00:37:14] Matt Hummel: Oh, that’s so cool. I love that. I’ve got, as you know, twin boys who are 12 and thinking about them as parents, otherworldly is probably a good way to describe that. So I know my parents probably, uh, think that today about me.

[00:37:27] Matt Hummel: So that’s, that’s really cool. Right. Alright, last question for you. So, shifting gears a little bit. I think it’d be funny to hear your version of the story of the first night we met, and as I recall, Tony, it was a snowy night in Boulder. 

[00:37:40] Tony Uphoff: It was so for the listeners, Matt and I had, had not gotten to know each other only by reputation before this moment in time.

[00:37:48] Tony Uphoff: And so he had joined the company, as he mentioned at the top of the, the podcast there about what, maybe six weeks after I did map something like that. And we’re, we’re having a company meeting [00:38:00] out in Boulder. It was, it was quite snowy. And we were going from downtown Boulder up into the mountains to a gorgeous home.

[00:38:07] Tony Uphoff: One of our colleagues has a group dinner. And we had been divided into groups and there were captains for each group that were asked to drive a small group up up the mountain. And I was assigned to Matt’s group. And it was great ’cause I’m thinking, well, hey, this is cool. This is my new VP of marketing.

[00:38:27] Tony Uphoff: I’ve heard great things about him. I wanna get to know him. As we went up the hill, I noticed he had a great sense of humor and he was able to keep up a witty banter, you know, all the way up. And so we go up and we get through dinner and it’s now starting to snow pretty hard. And so that oftentimes happens where a little bit of light snow turns into heavier snow.

[00:38:49] Tony Uphoff: And frankly, I was kind of antsy, like, Hey, let’s get down the hill and get back to the hotel. So Matt is now driving us down the hill. He gets a little bit quiet, and by the [00:39:00] way, this is pitch dark. There’s no streetlights and it’s switchbacks going down this hill. And we get to one of the switchbacks and he, Matt, you looked over at me and said, Hey, you ever wonder what happens when you die?

[00:39:14] Tony Uphoff: And I’m thinking, I don’t know this guy very well. I think he’s kidding. But in all candor, I’m not completely sure. Thankfully you were kidding. But it forever cemented our, uh, relationship because I realised, okay, this guy’s got a great sense of humor. I’m gonna go with it. And, uh, but I will never forget the night we met.

[00:39:37] Matt Hummel: Well, it was certainly a night to remember and, you know, I had just moved to Colorado a few months before that snowy night. So coming from Texas where in probably a week of, in my, my first week in Colorado, I saw more snow than I had my entire life. So I wasn’t necessarily worried. But there was, you know, maybe a little bit there.

[00:39:59] Matt Hummel: So, [00:40:00] you know, I love it. I appreciate we made it down safely. I appreciate the trust. But that was a fun night. It did it, and it certainly did make a great, a great story. So, yeah. Well, Tony, this has been an amazing conversation with you and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to, to speak with me, and I think the listeners are gonna gain a ton from your point of view.

[00:40:18] Matt Hummel: And, uh, just appreciate, appreciate, uh, your point of view today. 

[00:40:22] Tony Uphoff: Hey, Matt, and, and congrats on all the success of the podcast. I love it and it was a blast being on. And to the listeners, feel free to reach out on, on LinkedIn and, uh, look forward to connecting with folks who have our common interests.

[00:40:38] Matt Hummel: Thanks again to Tony for joining us on today’s episode of The Pipeline Brew. I hope you all enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. Please leave me a comment with your thoughts and make sure you subscribe to the show so you’ll never miss an episode. Once again, I’m Matt Hummel and I’ll see you next [00:41:00] time.