Another great interview in the books!
Let’s dive in to ABM, a recommendation for a marketing AI tool, and more in today’s interview!
Today we are talking to Brianna Miller!
About Brianna:
Brianna is a results-driven digital marketing leader with over 15 years of experience, passionate about building data-informed strategies that align marketing efforts with real business growth. Specializing in B2B, healthcare, and SaaS sectors, she thrives on simplifying the complexities of marketing to help teams create powerful, aligned, and effective campaigns. Brianna’s expertise lies in developing scalable marketing engines, with a focus on account-based marketing (ABM), sales and marketing alignment, and leveraging technology to drive measurable success. In addition to her professional accomplishments, Brianna is dedicated to advancing the industry and mentoring the next generation of marketing leaders. She serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where she teaches Marketing Strategy and inspires future marketers. Her commitment to innovation is further demonstrated through her role as a 3Sixty Insights Global Executive Advisory Council member, her contributions to http://Martech.org, and her active participation on several boards, including the UMSL College of Business Marketing Advisory Board and the MarTech Conference programming committee. Brianna has shared actionable insights at over 20 industry events and has been featured on numerous popular marketing podcasts. As a speaker, she is known for making complex concepts approachable and equipping audiences with strategies they can apply immediately, covering topics from ABM trends to practical AI applications.
Contact Brianna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briannamill3r/
Brianna’s plug: https://www.ama.org/
The Marketing Gateway is a weekly podcast hosted by Sean in St. Louis (Sean J. Jordan, President of https://www.researchplan.com/) and featuring guests from the St. Louis area and beyond.
Every week, Sean shares insights about the world of marketing and speaks to people who are working in various marketing roles – creative agencies, brand managers, MarCom professionals, PR pros, business owners, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers and more!
The goal of The Marketing Gateway is simple – we want to build a connection between all of our marketing mentors in the Midwest and learn from one another! And the best way to learn is to listen.
And the next best way is to share!
For more episodes:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheMarketingGateway
Copyright 2025, The Research & Planning Group, Inc.
TRANSCRIPT:
Sean Jordan (00:07)
Well, hey everyone, it’s Sean and St. Louis and you are listening to the Marketing Gateway. Welcome. And today we’re going to hear an incredible interview from Brianna Miller, who is the Director of Demand Generation at Coheer Health. But she is so much more than that. She is someone who is incredibly experienced in the field of marketing and who specializes in something called ABM or Accounts Based Marketing. And if you’re not familiar with this, she’s going to talk all about it in the interview and explain how it works and how she’s able to find
⁓ opportunities to connect with people, not just for lead generation, but also for these really long term sales processes that require a lot of empathy and understanding and research and knowledge. And it’s exciting stuff. You’re going to really enjoy it. But let me also mention that Rihanna is not just someone who is in the field of marketing, doing marketing. She’s also someone that’s teaching marketing. And she teaches at the University of Missouri, St. Louis in the School of Business there, also known as UMSL.
She’s an adjunct professor teaching marketing and marketing strategy to students. We’re going to talk about that some in the interview too. But you’re just going to hear so much knowledge and expertise from her that I hope you have a patent pencil ready so you can take some notes. Here we go.
Sean Jordan (01:24)
Well, welcome to the Marketing Gateway. I’m Sean in St. Louis and I’ve got with me today Brianna Miller and Brianna is somebody I know from the St. Louis chapter of the American Marketing Association and I’ve heard her speak and I know she’s got a lot of awesome things to share. So, so glad to have you on today, Brianna.
Brianna Miller (01:40)
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me, Sean. I’m really excited and I really have enjoyed meeting you and talking at a lot of the different AMA St. Louis events.
Sean Jordan (01:50)
Likewise, likewise. we have just such a fantastic marketing community here in St. Louis. And that’s part of the reason I decided to start doing this show is because I wanted to highlight everybody. after hearing you speak, was it December or November? I can’t remember when you spoke, but.
Brianna Miller (02:03)
⁓
I think it was the November panel that we were talking about marketing planning, which hopefully starts in November. I know myself often goes into January as it is right now.
Sean Jordan (02:06)
Yeah, yeah.
And that’s the thing, it was a very timely talk because we were all thinking about it, but then we go right into the holidays and have to come back and deal with January. again, so great to have you on. And I always like to begin by asking guests to tell me something surprising that I don’t know. It could be anything that you’d like to share. So what’s something surprising that you have for us?
Brianna Miller (02:35)
I think surprising, I would say, is I have actually taught abroad. So I am an adjunct marketing professor at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. And it was, I’m going to say maybe 2018. I don’t know. Time is weird now. But I had an amazing opportunity to teach in Bremen, Germany as part of an international program. And so I spent the summer there. And I just, it was such an amazing opportunity. And I don’t get to talk about it a whole lot.
So I thought that was something unique.
Sean Jordan (03:06)
That is cool. you know, I’ve always wanted to go to Germany just because I there’s castles all over the place. So did you get to go see anything cool like that while you were there?
Brianna Miller (03:11)
Mm-hmm.
I did, it was an awesome program. So only taught Monday through Thursday. And then every weekend I had a three day weekend as did the students to go explore. So I would get on the train after Thursday on class and I’d go to all different places and just explore all parts of Germany. And it’s such a very cool country. And I didn’t realize how different the areas were like versus like the Northern part of Germany versus the Southern part reminded me so much of.
⁓ Italy and it was it was just an amazing time though it did hit a at that point a record high one week and I remember going to like the department store and just sitting in front of the fans but it was fun
Sean Jordan (03:59)
Well, that’s really cool. Well, in this series on the Marketing Gateway, we’re really focused on the St. Louis area. So tell me a little bit about how you came to live and work in the St. Louis area.
Brianna Miller (04:09)
Yeah, definitely. So I was actually born and raised just outside of St. Louis in St. Charles, Missouri. But if you are from St. Louis, that is all one area. So I grew up here and I went all the way through high school. And then after high school, I went to Tulane in New Orleans for my undergrad, which I absolutely loved. And I lived and worked down there for several years afterwards. My second favorite city after St. Louis, but all my family is here.
all my extended families. So I was starting to miss my nieces and I like, I’ve got to come home. So came home and I obviously didn’t realize as a teenager that there was going to be a marketing community. But I was amazed when I moved back at how awesome the marketing community here is in St. Louis. From the AMA St. Louis putting on events every month that you can go to, to
the Perry Drake doing the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference and all of his digital marketing programs to there’s there was BMA St. Louis Social Media Club. mean, I all my friends are now marketers because I’ve just joined this amazing community here.
Sean Jordan (05:24)
That’s fantastic. you know, it’s funny you mentioned that the New Orleans and St. Louis kind of connection. ⁓ I always think when I go down there, like, you we both have a lot of French in our cities, but they actually speak it correctly down there, whereas we mispronounce everything in St. Louis.
Brianna Miller (05:29)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
We
do, though there are some crazy words ⁓ in New Orleans. ⁓ My favorite is always like, I’ll show people, how do you say Chep Toulis? Because it’s spelled crazy. ⁓ But yes, I love this French connection and my grandmother was actually from New Orleans. So it kind of drew me down there. It’s one of my favorite, favorite places.
Sean Jordan (06:04)
Well that’s fantastic. Actually, the first time I ever went to New Orleans, I was a college student in the AMA and we had a national competition down there that we made it into and so I got to go down there for that. It was a really interesting experience going there as a student.
Brianna Miller (06:10)
Mm-hmm.
I bet,
yeah. I mean, it was definitely a very unique place to go to school. I also went about two years after Katrina. So the city was still rebuilding a lot, but Tulane had some amazing opportunities for students to take what they were learning in the classroom and give it back to the community. So it really was this unique time to be there that I don’t know what it’s exactly like now, but I know when I went, that was, it was a very meaningful time.
Sean Jordan (06:49)
And I remember we had so many refugees from Katrina up here in St. Louis. you know, again, connection between those two cities is very strong. Well, I also wanted to ask you, speaking about St. Louis, what’s something about the St. Louis area that you wish other people knew?
Brianna Miller (06:52)
Yes.
I would say how many different areas there are. ⁓ know, some people might think, I’m gonna visit St. Louis, but they don’t realize how many pockets there are that you can visit that have their own little unique kind of think cultures. And there’s, you know, I live out in St. Charles in a place called Newtown, which is a totally unique place as well.
and we have our own little culture, but you could go to Kirkwood or Webster or South City or Ferguson and they’re all kind of unique places with unique businesses and I think that is something that if you’re not from St. Louis, you just assume it’s one city versus kind of this collection of many cities.
Sean Jordan (07:54)
Very true. you know, I mean, like St. Charles, have, you know, their kind of own vibe. You know, we love to go around Christmas for the Christmas traditions thing that they do, where they have the reenactors dressed up. there’s different areas of town where during Mardi Gras that they have, you Mardi Gras events going on that ⁓ you wouldn’t see in St. Charles, but you might see in Sular, you know, for example. it’s, it’s, it’s. Yeah.
Brianna Miller (08:02)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yes, there’s always something going on for sure. And
all our free things here in St. Louis, if you’re not from St. Louis, all of the free, ⁓ you know, the zoo, the science center, the art museum, the history museum, like we are incredibly blessed that we have all of those. And I know I don’t take advantage of them as much as I should, but hopefully now, ⁓ you know, I will start doing that more often.
Sean Jordan (08:43)
One that we really like that’s not necessarily free, mean, it’s free to go in, but ⁓ it’s inexpensive is the St. Louis Public Library, the central branch downtown. And especially with little ones, they have an awesome children’s library. And ⁓ we started going there instead of our local library because it was so cool. The kids could go and play and sit around and do all kinds of activities there. again,
Brianna Miller (09:03)
Yeah, no, I mean, I haven’t been to that one with my little one,
but I have been to several of the other areas, St. Charles and St. Louis County Libraries, and they do an incredible job in the kids’ areas. I mean, just to go, if you’re just like, I need to get out of the house and I need to not, you know, have toys everywhere in my house. Like, you can go and it’s, I’ve just been amazed at the community spaces that the St. Louis and St. Charles areas.
invest in, the libraries. And I definitely am now recommending to people, I’m like, check out your local libraries, even if you’re not here, like wherever you live, like I have a feeling they’re a lot better than most of us think they are, from what we remember as kids.
Sean Jordan (09:41)
Yes,
very true, very true. Well, let’s talk a little bit about marketing now. And before we get started, I know that you’re involved in this role called ABM. And that might not be a term that every marketer is familiar with. So can you explain a little bit about ABM and what it involves?
Brianna Miller (09:59)
Yes. So ABM stands for account based marketing. And what that means is you’re going to choose certain accounts. You’re going to segment them based off of different criteria. It could be the size of the business, industry, ⁓ type of technology they use, where they are in your sales funnel. There’s a million ways you could segment, but you’re going to segment and you’re going to target those specific accounts with very unique messaging that just makes is for them. So
For example, I really dove into my ABM journey and passion ⁓ at my last company, ProTennis. And one example I always like to use is we targeted hospitals and health systems. And they actually can be categorized into a lot of different areas. So one campaign we would run is like for children’s hospitals. They have very unique needs and a message that we need to speak to them. So that could be one way that I would segment.
⁓ And account-based marketing is also a really great tool that can be used in collaboration with sales and should be used in collaboration with sales to make sure that we’re targeting the right accounts with the right message.
Sean Jordan (11:15)
And, you know, I think one of the things that is really different from ABM from more like traditional type of consumer marketing is that you’re not just targeting necessarily one person with those accounts, right? I mean, you’re talking to maybe different roles or different decision makers or committees, or there can be all kinds of different facets to that,
Brianna Miller (11:33)
Yes, yes, great point. with ABM, it’s typically going to be best for companies that have a little bit longer sales cycles. Not to say it has to be very long, but it’s not that immediate sale. I work in a space where it’s a typically 12 to 18 month sales cycle, which is a long time. But this could also work for, like a month, a six months. It’s just not the immediate. And it involves typically a lot of people, definitely more than one.
All the way up to possibly more than what’s in MySpace. MySpace, you can have 10 to 20 to 30 people involved because these are very large purchases and they make a big impact on the business. So yes, we are not just targeting the account as in one person, we’re doing it as a whole. And that’s where it’s kind of thinking of your marketing beyond that individual person going to your website and filling out a form.
thinking of how does the whole account interact with you.
Sean Jordan (12:38)
Interesting. And, you know, a lot of us, we’re not used to those long sales cycles and I’ve certainly been through them, you know, as a, as a customer, but never had to market them. And so I think you have to think about marketing in just an entirely different way with that, that very patient, but long game type of approach. Well, with your
Brianna Miller (12:52)
Mm-hmm.
Sean Jordan (12:59)
extensive experience in you have demand generation, you have ABM. What are some of the most creative and unexpected strategies that you’ve used to engage these high value accounts and how do they impact your results?
Brianna Miller (13:12)
Yeah, so there’s a couple different strategies that come to mind. One that I really, really enjoy doing is a kind of FAQ series. And this is very, I’m going to say it’s a little more of like a brand awareness a little bit because we’re not looking to specifically convert people on this series. I’m looking to educate. So we would do have our subject matter experts sit down and record and maybe like three to four minute video or
Tension spans are short no matter what industry you’re in. Answering just the top questions. And these, it was a series, we released them like one a week, so it was kind of building a little anticipation, which was really fun. But then it ended up being an awesome resource, like long-term for our sales team to be like, if someone had a specific question or a conversation was going a certain way, they could shoot them one of the videos. And it’s not a heavy lift for the person to read like a long white paper or blog post. They could just.
watched this quick video, shows us as an expert. So that was really fun because it also was a lot of cross-collaboration across the company with different subject matter experts. And then another one I did, which is completely different, is we were reaching out to target individuals at accounts. So this was kind of merging these two and trying to just get a conversation going at places that were just hard getting our foot in the door there.
And so what we did is we did some, guess we could call it stalking on LinkedIn, and figured out where they went to either undergrad or grad school. And then we ordered socks from their alma mater and sent them in branded packaging with information and created like a dedicated landing page for them to go to, to learn more about us. But it really was just like, hey, this is kind of a unique way to get in touch. ⁓
and for it to kind of open the door. And so it was, that was just like a very fun one to be different in like a day and age where everything’s digital.
Sean Jordan (15:16)
Where do you go to order socks for an alma mater? That’s a really creative idea.
Brianna Miller (15:19)
Honestly, you had to go to like
each individual college’s website. It was like we were very targeted. we didn’t, it was just like hundreds and hundreds of people. Like it was a very targeted ⁓ account list and then individual contacts. But ⁓ I tie it in ABM because it was going after individual accounts, but it was just so, it was fun. ⁓ You know, we’re still seeing if it’s working, but it’s just something, trying some different stuff I think is what we need to do right now.
Sean Jordan (15:35)
Mm-hmm.
I think we all get those emails every day. I I’ve had about five or 10 today this morning of, hey, I’d like to do this for you. I’d like to do that for you. A lot of times they don’t have any understanding of my business or any understanding of me and what I do. And so it’s pretty fruitless, right? But if somebody sent me a pair of socks, I would at least talk to them. Yeah.
Brianna Miller (15:58)
Yeah.
Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s like just something
different, something to stand out from the everyday, what we’re seeing.
Sean Jordan (16:12)
fantastic. Well, I know in your career, you’ve really balanced brand building and demand generation in a way that’s been pretty seamless. So can you share how you bring those two strategies together in alignment and kind of make something kind of cohesive with your approach? That’s I know, you know, you’re trying to drive ⁓ trust, right? But also probably something that’s measurable, right? So how are you putting all that together?
Brianna Miller (16:38)
Yeah, so I think sometimes we think of DemandGen and building your overall brand strategy and everything there is two different things. And the way I view it is they have to work together and it’s actually more the brand strategy is what boosts the DemandGen. So I could do ads, I could do emails, but if it’s not based on a really good strategy.
of what our company strategy is messaging, our individual product messaging, our personas, understanding those each individually and how we’re actually solving a problem versus selling a solution. If I don’t have all that figured out, demand generation efforts are really not going to do that well because I’m just.
a little bit shouting a message. Like I’m trying to get people to our site, but I’m not solving that problem. So to me, I want to have that structure in place. I feel like that is kind of the key to really successful demand generation because then I can target the right accounts with the right message because I understand my message and my product. I can target the right personas at those accounts with the right message because they each have individual needs. I can’t do the same message to all of them.
because a CIO has a very different need than a CFO. And if I do the same one, it’s just going to fall flat across the board. So I think it’s very, very important. But yes, also, for the measurements, I am obviously measured on things such as ⁓ leads generated, conversion rates, pipeline ⁓ sourced or influenced, ⁓ conversion rates on landing pages, things like that. But again, if I don’t have a
a really nice base to build all of that stuff off. can’t, I’m, I don’t expect to hit my numbers because I’m just not building on something strong.
Sean Jordan (18:37)
Yeah,
yeah. And I’m curious at different levels. Like, so you mentioned, you know, you have some C-suite people like the CIOs, and then you might have some people that are a little bit further down, maybe VPs or directors. ⁓ How do you have to vary your strategy to engage those different levels?
Brianna Miller (18:40)
you
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, so it’s a lot of research. so depending on what kind of team you have or resources you have. So I right now have an incredible product marketing ⁓ team that I work with. And they do a lot of research. And they work very directly with the product team and customers to understand needs and wants and how products need to be used. And there is also if you need to use different.
outside resources for research, but you do have to do a lot of that to understand it. Because yes, a CIO, a C-level, they’re much more enterprise. They’re looking overall at the business. They’re not looking at the day-to-day, but people who are more director, VP, they’re in the day-to-day. They’re in the weeds. Their worries and concerns for their team are different than someone looking at a higher level. So I need my message to be different.
You know, I especially in like the technology like SAS space, I always want to like come and be like, we’re not trying to replace your team members. We’re trying to make them more efficient and help you grow. ⁓ I, you know, versus maybe a CFO, it’s much more of the financial, you know, metric and things like that. having that understanding of what their day to day concerns are really makes a big difference.
Sean Jordan (20:17)
It sounds like you need to learn to speak their language a little bit too. Like you said, if they’re more financial, you need to put it in numbers. You need to put something quantitative that they’re going to really see in terms of ROI or what their investment is really going to provide. But if they’re fearing that they’re going to be replaced by whatever it is you’re selling or the solution that you’re offering, yeah.
Brianna Miller (20:19)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yes, they don’t want to just hear saving money
because they’re going to hear I’m going to lose my job. So yes, you have to, know, versus ideas like security focus. So yeah, it’s all just understanding the customer. And that kind of goes back to sometimes I get in class, think I’m an adjunct professor and I, that’s my big message a lot of the time is like, you got to just understand your customer. Don’t s-
Sean Jordan (20:38)
Exactly.
Brianna Miller (20:59)
Talk to them the way you think you should. Like really sit down and like how would you want to be spoken to through marketing if you were the customer.
Sean Jordan (21:08)
Well, and you speak my language because I’m a researcher and I love research. When you’re doing research with these different types of institutional customers, are you just going and looking at the things that they have, the keynotes that they’ve given or the papers they published, or are you actually doing formal research where you’re interviewing them, or how do you get to know them?
Brianna Miller (21:11)
Mm-hmm.
So it’s kind of a combination. Most times it definitely depends on the business. There’s a lot of industry ⁓ research you can use, such as for us a lot, there’s a lot of Gartner research that is relevant to us. ⁓ There are surveys and things we will do with our customers or in the industry just to get feedback on what they are dealing with. Much more high level, not specific to our product, but overall like our industry. And then there’s a lot of communication.
between marketing and sales. So to get in the weeds sometimes, people will say things and calls with sales that is just absolute gold for marketing. So to have a really good relationship there so that sales is passing that information back and then we’re creating resources for them is really important. And that helps we take like that information and put it into like all of our persona documents to be like, okay.
we now know this is a common concern for this person.
Sean Jordan (22:32)
That’s it works so well when you do that. bought into a sales platform or a software platform last year through a lengthy sales process and they had probably one of the best and most empathetic salespeople I’ve ever met. And he heard very early on that I also teach, you know, and I’m in the classroom and that I do presentations and such. so immediately, like he was trying to figure out ways that they could get me in front of their customers. I didn’t even bought a product yet and he was already trying to integrate me into being an evangelist for them. And
Brianna Miller (22:34)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sean Jordan (23:01)
That was so interesting because he really understood that I had knowledge to share and I was comfortable in front of people. And he thought if I can just get him willing to talk about our product, he’ll probably buy our product too. He was right. But that’s how it works is you have to really listen to people and hear what they’re saying in order to find those opportunities, right?
Brianna Miller (23:13)
Yeah, 100%.
Yes, and I think even from like, I am not a salesperson, but from a sales perspective, I think sometimes people come in thinking they need one thing. ⁓ But really, if you do listen, it might be that they’re a better fit for a different solution. ⁓ You know, maybe that is something they need, but they need it later. They need something else right now to help solve their problems. And I think when you become that evangel, I can’t think of the word, ⁓ you want to stand up.
Sean Jordan (23:23)
Right.
Right.
Brianna Miller (23:48)
So if you want to stand up for what they need, then they’re gonna want to work with you more than you’re just selling.
Sean Jordan (23:51)
Give a testimonial. Yeah.
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, it’s so cool. again, I’ve been through the process as a customer, but kind of hearing about it from the other end and how you’re thinking about it strategically and how you’re using data and software tools and things like that, it’s so neat because it does help to personalize that process. So it doesn’t feel like you’re just getting a cold call email every day from somebody or a phone call that you’re not going to return. It’s really something that’s meaningful. Well,
Brianna Miller (24:06)
Mm-hmm.
Sean Jordan (24:21)
I know something else that you have talked about is AI driven marketing strategies and you’ve implemented some of those. So what advice would you give to marketers who are looking to adopt AI while marketing a human centered approach?
Brianna Miller (24:34)
Yeah, so I think the first thing I will say is AI kind of knows what it knows. And if you don’t, it has to learn. It has to learn and understand your brand. So just in the same way that we have to understand our brand and have all that information, you need to train your AI tool to do that. And so just throwing something into ChatGPT ⁓ or Claude or whatever, you’re going to get the generic
output of and we all know we’ve all it’s become very apparent when it’s a generic AI output it has a same tone of voice and it’s what my students this and like I will know when you just threw it into chat gbt it’s very obvious ⁓ but using a tool so there’s different tools out there and you can even I think you can do within like a chat gbt but there are tools out there like jasper ⁓ which is one i’m a really big fan of ⁓ where you build
kind of the backend, it takes some work. It’s not a just turn it on and go. You build out all of your personas, all of your messaging, how your brand should speak, what words do you use, do you not use, ⁓ what type of ⁓ formatting do you use, everything should be capitalized, things like that. All of these different things. ⁓ Understanding each of your products, then AI becomes a crazy awesome tool that you can use.
from a content generation standpoint. So, because I could go in now, I built all that out, I spent the time, I put it into the tool, it understands everything. I can say, write an email for a CIO speaking about this product who has never heard of our brand before. And it knows all of my criteria. The email should be so long, it should have one CTA, one statistic, things like that.
So it becomes an amazing tool. And then I just need to keep up all the resources that AI is learning from on a given basis. And then also just use it to help get you going on some strategies and things. So that is one of my favorite things. I’m I’m stuck. I need some ideas. So don’t be afraid to use it in that way too. But.
Sean Jordan (26:53)
And I’ve even seen people saying you can, with some of these tools, you can have them read over someone’s LinkedIn account and find some kind of detail that might be relevant for them or talk about something they’ve recently accomplished or something like that and just automatically integrate that into the email. And of course you want to review that as a human. You don’t want to just send that off, but ⁓ it does sometimes uncover things that you might not have noticed if you were browsing. mean, somebody just sent me a lead generation email where they referenced a recommendation someone had made about me 20 years ago. Well,
Brianna Miller (27:00)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Sean Jordan (27:22)
great, but I haven’t talked to that person that recommended me since then. Yeah, so it caught my attention, but in the wrong way, right. But if they had mentioned, you know, for example, doing episodes of the marketing gateway, like I might have paid a little bit more attention, because that’s something I’m doing now, you know, so I think that that’s the power of those tools, too, is that if you use them in a way where you’re, you’re doing what you were already doing, but it’s just doing the heavy lifting for you so that you can then review it and make sure that it’s right. ⁓ It can still feel authentic and human.
Brianna Miller (27:36)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Sean Jordan (27:51)
but at the same time, save you a lot of time and trouble and allow you to spend more time engaging with the humans as opposed to spending time picking out emails.
Brianna Miller (28:00)
100%.
And I think it just goes back to the same way that you can’t do demand gen without a good brand strategy. You can’t, you really can’t do AI without a good strategy and understanding of how things work. Sorry about that. Because I literally was having this conversation with my students yesterday because they’re submitting something. I was like, I’m not against you using AI. I use it every day at work. So I’m not going to be hyper-growing so you can’t use it all. But I am going to say,
I spent a long time building my craft and understanding the marketing to be able to quickly see what is wrong with it. So I was like, don’t use it and just copy and paste. You really do have to be like, OK, wait, that was a 20-year-old reference. Like, I probably shouldn’t put that in there. It still needs a human eye. And I think that’s what makes it keeps you a little more human-centered, is if you
are so involved with it and you just, use it as a tool, not a replacement.
Sean Jordan (29:02)
Very true, very true. I could not agree more. Well, I know in addition to being guest on a show like ours, you’ve been someone who’s spoken out in industry events and you’ve talked about the importance of sales and marketing alignment. So what are your top tips for fostering collaboration between these teams to drive revenue growth?
Brianna Miller (29:04)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Yes, I, like I said, it is very critical. think especially in B2B to have that sales and marketing alignment. ⁓ I think that really sitting down with the sales team. if I’m joining an organization, I’m sitting down with each individual sales rep, BDR, everyone to kind of understand what are their concerns, where do they need help? What is working? What isn’t? And also understand like, are we all on the same page about terms too?
Do we all think a MQL is what an MQL is? Things like that. So, and then I keep that up. So every month I’m sitting down with each one of the sales reps and I am showing them dashboards of engagement across their accounts that they can follow up on if they didn’t see that. ⁓ I’m showing them new tools and resources and finding out what are their key accounts they’re going after right now. Where can I get them into a campaign?
⁓ And to make sure that I’m a partner for them at any given time. So I think transparency is very big. It takes some building. I’m working on it right now of like building very clear transparency of a dashboard of them to be able to see at any given point in time what accounts they’re working on are in what campaigns and if they’ve engaged or if they haven’t. ⁓ So they’re not feeling like they’re out there on their own. I am their support.
at any given time. very, very important. And then I think you’ll get more and more feedback from them that you can use as a marketer if you build that relationship.
Sean Jordan (30:58)
It’s in 2026 so important too, because we have teams that are so fragmented. They can be, you know, all over the place doing different things, having different perspectives. So having that level of transparency and communication that binds everybody together really is important. And, um, you know, I think collaboration a lot of times comes from a little bit of conflict, but a lot of agreement, you know, and do you have to have those two things together or else everybody’s just fighting all the time or not listening to each other.
Brianna Miller (31:12)
Mm.
Sean Jordan (31:26)
Well, what emerging trends or challenges in B2B marketing are you most excited about right now? And how do you see them shaping the future of the industry?
Brianna Miller (31:35)
Yeah, there’s so many, but one that really comes to mind right now is the whole zero click interactions. It is a, I think it’s a fun challenge to figure out right now, because I don’t know the answer. And I don’t know if anyone really truly knows the answer yet, because this is all so new. But the idea of like, I just go to chat GPT or I go to Google and they give me the results using AI and I don’t.
Sean Jordan (31:43)
yeah.
Brianna Miller (32:05)
have to click anymore. And our websites used to be, and they’re still very, very important, but they used to be the core of how people learned about us and understand, understood us. And so I think that is, don’t know if it’s an emerging trend as a current trend, but the emerging part is figuring out how to deal with it. How do we make sure that it’s pulling in the right information and that we’re still in some way, is there a way for us to get them to click onto something else?
Sean Jordan (32:22)
Okay.
Brianna Miller (32:34)
or to capture some information. So that is a fun new challenge for sure.
Sean Jordan (32:41)
Well, and everybody is weighing in on SEO right now. Is SEO dead? Is SEO more relevant than ever? Is SEO driving ⁓ AI traffic or is it completely being ignored by AI? And nobody has an answer right now. Everybody’s got a different take. I think that one of the things that we’re all looking for right now, and I’m sure you are in the complex interactions that you have with clients is ⁓ how do we make sure that if they’re finding us through AI that they’re then finding
Brianna Miller (32:45)
Mm-hmm.
You look
Yeah.
Sean Jordan (33:11)
more about us that beyond that just kind of bland general stuff that the AI will report. And, you know, the zero click searches, a lot of times they give you general information, but it’s not always correct, right? I I went the other day to a retail store and it told me it was about to close on my Google card that popped up and they were going to be open for another hour. I didn’t even need to rush there. So that information isn’t always right, but it’s still what we’re relying on. so I think that that’s one of the big problems that we have to solve. And then are you finding it all that
Brianna Miller (33:12)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Sean Jordan (33:39)
when you’re talking to people that they are doing more searching through AI than they were before.
Brianna Miller (33:45)
Yeah, definitely seeing more searching and it’s not as much in our space specifically. think there’s it’s just not kind of the tool that people are using, but they are using it. We are tracking like that. We’re showing up in search results ⁓ with a or I guess LLM results ⁓ for different things, but kind of measuring is it maybe not the tool that we’re specifically using for our
customers to find us versus maybe it’s a tool that we’re using from like a hiring perspective of like maybe because they’re it’ll do research there as well. So maybe finding different ways, but I mean, I know it’s it’s it’s happening but not maybe to the extent that is happening at other industries, but we are preparing and we are doing I think I don’t know because I don’t know if anyone knows truly yet, but my thought is that SEO and optimizing for AI is
goes together, just like to imagine and print strategy, is you can’t do one without the other. So you build on a basis of good SEO, which is good HTML and content and all of that. And then you add in the additional things like FAQs are really big with for AI. So adding in those, but not ignoring all the basis of what you should be doing.
Sean Jordan (34:46)
Sure, sure.
Mm-hmm.
It’s true. And you even mentioned earlier, like a frequently asked questions style format, ⁓ I find AI picks that stuff up really well. And so when you’ve taken the time to build those kind anticipatory questions, ⁓ that helps AI models to give a better and clearer answer to maybe queries that relate to what you’re offering than if it was just pulling kind of generic marketing information off of your website. sometimes,
Brianna Miller (35:13)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sean Jordan (35:33)
putting it in a format that the AI can recognize as, if I’m being asked this question, I should respond to it this way, can really be useful.
Brianna Miller (35:40)
Yes, definitely. Because, I mean, I was talking earlier, a guy knows what it knows. It doesn’t, it only knows so much. I mean, I’m sure we’ve all gone, or at least most of us, down a rabbit hole with chat GPT. And like, all of a sudden, it just like goes like off the rail. And you’re like, that isn’t remotely the direction I was going with that. And you have to bring it back because it just, it knows what you tell it. So, and I think like prompt, like writing is still a skill that is going to be
Sean Jordan (36:08)
There you go.
Brianna Miller (36:09)
developed. ⁓ I remember a little side note, I was writing something, I was typing like crazy and my husband came up behind me he’s like, what are you writing? I was like, I’m writing a prompt for GBT to fully understand what I’m trying to ask it to do. Because I know if I get my prompt right, I can get the output I want. But you know, it’s not just a single question like a lot of people are still using it as.
Sean Jordan (36:31)
Okay.
You know, I, I many lifetimes ago worked at McDonald’s. was a McDonald’s manager when I dropped out of college the first time around. Don’t worry. went back to college and got my degree eventually. But, um, I, uh, I learned working in a drive-through that people are really bad at ordering. Like they do not know how to articulate what they want very easily. And that in order to be good at my job, I had to be good at helping them through their order. And it’s funny because they’ve tried to use AI applications in like drive-throughs and they haven’t worked very well because people don’t know how to instruct.
Brianna Miller (36:53)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Hmm?
Sean Jordan (37:06)
the program with what they really want. And so ⁓ I think that that is definitely something that we have to be conscious of with these platforms is even though they can tell us how to program them better to do what we want, we still have to learn that basic syntax and language to get the results out of them that we’re looking for.
Brianna Miller (37:07)
Yeah.
Yeah.
I actually experienced that the other day. drove through Panda Express. I treating myself to something. And it was an AI and I had not experienced that. And I felt like even as a marketer who uses AI all the time, I was still like, this feels weird. This feels very weird. And I’m not ready yet. I’m just not ready for this part of my life to have that. ⁓ And it got it right. It was a very simple order. But I had the same thought of like, what if you
Sean Jordan (37:27)
Ha
Brianna Miller (37:53)
have a complicated order or you’re just not someone who communicates it well, ⁓ then I just, could see it totally off the rails. So it was a weird experience though.
Sean Jordan (38:06)
It can and it does, as research papers have shown. that’s why I think it’ll be test marketed for a while.
Brianna Miller (38:10)
I was like, want to do that again. Not
ready yet. I know we’ll get there, but I’m not ready yet.
Sean Jordan (38:19)
For sure. Well, you keep alerting, alluding to being in the classroom and I know you’re at UMSL and teaching in the School of Business there. Do you teach mainly marketing courses or?
Brianna Miller (38:23)
Mm-hmm.
Yes, so I teach
intro basic marketing. I teach ⁓ in the College of Business in the summer and the fall, and then in the spring where we’re at right now, I teach the honors marketing course. And I’m having a lot of fun right now because this is a flipped classroom. So they do all the lectures, I pre-record, read the book, everything outside of class, and everything is very discussion-based and a big project. So they each have to build a full marketing plan over the course of the semester.
So it’s just really fun to get in the weeds with them. mean, yesterday we were just sitting down talking about mission statements and value propositions and coming up with smart goals for your business. of again, building this base that they’ll build the rest of their marketing plan on. And it’s just, it fuels me ⁓ in a different way than work does. And I think it makes me a better marketer because…
One, it keeps me going back to the basics a lot of the time that I think we forget about. And my students teach me things. They get me ⁓ inspired and they, you know, to do different things. like, totally would have never thought of it that way. And I can bring that back to work. And then also at work, I can be like, guys, I literally did this today. And this is something I did. Or this isn’t something I do because of the type of marketer I am, but it is something that someone else does. It’s a lot.
Sean Jordan (39:50)
So,
no, I find the same thing. I teach a marketing strategy class and I teach a qualitative research class to up and coming market researchers. And I always find that, I mean, it keeps me focused on the fundamentals, right? I mean, that’s really important, but it also challenges me because not only do I have to answer questions, which students can have some pretty good questions, but I get to hear the way that they’re processing things and thinking about things.
Brianna Miller (40:10)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sean Jordan (40:14)
This is the up and coming generation. They’re going to be the people that we’re looking to hire, that we’re looking to work with, or even looking to sell to in the years to come. So what have you been hearing that’s been really exciting you or surprising you from some of your students?
Brianna Miller (40:29)
Mm-hmm. I feel very similar. They, I don’t want to say amaze me. I don’t want to underestimate them, but it is amazing some of the things that I didn’t realize. They already know just because of the world that they’re growing up in, that they’re coming in the class with a very different perspective ⁓ and understanding of business and things like that than I did when I was in college.
And one really interesting conversation we had the other day was in regards to AI and the way that a lot of companies are using it. And it’s they see it even more than we see it. And it is a turnoff for them when it comes to brands. They don’t they want that personal connection. We were looking listening to
Sean Jordan (41:15)
Mm-hmm.
Brianna Miller (41:24)
have them listen to a podcast episode each class. Then we discuss it and they were listening to the meme team had a podcast episode about some Black Friday promotions. And one was on Stripe and they built a miniature city. brought in professional, how do you call it, Minfig, like builders, which I didn’t know that was a career. And they built a city and they featured all of these businesses that use Stripe and they live streamed it. And it was something so different.
Sean Jordan (41:43)
Mm-hmm.
Brianna Miller (41:53)
and they were just telling me they’re like, I love this. I love this idea of something that isn’t just like AI or, you know, just regular digital. was something unique to stand out, which tells me businesses are going to have to continue to think that way and think of not just being efficient, but kind of going back to the board and like, what is a totally out of the box way we can stand out as a brand?
Sean Jordan (42:11)
Mm-hmm.
For sure, for sure. back when I was in product marketing ⁓ earlier in life, I was always trying to think of ways to stand out and to be creative. And nine times out of 10, the ideas I had were too big and too impractical to ever work. you have to think that way, because otherwise, you’re just doing what everybody else is doing, and you’re going to get results from doing that. ⁓ You’re going to be in their shadow.
Brianna Miller (42:39)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. mean, take a risk.
Yeah.
Sean Jordan (42:51)
Well, you know, another thing that I like to do with students is give them advice on their careers. And I’m sure you’ve given your fair share advice. What are you advising them to do as they get out into the real world?
Brianna Miller (42:55)
Mm-hmm.
So career-wise, ⁓ definitely tell them to really focus on building their personal brand regardless of industry that they’re growing in and It doesn’t have to be that they have a blog or they build this big social media influence like if you want to do that That’s awesome and I can help you with that but your LinkedIn your Experience like you have to Go out there and get experience nowadays to get a job. ⁓ It’s
I imagine it’s very hard to get kind of that entry level position with them wanting things ⁓ experienced already. So if you do an internship, you can start your own thing and kind of have that on your resume. But building that is definitely very, very, important. ⁓ And telling them to get involved. It’s a lot of people knowing people that has not changed by any means. So if they are interested in marketing or accounting or whatever they’re interested in,
seeing if there’s a community in the area that they can join or a group to show that. And it’s interesting for them because I think it’s a little different than when I, again, was graduating undergrad and looking for my first real job, not internship, but real job. we didn’t, the thought of kind of like starting your own business was always like an option and thing of being an entrepreneur. I think they all.
think about that. So it’s all like, it’s also this different level in regards to giving them career advice is like, they all also view work as like a, I could start my own business anytime and we have multiple streams of income and it’s a very different view. So I don’t know that answers the question entirely, but they are, they’re asking for it very, it’s a very different way. It’s not a tradition, you know, what I went through. So kind of, you know, helping them.
Sean Jordan (44:44)
Yeah.
Brianna Miller (44:52)
with that, at least know what to hopefully expect on like what I know hiring processes are right now of those type of things.
Sean Jordan (45:00)
I think today’s students are really savvy to the fact that ⁓ jobs are not forever. you know, when, so I graduated in 2008 at the end of my twenties after that McDonald’s stint and some other things. ⁓ And by then, you know, was, people were starting to kind of go, maybe a job’s a few years, not a career kind of thing, you know, I’ll switch jobs. But then that book, The Gig Economy came out, right? And everybody started thinking about gigs and side hustles and.
Brianna Miller (45:06)
Mm-hmm.
Sean Jordan (45:28)
freelancing and things like that. And COVID really accelerated that. And I find that students now are thinking that way a lot more. And, you know, they’re not looking to their job to be their identity the way that we might have 20 or 30 years ago. They’re looking at it as being a stepping stone. And that is not something employers love to hear. It also, ⁓ it means that, you know, if you have a constant flow of new people coming in and bringing in new ideas, that’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world for a company if they want to grow and stay relevant. So
Brianna Miller (45:31)
for sure.
Mm-mm. No. Mm-hmm.
No.
For sure and you know, do tell them like I I tend to stay longer at a company than most people ⁓ You know, I was in my last company for almost five years Which is very long for and I wasn’t looking to leave honestly and then we were acquired not the whole thing ⁓ but you know, tell them like
Sean Jordan (46:03)
Mm-hmm.
Brianna Miller (46:16)
Hopefully you can be in a place where like you can find the good company and you’ll want to stay because they will support your other other you know initiatives so that can make a huge difference on whether you choose to stay somewhere as if you have a really good company and then it’s not just about the money
Sean Jordan (46:33)
And look at me, I interned at the research and planning group where I work now and now I’m the owner. So I never planned to stick around that long, you know, but I’ve been 17 years now, so it can happen.
Brianna Miller (46:39)
That’s amazing. You don’t have to decide
forever. Like that is the only thing you’re going to do. I mean, it’s shocking that it still feels like you have to decide your career at 18. I was one of the weird ones that did because I I loved it and I stay with it. It’s my passion. But I am aware that I am the oddity in the fact that I studied marketing and went into marketing and stayed in marketing.
Sean Jordan (46:52)
Mm-hmm.
you
Brianna Miller (47:06)
That is not the norm and I tell them like that is okay.
Sean Jordan (47:12)
It is all right. I agree with you. Sometimes you have to go through your 20s before you figure it out like I did. let ⁓ me wrap this up here. This has been a great discussion. I really enjoyed talking with you. But I always like to end with asking our guests if they have anything they’d like to plug. So here’s your chance. You can plug anything you want, anything at all. Go for it.
Brianna Miller (47:18)
Yeah.
Well, I would love to plug the AMA St. Louis, if you are in the St. Louis area to check out some of our events. have multiple events every month. So we have like a monthly speaker, or a happy hour, we have coffee club once a month, have a conference, all kinds of stuff. So definitely check out AMASDL. Or if you’re not in St. Louis, which I hope there are those that are listening outside of St. Louis, there are AMA chapters all across the country. So check out your AMA chapter.
⁓ If you want to connect with me, please find me on LinkedIn. I would love love love to connect ⁓ and just I’m sharing my thoughts on marketing good or bad I’m sharing them on there, ⁓ but I would love to connect with them
Sean Jordan (48:14)
And I’ve seen you do some short form TikTok style videos and things like that every now and then, react to things.
Brianna Miller (48:19)
Yes, it’s my 2026 goal to get
into more of that. And I’ve decided, if I have an idea, just shoot the video. Just do it. I don’t overthink it. And so it’s been going well. So I’m going to keep doing it. I love talking marketing and I find that other people do too. So we’ll see. We’ll see. So I’ll keep doing it.
Sean Jordan (48:40)
Well, fantastic.
Well, we’ll put your information, of course, in the show notes for anyone that would like to connect. And Brianna, it’s been so great having you on the Marketing Gateway. I appreciate you being a… I say all of our guests are marketing mentors and you definitely fit the bill there with all that you’re doing. But ⁓ thanks so much for being on.
Brianna Miller (48:57)
Thanks for having me. It was so much fun. I could talk marketing all day, every day.
Sean Jordan (49:03)
All right, and I’ll cut off there and put the ⁓ outro on.
Sean Jordan (49:09)
Well, I know I say this after almost every interview because I love hearing from these guests, but wow, what an insightful and interesting discussion that Brianna and I were able to have. And I just walk away from these interviews with so many new ideas and so many new perspectives. I hope that you are too. And I want to thank Brianna for being on. Of course, you can connect with Brianna through her information in our show notes. And ⁓ I encourage you to do so. But I also want to mention
that we are so grateful to you, our listeners, for being a part of our marketing mentor community as well and learning from folks like Brianna to be able to up your marketing game. so if you are doing something exciting and you’re in St. Louis, you’re in the Midwest, even if you’re just in the field of marketing and you’d like to be on the show, we’re always looking for new guests and we’d love to have you. Information on that is also in the show notes. But in the meantime, we’ve got many more awesome, exciting guests coming up for you in the weeks to come.
Thanks so much for listening. I’m Sean in St. Louis. This has been the Marketing Gateway and see you next time.
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