Cybersecurity marketing: Always think of the customer
In early January, LogMeIn announced that Jamie Domenici will join the company as its new Chief Marketing Officer.
Domenici is a cloud marketing veteran, and the majority of her career has been focused on ensuring businesses (especially small and medium businesses) have the right software for success. At LogMeIn, she will oversee a nearly 200 person marketing team consisting of Customer Marketing, Product Marketing, Acquisition Marketing, Marketing Operations, Corporate Communications, Brand & Creative, and Web & Ecommerce.
In this interview, she talks about her past experiences and her expectations for the new position.
[Answers have been edited for clarity.]
What pivotal career experiences shaped you? What challenges have you overcome and what lessons have you learned along the way?
When I started at Salesforce over 10 years ago, the company made one product and we had a few thousand employees. When I left it was a company with tens of thousands of employees and valued at nearly $200 billion. The time spent being a part of growth and the challenges we faced undoubtably shaped how I work and how I led teams.
One of the most impactful professional experiences within my time at Salesforce was a move I made to become the Global Senior Vice President Customer Adoption, Marketing and Business Development. These days I’m hyper focused on anticipating what the customer needs and that role allowed me to spend my entire day thinking about the customer, their experience and the entire lifecycle from end-to-end.
More recently I think that the world shifting to remote work has opened up new opportunities for me personally. LogMeIn is headquartered in Boston, but I’m proud to call myself a full-time remote member of the executive team living in the Bay Area.
Most of all, I’d say it is critical to work with a great team where you can just have fun. I was overwhelmed by stories and emails from my Salesforce colleagues and left with many fun memories. I’m looking forward to building these same memories – and have already started! – with my new LogMeIn family.
Can you tell us about the specificities of IT marketing (compared to marketing roles in other industries), especially as digital transformation efforts are taking place in seemingly every company out there?
While my experience has been primarily been at cloud software companies, my biggest priority is to remain focused on the customers’ needs. If you don’t market with a customer-first approach and mentality you won’t be successful in retaining customers or creating advocates for your products.
As companies look towards the digital transformation you need advocates within an organization that understand the nuances and benefits of something like remote work in order for it to catch on companywide. Everything should be designed from the view of the customer – start listening to your customers to effectively drive that transformation.
One of the other nuances, especially in a market going through so much transformation, is to really understand the market you are in and to anticipate, to the best of our ability, where it is going. If you can stay ahead of the next phase of the digital transformation and solve for the next need, your products become essential parts of doing business and something that you customers can’t live without.
Some of LogMeIn’s products are focused on meeting security needs. To what extent are marketers generally involved in creating a constructive relationship between the company and customers that can result in influencing the direction in which a product will be developed?
At LogMeIn, we believe in being proactive in today’s age of ever-changing security threats, and marketing plays a large role in making that happen. From blog posts with best practices, to direct customer outreach to fix potential issues before they become problems, to programs like LastPass’s bug bounty program we are constantly working with our customers to make sure they are protected and informed.
It comes back to my motto of always thinking of the customer, listening to them and using their feedback to drive change and business success.
What new things do you expect to experience at LogMeIn?
Much like I saw Salesforce grow in my 10+ years there, I believe that LogMeIn is poised to embark on their next chapter of growth.
2020 showed the world that remote work could be a permanent and beneficial part of business. It is time for businesses to embrace this change as with change comes opportunity.
I’m thrilled to be at a company that is enabling that shift through their great technology – not only for their own employees, but for their customers as well. I’m looking forward to using some of my past experiences in a new way to empower the global flexible workforce including how to tell a story or deliver a message that is on point.
If 2020 has taught us anything, it is to challenge the status quo of business operation and when in doubt go big with changes as these can be the most memorable – and successful – moments.