Inside Customer.io’s B2B Marketing Strategy: Org, GTM, and Growth Channels with Jason Lyman

#263 Marketing Strategy | Dave is joined by Jason Lyman, CMO at Customer.io, a customer engagement platform used by over 7,500 companies. Jason has led marketing at Dropbox, BetterCloud, and now heads a 30-person team driving growth across both PLG and sales-led motions.Dave and Jason cover:How to structure a B2B marketing org for scale, alignment, and channel ownershipWhy events are their #1 channel and how creative formats drive real pipelineThe KPI + OKR system they use to prioritize work and measure marketing’s impactYou’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of how to design your team, focus your strategy, and invest in channels that actually drive results.Timestamps(00:00) - – Intro (01:00) - – What Customer.io does and who they serve (02:00) - – Growth story: from bootstrapped to private equity-backed (04:00) - – Team size and breakdown of the 30-person marketing org (06:00) - – Balancing PLG and sales-led within one team (08:00) - – How the org is structured: focus teams vs. centers of excellence (10:00) - – Aligning team goals to sales motions and funnel stages (12:00) - – How Customer.io prioritizes internal marketing requests (14:00) - – Avoiding the “who bangs the table loudest” trap (15:00) - – Cross-functional alignment with sales and product (17:00) - – KPI vs. OKR: how Customer.io uses both (19:00) - – Examples of key KPIs for the business (21:00) - – How OKRs cascade across the org (23:00) - – Why structured goal setting leads to better marketing impact (25:00) - – What channels are working: events are back (26:00) - – Examples of creative event formats that build community (28:00) - – Building pipeline without pitching at events (30:00) - – How Customer.io defines and tracks long-term influence (33:00) - – The decline of SEO and rise of AI-influenced buying (35:00) - – Why positioning is more important than ever (37:00) - – Product and marketing alignment in a modern org (39:00) - – Selling both the product and the roadmap (40:00) - – Jason’s one wish for marketers: better customer data (42:00) - – Personalization, adaptability, and breaking through the noise (43:00) - – Closing thoughts Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, helping modern marketing teams build fully custom sites—no developer needed—that perform in AI search. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Markup AI - A content quality platform that scans your content against brand voice, preferred terms, messaging standards, and AI-search readiness before it goes live, right inside Google Docs. Learn more at markup.ai.Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more