Here is a transcript generated by otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with Mauro Paretti EMEA marketing manager for ServiceMax, on what it’s like to be part of an international work environment:

Shaheen Samavati 0:12
Hi everyone. I’m Shaheen from The Content Mix and I’m excited to be here with Mauro Paretti, EMEA marketing team leader at ServiceMax, which is a leading provider of field service management software. Thanks so much for joining us, Mauro.

Mauro Paretti 0:24
Thank you very much for inviting me today.

Shaheen Samavati 0:26
So where are you joining us from today?

Mauro Paretti 0:29
I’m based in the Milano area, let’s say. It’s actually 30 kilometers up north Milano. It’s the first Lago province in the lake area.

Shaheen Samavati 0:40
I see. So, ServiceMax is actually based in the US, right? But they have an office in Italy. You work remotely?

Mauro Paretti 0:47
Yeah. Well, for everybody in Italy, we work remotely. We have an office in San Francisco, in Pleasanton, actually, and the one office in London, in Europe. But everyone else is working from home.

Shaheen Samavati 1:01
Okay, and can you just give us–for those who don’t know–a little background on the company, what ServiceMax does?

Mauro Paretti 1:07
Yes, sure. So ServiceMax is a provider for software for maintenance. So basically, we are gathering much quadrant leaders in the Facilities Management space, and our software apps helps customers to provide services for their customers, and we help the companies keep the world running. We love to say that as our claimer because we really help our customers to have their machines up and running.

Shaheen Samavati 1:42
Okay, and so it’s like a b2b software provider? And you guys are operating all over the world, and you specifically are responsible for the EMEA, for some activities in the EMEA region. Can you tell us a bit about your role?

Mauro Paretti 1:55
Yes, sure. So yeah, ServiceMax, we have more than 500 customers globally. So we are a global company. And yes, I am responsible for the EMEA marketing activities, let’s say from a strategic point of view, and also implementation point of view. So with the team, so we are really working closely with our sales counterparts in ServiceMax, to align their marketing plans with the sales objectives. And so we we run a lot of activities from digital piece, so digital events, social media, LinkedIn, and email campaigns and all this kind of stuff. And then of course, well in this year it’s really specific one, and very, you know, peculiar but usually, we are also really in tradeshow events, physical events, really running a good span of activities around marketing.

Shaheen Samavati 2:56
Okay, so content marketing is one part of what you do that kind of ties into, like you said, the b2b sales process, but then you’re also responsible for broader marketing activities in EMEA.

Mauro Paretti 3:07
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because I mean, definitely. So you can build up the most efficient campaign flow, the most effective campaign flow, but at the end, if the content is not there, definitely, you are not going far away from the starting point. So definitely, the content side for us, it’s pivotal. So maybe, yeah, I should, I should mention more often, but definitely, the content is something that we want. Because I mean, you need to provide the content that people want, at the right time and to the right people to be successful in your marketing efforts. Otherwise, we’d be really crashing the marketing activities.

Shaheen Samavati 3:50
Yeah, absolutely. So let’s go to your background a bit. So how did you end up where you are today, and why did you decide to get into marketing in the first place?

Mauro Paretti 4:02
Yeah, basically, really, I decided to be a marketer when I was at the university, because I since really early, I think around high schools, my aspiration was really to work in an international environment and to work with other people in other countries. And then really going to the university I discovered that marketing can be a really good place to be and because you’re working… when you work in marketing, you work at the center of the company at the end of the day. You interact with many, many departments. And and then so I started my career in HP and then moving CA Technologies and ending in ServiceMax. Really, with a background of American companies and different roles, country and European level, but always at the times that I enrolled, so what I enjoy is really working with people from other countries and working and interacting with people locally, at European level, in the US. So definitely, this is what I love about my job.

Shaheen Samavati 5:15
Awesome. And it seems like you’re a specialist in the tech industry, basically your experiences mainly in tech, right?

Mauro Paretti 5:21
Yeah, yeah. Basically, I started in HP, and then from there, so my career really developed in the IT space. Yeah.

Shaheen Samavati 5:30
Okay. And do you think…. I mean, they’re are special skills, or I don’t know, like a special approach needed for this kind of marketing this in this industry?

Mauro Paretti 5:42
Yeah, that’s a good question. So I think you need, you need to love a little bit, the technology otherwise that makes it a little bit, you know, difficult to run in this kind of space. But on the other side, I think it’s really exciting because even nowadays, when I started, so the technology was the cloud, and you know, this kind of stuff, it was was exciting, it was in an early stage. But now the fact that it is that it’s really good. So, technology, it’s really important for companies, you know, to run the business and to go beyond their objectives. And again, I don’t want to be repetitive but in 2020, we saw how our technology is saving so much lives in all the senses. So I think that’s, that’s a good space. And, I mean, again, I don’t think you need so many scales for the IT space, but I did a bit of passions for IT, I think is really good, because you then you can understand the issues and the pains of your customers, your prospects, and then you can reach out to them in a better way.

Shaheen Samavati 6:51
Absolutely. So what’s like the typical day in your role?

Mauro Paretti 6:56
Yeah, so we and I work very, very closely with the sales guys. So really everything and the single activities need to be, you know, agreed, and we got the buy in, because otherwise, doesn’t really make sense. And we, as a team, and myself, so we have a couple of, you know, just having a strategic perspective on our activities, so to make sure that we are aligned to what the business needs to achieve, and then go to practical aspects of the job. So really, you know, to get how the campaigns are running the results, the KPIs, develop new campaigns, develop new content, thinking in an innovative way, you know, to reach our audience, and really this kind of things. So it’s both sides of the coin. So really strategic, but then really practical aspects of the job. So to make sure that the activities are up and running and so to get the right result from there.

Shaheen Samavati 8:05
Like how many different markets do you work with?

Mauro Paretti 8:09
Well, in Europe, basically, we work in different countries, I think like Italy, France, the UK, the Nordics, Germany, the North America, also, I mean, globally, so differently, there are, I think, more than 20 countries, even more potentially, that we are in.

Shaheen Samavati 8:27
So you’re like coordinating with and supporting the sales teams and all of those markets?

Mauro Paretti 8:31
Yes, exactly. Because we have sales team based in every single country. And then of course, for Europe, as said, so they’re basically in all of the Western European countries, we have a team, and then we support them for their activities on a daily basis.

Shaheen Samavati 8:49
So what do you find, like most challenging of working across all these markets?

Mauro Paretti 8:54
Well, the challenge is really the language I think, and the cultural aspects of every single country that can be different, or you know, how you operate in Italy, or how you operate in the UK. But on the other side, I think this is what’s really exciting and the opportunity because I mean, at least on my perspective, I really love you know, to work with people from other countries and from other cultures. And I think this is really interesting. And also you can learn a lot from those people, from other people from other countries. So I think that can be kind of again, the both sides of the same coin.

Shaheen Samavati 9:38
And you know, when it comes to content, are you like adapting your content for the different markets?

Mauro Paretti 9:44
Yes, definitely. Sometimes. Again, so you need to work on the strategy level and sometimes you know, English, now it’s a common language, for everybody, but sometimes, we need to localize the content that that you need to because potentially something is not really working in a country for many reasons, so definitely. Again, I think the right balance between globalization and localization. I think it’s a good mix because you need to be flexible, and understand when it’s needed, you know, to localize and to go a little bit deeper to the country or when you can use this anyhow as a global content across across the globe.

Shaheen Samavati 10:32
I see, I guess, also beyond just language it might, also like, the actual content might vary, that you would use in one market versus another maybe. Like, the content is in English, but the particular case study you decide to highlight or something like that might vary. I’m not sure.

Mauro Paretti 10:48
Yes, yes. For example, in Germany, and in the Dach region, we noticed that they love more than technical assets. So they really potentially want to understand more about the technology, how it works, the features, or maybe in other countries like Italy, they are more interested in the benefits, and what is the business outcome. So, definitely you need to adapt about your audience, for every single country. And again, this is something really interesting, because it’s something that you need to learn, basically. And so to make sure that you can adapt for every single country, yeah.

Shaheen Samavati 11:32
Yeah, and I was curious if you could share any examples of any projects or campaigns that you’re especially proud of that you’ve worked on?

Mauro Paretti 11:40
Yeah, definitely. So a couple of years ago, we ran this research with a consultancy company in the UK called Vanson Bourne, and basically it was the research around the six standard leaders in the IT and service space, to understand a little bit how they were approaching the market and the challenges and so on and so forth. And it was interesting at the beginning, you know, to build up the survey the questions, and so to make sure that through this questionnaire, we can get the content that we want to create the piece that they’ve been, you know, the piece for at least six months campaign, if not for the full year. And then at the end, definitely you get this 10, 12, pages, 15 pages of paper, and just say, “Wow, it’s amazing, a lot of content,” but then you need to think about, “Okay, how can I make this digestible content for the audience?” because I mean, we have, we know everybody’s getting so much content from different spaces, from different companies, we are getting so much videos, podcasts, emails, and so on and so forth. And I think the challenge was really to understand, okay, what I want, you know, to communicate to the people and maybe be something that can engage with them. And then if they are interested, they can move forward and go more detail. So basically, I went a little bit in research on the web, and I found that this software that is called CEROS–it’s an American company, and so basically the CEROS, it’s allowing you to build pages like a web like website or something like that, but more engaging. So you can get created some engage content, some quizzes, putting some images that can really, you know, have animations and this kind of stuff. And in this way, this was a very powerful tool, because we could decide and really put imaginary and visually, so the data and the aspects of this research that we wanted to promote for our audience. And then of course, you know, you get for the second objective is in the lead generation, you know, you have your form and in the staff, but at the beginning, this app does a lot to get visually, and then grab people’s attention, because I think nowadays the challenge is really grab attention of the people, and you need to find, you know, different ways to do so.

Shaheen Samavati 14:40
Absolutely. Yeah, and especially now, I think in this times of pandemic, everyone has been producing more and more digital content. So to kind of make up for not being able to do other types of marketing. I was wondering, yeah, any other ways that you’ve been creative during this year?

Mauro Paretti 15:00
Yeah, I mean, definitely. So basically when we started… basically when the pandemic started, in Europe with Italy, so we were at our sales kickoff, company kickoff in Los Angeles. And when we, we were banned, so basically everybody went on lockdown. So it was kind of shocking, because everybody in the company was seeing what’s going on in Europe from LA. And when we were banned, of course, basically, you know, you took your plan that we just finished in January, you know, for the 2020 and say “Okay, that’s bullshit now” and then we needed to redo it again, and definitely yes, because we thought “Okay, well, how we can engage with our audience, what they need?” So we definitely went on, you know, on digital events. We did like coffee talk in the mornings, so to have like, really, group of people, 12 people, 15 people for two months, twice per week, really connecting on a specific topic, and for half an hour and in one having a coffee, you know, in the morning with our expert, or how we deliver our keynotes because we were supposed to have live events, how we do that, how we did like blogs, because we have an expert team here. And so they write a lot and this is another way to communicate. We tried LinkedIn live, something new, that is really exciting. And so to make this, you know, live on LinkedIn, it’s a platform that you can access with the laptop, on the mobile. And so it gives you a lot of flexibility. And again, so working on researches and case studies, you know, to make sure that we could continue to get in contact with our customers and prospects. So definitely, the pandemic was kind of, you know, worrying, I mean, for everybody, I guess, and still now, it’s not, of course, all over. But on the other side, on the marketing perspective, it gave us the opportunity to rethink a little bit on the content side, and all these digital aspects together with email marketing, and the contents indication that everything goes integrated in the strategy, you know, for the marketing and the content perspective.

Shaheen Samavati 17:35
Very cool. And, yeah, I’m jealous that you guys are on LinkedIn live. I’ve applied for that and it’s kind of exclusive right now, not everyone can do LinkedIn live broadcast, you have to be approved. So I’ve seen you guys are doing really cool things on there, like interviewing clients and interviewing members of the team and it’s really puts like a face behind and you get a lot of play on the live broadcast, because you get notifications when you follow the company, right? So…

Mauro Paretti 18:00
Yeah. Yes, I think we were one of the first companies in the beta of the LinkedIn live in the beta project that LinkedIn has done. And I think it’s amazing and you have done, you said, the very, very important things about face, you know, behind the company, behind the project. I think this is really important. So that, so we are really putting forward, our marketing team, our product team, our leadership team in front of the customers and the products. Because again, so I think, even before the pandemic, but really put, you know…because it’s true that it’s b2b2 industry, a b2b market, but at the end of the day, it’s human to human and so you buy and you do marketing for other human beings. So I think it’s super important that the company is really facing the employees and the leadership and the faces behind the product and behind the company.

Shaheen Samavati 19:00
Absolutely. Yeah. And I can definitely see that comes through in your approach at at ServiceMax across all the platforms, you can definitely see how very like cohesive content and it really like highlights people and it’s really cool. So I wanted to move to the recommendations part of the interview. So what’s your favorite app at the moment?

Mauro Paretti 19:20
Again, as I said, I really love CEROS It’s not really in the hub, by software enterprise software because it’s for companies and I think it’s really great and because of the full event and stuff it’s really flexible and you can use it in different ways and it gives you the opportunity to be super engaging with your audience and offer them a nice experience that can be you know…because again, we all know that the purchase decision is taken you know way before to connect with the company but also the customer experience, as we said, you know, customer experience concept, but also, the marketing experience is so important. So definitely, I love this because it’s super good in helping us to be very engaging with the audience.

Shaheen Samavati 20:14
Yeah, absolutely. And what’s a source of professional inspiration?

Mauro Paretti 20:20
Well, we discussed before starting, and there are so many people that are good, but one, I think that is, is really good is Philip Kotler because well, I studied, you know, on his book at the university. But he’s still doing researches and innovations and seeing what’s going on the market. So I think he’s very good in, you know, he’s kind of a Bible for marketing. So it’s very good to go there and get the latest on top of all the people that are good in digital, and there are so many on the web that we can follow and I follow. But yeah, if I have to choose one, I would say Philip Kotler. Yeah.

Shaheen Samavati 21:04
Okay, excellent. Well, those are good recommendations, and to end off the interview, do you have any final parting advice for other content marketers in Europe?

Mauro Paretti 21:15
Yeah, I mean, I would say really, you know, on the content side, define the strategy. So be sure that to define the audience that you want to reach out, the message that you want to get and the channels. I mean, looks like, you know, obviously, things and silly ones, by the end of the day, it’s really important, because it’s, it’s the part that is really working, because, again, you can do the most efficient campaign, but without the content, it’s nothing, because now the most important thing is really say, what people want to listen. And so you can do that if you do a strategy, and then maybe a second recommendation or advice, really make sure that the customers I mean, or the prospect or the audience, really consume the content that they want, when they want because again, more even this year in the pandemic, I mean, people are bombarded with so much content and stuff. But again, maybe a traditional concept, you know, pull and push communications we heard already. But I think the right strategy is to get the people to you, and not really just to push, push, push on, on your messaging, because otherwise you get you don’t get back really from them. You need to be a trusted advisor for your people, for your audience. So you need to be really in this in this direction.

Shaheen Samavati 23:00
Absolutely. I hear a dog barking.

Mauro Paretti 23:03
Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry. It’s mine. It’s my dog.

Shaheen Samavati 23:07
No worries. That’s a reality these days. So great. Well, nice way to end the interview. So yeah, thanks so much. Those are great final tips. And, and yeah, thanks so much for being on the podcast.

Mauro Paretti 23:24
Thank you. Thank you, again, for you for for inviting me. I really enjoyed talking with you. And yeah, thanks again.

Shaheen Samavati 23:31
Alright, thank you. And thanks, everybody for listening in. For more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, check out TheContentMix.com and keep tuning into the podcast every weekday. See you next time. Bye!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai