Whether you’re marketing software or marketing a holiday, if you’re doing it right, no one is going to notice.

At least that’s the sentiment of WorkForce Software CMO Denise Vu Broady, who recently spoke to B&T about some of the tricks of the trade.

“When it comes to marketing, if you do your job well, no one will notice,” Broady said, adding that it’s when you do things wrong that people jump on the critical bandwagon.

As far as marketing is concerned, Broady believes it’s about knowing your product, creating good content and pushing this out to the right audience.

“Content is king,” she told B&T. “In a digital world, bite-sized content becomes so important. As you get it, you need to feed it to digital.

“But just because you have content does not mean it’s structured right. It has to be relevant.”

Broady said that it’s imperative to talk to your customers and understand what it is you’re selling, even when it’s something often perceived as complicated, such as software or IT.

“If you understand what your products do and how customers use your product, you will become a much better marketer,” Broady said.

“Think about pilot to scale. You should always come back to the question of, is what you produce relevant? Is what you do relevant? Sometimes it’s about taking something that already exists and changing it.

“You can’t do it in a vacuum. You have to step back and pilot it, you have to ask your customers. There needs to be a relationship between product development and marketing.

“If you don’t put the customer at the centre, you’ve got a big problem.”

Broady said that when she came on as CMO at WFS, her first hire was in the product development and management team, something she said reflects her views of marketers living and breathing the very products they’re selling.

“You’ll have different messaging depending on your business,” Broady added, before listing the three C’s every marketer should be focusing on: “Culture, Customer and Community”.

“Sometimes you need to take a step back and go back to basics… You need to employ the right people at the right time in the right places.”