This week’s CMO is a seasoned marketing executive with a strong track record of innovation, creativity, and growth acceleration with industry-leading tech companies. She’s led global marketing teams to grow multibillion-dollar corporations as well as start-ups. Megan McDonagh is the CMO of Amperity, an Intelligent Customer Data Platform that empowers global consumer brands by unlocking all their customer data. Megan joins Host Chris Mechanic for a masterclass on how to interview customers to better understand buyers, brilliant ways to share customer stories, and how to drive brand loyalty by crafting great customer experiences. Megan also shares insight into the coming cookie-less age of digital marketing and why brands need to own their audience rather than rent their audiences from 3rd-party data providers.   Takeaways: Despite the explosion of new marketing tools and tactics, understanding the basics of marketing is still critical. Understanding your customers, delivering valuable experiences, and maintaining strong customer relationships remain key to marketing success. To understand your customers, start by interviewing your best customers and members of your customer advisory board. The following questions will frame the conversation and uncover the insights marketers need to improve every part of the customer journey. Here is a basic framework for running effective customer interviews. Start by saying, “Let's go back in time.” What were your sources of information and which sources did you trust?  How did you validate those sources?  What different options were you choosing between?  How did you validate the solution that you chose? What was your process?  Now that you've been a customer for X amount of time, how did we live up to that? How would you advise us on X, based on your experience as a customer? When customers have a great experience with a brand it creates brand loyalty and brand stickiness. But when you don't know your customers, you could be giving them a poor experience because you don’t understand what makes a great experience for them. Invest in robust customer database creation and management. Own your customer data rather than relying on third-party databases. Match rates, reach and efficiency improve significantly when brands have a strong first-party customer data foundation. By unifying customer data, brands can target their marketing more effectively, reduce waste, and provide better customer experiences. Knowing your customers' preferences can help prevent things like sending promotions for items a customer has already bought.   Quote of the Show: “Every time we talk to customers, we learn a ton.” - Megan McDonagh   Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmcdonagh/  Company website: https://amperity.com/    Ways to Tune In: Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo  Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1444680950    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17  iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/  Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-revenue-driven-cmo-chris-mechanic-rdU1oESluqs/ YouTube: https://youtu.be/a80vZHbFOPo    The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/    The Revenue-Driven CMO is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/