Q&A with Santana Blanchette, Business Development with Everbrave

A few years ago, I reunited with a few of my AUArts alumni and we formed a group, kind of like a book club, but for current events or specific issues we wanted to discuss as a group. In this group I met Santana, I was immediately impressed with her knowledge of politics and cultural issues. She was able to clearly break down concepts to shed light on these sometimes murky topics. We also discovered we shared similar work values with Everbrave’s strengths being creative branding, inbound marketing techniques and HubSpot integrations. I wanted to pick Santana’s brain on how a solid brand foundation is only one step in creating a sales cycle and successful business.

Can you tell me about your background?
I grew up in Calgary and had no clue what I wanted to do after high school so instead of going straight to school, I tried to dip my toes into everything I thought I might be interested in doing. From volunteering with kids at the Calgary Emergency Women’s Shelter, to hanging out at a tattoo shop (where I can only accurately describe my role as gopher), I ended up experiencing some strange places. It taught me a pretty diverse skill set. Eventually, I went to school and ended up freelancing writing and working at a marketing agency. 

Where did you go to school? What did you choose to study and how did it prepare you for what you do today?
I went to school for journalism. I’ve always loved writing, research, and learning about people’s stories so journalism felt like a natural fit. Throughout school and afterwards I had freelance writing contracts, but I ran some business social media accounts as well and enjoyed the corporate side of writing. When I ended up as an intern at a marketing agency, it felt like the perfect fit. Marketing (good marketing, I should say) needs all the components I loved about journalism — research, great writing, and a genuine interest in people.

What kind of agency is Everbrave?
Everbrave is a growth agency so we provide strategy, research, and execution on the pillars of growth: brand, marketing, sales, and customer experience. I like to think of us like a business’ medical team. We do a general intake, run some tests to get a proper diagnosis, and then build a comprehensive plan to get a business to its strongest and healthiest.

Can you tell me about the different roles that you have had at Everbrave?
I started as a marketing coordinator and moved into project management. One of the things I love about working at Everbrave is that I get to wear a bunch of different hats. I’ve done copy writing, coordination and management on digital and traditional projects, some strategy work, a lot of analytics and reporting — it’s really a mix day-to-day depending on what my clients need.

What does your role look like today?
I’m still doing some marketing project management, but the majority of my job is now business development. A lot of my day consists of prospecting to find businesses that could benefit from our services, creating outreach to talk to those people (such as emails, calls, etc.), and then actually connecting with them. It’s been fascinating moving into a sales role from marketing because it’s changed my outlook on both. I think more and more organizations will come to realize that company growth needs to be a united front between marketing and sales. A lot of what I learned from marketing is applicable in sales and vice versa. Ultimately both sides are just looking for ways to get our solution to the people that need it. Or at least that’s how I muster up the courage to call strangers. I don’t reach out to anyone I don’t feel like could genuinely benefit from our help, so I don’t feel as awkward picking up the phone.

What made you want to become HubSpot Certified?
Everbrave is an inbound agency so it’s kind of non-negotiable but from a personal perspective I love the philosophy behind HubSpot. Empowering consumers to do their own research through company content, using analytics to create a better experience for your audience, giving sales teams tools to have more meaningful interactions with their prospects. It all aligns with the future of customer-centric brand experiences.

From a nerdier point of view, do you know how tough it is to try to manage Frankenstein’s tech stack? If I have my emails in one app, my social in another, my CRM on an excel sheet, and Google Analytics tracking my website, it’s an absolute nightmare to do any reporting or get an accurate picture of how your audience interacts with your entire brand. By the time the average consumer reaches out to a brand directly they’ve already been on its social channels, website, and maybe part of a mailing list. I want to see that all from one portal.

A big part of what makes Everbrave special is our clear campaign measurement. So many companies have absolutely zero way of measuring the impact of their marketing, and we can quantify it with full clarity. HubSpot is a big part of what makes that possible.

What does a branding process look like with Everbrave and do you typically set your clients up on HubSpot
Everbrave started out building brands so we have a specialized process we call BrandCraft™. It’s in line with our overall diagnostic philosophy of research, strategy, and then execution so there’s a lot of work that goes into internal consultation to make sure that we’re really representing the core of the business. I’m not doing a great job describing it in depth but I can tell you that our creative director, Wilson Wong, is one of the best in the city (I will happily fight anyone who disagrees with me) so I’m always blown away by the brands he and the team create. We don’t always set up our branding clients with HubSpot and an inbound marketing program, but we’d like to. Marketing efforts are always more effective with a strong brand.

Do you have clients that come to you just for HubSpot implementation?
We’re always happy to work with existing HubSpot users as we’re a HubSpot partner agency but we don’t really do just software integration. The only exception to that being if a company has a strong internal marketing team and is looking for a partner in inbound strategy and software implementation. But by and large, it’s not something we really do often because without strong strategy and execution it’s just another marketing platform.

What are the biggest benefits you see of using HubSpot? HubSpot Sales? HubSpot Marketing? Etc.
If I remove the inbound methodology and strictly speak to HubSpot’s software, the two biggest benefits to the software are user lifecycle management and reporting. What I mean by user lifecycle management is having the ability to see every touch point that a person has with your brand on every platform. With HubSpot I can go into a contact record and see every page that person has viewed, every email of ours that they’ve opened, the links they clicked on in the email, their social interactions with us — everything. It makes it much easier to tailor their brand experience.

It also makes campaign reporting a dream because I can attribute efforts to deals closed. It’s nice to take some of the fluffiness out of marketing and tell a client that we assisted in getting them X dollars in revenue. For instance, you can look at a premium content offer and see how many deals it’s influenced.

How important is writing in your position? And what is the difference of writing for an advertisement vs a sales message like an email?
I strongly believe writing is important in every position. Good writing is how we give our teammates clarity on projects, help clients understand new concepts, and persuade new business to give us the time of day.

The primary difference between writing for an ad and writing a sales message is the level of personalization. Ads need to be tailored directly to the audience they’re intended for in choice of words, imagery, and overall message. It’s not too different from ad messaging except sales messaging needs to take that to the next level with hyper personalization. For sales messaging I do a lot of research on the individual I’m reaching out to and will often try to use video. No one wants to feel like they’re receiving the same email you sent out to 50 other people.  

When I talk to prospects, I always go back to the sales as dating analogy. The first call is just getting to know each other to see if we even want to continue the conversation, the second call is exploring more and seeing if we share values and goals. That dating metaphor holds true for sales writing. I can’t send every person I match with on Bumble the same tired, generic message or I would have some terrible dates. 

What kind of clients are your favourite to work with?
One of the things I love about working in an agency is getting to learn about all different types of industries and fields so I can’t pinpoint any particular vertical. I do love a start to finish overhaul though. Seeing a company through a brand refresh, a new website, and then a dedicated marketing program is always so exciting because the results are incredible. I’m a results person, I like to look at a project and say, “from these efforts we helped you grow your business by x.”

I also love clients that make you feel part of their internal team. Working with a group where I can really get to know the people, the product, and understand their entire business is a gratifying experience.

Most memorable project you’ve worked on?
One of our clients moved into a new office space. It was a pretty standard issue office, but they are a software company with a strong set of guiding principles and it just didn’t fit with their culture. We went in to meet with them on what they could do to make the office feel more in line with their values and ended up creating this fantastic, intricate mural type wall for their entire front area. I know I mentioned this earlier, but our creative director always blows my mind and it turned out better than we could’ve imagined. 

What qualities do you value most in your staff/clients/vendors/partners?
Responsive, collaborative, and engaged. I want clients to get excited about what we’re going to achieve together because when you’re working with a partner, you need to be fully involved. We do a lot of the leg work and often act as an organization’s marketing department, but ultimately our entire job is to enable companies to reach their growth goals. That’s a collaborative process because business goals are so much larger than just the marketing department. We need to know what’s going on so we can make sure that our efforts align with broader initiatives or happenings.

Who do you admire and why?
I really admire the women in my life. I never love using platitudes, but steel sharpens steel rings true for me. All of the female friends that I have, including yourself (Shannon), are women that push me to be better and strive to better themselves. They’re constantly seeking out ways to grow through education, feedback, collaboration— whatever that looks like. They call me on my bullshit and use the mistakes they make as learning opportunities. I think that’s pretty admirable.

But also, Tura Satana. We basically have the same name, I love old b-movies, and she kicks ass. Elvis once proposed to her and she said no but kept the ring. She learned martial arts just to track down her attackers and exact her revenge. I highly recommend Googling her.

What are the top books have you read lately?
I go through phases where I binge particular authors and read every book they’ve ever written. Anything by Roxane Gay I highly recommend, I always love Kurt Vonnegut for fiction, and right now I’m reading a professional development book called Never Split the Difference. It’s from a former FBI negotiator on how to improve your day to day negotiation skills. It’s surprisingly insightful and actionable.

What do you do for fun?
For some inexplicable reason I really enjoy working out— specifically weightlifting and CrossFit. I always feel dirty for mentioning it because it’s not terribly interesting, but it does occupy a lot of my free time. I’m currently learning Spanish, always reading a book, play a few instruments, and I never turn down invitations to cultural events. Plays, independent movies, interesting talks, or any other great, Calgary event is usually where you can find me.

What does the future hold for Santana?
That’s tough to say! Definitely still writing in some capacity, better fluency in Spanish, and continuously learning. Professionally, I just want to keep creating better results for my clients every year. It sounds like a cop out but saying yes to great opportunities as they come up has always done really well for me. 

Visit https://www.everbrave.ca/ or https://www.linkedin.com/in/santana-s-blanchette/ to learn more.