Drift co-founder and CTO Elias Torres shares the slides from a recent presentation he gave in San Francisco. After a decade of trying to automate and productize every area of marketing, Elias is on a mission to bring the customer back to the center of the marketing process. The secret? Making the buyer's journey as simple as possible by answering their questions in real-time.

1. Customer-Driven
Sales & Marketing
Elias Torres
Co-founder & CTO, Drift

2. Elias Torres
Drift Co-Founder & CTO
• VP of Engineering, HubSpot
NYSE: HUBS
• Co-Founder & CTO, Performable
Acquired by HubSpot
• VP of Engineering, Lookery
Acquired by Adknowledge
• Advanced Internet Technology
Group, IBM

3. The Marketing Software Landscape (2008)
+

4. •How do I get a website going?
•How do I rank higher in search?
•How do I generate business online?
Those are the types of questions marketers were asking back then.

5. Around this time, David Cancel and I
started Performable.

6. First we built the CMS.
We took everything we learned
from Sean Ellis around growth
hacking, A/B testing, calls-to-action,
getting your stuff above the fold,
etc. and began to productize it.
1. CMS

7. Next we built reporting & analytics.
1. CMS 2. Analytics

8. Then we added email & automation
1. CMS 2. Analytics
3. Email

9. At the time, the best growth hackers in SF
were saying:
“When someone signs up for your product,
you should send them a reminder email 3
days later if they haven’t activated.”
So we were like, “OK, let’s build a drip
campaign service.”
3. Email

10. Back then, you couldn’t do this stuff
without the help of a developer.

11. 1. CMS 2. Analytics
3. Email
And with these 3 products…

12. We got HubSpot’s attention.
+

13. 1. CMS 2. Analytics
3. Email
HubSpot said, “Come and build all this for us.”

14. And they said, “By the way, this is inbound marketing.”
“This is our philosophy.”

15. And we were like, “Cool. Let’s automate it.”
Gif source: Uberflip

16. So we built…
• Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons
• Landing pages
• Lead capture forms
• Thank you pages
• Conversion rate reporting
• A/B testing…

17. Voilà! That was HubSpot.

18. And in 2014…
NYSE: HUBS

19. However, we made a big mistake.
We became so focused on
automating everything we
saw in the marketplace…

20. …that we stopped thinking
about the customer.

21. We were so focused on being a
personal developer for marketers,
that we forgot about the end user.

22. As a result, this is the flow we’ve been
forcing buyers to go through:
land on website
SUBMIT
fill out form get nurturing email
get 2nd nurturing email
another nurturing email?!
talk to someone
(maybe)
schedule call
are you qualifed?become lead in CRM

23. It’s like we’re spending all this time and
energy getting people into our stores—
only to hand them forms to fill out before
we’ll talk to them or sell them anything.

24. And after we make
people fill out forms,
we follow up with them
when it’s convenient
for us.

25. << But this isn’t even
how people want to
talk to businesses
anymore.

26. The Rise of
1:1 Messaging
The 3 Waves of
1:1 Messaging Software
User Growth

27. (Source: Mary Meeker’s 2016 Internet Trends Report)
Today, 6/10 of
the world’s most
used apps are
messaging apps.

28. So why are so many companies still
selling like messaging doesn’t exist?
9 out of 10 consumers want to be able to talk to businesses via messaging
(source: Twilio)
9 out of 10 consumers want to be able
to talk to businesses via messaging.
Source: Twilio

29. So why aren’t we using messaging
to engage with leads while they’re
live on our websites?

30. We’re reinventing modern
marketing and sales software
using messaging so we can
capture and qualify leads in
real-time.
That’s how Drift got its start.

31. QUALIFYCAPTURE CONNECT
?
Visitor Lead Opportunity Customer
• Live chat replaces
forms
• Bots capture leads
even when you’re
offline
• Chat targeting let’s
you filter out the noise
• Conversational AI
replaces marketing
automation
• Bots ask leads
qualifying questions via
targeted campaigns
• Sales rep profile
pages replace
business cards
• Bots replace manual
meeting scheduling
• Intelligent routing
connects leads to the
right reps based on
sales territory
We have our own methodology: Real-Time Selling™

32. We’re focused on making the buying process as simple as possible.
Old Way New Way
Before Drift
Spammy
Complex
Low conversion rate
With Drift
Personal
Simple
2-3x conversion rate

33. With the old approach, all of your
leads have to hurry up and wait
(even the best ones).

34. At Drift, we think the best leads should be
taking the fast lane to your sales team.

35. 1. Bots can qualify leads
24/7, even while your
sales team is sleeping.
2. You can target only the
people that you want.
The best part: Bots do most of the work for you.

36. This means you can control the volume and quality
of leads you’re getting on your website.
Quality
(fewer leads)
Quantity
(more leads)
all leads
account-based
targeted
behaviorally
targeted
bot-qualified
firmographic
targeted
$
$$
$$$
$$$$

37. Guillaume Cabane
VP Growth, Segment
Meet Guillaume.
Quality
(fewer leads)
Quantity
(more leads)
all leads
account-based
targeted
behaviorally
targeted
bot-qualified
firmographic
targeted
$
$$
$$$
$$$$

38. Only 10%
get the “fast lane.”

39. If you’re not in
the top 10%,
you see…
nothing.

40. “Year-to-date, Drift has been the strongest
contributor to Segment’s growth in 2017.”
Guillaume doubled the number of qualified leads with Drift.
(All the sales reps now love Guillaume.)

41. Instead of forms and
follow-ups, you can use
bots to capture and
qualify leads while they’re
live on your website.

42. And you can use bots for scheduling
demos and meetings.

43. We’re removing complexity from the
buying process.

44. We’re putting the customer back at
the center of sales and marketing.

45. And it’s working!
“It’s the most productive thing
I’m doing in marketing.”
-Drift customer Tom Wentworth, RapidMinder CMO

46. Thank you!
Elias Torres
Drift Co-Founder & CTO
• Drift Profile: team.drift.com/elias
• Twitter: @eliast
• Email: elias@drift.com

47. Learn how Drift is reinventing modern marketing
and sales software using messaging.