Career Growth Advice from Elaine Mah, Tech Marketing Leader | Career Tips for Women in Tech Marketing

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 27
Featuring Elaine Mah

Episode Title: #27 Career Podcast Featuring Elaine Mah, US Marketing B2B Strategist for Intel – Women In Tech

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Elaine Mah



Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you. Encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the conversation.

Hi there. Today's guest is Elaine Mah, a woman I have great respect and admiration for. She drives integrated and innovative B2B communication strategies for U.S. marketing at Intel and is an industry-leading content strategist. Among her many achievements, she is a frequent speaker at industry and government conferences and blogs on the importance of technology to the Canadian economy as well as on emerging trends. Elaine, thank you so much for being on the show. It's wonderful to have you here.

Elaine Mah (Guest): Thanks so much for having me, Mary.

Mary Killelea: Okay, so I've had the pleasure of working with you in a couple of different capacities while at Intel and I'm constantly learning from you. I'd love to hear about your career journey. I know we're going to talk about your role at Intel, but let's go back a little bit prior to that and tell me how you got started in the industry and what drew you to marketing.

Elaine Mah: Yeah, absolutely. So, it was scary to think about as we were getting ready for discussion today, but it's been, I'm on the cusp of 30 years as a marketer, which looking back, it doesn't seem like it's been that long. So, it's been a fun journey this whole time. So, time really has flown, but I started in marketing at just after university and it was with an outdoor advertising company. So that was my first foray into my professional marketing career.

Mary Killelea: Awesome. And then so from there, where did you go?

Elaine Mah: So, I've sort of sat on all sides of the table. I've done out of home advertising, I've done broadcast television, I've worked on the agency side and in addition to Intel, I've also worked at Deloitte. So a couple of client side opportunities. So really it's given me such a full rounded view of what it means to take a message to market.

Mary Killelea: So when you were younger, did you ever imagine you'd be working for a big corporation? Did you see that?

Elaine Mah: Yeah, not a million years did I envision working for a corporation that has hundreds of thousands of employees that sort of boggles the mind. I grew up in a mid-sized Canadian city and you know, my aspirations as I went through school and university were pretty modest. And so it's been interesting to find myself in this place now.

Mary Killelea: So let's talk about your roles that you've had at Intel and how long you've been there.

Elaine Mah: So I've been at Intel for 15 years now. I joined originally as the B2B marketing manager for Intel Canada. And so I was in that role for probably eight years. And then obviously there's a close synergy between the Canadian and US markets. And I found myself working in a highly integrated manner with the US marketing teams. And as marketing has evolved at Intel, I slowly found myself migrating into the US marketing group and about four years ago was fully working solely in US marketing.

Mary Killelea: So, what is it that you do? Explain to someone who's not familiar with the different sides of HQ marketing to field marketing and taking what HQ develops from the messaging and the tactics and your implementation of that?

Elaine Mah: Sure. It's a great question. So the way our marketing organization is set up is there is a central objective and strategy that is developed for Intel as a whole. And that objective and strategy is passed off to each country or region that will be executing on that. And it's up to each country or region to determine how best to deliver against that campaign objective and strategy. So the specific tactics and paths to market are at the discretion of the country so long as they are delivering against that objective.

Mary Killelea: So how do you determine the tactics to take your message to market?

Elaine Mah: It's not a solo venture by any means. So, it's a combination of working with segment leads who have a great deal of expertise in terms of who their audience segment is that we're trying to reach, whether it's a senior business decision maker or an IT operations specialist or a data architect, for instance. So really working with them to get that deeper understanding of that audience segment within our market. And then it's working with our agencies to really look at what are the options that are available to us to most effectively and cost efficiency in terms of reaching that audience segment. And working through all those variables allows us to net out at a plan to go to market to talk to that audience.

Mary Killelea: So in content marketing, there's so many different viewpoints on what the funnel is. There's either awareness, consideration, and persuasion or decision making, or you can add a couple different layers into that. It depends who you're talking to or what year it is and how they want to twist on that. So, when you look at taking your message to market, do you start with understanding the KPIs as far as your success metrics to define what content and how that goes through the funnel or walk me through some of the decisions around understanding kind of a content strategy?

Elaine Mah: Sure. KPIs are definitely part of it because at the end of the day, that's what we're going to be held accountable for when we report back to our stakeholders internally to be able to explain how we invested the marketing budget and what were the results. And so that is certainly first and foremost. But as you look at those KPIs, you also then have to look at the audience segment we're trying to reach and understand what's the gap between where they are and where we want them to be in order to hit that KPI. And so understanding that span helps to shape that content journey. What do we need to communicate? What is the story we need to tell? Where are they in the story? And then how much of the rest of the story do we need to communicate to them in order to help them understand the technology or understand the value of what that solution will mean to their business? And so it's really drawing that picture out so that we can see how the content fits in to fill out that story.

Mary Killelea: So you talk about storytelling. When you're dealing with something pretty technical, how do you make that a relatable or understanding or intriguing story at the different entry points of the funnel?

Elaine Mah: Fundamentally, there's always a narrative to be told. So even when we're dealing at a technical level, whether it's the introduction of a new generation of technology or whether it's a new application of existing technology, there is a narrative. And that narrative needs to be in the voice that our target audience will be accustomed to and positioned in a way that our audience will relate to. So if I have a new widget, why is this new widget going to be of interest or of value to this target segment? And so explaining its benefits to their business or explaining the improvements over what they might already be using. And that sounds pretty basic, like a marketing 101, what is the product and why do they want it? But being able to put it into context for why it would be important to them, important to their business. What would the benefit to the business be or how would it make them look better at their job if they were to be the one to introduce this technology into their organization? Finding the way to create that relevance and that resonance within that narrative is the content strategy.

Mary Killelea: Where do you find your target audience?

Elaine Mah: So the target audience, are you speaking in terms of defining them or where they live in the wild?

Mary Killelea: So you've defined them and you've got this whole persona built out and this profile and you know directly who you're writing your ads for. But now in the wild, how do you find them? And what various tools do you, not tools, because I don't want you to give all of your secrets, but you know like, sometimes I think and maybe it's because I'm a woman who loves marketing that it's somewhat hard sometimes to think as a IT ops person who's in the trenches dealing with technology every day. So where do you go to find them? How does your mind from a marketer work to find them?

Elaine Mah: So there are a couple of things that come to play there. In terms of where do we find them in a physical sense, certainly as I mentioned, you know we work with different agencies to help us find them through, so we can communicate to them through you know whether it's LinkedIn or through online advertising or things like that. But it's also important to look at tools like Dunn & Bradstreet which help us do segmentation targeting and they have a number of tools in their toolkit where you're able to define your audience by what they're interested in. So, if I'm going to be doing a content journey around hybrid cloud, then we're looking for individuals in IT, in large corporations that have through their behaviors online been able to demonstrate to us that they are interested in the topic of cloud just by virtue of where their footprints on the internet have demonstrated that to us. So, it sounds a little insidious, but we all leave digital footprints whether we like to admit it or not and no matter how assiduously we scrub our cookies. But so there are tools like that that help us to get in front of the audience.

And then other tools that I would love to do more of but the opportunity to do testing or focus groups so we can actually hear directly from our desired audience so that you have a better understanding for how they speak to one another and how they like to be spoken to and what do they see as just puffery and what do they actually see as being of value. So when you have those opportunities to learn directly from them, it helps you as a marketer no matter your gender or your role. If you can find a way to put yourself into their shoes, it makes your messaging more powerful.

Mary Killelea: So we've touched on so many great things related to marketing and your role. So, what of those things if you had to pick your favorite? I don't know if that's even, I guess what do you love about marketing?

Elaine Mah: I love that there really is rarely two of the same day. It's always something interesting, different, unexpected, coming down the road at you where it's like oh, we're doing that okay. So that always keeps me on my toes. It keeps things from getting boring or it keeps me from getting complacent, and certainly doing marketing for a technology company where every six months our product is obsolete because we've developed something new also keeps things from getting dull because you're constantly in learning mode in order to be able to effectively speak to your technology or solution.

Mary Killelea: How would you say marketing has changed in the past five years and where do you see it going?

Elaine Mah: Oh my gosh, I would say the biggest change are in the tools that help us to deliver against our job. I said right off the top that marketing is storytelling so fundamentally that hasn't changed but how and where we tell the story, goodness, it certainly doesn't look remotely like it did 30 years ago in terms of our ability to find really niche and distinct places and formats where we can deliver our story in a hyper-targeted fashion. And so, I think it keeps the again it keeps the job interesting because you're constantly now having to learn about new platforms on which to deliver a message and new formats that live on those platforms to deliver a message. If you think about TikTok three years ago no one was thinking about TikTok as a platform, and now everybody is trying to figure out how do we approach this platform in an authentic way to talk to our audience if that's where they spend their time. Similarly, some of the tried and true formats like the daily paper while it is certainly having some challenging times it still hasn't gone away and continues to be a format that's highly effective for certain businesses. So, I think of marketing roots to market sort of like a soccer pitch and the whole pitch is your field of play for how to go to market with my message and now there's just a whole lot more players on that field that you have to navigate through and with and how does everybody play together to be a really effective team for your particular message.

Mary Killelea: That's funny that you mentioned TikTok, because I literally have been just going down the rabbit hole of watching TikToks. And with my age I feel a little bit like out of place, if you will, but at the same time I'm thoroughly entertained by the creativity and looking at it from a marketing lens and seeing how are businesses using this tool to get their word out and their brand out. Because businesses are out there doing it, they're just doing it more subtly and they're doing it through creative ways that the teenagers or the younger demographic don't find intrusive or objective you know. So what type of things do you do to stay up on the trends?

Elaine Mah: I don't think I have a particular go-to certainly I would love to actually attend more conferences or seminars, because that's where you have the opportunity to be presented with the unexpected. It's one thing to have an in-service with a media partner where it's like oh, okay I'm going to learn the latest thing about what's happening on Facebook, or I'm going to you know hear what another company is up to, or here's a new opportunity and they're going to come in and try to sell me on it. But when you go to an industry workshop or things like that, you're bound to hear new ideas or new solutions that you weren't even aware of, didn't land on your radar at all, and suddenly it sparks a whole different way of thinking or it sparks that possibility thinking of oh well, now that I know about that what can I do with this. A couple of years ago I was talking to somebody and they mentioned they're using UberFlip, and I'm like tell me about UberFlip, and they're like oh yeah it's a great plugin we've got it on our website, and now people can go in and I believe their expression was they can self-binge on your content similarly to how people go on Netflix and they start to binge on content. It's like oh, if you liked that, you might like this, and then they start going down that rabbit hole. But in this case, it's on your content and so I was like oh and the mind starts to spin, and you start to get ideas and it just allows for new synapses to start firing about what could I do with that. So I love that.

Mary Killelea: That's what it is. It's like being an entrepreneur, having that mind where it never shuts off and you're constantly thinking like could I add that to my toolbox and how could I use that in my toolbox. How important is strategy versus tactics in your role and what do you think someone can do to sharpen their strategic thinking?

Elaine Mah: Strategy is definitely a key piece to the role. Tactics are just a to-do list in a very crude sense. Like here's what I have to do, check, check, check, check, check. But the strategic part of it is to really be able to pull yourself out from what is the day-to-day of what we're trying to accomplish and there's a need to be able to see the bigger picture of where are we ultimately trying to go as an organization. You’re trying to see beyond what is just happening this quarter and what is happening, it's not about how many boxes can I move of a certain product. It’s about what are we trying to position and where are we trying to get to six months, 12 months, 24 months from here, and what does that look like and what do we need to do to set ourselves up for the next step of that journey. And so it does take bigger picture thinking.

Mary Killelea: What would you tell someone who doesn't feel their strength is strategy, yet they want to be a strategist? Is there something that they could work on?

Elaine Mah: I was talking to a girl that I've started mentoring and we were having a bit of a discussion around strategic thinking and trying to apply more strategy to her role which is still pretty tactical in terms of what her responsibilities are. And so I had suggested to her to think about why. Why is it we're doing this? And what are the larger business implications to this if it goes well or if it doesn't go well? And what other groups or what other teams do these decisions or results impact? So trying to think beyond the edges of your own desk is where I would start, and it's not necessarily that you're going to have to put together a strategic brief next week. But if you have a trusted person that you can turn to within your team, or if you can find a mentor to work with so that you can start to bounce off them well. So this was happening in my organization, and I think this is what it means to the bigger picture. Am I on the right track? And so being able to do that and have a safe place to be told you're on the right track or no, but you're close. Maybe think about it this way and helping to frame the thinking. I think is a good place to start. To exercise that strategic muscle.

Mary Killelea: That is such good advice. I was going to say that you work your muscle, you work your muscle to think in those terms, to ask those questions, and then it becomes somewhat second nature. And then you start to look at things more broadly. What's been your best piece of career advice that you've received over the years?

Elaine Mah: Probably the best piece of advice that I've received is no matter how much you love the work that you do, you still need time to disconnect and recharge. And so, when you're off, you're off, otherwise you'll burn yourself out and then you're no good. That's been something that I've been trying to be very mindful of, especially in our current work environment where it's so easy, you're working at home, you're constantly with your laptop. And it's easy to get sucked into the gravitational pull of your inbox and say oh, I'm just going to clean this up a little bit, and then three hours later it's like oh, okay. So being able to shut your lid or turn off your phone, which I know seems like sacrilege to some, but that that capacity to unplug and walk away from it so you your brain can stop and refresh I think is so important. And to be respectful of others in your group if you're a manager, if you have others reporting into you, to be respectful of when they are off that you leave them to be off because if you don't let them recharge, then they're not bringing back to the group what they need to. So that was really sound advice that I received.

Mary Killelea: That's wonderful. So, you've worked at intel for the past 15 years. What motivates you to stay at a big corporation?

Elaine Mah: Part of what keeps Intel really fascinating to me is the ongoing relentless pace of change and seeing where we're going next I find fascinating. Certainly the intel of today is not the intel of 15 years ago, so that to me I've always said I have this inner geek that just loves the fact that I'm working at Intel whether I knew it or not when I was 10, so this this is awesome. But the other part of Intel that keeps me here is as much as we say we're a large corporation of a hundred thousand people, it's the teams that you work with day in day out that that are your work family. And the people that I work with are and this is not just because they're going to hear this, but they are super smart and they are super fun which makes all the difference. And certainly I know I have, I don't know if you have, Mary, but we've had jobs where it's been like this is not gonna fulfill me forever, but this is good for me right now.

Mary Killelea: Right.

Elaine Mah: And then you've moved on, but this has been fulfilling for me for the last 15 years and continues to fulfill me.

Mary Killelea: That's great. What would you tell your 20 year old self?

Elaine Mah: I would tell my 20 year old self that that her voice has weight and her opinions have merit, and that she should be open to having her thoughts heard by others. I still struggle with that. There's been people who point out that, especially when we're in the forming stages of working through a new challenge or a new opportunity, that I'm very quiet because I'm always just listening to take everything in. And they go but boy once you start opening your mouth, once you ask that first question, or you start throwing stuff on the whiteboard. But it still takes me that ramp, to the point where okay I'm ready to own my voice, and I think having that confidence is something I continue to work on to this day. And so if I could tell my 20 year old self to force it a little sooner, I think that would be the best piece of advice

Mary Killelea: We’re very much alike in that way. I think because I am more of an observer and I always think that your work should be your microphone, if you will. You should be judged on your work, not if you're the loudest voice in the room. I think and I'd love to get your perspective on this. COVID has forced people to be creative in how they are listening to their teams more. So I've been in um a team meeting where we did this white virtual whiteboard exercise, and I was like this is so good to give people on your staff an opportunity to be inputters without putting them outside their comfort zone of having to be raise their hand and talk in front of a group or be outside their comfort zone. So, I think it's really creative how COVID has forced leadership and managers to tap into input from their team, because on their team they're not all introverts, they're not all extroverts. I don't know what your thoughts are on that.

Elaine Mah: I would agree with you that. Having this new work set up for everybody has changed the dynamic, so that there is that opportunity for voices to be heard instead of being talked over. And I think especially the good the good managers are ae making sure that everybody has the opportunity to be heard. So I have noticed a shift in how meetings are being executed. And particularly because I am often dialing in remotely, in the pre-COVID in the before time, I was often the one dialing in to a room. And so that is when it's particularly difficult to make sure that you're heard, and being vocal and being a little, you have to be a little obnoxious to make sure you break through the room. And the noise in the room and so when everybody's dialing in over a headset, that makes it a much more equal space. And so I think that has allowed for more people to participate.

Mary Killelea: I agree. What does to be bolder mean to you?

Elaine Mah: it's about being confident in what you bring. In part what we were just saying about your voice having value, your opinions having merit, that's part of it. But it's the package of who you are and your set of experiences, your ideas, your opinions. Being able to channel that so that you're imprinting that on what your work product is, on your relationships, whether they're professional or personal. I think being confident in what you bring to that is about is what to be bolder is about.

Mary Killelea: That’s awesome. You mentioned you mentor someone. Is that something that you have done personally? Are you a part of an organization? Or what drew you to being a mentor?

Elaine Mah: Yeah, it's something that I've done professionally and also personally. The current mentee that I have is actually through a women in communications and technology group here in Canada. And so they have a national mentorship program where they pair up people, I'm not going to call them senior, because that's not fair to myself. But women who are more experienced in the industry with people who are still trying to get their footing and establish really where they want to go with their careers. It’s a one-year commitment to work with this person in whatever facet they're looking to receive guidance and so it's been it's been really fulfilling, and really just a lot of fun because it's an opportunity to a) not think about myself right and really focus on someone else who is in a really exciting stage of their career. If I think back to myself at this person's age, she's just in her early 30s, and I think about what I was doing at the time or where I thought I was going to where I am now, I could not have drawn this map. So yeah, I really enjoy it.

Mary Killelea: Wonderful. Have you had mentors over your work career and how have they inspired you?

Elaine Mah: I have had mentors and whether they realize how they've inspired me and I've tried to let them know how meaningful they have been to me. But yeah they've been inspiring in terms of how they role model. What do they say? It's not just talk the talk, right? So they've been amazing role models to me, they have been amazing facilitators, they have been amazing champions. They've been people who have also had my back both when I needed them to have my back, but also when I didn't realize they had my back and I find out many moons later what they were doing behind the scenes on my behalf, and it's like wow that's amazing to have that. To know that there was somebody in my corner like that and helping me get to where I am today, and so if there's a way to pay that forward I'm all in.

Mary Killelea: I love it, I love it. What's next for you? I mean where do you see yourself three to five years from now?

Elaine Mah: Oh gosh, I'll still be doing marketing. That's not going to change, but the interesting thing about where we are and the organization we work with is that it could be a completely different role certainly. When I said to you four years ago when I started this content marketing role, it was not somewhere I envisioned going, but certainly that's where I've landed and with the pace of change for the marketing tactics and for the way we need to communicate with our audiences now, in four years there could be another marketing role that didn't exist today.

Mary Killelea: Right.

Elaine Mah: And that could be a new opportunity, a new empty box to leap into which I would be excited to take on. If I'm fortunate, I would like to still be at Intel. As I said, it's been a fascinating and fun organization to work for. I love the innovation, my inner geek is so happy. So yeah, that's not a riveting answer, but it's the one I've got for you.

Mary Killelea: Well, no. I think it's a fabulous answer and I think that was supposed to be my last question, but of course it spurred another question. Part of when I hear you talk, and especially being in technology business, adaptability is such a key skill that someone has to have. What are some of the other key skills you think are important for someone to be successful in a marketing role in a technology company?

Elaine Mah: Adaptability for sure. I think you have to be extremely open-minded and if you're a lateral thinker, great. If you can find ways to grow your strength as a lateral thinker, better. Because there is rarely a direct route between a to b, it can go all over the place. And so to be open to where that meandering journey may take you and the unexpected things that may come at you that you're going to need to address or deflect depending. And again, you have to be adaptable. Some things you need to catch, some things you need to bat. So I think all of those are important. And I think that actually applies to many roles these days. That need to um be a little less rigid and a little less set in your ways because there is nothing certain, there is nothing that is set in stone anymore. Everything is up for complete renewal or complete reinvention at any given moment.

Mary Killelea: Oh, Elaine I've enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you for being on the show. If someone wanted to reach out and contact you, how would they do that?

Elaine Mah: You can find my profile on LinkedIn and I would love to hear from them.

Mary Killelea: Thank you for being on the show today

Elaine Mah: Thanks Mary. This was fun.

Mary Killelea: Thanks for listening to the episode today it was really fun chatting with my guest if you liked our show please like it and share it with your friends if you want to learn what we're up to please go check out our website at to be bolder.com that's the number two little b bolder.com you