Enterprise SaaS marketing beyond buzzwords and Boring2Boring with Julia Goelles @Parloa

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In episode #10 of season 5, Anna Nadeina talks with Julia Goelles, VP Marketing @Parloa, a conversational AI platform for customer service, and the founder of the Women of SaaS community.

Julia’s path to SaaS marketing is anything but conventional. Before diving into the tech world, she spent five years in the cultural and political sectors, including roles with the European Commission and the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York. This experience, she notes, gave her a valuable edge in enterprise sales and marketing, especially when navigating traditional institutional mindsets.

About a decade ago, Julia pivoted to tech, joining her first SaaS company in Berlin. Since then, she has accumulated over 12 years of experience across various SaaS companies, ranging from Berlin-based scaleups to large American software firms. For the past two and a half years, she has been leading marketing at Parloa, an AI-driven company focused on transforming customer service.

Enterprise vs. SMB Marketing: Debunking Common Myths

One of the key topics Julia explores is the difference between enterprise and smaller business (SMB) marketing. While it’s well-known that enterprise marketing involves a narrower target audience and longer sales cycles, Julia highlights a common misconception regarding inbound versus outbound marketing.

Contrary to some beliefs that enterprise SaaS marketing is primarily outbound, Julia explains that the reality is more nuanced. In established categories where the pain points are well understood, inbound marketing—leveraging SEO and content marketing—can be highly effective. However, in emerging fields like AI-driven customer service, where awareness is low, outbound marketing and proactive education are crucial.

Julia emphasizes the importance of working closely with sales teams and leveraging events to generate leads and build trust. She highlights that enterprise buyers require deep, trustworthy content throughout their journey due to the high stakes involved in software purchases for large organizations.

Defining Your Ideal Customer Profile and Finding Your Audience

For younger SaaS companies, Julia advises an iterative approach to identifying the ideal customer profile (ICP). Early on, it’s important to analyze patterns among successful customers and prospects to refine targeting criteria. She also recommends qualitative methods such as direct customer conversations to understand where prospects “hang out” and which events or channels are most valuable.

On the topic of events—a contentious topic due to their high cost and scalability challenges—Julia shares Parloa’s secret to success: meticulous preparation and alignment between marketing, sales, and business development teams. This preparation ensures a strong ROI and maximizes relationship-building opportunities, which are essential in enterprise marketing.

Partner Marketing: Leveraging Collaboration to Amplify Reach

Julia reveals that partner marketing is a cornerstone of Parloa’s go-to-market strategy. By collaborating with both regional and global partners—such as PwC, KPMG, and Microsoft—Parloa elevates its brand credibility and reaches new audiences. These partnerships allow smaller companies to benefit from the trust and visibility associated with larger brands.

Examples include participating in joint masterclasses, panels, and webinars with partners, which help tap into combined customer bases. Although partner marketing introduces complexity due to multiple stakeholders, Julia believes the benefits far outweigh the challenges when partners are carefully selected and aligned.

AI in SaaS Marketing and Branding: Balancing Buzz with Substance

Julia discusses the evolving role of AI in SaaS marketing. While AI is often viewed as a buzzword, especially in early-stage companies, she stresses that enterprises still demand clear value propositions and trustworthiness over hype. Parloa has been AI-driven from the start, focusing on educating customers and building trust around their AI technology rather than relying solely on AI branding.

She cautions against adding “AI” to a company name just for trendiness, as the technology will soon become commoditized—much like “digital” did years ago. Instead, companies should lead with customer pain points and value, while thoughtfully incorporating AI messaging to demonstrate innovation and expertise.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM): Strategic Engagement Over Buzzwords

Account-based marketing is another buzzword Julia tackles with a refreshing perspective. She prefers the term account-based engagement to emphasize that ABM is not just a marketing activity but a cross-functional effort involving sales, business development, and partnerships.

Julia advises that early-stage companies should approach ABM cautiously, often starting with broader targeting before narrowing down to “one-to-few” or “one-to-one” campaigns as they mature. Successful ABM requires tight alignment across teams, consistent messaging, and a shared target account list, making it a high-effort but potentially high-reward strategy.

Common Enterprise Marketing Mistakes: Avoiding the “Boring B2B” Trap

Julia points out a frequent pitfall in B2B marketing: the misconception that enterprise marketing must be dull and overly serious. Instead, she advocates for marketing that is relatable, engaging, and personable—reflecting that business buyers are people who consume content in their personal lives as well.

Building a distinctive brand that stands out and creates “brand love” is essential, even in serious enterprise contexts. Julia encourages marketers to infuse personality and fun where appropriate while maintaining trust and professionalism.

The Women of SaaS Community: Bridging the Gender Gap in Tech

Beyond her marketing expertise, Julia is passionate about diversity and inclusion in SaaS. She founded the Women of SaaS community two and a half years ago to address the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles and throughout the industry.

Starting with a small group in Berlin, the community has grown into a global network with hubs in cities like Milan, Paris, London, Amsterdam, New York, and San Francisco. The goal is to connect women across seniority levels and functions to foster mentorship, visibility, and career advancement.

Julia highlights the power of in-person networking events, which provide a rare space for women to build meaningful relationships, share experiences, and support each other’s growth. The community’s success is rooted in openness, collaboration with other SaaS networks, and empowering local leaders to run their own initiatives.

Challenges and Trends in Gender Representation

Julia acknowledges that structural challenges remain, particularly with women getting stuck in middle management and lacking visible role models in senior positions. Women of SaaS aims to create tangible role models by featuring approachable leaders in panels and interviews, demonstrating that leadership is achievable.

Looking ahead to 2025, the community’s theme is “bold moves,” encouraging women to leverage their networks, pursue career advancements, and embrace public speaking to build visibility and influence.

Julia’s Biggest Wins, Failures, and Personal Hacks

Julia’s proudest achievement is founding Women of SaaS and witnessing its impact on women’s careers, including inspiring two members to co-found a SaaS company together. When reflecting on failures, she emphasizes the importance of learning from mistakes, especially around trusting her own judgment rather than over-relying on others’ opinions in hiring and marketing decisions.

Her key personal hack is the philosophy of “better together.” Whether in marketing collaboration, sales alignment, or community building, Julia believes partnership and teamwork drive the best outcomes.