Spearheading marketing efforts at the world’s largest survey company: Leela Srinivasan, CMO of SurveyMonkey

Every corporation engaged in selling products or providing services needs information on market demand. Knowledge about what the customers prefer is vital for the success or failure of companies. A good way to collect data about customer preferences is by carrying out surveys. Before the popularity of the internet, surveys had to be conducted physically, by distributing flyers, going door to door, visiting commercial places and so on. However, the internet has proven to be an amazing platform to conduct comprehensive surveys about topics ranging from which brand of apparel is better, who should be president to which restaurant is the best. Any corporation or emerging business involved in any sector can conduct surveys to know about current markets and carry out their operations accordingly.

SurveyMonkey is a company that provides online surveys in addition to providing software services that can be hosted from the cloud. It provides individuals and companies with simple facilities to design online surveys and for whatever product or service that they plan to launch and collect vital information to know more about their potential customers. What previously took months now requires only a few days.

The company was founded with a view to bridge the gap between what marketers know and what they need to know. In addition to helping companies find out what customers want, the online surveys provided by SurveyMonkey also allows advertisers as well as top-level management to know if their campaigns are working. Advertising is one of the most fundamental aspects of marketing and knowing if a company’s advertisements, whether on television, newspaper or online have grabbed the attention of the desired audience is paramount.

While some companies create products, others set out to create brands. Creating a brand involves making a name stick in the minds of potential customers. Unlike a standalone product, a brand name is synonymous with something. However, creating a brand requires more than just a good product; it needs marketing strategies that manage to captivate enough number of people so as to let the name market itself. Tracking the popularity of a brand name is something that all companies need to do and SurveyMonkey provides the right kind of tools for knowing the general perception of a brand. It allows corporations to adjust their marketing campaigns accordingly and improve the value of their brands.

SurveyMonkey is first and foremost, a tool for marketing, and has been guided in its journey by the able hand of Leela Srinivasan, its Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).

Leela joined SurveyMonkey in April 2018 and leads all marketing functions including brand strategy, growth marketing, and communications. Previously, she served as Chief Marketing Officer at Lever where she was responsible for all aspects of marketing and partnered with the People team on employer branding initiatives. Prior to that, Leela served as VP of marketing at OpenTable, where she built product marketing from scratch and established the foundations of a B2B marketing team. Additionally, Leela was a marketing leader at LinkedIn where she ran LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions business and co-founded the Talent Connect conference. She also spent three years in management consulting at Bain & Company, and five years in sales. Leela earned her MBA in general management from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and her MA in history and English literature from the University of Edinburgh in her native Scotland.

Srinivasan states that she had been fortunate enough to work in companies that were supportive of women in leadership. Working as an account executive after college, a chance meeting with her company’s Vice President of Sales opened up newer avenues for Leela and she ended up working in a position where could manage people, i.e. sales management. This taught her to be vocal about her aspirations and expectations in her company and advises others to be the same.

A CMO leads all the marketing efforts in a company and it goes without saying that the position requires someone who knows how the markets work. This fact is truer in a company like SurveyMonkey, which allows other corporations to carry out their own market research and test their brands in a rapidly evolving market.

“98% of the Fortune 500 companies rely on SurveyMonkey for People Powered Data.”