MDF

Once that MDF is in hand, how does one most seamlessly use those funds? The panelists said it’s about understanding and capitalizing on different demographics.

“You have to have the same marketing message, but it has to have minor tweaks so you’re hitting regional areas,” Roarty said. “Anybody knows that if you take a New Yorker and somebody from Dallas, you have different strategies.”

Michelle Ragusa-McBain, global partner sales leader at Cisco, argued that the content, the campaigns, the webinars, the podcasts, the education enablement and training all have to be different.

“The MDF dollars that Cisco funds cannot be the same. There’s no CIO with a 50-person marketing team to emulate,” Ragusa-McBain said. “So, looking at the bottom part of the pyramid is very unique for a company like Cisco and understanding that space. The different demographics and personas that you’re targeting are shifting dramatically.”