In this episode of Demand Gen Studio, we explore the role of infrastructure in demand generation and marketing success with Harmony Anderson, VP of Growth and Marketing at Superhuman.
We discussed the critical influence of operations on marketing, the necessity of early infrastructure investment, and the challenges of building customer-centric organizations. Harmony also highlighted the impact of AI on customer success and the evolving role of brand in marketing strategy. Hope you enjoy!
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Harmony’s career journey is marked by her passion for driving growth and scaling innovative companies. Now serving as VP of Growth and Marketing at Superhuman, an AI-native email productivity app recently acquired by Grammarly, Harmony leads a wide-reaching team spanning product marketing, demand generation, revenue operations, customer community, and growth product.
With prior experience leading global demand and revenue marketing at Outreach and ThousandEyes, she has built her career around helping startups scale from $20M to $200M and beyond. Her focus on demand generation, growth loops, and end-to-end revenue strategy reflects her expertise in experimentation and optimization.
The Importance of Infrastructure in Marketing
Harmony explained that marketing success isn’t just about creatives and ad copy, it’s about having the right infrastructure in place to support growth.
She believes operations can truly make or break demand generation, because without strong systems to manage leads, even the best campaigns and ICP definitions will eventually collapse.
Too often, companies delay investing in marketing operations until after they hit $20 million in revenue, relying on spreadsheets and quick fixes to get by in the early stages. But Harmony warns that waiting too long only makes it harder to rebuild later, especially as inbound leads, sales activity, and marketing spend grow.
Without solid infrastructure, teams lose visibility, tracking, and valuable leads. Building scalable operations early isn’t optional, it’s the foundation for sustainable growth.
Customer-Centric Growth Strategies
True growth starts with putting customers at the center of your marketing strategy. Harmony emphasized that too many companies claim to be customer-centric but stop short at retention or chasing new business.
At Superhuman, she’s seen what it looks like when customer feedback and success are genuinely prioritized: 80% of their growth and revenue comes directly from customer referrals and product innovations inspired by user needs.
By digging into data to identify “gold mines” within the funnel, Harmony shared how growth can come from nurturing existing customers just as much as acquiring new ones.
For her, the most effective growth strategies are built on listening to customers, acting on their feedback, and creating experiences that naturally inspire them to share and expand within their networks.
The Role of AI in Customer Success
Harmony sees AI as a game-changer for customer success, especially in a world where consumers now expect 100% personalized experiences.
Whether in B2B or B2C, customers want interactions that feel one-to-one—where companies understand their needs, preferences, and feedback instantly. For Harmony, AI is the only way to deliver this kind of personalization at scale, since businesses can’t simply keep adding more people every time they grow.
At Superhuman, her team has already begun integrating AI across sales and customer success: tools like AI-powered SDRs and Zendesk AI help manage the thousands of support requests they receive, filtering which ones need a human touch and which can be resolved instantly with AI.
Harmony believes this balance between human and AI-driven engagement is what will define the future of customer success.
For companies looking to apply AI in customer success, the key is to start by automating the high-volume, repetitive interactions that don’t always require a human. By integrating AI into help desks, knowledge bases, and chat systems, businesses can provide instant, accurate answers while freeing up customer success teams to focus on complex issues and relationship-building.
Layering AI on top of existing systems also helps capture and analyze customer feedback at scale, turning every interaction into insights that can guide product improvements and new growth opportunities.
The Role of Brand in Marketing
For much of her career, Harmony admitted she didn’t think much about brand. Her focus was on demand generation, numbers, and measurable growth.
But leading end-to-end marketing at Superhuman has completely shifted her perspective. She’s seen firsthand how a strong brand can fuel demand more effectively than any campaign, reducing the need for heavy spending while amplifying impact.
Today, Harmony believes brand is becoming central to growth strategies, especially as influencer marketing and creator-led campaigns emerge as some of the fastest-growing channels.
In her view, companies can’t win in those spaces without both a strong product and a compelling brand story for people to share. Brand marketing has become a critical driver of sustainable, scalable growth.
Product Marketing and Market Understanding
Product marketing is no longer just about promotion, it’s about shaping the product itself through a deep understanding of the market.
At Superhuman, Harmony and her team work closely with the product teams to ensure features align with business goals, often pushing for roadmap priorities based on what they see in customer behavior and demand.
She believes marketers must play a central role in product decisions, especially as SaaS categories mature.
In today’s crowded markets, technical capability alone isn’t enough; companies need a sharp view of their ICP, the moments that trigger customer action, and where their product sits within broader category adoption.
Harmony believes that success comes from honesty about where you are in your market journey. Whether you’re disrupting an existing category, riding the wave of a new one, or trying to educate buyers in an emerging space like AI. For her, the fusion of market insight, product alignment, and precise audience definition is what makes product marketing truly powerful.
Conclusion
Harmony’s perspective reflects a powerful shift in modern marketing: growth isn’t just about running campaigns, it’s about building the right foundations, aligning with product and sales, and putting customers at the center of every decision.
From leveraging infrastructure early, to using AI for scalable personalization, to recognizing brand as a true driver of demand, her journey shows that marketers today must be both builders and storytellers.
Sustainable growth comes when companies know exactly who they’re building for and create strategies that connect customer needs with business outcomes.
Interested in learning more? Check out the rest of the episodes of Demand Gen Studio. We discuss marketing and demand generation topics, with inspiring interviews with thought leaders. See you next time!
