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Live Blog: The Virtual Engagement Bootcamp

May 3, 2017
By admin

Live Blog Updates

Hey everyone! Asia here!

Keep checking back to this blog post for live updates of the Bootcamp! It’s going to be a Funnel Flippin’ day!

11:00 AM – Five Key Insights from the 2017 State of Account-Based Marketing Survey

Sangram Vajre kicked us off with a look into the #FlipMyFunnel mission which is the first time #FlipMyFunnel has ever published it:

 

 

“It’s time to flip funnels, and the way to flip it is with the stages: Identify, Expand, Engage, Advocate, and Measure.”

Biggest Takeaways from the 2017 State of Account-Based Marketing:

  • Everyone’s talking about how “hot” account-based marketing is, and now everyone’s trying to dip their toes in it.
  • The report shows how this has changed in such a short time.
  • More and more CMOs are getting held to a revenue number; it’s not just blind demand generation anymore.
  • We have to ask ourselves if we actually drive pipeline.
  • If you’re not doing ABM as a marketer, it’s going to be tough to show how marketing is helping drive the pipeline
  • There’s a lot of people doing ABM, but we’re just now digging deeper into what it actually means to do ABM

Sangram also discussed how important sales and marketing alignment is to the entire funnel – let alone whether or not it is flipped. As the report shows, we’re glad to see that the vast majority have some sort of alignment, but being fully aligned still has a ways to go:

 

One big nugget marketing isn’t the only one doing account-based marketing (that’s obvious), but their job is to be the quarterback and help the customer success team and the sales team. They don’t have to create the plan by themselves, but they should own it.

 

11:30 AM – 3 Ways to Get Started with ABM Campaigns

Andre Yee, CEO and Co-Founder of Triblio, joined us and laid it all down with us on how to get started with ABM – especially at scale.

Biggest Takeaways:

  • Honor the buyer experience by engaging them the way they to be engaged – to most compelling reason to do ABM
  • Most common question: how to get started with ABM
  • The starting point for a lot of marketers is thinking about account-based, but for leads! Think top-of-the-funnel tactics
    • Getting lift alone is nice, but eventually should look at more in-depth account-based marketing.
    • Can see improvement in quite a short amount of time
    • It’s simple – no need to rework the existing leads funnel; easy to measure
    • Drawback: it’s “ABM lite”; it’s still inefficient
  • Next step could be to identify the higher potential accounts – create an alternative funnel for the more strategic accounts
    • Has separate ROI measures than the regular funnel, has separate metrics
    • The challenge here is managing both sets of leads metrics as well as new engagement metrics
    • The benefit is that you’re managing the program risk and you have the opp to shape the buying experience
    • The big drawback? It takes time… as much as 18 months to prove value.
  • Lastly, the Full-Blown Account-Based Marketing Program:
    • It can scale to 1000s of accounts
    • Delivering personalized and relevant messaging; need to be consistent in how you message to a particular account segment
    • Engage the buyer appropriately here – can get extra personal
  • The 5 Steps:
    • Define the Ideal Customer Profile & Create Target Account Segments
    • Set Measurable Goals & Outcomes for Each Account Segment
    • Audit & Assess Systems & Data for Each Account Segment
    • Develop Multichannel Campaigns to Engage Stakeholders
    • Measure Results and Optimize Campaigns

Question: ABM has been around for a while. What are the things that have changed?

There’s two things: the data, and the fact that ABM has always been aspirational. Everyone wants to personalize everything they do, but when they actually get into it, it’s expensive to do the 1-1 account targeting. With platforms like Terminus, Engagio, and the others that have popped up, we’re seeing that ABM can be done at scale.

 

12:01 PM – 5 Biggest Mistakes Account-Based Marketers Make and How to Avoid Them

Anastasia Pavlova, Sr. Director of Marketing of Marketo, has been leading account-based marketing efforts for the last 3 years. She’s going to share what she’s learned:

 

Mistake #1: Running ABM In a Silo.

It requires a whole organizational focus to get this done right. The siloes hinder account-based marketing success.

Literally every team needs to work together. It’s important to establish goals and metrics. Truly collaborative process means discussing core goals, collaborating, and tons of communication.

Invest heavily in sales alignment and training. Solicit their help.

 

Mistake #2: Not having an Account-Selection Process

If you get it right, AWESOME. If not – could end up wasting a lot of time and money.

If you’re going after 100s of accounts, you need a repeatable, unbiased, and scalable approach.

  • Build an account-scoring model.
  • Develop an ideal customer profile – and prioritize those accounts in your different tiers.

Mistake #3: Not Engaging Across Channels

If you’re not doing this, you’re not creating something that’s scalable. But the catch? It has to be on their terms where they are.

Consider all of the channels you have at your disposal.

 

Mistake #4: Ignoring Personalization

Part of being engaging with a target account is being relevant – so you have to create a certain level of relevance where they are on their terms!

Consider the oldest variables for segmentation – geography, type, industry, tech stack, behavior, etc. You can personalize the experience for target accounts, and it doesn’t have to be incredibly hard core to be effective.

 

Mistake #5: Measuring the Wrong Metrics

Broad-based marketing metrics don’t really work for measuring the effectiveness for account-based marketing.

Lead-scoring model has been completely updated at Marketo.

In the new ABM world, everyone is focusing on getting opportunities from target accounts as a team. It used to be “did Marketing source this? Who sourced this?”

It’s not all about First Touch anymore – so we have to start looking at multi-touch attribution models.

 

12:32 PM – Let’s Get Cookin’: How to Bake ABM into Your Full Funnel Marketing Plan

Sydney Bonar, ABM Programs Manager at BrightFunnel, will show you how to properly plan, execute and measure an account-based program for the highest success!

Let’s start with the results:

 

Biggest Takeaways:

  • Start with your target list, and get cross-functional approval
  • Create an integrated ABM plan – but have fun. You’re going to engage target accounts and create “door openers”.
    • Campaign: send target accounts a direct mail door opener, which in this case.. cookies!
    • Got major ROI from this campaign
    • Measurement: Look at opportunity touches and accelerating the account
  • Use social media as a simple way to engage your target accounts
    • Campaign: Upload a list of your target accounts to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter
    • Segment and tailor the message across the lists
    • Customize the incentive, too.
    • Measurement: measure the lead touches and opportunity touches to your list of target accounts
  • Content is also possible to personalize and offer as a marketing campaign
    • Campaign: send target accounts a personalized resource center that could be specific to that person per their account

https://twitter.com/BCMike22/status/859810208784285696

 

1:09 PM – Battle-tested ABM Plays that Drive Engagement

Sara Tatnall, Director of Marketing at PFL, is going to dive into three ABM plays that she’s used, PFL has used, and has proven effectiveness.

Play #1: Land a Large Group Accounts

For the big whales, create a bold campaign that applies to many accounts. Create a one-size-fits-many. You’ll be personalizing at an industry-level rather than a specific conversation.

Don’t rush the list-building process: your campaign will absolutely fail.

Focus on pain points that are common to your audience. It pays to go bold.

https://twitter.com/BCMike22/status/859819900780646400

 

Play #2: Land and Expand

This play is for the big whale – the Moby Dick, if you will.

There were higher-quality, more premium mailers to the account, targeted ads that generated the air cover, and a string of events that continues to expand touchpoints and engagements in the account.

In the below example, PFL sent a popcorn machine to a whale account, and that got everyone in the whole office talking.

 

Play #3: Warm up Contacts

Start with a tactile send, and use different pieces for different personas.

 

Question: What’s the biggest direct-mail fail?

Just sending fun stuff without making a connection to you or the prospect.

 

1:34 PM – Expanding Your Reach in Target Accounts

Stephanie Kelly, Director of Account-Based Marketing at Terminus, and Tonni Bennett, VP of Sales at Terminus, take the virtual stage during the Virtual Engagement Bootcamp.

Biggest Takeaways:

  • Involve more of the stakeholders – especially ones who are new to ABM
  • Demand generation is all about how we create conversations between the company and the prospect
  • From the beginning, marketing starts the process with ads. It’s all about warming up the account
  • Next is retargeting – LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter has messaging targeted to the accountIt’s all about creating a reason for people to open up the package
  • It’s hard to just send someone off to “personalize” the conversation; there’s a lot of training for both SDRs and Marketing on how to personalize and what’s compelling and what’s not
  • Smarketing = sales and marketing combined!
  • We’re looking at late stage, middle stage, and early stage opportunities and the channels and the touchpoints for each
  • Marketing touchpoints are typically ads, event-related emails, and special opportunities to engage, and this changes depending on where the account is in the pipeline

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Sample Campaign from Terminus

 

2:02 PM – 5 Ways to Engage Target Accounts with ABM Orchestration

Heidi Bullock – the CMO of Engagio – gives us a really practical presentation on how to engaging target accounts, leveraging the data you have across your systems, and how to leverage the ABM metrics.

The Old Approach vs. The New Approach

 

#1 – Set Goals

A lot of companies don’t really set goals. You shouldn’t do ABM just because it’s buzzy (much like when everyone jumped on inbound marketing). You should do it because there’s something you want to accomplish.

#2 – Identify / Refresh Target Accounts

When building your list of target accounts, knowing which characteristics to choose is going to be paramount to success. Look at:

  • Key verticals
  • Historical data where you have seen success
  • Firmographics
  • Other signals; intent data, hiring patterns, etc.

#3 – Set up Data-Related Processes

With data and account-based marketing, it’s never been more important to have a process for the data. WHO owns the data and the process? Also – have a budget line item for management tools.

The 5 Elements for Success

  • Engagement is the goal, not the tactic
    • If someone is spending time with you, they’re engaged
  • Create the Playbook for Account Success
    • Players – Who
    • Touches – How
    • Channels – Where
    • Timing – When
    • Content – What
  • The Content
    • There’s a personalization spectrum where you’re personalizing key content
    • There’s still a journey with content. It has to map to the overall customer journey
  • Know thy buyer!
  • Research, Test, and Do Mini-Pilots!
    • Mini campaigns / pilots will help a ton with getting everyone on board when Sales and Marketing can see quick wins
  • Account-Based Metrics are Different
    • Focus on quality, not quantity
    • Track accounts, not leads
    • Get away from “credit” – it’s about marketing and sales working together

2:38 PM – The New Rules for Sales Development in an Account-Based World

Next we have Matt Amundson, Vice President of Sales Development and Field Marketing at EverString!

Biggest Takeaways:

  1. Sales Development is a part of marketing
    • Instead of thinking of them as separate, it’s better to think of them together.
  2. Use AI to do the heavy lifting
    • You can use platforms to help you pick the best companies to go after.
  3. Be a Human Being
    • You want to have processes and you want to build them to scale, but at a certain point, it can feel really unhuman
  4. Be Personal …. But Be Relevant
    • Start in LinkedIn; for others, Twitter might be the better source
    • “Your Experience at X Company and Y Company”
    • “[/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][First Name], Your Team is Amazing at [Skill]”
  5. Bring it Together With Structure
    • Personalization –> Relevancy –> Product Pitch –> Call To Action
    • WYWYN – Why You, Why You Now?
  6. Use Every Channel for Max Results
    1. When you just send email, you get 2% response rate
    2. When you layer social, that jumps to 10%
    3. Email, social, and phone jumps to 17% response rate
  7. Try New Tactics
  8. Don’t Bench Brady
    1. Some companies don’t bring out their best player until the fourth quarter (or late in the campaign) which isn’t the best idea. aka – don’t bring out your CMO or CEO or high-profile exec late in the game. Bring them out NOW.

On being human..

 

 

 

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