sponsored by - marketo · the digital marketing revolution, it’s been largely ignored. ... on...

f u n n e l f r e e z e s o v e r

P R E S E N T S

s p o n s o r e d b y

PlaylistForward

conclusion

Meet the band

Intro

Tr ack 1: Database

Tr ack 2: Insights and Orchestr ation

Tr ack 3: Content

Tr ack 4: Execution

Tr ack 5: Measurement

Outro

5

4

3

11

15

19

23

33

36

40

TABLE OF CONTENTS2 monstersoffunnel.com

http://monstersoffunnel.com

FOR EWA R D

It’s summertime again and if the last two years have taught us

anything it’s that Monsters of Funnel, the B2B super-group, will

be reuniting, evolving, and melting the faces off marketers all

over again. This fluid lineup was the result of an idea I had back in

2015. That idea was simple – there’s too much noise in B2B today,

someone just needs to play the hits.

And so, we have. For the past two years, we’ve been rocking hard – bringing together the absolute best in demand gen and account-based tech. All the while, making audiences spark that zippo (cell phones are for yuppies) and sway together with the soaring harmonies of the best in digital marketing and sales. Together, this powerful lineup has established the trends that define B2B. It’s been a great ride.

For the first tour in 2015, we teamed up with the absolute best in B2B demand generation and we breathed fresh air into that classic sound. Last year, we pulled a complete 180° and unplugged that buzz saw, tuning it way down for a fresh, genuine experience rooted in Account-Based Marketing. In every tour to-date, we’ve rallied the members of this rotating syndicate based on their technology backgrounds – each one bringing a solution along with their hard-charging sound.

But like all things pure, the corporate fat cats have taken our once authentic sanctuary and polluted it for the sake of the almighty dollar. It seems that suddenly, every time you turn around, there’s that knockoff sound. What was once new and

fresh, is now synthesized and watered down for the sake of selling software. B2B technology has gone pop. And therefore, on this third world tour, we’re doing things a little bit differently.

We’re taking this release completely offline. At least as an opening act.

Technology has become the leading motion when it should be the lagging solution. Marketing and sales pros are suffering from ‘buy it’ best practices. Too many fans are designing their processes around the technology they’ve just purchased and it needs to stop. We have to get back to the good ol’ days where people and process filled the arenas, not hollow technologies. It’s time we went back to the warmth of analog.

In revenue,Justin GrayCEO, LeadMD

FOREWARD3 monstersoffunnel.com


So, without further ado, let’s crank this back up to 11.

Meet the killer lineup of Monsters of Funnel III

Meet The BandIn the midst of this high-fidelity age, we’re going low tech. This year’s lineup and eBook is all about embracing our genuine roots, the classic rock we all grew up with, and sharing the stories behind the scenes. When talking low tech, high value there’s no better subject than Account-Based Marketing. In that vein, we’ve gathered the best of the best but we’ve asked them to leave their amps and equipment at home – this year we’re stripping down and going behind the music. No tech allowed.

What do a bunch of tech stars do when you take away their instruments? We’re going to find out, because each member is being asked to share their favorite tactics to build a best-in-class, Account-Based go-to-market plan that - and here’s the catch - requires ZERO technology to accomplish. We’re basing the book on LeadMD’s updated ABM framework and each chapter will be organized around a different tactic to drive success. Anything can happen… when the Stack Freezes Over.

Each of these monster marketers will share their take on fundamental marketing strategies and the tactics necessary to engage accounts and their committees of buyers. Once we’ve gotten to the very heart and soul of these go to market methods, then, and only then, will we talk about how layering

in technology will scale these efforts. And of course, we’ll give each bandmate a chance to share how their respective solution will kick out the jams.

JUSTIN GR AYCEO, SMELeadMD

K atie BullardChief Growth Officer

DiscoverOrg

Todd McCormickChief Revenue Officer

Terminus

Heidi BullockCMO

Engagio

Amy HoltzmanVP Marketing

Splash

Joe ChernovVP Marketing

InsightSquared

R andy FrischCo-Founder,

CMO & PresidentUberflip

Tyler LessardVP Marketing

Vidyard

4 MEET THE BAND monstersoffunnel.com

https://www.leadmd.com/resource/hybrid-model-explainer/?utm_source=mof3pdf&utm_medium=website%20resource&utm_campaign=Funnel%20Freezes%20Over


Setting The Stageintro

Quality over quantity – it’s a concept that makes fundamental sense but due to the highly superficial vanity metrics marketing teams have been focused on for most of the digital marketing revolution, it’s been largely ignored.

Technology has enabled the volume over value problem, causing many executives to rethink their strategies for acquiring customers. If you only had one prospect to market to, you would treat them with the same principles fundamental to what has become known as Account-Based Marketing (ABM).

Historically, this adoption has been prevented in many companies by the perception of scalability. Marketing is still heavily dependent on the number of hot or qualified leads generated each month. That naturally lends itself to a numbers game, trying to generate a high amount of interest, distilling that down to actual interest, and finally to actual customers.

Account-based is a return to classic, business relationship building.

5 INTRO Setting the Stage monstersoffunnel.com


Setting The Stage (continued)

intro

ABM is just aiming at a more well-defined area of that funnel. It’s about identifying your best buyers and treating them in a much more personal way. We’re focusing on not only the lead, but the account as a whole. • What is the makeup of that company?

• What are their initiatives?

• How are they planning?

• Who’s on the buying committee?

• Who’s making the decision?

And then we formulate the marketing based on what we learn about the account. It’s a much more laser-focused approach that eliminates waste.

By now you’ve heard how everyone’s finally starting to use marketing automation technology to enable more than massive funnel metrics. Account-based is a return to classic, business relationship building. Sitting down for no pressure, one-on-one meetings with a prospects sounds great–who doesn’t want to spend their days playing golf and sipping martinis with likeminded others who write us checks?

But the technology and processes often paired with the account-based discussion present some legitimate opportunity costs. With so many people all-in, it can feel a bit intimidating. You want Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Product involved in these at a minimum—knowing executive buy-in and participation is both customary and highly recommended.


https://www.leadmd.com/blog/shouldnt-it-make-your-life-easier/

https://www.leadmd.com/blog/shouldnt-it-make-your-life-easier/


Setting The Stage (continued)

intro

To overcome these inherent challenges, we’ve developed an easy to use and highly actionable framework to enable the transition to Account- Based. This framework has evolved, even over the last twelve months as we gather more and more data around motions that enable success and create engagement within the all-important Ideal Customer Profile. Before we dive in and introduce the band and really let them rock out, let’s start with an overview on each of these critical pillars.

Our purpose here is to boil Account-Based down to the people and process elements in order to establish a baseline of strategy. We want to eliminate the pitfalls of introducing technology into this discussion, for the time being, to ensure practitioners focus on the fundamentals, not the supporting tech stack.



The Pillarsintro

Before we can get too deep into laying out a tactical plan for success with Account-Based Marketing, let’s first zoom way out, out up to the rafters and look at the LeadMD ABM Framework that this book will base each of these tactics around. We call this the 5 Pillars of Account-Based Marketing and it’s a means of looking at the holistic model in terms of the tactics that support the essential areas of ABM.

The biggest struggle we encounter when working with customers on their ABM strategy is a lack of definition around what exactly “ABM” is. This is common with newer, or at least repackaged, marketing strategies. Things simply move so quickly that marketers often find themselves stage diving into tactical areas without understanding the full picture. It’s easy to begin using targeted display ads or website personalization without understanding how those particular tactics fit into the overall strategy, or even worse, how you will measure the success of these initiatives. Fret not, that’s exactly why we are starting out by highlighting the 5 Pillar ABM framework – it’s the foundation for everything we’ll build upon in this powerful eBook.

DATABASE

Target Market Research

Data Sources

Intelligent Routing

Standardization & Hygiene

Account Intelligence

Account Profiles

Buyer Personas

Account Plans

Coverage

Engagement

Penetration

Target Account Pipeline

Targeted Ads

Personalization

PR & ThoughtLeadership

Playbooks

ABM ContentTechnology

Messaging

Nurture

Buyer Journey Mapping

Revenue Modeling O�ers Target Account Value

INSIGHTS CONTENT

MARKETING AUTOMATION

CRM

ORCHESTRATION

EXECUTION MEASUREMENT

These 5 pillars of Account-Based Marketing are the foundation to success.

Pillar 1 Pillar 2 Pillar 3 Pillar 4 Pillar 5

8 INTRO The Pillars monstersoffunnel.com

https://www.leadmd.com/resource/hybrid-model-explainer/?utm_source=mof3pdf&utm_medium=website%20resource&utm_campaign=Funnel%20Freezes%20Over


The Pillars (continued)intro

CRMFirst, CRM. And if you’re like most the marketing community, CRM means Salesforce.com to you. CRM is simply not an option when you are assembling a best-in-class, go-to-market strategy. It’s the central hub of the customer and future customer. CRM is our 360-degree window into who our buyer is, what they need and the catalyst for how we talk to them.

Beyond that, it’s also the data hub that all reporting we outline within this book is based upon. The argument for CRM is over – you need one – and you need to put a large amount of effort into curating the data it houses. Account-Based Marketing is a data centric strategy and without trusted, hyper-relevant and recent data, you can kiss buyer engagement goodbye. We’d go as far to say that if you are operating within an organization that is still second guessing the value of CRM, it’s time for a job search and we’ll leave it at that.

To make things even easier, we’ve also structured this eBook around the pillars, with every chapter diving into a new tenant of Account-Based success. If you’re a fan of the Monsters of Funnel series you might squint and vaguely recognize this framework from MOF II, and you would be correct.

However, in the year between the last lineup of MOF and today, this framework has evolved drastically. Like everything in marketing, this is an evolution, and as we learn and iterate from our past experiments the model itself continues to evolve. Similarly, technology defines much of what we do in marketing today. And with the advent of new ABM-focused solutions, we can now achieve more than ever with these new tools enabling scale.

You’ll notice a few things about the model that are immediately apparent, not the least of which is the direct callout for the presence of marketing automation, CRM and something called “orchestration”. The first two should be familiar to us all at this point. The third, likely not so much. So let’s talk about these three items that operate independently of the pillar model, but are absolute requirements.



The Pillars (continued)intro

Marketing AutomationNext, marketing automation makes a perhaps predictable appearance. As a marketing automation agency, a case can be made for LeadMD’s bias on the matter. The market cap for marketing automation is extremely small in comparison to CRM, and adoption has been abysmal with over 80% of marketing automation users reporting that they use less than 10% of its overall functionality according to our latest benchmark survey. Still, we place marketing automation as an absolute requirement as it pertains to a best practice riddled ABM strategy.

Why? Any organization ripe for ABM is selling a high-ACV considered purchase product — the exact segment that automation was created to serve. Lead scoring and nurturing make up the epicenter of value in marketing automation. Although scoring takes on a very different role in ABM than it did in demand gen, it’s still central to understanding the right time to serve up a particular message. Along with lead or contact-based scoring, ABM also introduces the notion of engagement scoring at the account level - which we’ll get into later in this book. Long story short, we need the core functionalities of automation to execute effectively in an ABM model, trust us. ;)

OrchestrationFinally, and perhaps the most interesting of the three simply because of its freshman status, orchestration appears as the last foundational element spanning the model. Orchestration is as the name suggests — the curation of this entire process. If we’re sticking with the band metaphor, it’s the song list and the person who generates it night after night, designed to maximize the impact on the particular crowd to which we play. It’s the most nebulous element and the most critical. This is a fairly new concept, perhaps not in practice as sales teams have been conducting a similar ‘quarterback’ function for as long as enterprise sales has been in existence — but therein lies the difference. This is no longer just a sales function — it spans the entire organization and requires that we exercise muscles long atrophied.

Throughout this eBook we will focus on the need for ‘threaded’ processes and orchestration as the mindset driving that threaded approach. It’s the entire organization, moving in lockstep and it’s incredibly new and difficult to achieve. Don’t overlook or undervalue this element of ABM, it is perhaps the most critical single element of success.



databasetr ack one

11 TRACK ONE Database monstersoffunnel.com


If there’s one area of the ABM movement that everyone agrees upon, it’s the absolute foundational nature of data. Data is the rock and roll on which we build this city. Now, when you compare that next to the fact that B2B marketing has also, and self-admittedly, the most pervasive data quality issue, you have an interesting conundrum on your hands.

For years, “data strategy” has simply been to purchase the cheapest lists possible and as often as possible. Combine that model with the natural fatigue arising from all-out bombardment courtesy of the unchecked,

batch and blast revolution, and you have a good old-fashioned mosh pit of data depravity.

Enter Katie Bullard from DiscoverOrg fame. She’s kicking off this badass super group as she’s not only melting faces by helping DiscoverOrg clients succeed with the best data, but she’s also faced with heading up the Account-Based process within D.O. as well as the company’s Chief Growth Officer.

Once you’ve selected a group of your best buyers – and we strongly recommend tapping into several departments within the organization to cross check that list of Accounts and gain buy in and consensus – conduct an in-depth analysis necessary to actually map out those characteristics listed above. Companies need an honest evaluation of their customers’ data. The ultimate deep dive into data involves a third-party interview and analysis of those buyers to avoid bias and capture the true buyer sentiment.

What is the first step a company should take in preparing to assemble their Target Account Database?

As an absolute first step, they have to identify their ideal customer profile (ICP). Ask yourself, what do our best customers look like in terms of:

▶ Revenue

▶ Industry

▶ Number of Employees

▶ Growth Rates

Firmographics ▶ Technologies installed

▶ Monthly tech spend

Technographics ▶ Title

▶ Role

▶ Responsibilities of decision-makers and influencers

Buyer Demographics ▶ Funding Events

▶ Hiring Triggers

▶ Announcements & PR

Insights / Buying Signals

databasetr ack one ft. Katie Bullard w/

DiscoverOrg



What are the primary outcomes of that database assembly? What are the most important data points to collect?

The list of target accounts should allow you to implement a tiered ABM approach – we traditionally recommend 3 tiers (Most Strategic Tier 1 Accounts, Highly Strategic Tier 2 Accounts, and Strategic Tier 3 Accounts). Those tiers should align to the level of personalization and resources allocated across sales and marketing. The data points to collect vary by company, but include the ones that match your ICP and buying triggers, and more importantly, the data points should NOT be static. When companies grow, when buying signals change, when technologies change, etc., you should have a process to stay on top of it and monitor and re-prioritize accounts appropriately. That’s just as critical as identifying your target accounts the first time around.

Once you have the accounts identified, what’s the next step in the data collection process?

ABM might be all about accounts, but at the end of the day, we are still engaging and connecting with individual people at those target companies. Having the names of the accounts is step 1, but step 2 is just as important, and that’s mapping out the right contacts at those accounts. Most B2B sales include three to six decision-makers and influencers, so I recommend figuring out the right titles, roles, and responsibilities of the influencers that are most important in your buying process. It’s helpful to go back and look at closed-won opportunities and your best customers again. Who are the buying committees and primary contacts that are most likely to sign and be your advocates during the buying cycle? How do those different influencers relate to each other in an organization?

For us, we sell across sales and marketing teams, so it’s really critical that we get support from the right people on both teams. Once you map out the right contacts, then the key is having a data source that provides the contact information you need to engage: verified emails, direct dial phone numbers, social media accounts, etc. It is critical to also find a way to keep that data clean and fresh. Up to 70% of B2B data decays every year – people retire, change jobs or move locations. Bad contact data will absolutely cripple your ABM efforts.

No company stays the same – if they do, they probably aren’t a great prospect!


DiscoverOrg



What are the KPI’s associated with database health?

You should have someone – or a small SWAT team – dedicated to database health. We often see this function reside within the BDR/SDR team and they focus on monitoring a few key database health metrics:

Coverage: This universal data measurement shows just how much of the target account list you have residing in your database. This is a great leading metric.

Health: We are constantly monitoring things like email deliverability, percent of bounced emails, inbox placement (which is very different than deliverability), number of dials to get to the right person, number of outreach attempts to set up a meeting, and overall response rates.

The better the data you have – not just the basic contact data, but the buyer intent data – the more engagement you will see and the higher your response rates will be. Dirty data won’t just hamper your ABM efforts, but it can actually land you and your entire company’s domain on blacklists (which are really difficult to remove yourself from). That’s your reputation on the line.

Ok, now how does the introduction of DiscoverOrg technology create speed and scale in this process?

DiscoverOrg makes everything I just described above incredibly simple. First, you can upload lists of your top customers and have DiscoverOrg map your ideal customer profile, identify look-alike prospects. And then, prioritize and rank those prospects based on their firmographics and likelihood to buy NOW given buying intent signals – all completely transparent. Even better, once you have your list of target accounts, you can map out your key contacts within those accounts, view their org structure, and get human-verified contact info like email addresses and direct dials. Then, you can push all of that data into your CRM, marketing, or sales development tools, and set it up to cleanse and append data automatically.

…Now, turn it up to 11!


DiscoverOrg



insights & orchestrationtr ack t wo

15 TRACK TWO Insights & Orchestration monstersoffunnel.com


What is the first step a company should take in preparing to assemble their key insights on a target account?

Once you have selected target accounts – the first thing I examine is coverage. The questions I would ask are: “How effectively is your team building contacts with the people who matter at your target accounts?” And, “How complete is your account data?” There is a lot of value just understanding that! Assuming you have the right people in an account, I look at engagement. Here, I want to know, “Are the right people at the account spending time with your company, and is that engagement going up over time?” In most cases, you will see engagement in some accounts, but not in others. That’s essential to see so you can modify your program mix if it is not effective for a set of accounts.

How do you make Insights actionable?

To have high-quality and actionable insights, you first need visibility. That is often what teams are missing. I am fortunate to have a lot of ABM technology at my fingertips, so I can easily see or drill into a set of accounts, but to some degree that can be achieved with good old-fashioned research. From those views, I can see which accounts need additional contacts, where we need to change our program mix to drive engagement, or where there is a lot of engagement and confirm sales has reached out to the account. What’s cool is that marketing is not the only team acting. The sales team has the SAME view of accounts and can run plays as well.

What are the primary outcomes of that insight assembly? What are the most important data points to collect and maintain over time?

The primary outcome is understanding. Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success need to understand if key initiatives are driving engagement and impact in the accounts that matter. Many companies lack the visibility to collect, and comprehend insights. We use Engagio across revenue teams to track an account and see if engagement is trending up or down. Our CS team uses insights to run Net Promoter Score plays. They can see if someone is less engaged and/or is a detractor. They can use Engagio to send a personalized play. We collect and track a key set of metrics on accounts but they do not stop at acquisition. We monitor engagement post acquisition, which you could argue is even more important.

There is a lot of value in understanding how your team is building contacts and handling account data.

insights and orchestration

tr ack t wo ft. Heidi Bullock w/ Engagio


http://www.engagio.com/target-account-selection-heres-how-to-pick-your-way-to-presidents-club/

http://www.engagio.com/how-to-discover-insights-and-deliver-value-for-target-accounts/


What are the pitfalls a company should watch out for when selecting these insights and responding to them with outbound messaging? Any common problems readers should be aware of?

Acting on insights without understanding personas or having a thoughtful strategy on your set of tactics is not good. For example, reaching out to a target account with a generic email blast isn’t effective. Communication should be personal and relevant, and that requires your team to do the right level of research on people and the account. It also requires an orchestrated approach – meaning marketing and sales work together. You don’t want an ADR reaching out to a CEO that your VP of Marketing is already talking to.

What should this process look like on a day-to-day basis? Is there a cadence or does this need to be real-time?

Teams need to figure out a process that works for them. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach. I like the idea of shared goals (plan of record), aligned compensation, clear SLAs, and clarity around roles. For instance, my reps look at their accounts in Engagio daily. We look at coverage, awareness, and engagement daily, but we determine our actions on a weekly cadence. The ADR team looks at MQAs (Marketing Qualified Accounts) every day and has a very clear SLA of 24 hrs. From there, we’ll run a specific orchestrated ABM play based on the specific situation.

What are the KPI’s associated with insights collection? Outbound Orchestration?

Fortunately, I am using Engagio and can track insights easily and regularly. We have goals for marketing, ADR outbound, and sales outbound. The key KPIs for target accounts include coverage, awareness, MQAs, meetings, and opportunities.

Please share with us the methods through which Engagio gathers insights on Accounts – how does the company maintain these and make them visible to the Account team?

Our ADR and sales teams use Engagio to have a clear view of accounts. They also use Scout, which is a Chrome extension that lets reps stay in Salesforce, LinkedIn, or Gmail and gather account intelligence and detailed communication history. Having integrated data across all systems gives reps visibility into everything they need to know about an account in one place. Aside from technologies, I think more teams should look at annual reports or listen to earnings calls – valuable information on companies will be clearly articulated there. Subscribing to Google Alerts, looking at websites, and following companies (and key individuals) on Twitter or LinkedIn is also standard.




http://www.engagio.com/the-engagio-playbook/


Ok, now how does the introduction of technology create speed and scale in this process? What does Engagio’s technology enabled process look like?

Technology makes executing ABM scalable, measurable, and ultimately more effective. Everyone knows marketing and sales need to be aligned and have a coordinated, personal approach to ABM initiatives, but executing on that hasn’t been easy. ABM Technology solutions, like Engagio, make that a reality by operationalizing and simplifying processes.

Here is a simple example.

With Engagio, I have the same view of my accounts as sales. We both see where there is coverage (i.e. the right people), how we are driving awareness, and if an account is engaged. Just having that shared visibility is powerful because we then have an agreed upon baseline. From that, we can orchestrate joint plays. We meet and agree upon the right set of actions to take. The marketing team can set up personalized communications (with the right message) that sales can leverage to drive folks to an executive event. We can even decide to have that invitation come from our CEO. Lastly, it is easy for me to see if the right follow up takes place. I can clearly understand what is working at an account or what’s not, so my team can course correct if needed.






Contenttr ack thr ee

19 TRACK THREE Content monstersoffunnel.com


What is the first step a company should take in preparing to assemble and create an account-based content plan?

After you’ve defined your key accounts and account tiers, the first step on the content side is to conduct a content audit. Evaluate your entire library and group content items by persona, buying stage, industry, and any other meta data points that are relevant to your buyer’s decision and trust building process. Then, it’s time to determine where the gaps are. This will help you figure out what additional content you need to create or channels you need to prioritize. A comprehensive and honest content audit will save you a lot of time in the long run because you can identify content that can be updated, recycled into another format, and personalized for your top accounts. Efficiency to engagement is the name of the game when it comes to content.

What are the primary outcomes of this content plan?

Acceleration. We want to see that our content is helping our sales team close deals faster. It sounds really obvious, and perhaps a bit oversimplified, but that really should be the goal of all content creation – be user-driven and provide value. Of course, getting to a place where you can measure that content effectiveness is the devil in the details.

How much content is necessary to really enable this process?

From a bare-bones perspective, you only need as much content that, at minimum, addresses each stage of what your sales cycle demands. Ensure your core branding, positioning, value prop and messaging are there in every piece of content, while leaving room for customization and personalization for your various accounts and contacts within those accounts.

What are the pitfalls a company should watch out for when embarking on an account-based content strategy?

Getting the buy-in of the entire executive team is something we decided to do early on when we defined our ideal account profiles and our key accounts. Sales leaders entering the conversation too late is a huge pitfall to watch out for. I also can’t stress enough that alignment with your sales team is key when rolling out an account-based strategy. The entire ABM approach has to be a joint effort and something that requires the sponsorship of all key executives in the organization.

Contenttr ack thr ee ft. Randy Frisch w/

UberFlip



What are the KPIs associated with content delivery and consumption?

From an ABM perspective, the KPIs associated aren’t markedly different from standard measurements used in everyday marketing. The main difference is in the emphasis placed on specific metrics relative to your ABM strategy and goals, the target accounts you’re tracking, and the tactics you’ve chosen to deploy.

For example, we recently launched an ABM campaign using direct mail. While we can’t quite track open rates as we traditionally would via email, from a delivery standpoint, we can indeed measure the recipients’ (e.g. target accounts) responses if they’ve chosen to act on the offer we’ve presented. For all intents and purposes, we can call this a conversion.

So, it all comes back to asking, what’s important? What do you consider a success for your ABM program? Once you have an idea about these questions, you can begin to measure, tweak, and iterate as you progress through your playbook.

Please share with us the methods through which Uberflip creates and shares content.

For content creation, our marketing team has an editorial calendar that’s managed on a monthly and day-to-day basis. Beyond that, we’ve amassed more than 1,000 pieces of content over 4+ years.

Once you’ve gotten into the groove of things—of planning ahead for the pieces you want to create, to brainstorming and ideation, then actually creating, publishing, and distributing—you soon realize that generating content is easy. The hardest task is to create great content that matters, that has an evergreen quality that will serve your purposes over the long run.

Obviously, technology in this regard is no replacement for creativity, deep thinking, and being in tune to what your audience needs or doesn’t yet know what they need to see, hear, and know.

For content distribution, we share the content we publish through all the traditional channels, but we’ve found that we tend to get higher engagement when we respect the platform and the medium in which it’s meant to live. For example, despite the walled garden approach of LinkedIn publishing, we’ve found a piece that lives in that platform garners a better response beyond views because users are engaged vis-a-vis their networks, connections, and the greater conversation taking place.


UberFlip



Ok, now how does the introduction of Uberflip technology create speed and scale in this process?

As a tool for scaling Account-Based Marketing, there are three key ways our users (including our very own marketing team) leverage Uberflip:

Personalized Content Assets: One way to leverage existing content for ABM is to group relevant content that speaks to your prospect into a co-branded stream. This is a pretty simple and effective way to catch a prospect’s eye while also educating them about the value your solution can provide.

Tailored Calls-to-Action: CTAs tend to convert better when they’re relevant and personalized. With Uberflip, marketers can create CTAs in minutes to gate eBooks, webinars, PDFs, and other types of content. Custom CTAs can even integrate personalized touches like the branding or colors of your prospect’s company.

Customized Content Experiences: Using Uberflip, marketers can customize messaging, branding, content assets, and CTAs all in one stream of content. Your prospect is guided from one piece of content to the next, with a clear path for engagement. Even better, this all integrates with the major marketing automation platforms to help test and track different experiences and campaigns.

Uberflip enables ABM marketers to drive warmer introductions, increase relevance, and create better relationships with prospects and customers, all at scale.



UberFlip

1

2

3



Executiontr ack four

23 TRACK FOUR Execution monstersoffunnel.com


What is the first step a company should take in using video to engage buyers?

Video is powerful way to tell your story, but more importantly, it helps you cut through the noise to get the attention of cold prospects and quickly establish relevancy and trust. From a marketing perspective, companies should have a good library of video-based explainers, thought leadership content, and customer testimonials that can be leveraged to stimulate interest within via email nurtures and direct sales outreach. But what’s also been hugely successful is the use of personal video messaging by sales reps to stand out in the inbox and generate a faster response. Many sales teams are sending personalized webcam and screen capture videos to deliver a more personal and impactful outreach. Those doing it well are seeing response rates within key accounts skyrocket by more than 300% along with a reduction in meeting cancellations. Best of all, they can start by using it for free via a simple Google Chrome extension to see if it works within their own sales processes.

What are the primary outcomes that can be expected from video engagement – essentially how is video best used?

Video can play a few different roles in Account- Based Marketing and sales processes. In the interest/awareness stage, it’s a great way to boost click-through and conversion rates on marketing campaigns designed to get the attention of key accounts. Personal video messaging can also be used by sales teams to connect with more prospects and book more meetings. Once a prospect is engaged, custom video demos can accelerate the decision-making process and personal video messages can build stronger relationships and open new doors. When used effectively, video can play a big part in helping companies connect with more leads, accelerate deal cycles and increase close rates.

What are the pitfalls a company should watch out for when integrating video into your engagement strategy? Any common problems readers should be aware of?

When investing in video as a marketing organization, don’t over-rotate on product videos that focus on features and functions. Use video for what it does exceptionally well: to talk about value, to tell great stories and to build a more emotional connection with your buyers.

When using personal video messaging within your sales team, proper training on how to record a good video with the right messaging will go a long way. Invest in learning the latest bet practices for what works to get people’s attention, and don’t forget the most important element is still the message that you deliver

Executiontr ack four ft. Tyler Lessard w/

Vidyard



How much time should organizations spend creating video content?

It’s all about finding the right balance between creating a small set of reusable on-demand video content like explainers, thought leadership videos and customer stories, and empowering your team members to quickly create personal videos on-the-fly as part of their standard sales cadence. These ad-hoc personal videos can be recorded in as little time as it takes to compose an email, so it’s less about “how much time” and more about “when and how” to use them for the greatest impact.

What are the KPI’s associated with video engagement?

With video, like any content medium, the keys center not only on consumption, but also who is consuming the content and at what point in the buying process. Of course, we are also looking to infer how well the video content met the needs of the viewer or how it compelled them to take the next step in their process. ABM explicitly uses video to support very specific pre-determined outcomes and therefore even more than in traditional demand generation, ABM calls to action are measured by follow on behaviors. Did the buyer initiate an evaluation process with their team? Did they click to accept the meeting? Were they compelled to register for that event? We break down the critical KPIs for video into these four categories but for the purposes of a true

ABM strategy ‘Engagement’ stands out as the most critical as with an ABM approach we are looking for very specific behaviors from the viewer.

Please share with us the methods through which Vidyard uses video in its own ABM strategy.

Vidyard uses different types of video content within its email nurtures and social media campaigns that target key accounts. We leverage thought leadership interviews with customers and influencers, video-based customer testimonials, product explainer and demo videos, and educational videos. Different content is leveraged for each Account-Based on its profile and/or stage in the sales funnel. Each type of video plays a different role in helping us get the attention of key accounts, building interest and relevance, and pulling them into our story. Our sales development team also uses personal video messages as part of their standard sales cadence to boost their response rates and book more meetings. We also leverage customized video advertisements as part of our retargeting strategy to maintain brand awareness and highlight key messages with a select group of target accounts.

Executiontr ack four ft. Tyler Lessard w/

Vidyard

▶ Watch Time

▶ Subscribers

▶ Engagement

▶ Audience Retention



Ok, now how does the introduction of Vidyard technology create speed and scale in this process?

Vidyard’s technology helps us boost conversion rates on these video assets and gather new insights that help us better understand the engagement of each account. We use Vidyard to add custom calls-to-action to our video content to enable viewers to immediately take the next step in the buying process or to book a demo with our sales team. We run scalable personalized video campaigns that weave the individual viewer’s name or company name right into a video asset and the related thumbnail image to help boost click-through and engagement rates on our email campaigns by up to 5x.

Our sales team uses Vidyard to record and share personal video messages with the ability to track who watches which video and how long they stay engaged. Finally, we use Vidyard to track all video engagement data at both a lead level and an account level to better understand who our most engaged targets are and to trigger automated actions for those who are leaning in to certain types of messages. It’s all about helping us be more efficient in our efforts, to connect with buyers on a more personal level, and to close more deals, faster.


Executiontr ack Four ft. Tyler Lessard w/

Vidyard



What is the first step a company should take in preparing to create marketing air cover?

It’s all about getting marketing and sales aligned on the right accounts, personas and stages in the buyer’s journey. You have to create an awesome experience for your buyers and customers to deliver content they actually care about. While sales are calling and emailing contacts, marketing launches experiences that enable those outbound efforts. Account-based advertising provides awesome air cover. Couple that with direct mail and custom-tailored content, and you’ve stage dove right into orchestrating an omni-channel ABM campaign.

What are the primary outcomes of air cover? What are the most important data points to collect?

The awareness air coverage creates has a direct correlation to increasing SDR connect-and-conversion rates, which helps decrease the amount of time in our overall sales cycle. The most important data to collect early in your ABM efforts is engagement. Tracking engagement within best-fit accounts gives your teams the ability to prioritize their outreach. After we start seeing those engagement numbers increase, account penetration metrics aren’t far behind. Penetration in our world represents the acceptance of a first meeting. When account penetration increases, you know marketing and sales are operating in lockstep.

What are the pitfalls a company should watch out for when beginning to implement tactics like targeted display advertising? Any common problems readers should be aware of?

Make sure you are working with partners who can help get in front of your ideal customers, or dream accounts, and the right buyer personas, or the contacts in those accounts. The key to ABM, especially when launching account-based air cover tactics, is to remember that it’s all about quality, not quantity. This is a big departure not only for marketing, but when you consider that a digital display technology company is touting “less is more” you know we’re seeing a tectonic shift in the marketing space.

Execution (Continued)tr ack four ft. Todd McCormick

w/ Terminus

now, through sales and marketing alignment, we have the entire organization thinking about the same definitions of success. That’s what makes ABM so powerful.



What are the KPIs associated with air cover like targeted display?

Progression rate, pipeline velocity, and revenue are the high-level metrics that truly matter. More granular KPIs that our clients measure includes increases such as:

Plus, increases in the impact of other marketing and sales activities such as email open rates and quality of calls, or the decrease in time between stages and/or “funnel leakage”.

Please share with us the methods through which Terminus provides air cover to target accounts?

We help companies deliver relevant targeted ads in front of their key decision makers within their target accounts and customers.

▶ Meetings or appointments set

▶ Website engagement

▶ Expanded reach within target accounts

▶ New opportunity creation

▶ Higher win rates

Execution (Continued)tr ack four ft. Todd McCormick

w/ Terminus

Ok, now how does the introduction of Terminus technology create speed and scale in this process?

We are increasing conversion rates throughout the entire sales process. Our SDR’s are getting appointments faster, our account executives are decreasing their sales cycles and we are helping Customer Success Managers expand into new divisions faster than ever before. We have the best targeting capabilities in our space. No one can get brands in front of decision makers like we can.




What is the first step a company should take in preparing to assemble their event strategy?

It’s funny, we hear from companies daily that say, “We don’t do events.” And, more times than not, they are only thinking about participation in major conferences and trade shows. But, almost every company does events – dinners, cocktail parties, client entertainment, internal events, recruiting events – these are events and almost every company is doing at least one of these. Regardless of the types of events you host or where you are with your event programming, there are things you’ll want to keep in mind as you roll out more events:

Execution (Continued)tr ack four ft. Amy Holtzman w/

Splash

Consider scalability. When you’re only doing a few events, you get accustomed to manual processes that are quite time consuming (i.e. creating an invite email and landing page from scratch, tracking registrants and attendees, keeping sales informed on who’s coming, printing name badges, etc.). As you do more events, you might think you need more people to help with that manual workload, when in actuality, if you have a good event management technology in place that’s integrated to your existing stack, you can save up to 20 hours of manual work per event. That’s not to say you won’t eventually need more support staff, but it is to say that with good technology and process, you can often stave off hiring expenses a little longer than you may expect while also saving your existing team from the cumbersome manual work that no one enjoys doing.

Don’t compromise an expensive event program with a bad user experience. All too often companies that run small events, or run events infrequently, will think a lot about the on-site experience and forget everything that leads up to it – and then they’ll wonder why registration and attendance rates are terrible. Your pre-event experience is just as important as your on-site experience (and your post-event follow-up). If your invitations and registration experience don’t convey the type of experience you’re curating in-person, then you’re wasting time and money and are setting yourself up for disappointment when you can’t attract attendees. An event starts with that very first invitation. The impression you make then can determine the success of your entire program.

Track that data. This is always a concern but especially when you are immature in your event management and are doing things manually. Event data is one of the richest forms of data you can get – it tells you about a person’s preferences. You have access to intel you can only get one on one, event attendance often signals strong buying intent (depending on what type of event they’ve attended). All of this has to be meticulously tracked for every single registrant and seamlessly shared with your selling organization as quickly as possible throughout the event lifecycle. Process and systems matter... a lot. Before launching an event program, map out all of the data you expect to have access to along the way and make sure you have a process for capturing and sharing it.

1

2

3



What are the primary outcomes orgs can expect from event marketing? What are the most important data points to collect?

There are many benefits, but for this eBook, I’ll leave you with my top four for B2B marketers today:

The most important data points fall into three categories:

Essential data (this is what most marketers are collecting): Name, company, contact info, attendance status.

Preference data (much fewer organizations are experienced at capturing and tracking this): What types of events do they enjoy most, do they attend for learning opportunities or for networking, what content are they most interested in, do they have a favorite drink you could greet them with in the future?

Interaction data (we’re only seeing best-in-class organizations capture this today): Who did they connect with from your company and any partnering companies, what information did they reveal in

those conversations that can be used to be more relevant or win a deal moving forward, did they connect with other high-value attendees (i.e. did your biggest prospect meet your best customer)?

What are the pitfalls a company should watch out for when implementing an event strategy? Any common problems readers should be aware of?

I’ll go back to my three core recommendations from earlier – consider scalability, user experience from the very first touch, and be meticulous with data capture and tracking.

I’ll also add a reminder that events are a team sport that extend far beyond your marketing organization. We frequently see marketers who are frustrated by the lack of involvement from their selling organization, but they’ve often failed to get them involved. Events have the most success when everyone is invested – partner with your sales team from the beginning. You can’t do it without them, I assure you. Find ways to keep them informed in real-time: who’s registered, how many of their target accounts are attending, who checked-in? It’s a win-win for you and them.

▶ Lead Generation / opportunity creation

▶ Key account engagement / retention / growth

▶ Pipeline Acceleration

▶ Improved lead-to-opp and opp-to-close ratios


Splash



How should an org determine the types of events that are right for them? Same question around quantity of events?

This is largely dependent on your broader marketing strategy and overall business strategy. If you’re in a niche market with a limited universe of buyers and very high-dollar engagements, high-touch account-based events designed to engage many buyers at one account or at a few specific accounts are probably a smarter move than exhibiting at large trade shows and conferences. Conversely, if you have a product with big potential universe of buyers and more of a transactional selling model, you may see the most return from participation in larger events. You can also think about event types by your desired outcome. Intimate dinners and boxes at sporting events are often great pipeline acceleration or customer engagement activities. Co-hosting a massive party with some partners can provide good top of funnel lead generation.

Quantity of events should also be determined by your overall marketing mix and desired outcomes. Ultimately, you’ll want to invest in the set of marketing activities that most efficiently and predictably lead to revenue. The more a tactic shows positive ROI and contributes to the bottom-line, the more you should invest. We see events being quite effective and efficient when executed well. When you have the right process and playbook in place and are seeing positive returns from your event program, it’s time to scale.

What are the KPI’s associated with events?

Most event KPIs aren’t much different than your other marketing KPIs (opps created/influenced/accelerated, closed/won sourced and influenced, etc.). Some that are unique to events, however, include:

▶ Number of registrants

▶ Number of attendees

▶ Attendance Ratio

▶ Number of attendees from target accounts

▶ Number / percent of target accounts in attendance

▶ AVG number of attendees per account / per target account

▶ Revenue in attendance (how much do these people spend with you)

▶ Potential revenue in attendance (open pipeline in attendance)

▶ +1s and value of +1s (did you engage additional influencers from target accounts or ICP accounts?)

▶ Additionally, we see many companies set softer goals around:

▶ Connecting key prospects with key clients

▶ Meetings on-site

▶ Generating press attention, social buzz and/or user generated content


Splash



Please share with us how Splash uses events to power their ABM strategy – how does the company maintain this list and make it highly visible?

Splash-hosted events are at the center of our ABM strategy. We’re using a mix of larger, yet highly curated events (both invite and content-wise) and smaller, more intimate events (sometimes inviting only a single account) to engage target accounts at various buying stages. We’re incredibly fortunate to have a platform that makes it easy to collaborate with multiple people and departments on the invite list and keep them informed on who’s registered and how the event is performing. One of the most effective ways we’re able to maintain visibility is through our Slack integration. Reps involved in the event can subscribe to a Slack channel for the event and see invites, registrations, and attendance happening in real-time.

Even without an event marketing platform, you still execute events as part of your ABM strategy and collaborate with your internal team. We often see companies that are just starting out begin with a landing page in their marketing automation platform that triggers a notification to a rep or set of reps as their contacts register. And, when planning the list, sometimes we see companies start with a shared Google sheet or a Salesforce campaign that reps can enter suggested invitees into. Similarly, you can create your own Slack channel per event and manually update members.

Ok, now how does the introduction of Splash technology create speed and scale in this process?

The Splash platform creates efficiencies throughout the entire event program. We start by making it incredibly quick to launch on-brand and mobile responsive event pages and emails. Then, make it easy to collaborate and share event updates with your team, and on-site we make getting people through the door a breeze with an intuitive check-in app that has badge printing integrated and syncs to your existing system(s) in real-time, which makes fast and relevant follow-up painless.

On average, we save the event planner about 20 hours of manual work per event – all while enabling beautiful on-brand event experiences from the very first touch that always capture and track that rich set of data critical to the success of our programs.


Execution (Continued)tr ack Four ft. Amy Holtzman w/

Splash



measurementtr ack fiv e

33 TRACK FIVE Measurement monstersoffunnel.com


What is the first step a company should take in designing their ABM optics?

Step one is to pick an objective: Are you going to use ABM techniques to help build pipeline or accelerate funnel velocity? The former will take longer to prove and the results will be less “clean,” but I’d argue that the value will be perceived to be greater.

What are the most important data points to collect to ensure effective reporting can be produced?

Benchmarks. If you are using ABM to increase pipeline, then you should know what percentage of accounts worked by your sales team go on to become an opportunity and how long it typically takes between the first BDR outreach and the opportunity being created. This way you can compare the cohort of accounts that marketing engages through ABM practices to these benchmarks. Similarly, if you are using ABM practices to accelerate funnel velocity, you need to know your stage-to-stage conversion rates and your opp-to-close rate, the length of your sales cycle, and your average sale price – for the product line, customer segment or vertical market you plan to support with ABM. Now you are in a position to compare your contributions to internal benchmarks.

What are the pitfalls a company should watch out for when shifting to ABM metrics? Any common problems readers should be aware of?

Data quality. Remember that ABM is ultimately about maximizing yield from a smaller base. It is incredibly “expensive” to burn through accounts in an ABM model, because you are, by definition, working with a finite number of accounts. And the fastest way to burn through accounts is to fail to collect accurate data and contact information at the start of the process.

What are the key reports you recommend to someone just getting started with ABM?

Create a new metric, such as a”Marketing Qualified Account” (though what you call it is less important than what it is – a proxy for a meaningfully engaged account that meets strict account fit criteria). And measure it in two ways: 1) volume (how many are you creating) and 2) quality (at what rate are these accounts becoming customers and how does that rate compare to the benchmarks I mentioned earlier).

Measurementtr ack fiv e ft. Joe Chernov w/

InsightSquared

In the world of ABM, having both volume and quality metrics keeps marketing honest.



Please share with us the metrics InsightSquared uses to succeed with ABM– how does the company make these metrics highly visible?

All of our ABM reporting was created in InsightSquared. We focus on two metrics, expressed in four reports, and the dashboard is available to everyone in the company.

The first metric is called Alerts. We create an “Alert” each time a contact on an owned account does something that merits BDR attention. An Alert could be something marketing generates (like a form-fill or a demo request) or it could be a behavior that we simply observe (like a key hire, a closed funding round, or engagement with a competitor’s content). Then there’s an MQA, or Marketing Qualified Account. We create an MQA on the account level, and it reflects a level of engagement relative to account fit, that serves as a genuine signal of purchase intent.

An Alert is our “keep the BDR’s busy” metric; an MQA is our “drop everything and follow-up” metric. We track the volume and quality for each KPI.

Measurementtr ack fiv e ft. Joe Chernov w/

InsightSquared

Ok, now how does the introduction of InsightSquared technology improve this process?

We created all of our ABM reporting in InsightSquared. The source data lives in Salesforce and Engagio.




Outroliner notes

36 OUTRO monstersoffunnel.com


I’m the Chief Growth Officer for DiscoverOrg, which means I’m responsible for identifying, prioritizing, and capitalizing on the biggest growth opps for the business from a product, partnership, and marketing perspective. My path has definitely not been linear! I started out in finance, city government, and urban planning/real estate strategy, and ended up in technology opportunistically about eight years ago. I think those experiences have really rounded out my ability to wear an enterprise hat, no matter the role I’m in.

How has DiscoverOrg implemented Account-Based Marketing?

We employ a hybrid approach – we still drive traditional inbound leads to the sales team and measure conversion rates through the funnel (about 50% of our revenue comes through inbound). But, we’ve also gotten really smart about identifying our ideal customer profile, prioritizing target accounts that look like our best customers, and orchestrating more personalized and aligned ABM plays across sales and marketing for those top accounts. This could be everything from personalized 1:1 emails, direct mail, targeted ads, in-person events, and personalized videos for our most strategic prospects.

The purpose of this interview is to create a process by which any organization looking to implement ABM can achieve this foundational pillar without technology – essentially what are the bare bones means of getting this done. Then, after we have shared this, how can they introduce technology to make this process better.

I am the CMO of Engagio and used to be the Group Vice President of Global Marketing at Marketo, where I was for about 5 years. I feel very lucky that in both roles I market to marketers. It is a rare position because I use the products I market and sell. Prior to that I was in marketing and product management roles in the life sciences.

How has Engagio implemented Account-Based Marketing?

When I think about implementing any marketing strategy, I first think about the goal. It’s important that everyone is clear and aligned on the approach. As a team, we spent time being thoughtful about the objectives for ABM. Next, we identified who would be involved on the team and the key processes that would have to be followed and implemented. For example, it was important to figure out who would lead our account prioritization exercise or who owned data build out.

Next, we heavily relied on Engagio to operationalize many of our processes and building our account foundation. That included lead to account matching and lead routing. That is a critical place to get right, but it also was straightforward.

From there, we put a lot of work into defining and Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and the available market. We used predictive tools to prioritize accounts in addition to using Engagio to see where we had coverage and awareness in target accounts. With Engagio we run a mix of programs and can truly orchestrate personalized plays which is powerful. Lastly, I care a great deal about measurement. The team relies on Engagio to look at metrics at the account level – coverage, awareness, engagement, and MQA status.

Katie Bullard | DiscoverOrg Heidi Bullock | Engagio

Meet The BandOutro



I always loved marketing growing up, so to think I’d be lucky enough to have co-founded a MarTech company, let alone be working in marketing, is a dream come true. Here are three key experiences that got me here:

Learn at every level, solve for a future pain that’s still to come and work on a passion. I remember back in 2010, when my co-founder and I were working on a previous business together, we had a bunch of ideas on how to leverage a piece of tech for different industries. We saw an opportunity to sell to IT, lawyers, CFOs, and even educators. These markets all had potential, yet we both shared a mutual passion for marketing, and believed that building a business around something we were passionate about had a better chance of success and enjoyment. I couldn’t be happier with the decision we made.

How has UberFlip implemented Account-Based Marketing?

We’ve identified and segmented several tiers of accounts. At the top of the pyramid, our key accounts are, naturally, our highest priority, with three additional descending levels of ideal account profiles (i.e. tier one, tier two, tier three). The extent of personalization and investment of our time, energy, and resources, is directly proportional to the account tier we’re targeting.

Our account-based strategy is meant to support the entire customer cycle, from awareness, to evaluation, to close, and to retention. We’ve developed customized plays for our accounts, which involve an array of tactics including events, targeted ads, direct mail, specialized content, and custom digital destinations.

Much of the top-level strategy is orchestrated by marketing, with a primary objective of supporting sales at every level of their deal cycle. Alignment between the two is the key to maximizing our impact.

I’ve spent the last three years building out all facets of marketing at Vidyard, a global leader in video technology for business. We’ve built out an award-winning Content Marketing program, relationships with key analysts and influencers, a highly disciplined Demand Gen function and a unique brand that customers enjoy being affiliated with. This has been underpinned by a core principle of creating exceptional brand experiences that connect with people on both a business and personal level, and that deliver sincere and timely value to the community. Prior to Vidyard I ran marketing and product at a mobile security start-up as well as global alliances at BlackBerry. I’m an engineer by trade and can still write some mean Java code when duty calls.

How has Vidyard implemented Account-Based Marketing?

ABM became an imperative mindset when we realized we were getting addicted to MQL volume. Our low point came when our conversion rate from marketing qualified lead (MQL) to sales accepted lead (SAL) dipped below 40%, meaning than more than 60% of our “qualified” leads were being rejected by sales due to being “not in target market”.

First, we revamped our inbound lead qualification model to keep our sales development team focused on those leads that were more likely to convert. This was done by updating our lead scoring model to place greater emphasis on the attributes of the account that the lead belonged to.

Second, we implemented an ABM methodology to focus more of our marketing efforts on outbound programs designed to target named accounts. This has included a diverse range of tactics that deliver more targeted content to known individuals within named accounts. Most of this has been done with our existing teams and tech stack by simply re-orienting our approach and processes.

Randy Frisch | UberFlip Tyler Lessard | Vidyard

Meet The BandOutro



I have the awesome honor to serve as Chief Revenue Officer at Terminus. Prior to joining Terminus, I was SVP of Worldwide Sales at Silverpop during its acquisition and transformation into IBM’s Watson Marketing. I have been a sales leader for many years and enjoy building and growing best-in-class SaaS sales teams.

How has Terminus implemented Account-Based Marketing?

We have a ABM program called the Terminus 500 which includes our best-fit accounts based on fit, intent, and engagement. Our sales and marketing teams work closely with one another so we’re aligned on the best outreach which is inclusive of Terminus advertising campaigns, personalized videos, social engagement, direct mail, emails, and a rockstar outbound SDR team. We’ve had a ton of success this year “drinking our own champagne” and getting our ABM program right.

I’m a Conductor and Demandbase alum and prior to that I had a career in B2B media (Crain and CBS Interactive). I feel incredibly fortunate to have been at the forefront of the account-based movement during my time at Demandbase. I remember sitting in meetings talking about how to make ABM a thing not too long ago. It’s exciting to see the adoption of ABM today and the explosion of tech to support it.

How has Splash implemented Account-Based Marketing?

As of now, all teams - sales, BDR, CS, and marketing are focused on a set of named accounts that fit our ICP, which includes new business accounts and customer accounts with potential for major expansion. I can’t reveal all our secrets, but teams are aligned on messaging and custom-tailored programs to attract or grow those accounts. And, with a platform like Splash behind the teams, personalized account-based events are at the center of our engagement strategy.

Todd McCormick | Terminus Amy Holtzman | Splash

Meet The BandOutro

I’d lead the content marketing function at two prominent martech companies, Eloqua and HubSpot, through each organization’s IPO. Like most of the content marketing teams in that category, we published quite a bit about the benefits of a content-driven marketing model. But we held our tongue on the drawbacks. We didn’t point out, for example, that for companies with smaller addressable markets, content alone is an insufficient -- and inefficient -- model. When I joined InsightSquared we introduced a hybrid content/ABM approach that attempts to reconcile the best of each practice.

How has InsightSquared implemented Account-Based Marketing?

We began with a hypothesis -- giving “air cover” to reps by way of premium direct mail and in-person dinners -- would accelerate sales cycles and increase ASP. Then we tested it. The results were favorable -- accounts in our test group were about 40% more likely to buy. And then we made the classic marketing mistake: Rather than repeat or expand the test, we turned to technology to scale our solution. And we choked on our stack.

Joe Chernov | InsightSquared



ConclusionAs the curtain comes down on the third summer tour, the third lineup of hard hitting marketers and the third comprehensive eBook jammed to the teeth with strategies and actionable tactics you can use to drive engagement; it’s always a logical time to ask, what next?

Marketing is one of those strange contradictions – a discipline that seems to be under constant change yet who’s fundamental principles are evergreen. The pillars of marketing never change, only the methods and the means. We have a lot of discussions about this internally at LeadMD. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Essentially is all of the buzz and excitement really warranted? Or, perhaps in the end is it really just simple, good old-fashioned quality, right time messaging at the right time via the right channel. And the answer to both questions is of course, “yes.”

The really hard stuff is the only stuff that really works. There may be hacks and shortcuts and arbitrages along the way, but they are short-lived. In the end, the only true path to success is the stuff we all know is rarefied air. It requires constant gardening and attention and it’s not common.

In fact, when you see great marketing it stands out in the crowd, it’s stark and apparent and it’s exciting. That excitement builds buzz and soon, everyone is trying to emulate it. Frankly, that’s our goal with these M.O.F. campaigns and I hope that we’ve fulfilled what we set out to do. I hope we’ve provided an example of what a fully integrated, multi-channel content led campaign can do and also demonstrate the value of amplifying your message via experts, thought-leaders and partners.

We’ve won awards, we’ve driven six-figures in directly attributed revenues and seven figures in influenced revenues with these campaigns. But most of all, we’ve had a lot of fun and we’ve trained a lot of our consultants to think bigger when it comes to the impact of content. Monsters of Funnel has been

my baby for a long time and with this tour, that baby has matured into an adult. And so, I’m also calling this the farewell tour of M.O.F. – perhaps I’ve just run out of metaphors and rock analogies to tie in but I’d like to think it’s because we’ve accomplished what we set out to do. A small, forty-person agency has executed one hell of an initiative. At the time I write this we have over 500 pre-registration signups for the eBook launch. I mean, who signs up to receive a corporate eBook? To me that means we’ve created something of value – and that’s really all that matters.

So, as the final curtain call sounds I’d like to invite you to give us feedback. Try out the tactics we’ve outlined here with the help of our truly awesome partners. What’s working for you? Where do you need help? We make money selling time, but we form relationships by giving it away. So, I am always available to listen and hopefully provide some coaching and assistance based on the thousands of B2B and B2C revenue engines we’ve built based around our proven methodologies and of course the best technologies in the world.

Is this truly the end of Monsters of Funnel? Probably. Who knows. It’s marketing, so demand fuels everything, but I can say that without a doubt that the same best practices we are giving away as part of this book are the same we’ve used to create and execute these last three M.O.F. campaigns - and they work. That’s the most rock and roll note on which I can think to end this run.

— fin —

Join us on social with the hashtag #themonstersreturn and let us know how you’re integrating these strategies into your own ABM

and demand generation mix.

40 CONCLUSION monstersoffunnel.com


@myleadmd • leadmd.com • [email protected] • 877.775.3236

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