It’s less than a month until our second Spotlight event of the series. Exploring all things SaaS marketing, we will welcome senior thought leaders and speakers from some of the country’s leading brands, including Zendesk, SurveyMonkey, Five9, NVIDIA and many more.
With ABM set to be a key theme for our Marketing Spotlight event, we wanted to give you a sneak preview of some of the content we have lined up.
Making the most of your marketing in a virtual world
The global pandemic has changed the game for Account-Based Marketing (ABM) professionals.
In 2017 a study, conducted by research and advisory firm SiriusDecisions, reported that the number of marketers implementing full ABM programs rose from 40% in 2016 to 62% in 2017, and 91% of businesses surveyed realized larger deal sizes as a result of their ABM initiatives. But what happens now, in an environment where truly personalized engagement can only happen through a screen?
Where previously, lunch and learns, hospitality events and lavish dinners may have been a key part of your ABM strategy, a life in lockdown has meant that your go-to customer engagement activities are now off-limits.
We spoke to Aristomenis Capogeannis – Director, Revenue Marketing at NVIDIA, about ABM in a newly virtual world and the importance of tapping into your tech stack.
Q. How has ABM changed, and how will it look in the future?
I remember the old school days where the whole concept was one to one enterprise marketing. Then came the buzz word that is ABM today.
We’re at the point now where with the tech that we have in play for people that are actually championing the tech stocks that they have, they can actually do full-blown account orchestrations on an automated scale. The future is getting people to champion that without having to be tech data geeks like myself. For the non-technical person, make it as seamless as possible. Don’t give them something that is probably a really great tool, but there’s no user guide, and you’re not going to figure it out unless you’re a data person.
Q. How do you make sure that it still has that personal element?
I usually advocate the ‘keep it simple’ rule, minimum viable product, you know. Take a nav on any site. Everybody knows I’ve got to have industry information in there. Somebody is coming from health care. I want to have a relevant track for that individual.
Then with the tools I have at hand, as soon as I have them on page, I’ll engage them with that relevant content. No matter where somebody lands in your digital ecosystem, that’s the one moment for those few seconds you have to really capture and attract that audience. I can’t hope that they stick and be one of the rare people that are going to surf around my nav and find some content relevant to them.
So, everything involves integrating your tech stack to identify that individual and allow them the opportunity to get that relevant content right when they enter your system, whether it’s at the banner ad level or email level, on site or beyond.
Q. How do you find alignment between sales and marketing?
Know when to bite your tongue as a marketer and keep your ears open.
Technically I’m in a marketer role, but any sort of demand gen, revenue marketing, rev ops, anything like that, it’s more important that I align with that sales organization. If I lose that alignment, I’m just sitting here working on pet projects, spinning my wheels, not really helping anybody out.
We should sync up and try and work as a cohesive unit. I run an integrated pipeline analysis meeting that, in full swing, usually meets once a week with chief individuals between marketing and sales. The point is to throw everything on the table, figure out what’s working and what’s not. From the marketing side of things, it’s a focus on what’s working for generating a meetings pipeline and revenue.
As much as a lot of marketers may be running top of the funnel awareness campaigns, there has to be somebody owning up for that demand gen side, whether it’s working or not, and figuring out how to better it for sales.
To get more expert insights from Aristomenis Capogeannis as well as a number of key industry thought leaders, be sure to save your spot for our forthcoming Marketing Spotlight event.