Unveiling ABM's Real Impact on B2B Marketing - How Broad Is It? Can It Scale?
In a recent conversation with B2B marketing experts, we explored the essentials of Account-Based Marketing (ABM). We touched on its definition, the crucial role of technology, and how to measure and scale these efforts effectively. The experts shared insights on creating personalised customer experiences, leveraging technology like AI for better targeting, and integrating ABM into broader marketing strategies to enhance overall effectiveness. They also discussed strategies for making ABM scalable across many accounts, emphasising the balance between personalised marketing and broader campaign goals. This comprehensive discussion offers practical advice for businesses looking to refine their marketing strategies through ABM, aiming to make marketing efforts more focused, efficient, and impactful in the B2B space.
Guests
Sam Batstone, Senior Manager Demand Generation DACHITUKI at Quadient
Mark Walker, Co-Founder & CEO at Revved Up
Kartik Krishnan, Director of ABM - EMEA at Beamery
All right. Welcome everyone to B2B Marketing Futures. Today we will be discussing account based marketing. Um, it's always good to start with a definition. Um, I'm taking a definition of account based marketing from ITSM, a, a consultancy specialised in, in ABM. And their definition is about treating individuals, uh, accounts as markets in their own right. Some characteristics of ABM is the client centricity. So with ABM, we focus on solving our buyers problems rather than promoting the solution we want to sell. It's also expected the partnership between sales and marketing. So ABM will only achieve its potential when sales and marketing work hand in hand in hand. We focus on reputation and relationships, not just revenue. And how we do this is with tailored programs and campaigns. And finally, it it is a long terme approach, um, rooted in a deep analysis of the key issues that your clients are facing. So of course, this is just a definition from ITSM. A I would love to hear your thoughts on it. But first of all, let me introduce everyone. If you can start giving a sentence on yourself. Sam, would you like to start?
Hi. Yeah, my name is Sam Batstone. I am a senior marketing manager in B2B. Um, I have been a marketeer for all over 35 years. Um, 20 of those have been in B2B, and I have a particular passion for ABM.
And your company.
If you want to name your.
Company.
I currently work for a company called Quadient, um, who are, um, global uh, business that in um communications. So mail operations, um, software. Uh. And machinery for mail operations and communications, but also everything from. Invoice software through to parcel lockers. So it's all of that wonderful communication and customer love journey. Um, that helps us make those connections, right? Uh, my passion in the past has always been for technology, manufacturing and industrial. Um, not seen as a sexy ends of the market.
Right. And thank you so much. Um. Kartik.
Yeah. Thanks, Martin. Um, I, uh, have not been in B2B for about ten years now. Um, I started off by doing mainly online marketing soon, recognizing that there's more to B2B marketing than just being able to push out ads. So I built out our CRM and marketing automation infrastructure at a company called Onfido. I have then been director of growth at another B2B startup called Cap Desk, and now I'm at a company called Beameri, which is an HR tech unicorn. Uh, it's a talent lifecycle management platform, integrates with workday and success factors in the like to help create a database of candidates, as well as employee data that will help you hire and move people around in a more skills based way. Uh, and yeah, so really passionate about ABM. I've started really dovetailing into that in the last couple of years. Um, I'll challenge some of the things that you said in that definition, Maxine. Um, but maybe I'll leave that till Mark introduces himself.
Great. Thanks, Karthik.
Um, yeah. So I'm Mark Walker. Uh, I've been in the B2B space for 17 years, leading commercial teams, uh, initially not in the high growth technology sector, but for the last ten, ten plus years in, uh, in B2B tech, uh, sometimes VC backed, sometimes bootstrapped, but generally leading both sales and marketing and customer success teams to try and grow, uh, grow sustainable, repeatable and efficient revenue. Um, more recently, I've become the co-founder and CEO of a business called Rev Up. Uh, Rev up is a business that I have built with my co-founder to scratch an itch that I've had over many years as a revenue leader. Um, and really, what we're trying to do is align sales and marketing teams to deliver more personalized, engaging interactions at every stage of the buyer journey. Um, and we do that whilst also maintaining a consistency of brand and message. Um, and even your sales methodology. And those are the things that have been very, very difficult to do. Um, and scale as a revenue leader without the advent of technology. So yeah, excited to be leading leading that business now and and really excited to be talking about ABM because it's, uh, it's a strategy and a set of tactics that I've used to great effect in previous roles. Um, so yeah, very excited to be talking with you guys today about it.
Great. And I forgot to tell. But scalability is also one of the things that we will be discussing, uh, today. And. Yeah, but let's start with the with the definition. And if we can challenge, uh, eukaryotic already anticipated that you will be challenging my definition. What do you think about ABM and the definition I gave?
Um.
So you, uh, you said a few different things, a lot of which I do agree with. Let me start by saying that. But, um, well, one thing you did call out, you were saying that it's more focused on relationships and reputation than revenue. Um, I've certainly gone from a world where I've worked in smaller scale businesses, and revenue is absolutely top of mind. And while, of course, reputation and relationships are critical, I would, uh, I would challenge anyone that says that ABM does not like very closely interface correlate causality. There's even causality to revenue generation for the business, because I would challenge anything that is largely only about reputation and relationship building, while skewing revenue generation. That has to be the lifeblood of the business. So that's one of my challenges. Um, let me let me actually open it up to the floor before I tell you another one.
I don't disagree. I have to say, you know, revenue, we are all measured on key indicators, you know, uh, and revenue is always one of them. Um, but at the same time, I think it misses out something about being useful. So I think when you're building a relationship with a potential account. There's an onus to be useful. And by that I mean it's not just about. Pushing. It's about listening. Um, and one of the tenants that I live by is an old one from journalistic um, back background is who? What? When? Where? Why? Who are you talking to? Them? Why are you talking to them? When is the right time to engage? What are you going to talk about? Yeah. And why are you going to talk about that? What is important to them. And I think sometimes these very prescriptive descriptions of ABM do tend to forget the yin and the yang of the rev and the relationship, and that's try and trying to find the sweet spot. There is always, always the challenge I think.
Yeah.
I think I think that's that's a really important point. So no ABM program will ever be successful if it doesn't deliver revenue. But clearly it has to be account centric or customer centric to be, you know, to to be more playing around it. Now, I think, you know, while we're doing the challenging ABM definitions, I will I will throw out throw out two. Um, so the first is it's actually it's not the definition you read out. Waxman. But but actually, I think the word, the words themselves don't always do themselves justice. Right? So the first is account based. Well, what is an account. So I think people forget that within those accounts to be successful you have to touch numerous stakeholders and personas and prospects within those. And you're not you're no account ever signed off a big cheque a person did at the end of the day that sat within that account. So I think it's really important when you're thinking about the definition of account based marketing to consider, um, who are the stakeholders within an account that you're trying to reach and build out a prospect centric campaign, um, that are all tied up to the account. And then the second piece is actually marketing piece. So I think you did touch on this in the definition was, which is it has to align teams. The problem is as soon as you you put it into one camp and say, this is a marketing activity, sales loses interest, CS loses interest, right? So I kind of prefer this, this evolution. And people are starting to talk a bit more about AB. And I know we all kind of hate, you know, new terms being coined all the time for the sake of it. But I do like AB because it talks about account based experiences. And that's really what we're trying to align teams around sales, marketing, sales, CS. And it's how do you produce a series of experiences across the whole buyer journey, including, by the way, after you've won them in order to to show that you understand their needs and their pain points and that you can deliver against them.
Yeah. Totally agree. Yeah, I want to I.
Want to touch on something that you mentioned, which is about relationships and in, in B2B and I'm not saying this, I heard this from someone way more experienced than me. In B2B, it's very common that the relationship is person or salesperson or marketing person. It doesn't matter if it's sales or marketing, but one person with an organization and that person was saying, actually, that shouldn't be the case. The relationships should be organization with organization not depending on on an individual. What are your thoughts on that? Is that a common problem in in B2B? How do you see that in in the ABM perspective?
So who do you want to go?
I can take I can take some parts of that. And I want to build on what you were saying, Mark. Um, so for me, I think, I think as Mark was saying, you know, the concept of it being marketing causes some problems where it delineates or or creates a distinction that this is on the marketing team to. To answer your question, mark him. Um, I see it as. Yeah, absolutely. It has to be, you know, you you as an organization are trying to solve problems for another organization. And so you have to create those bridges across all of it. And for me, it's a no brainer that the bridges have to be created by virtue of, you know, marketing creates a whole set of messaging that hopefully aligns with what the organization needs. The organization you're trying to sell to that is, uh, in the and then therefore facilitates sales to sit on top of it and create that experience sales to ensure that, you know, the the missing points, the linkages are being made, which is, hey, you have these pain points, or at least we're guessing you have these pain points. As an organization, we can help you solve for it in this way. Maybe you have these other considerations. Maybe price is a problem. Maybe it's the fact that, like we have a less developed solution, but by virtue of connecting different people across our whole organization, hopefully you can see the value we can bring solving your pain point. And then we're off to the races with doing something meaningful for the whole account as opposed to just like, you know, one off relationships. Does that help? I think that's.
I think that's true. I mean, I always look at an account, as you say, as a group of people who have perhaps a combined issue, but they're all looking at it from different points of view.
And so.
For example, um, with Quadient, we deal a lot with, um, mail and communication operations. Now, that might be a physical mail room. So there's going to be somebody who leads that. There'll be the IT team. Because obviously we want to have intelligent solutions that make sure that all of our communications either go to email or text or physical mail. So there's a whole bunch of people within that organization. You've got the finance officer who was, as we all know, is going to say, this is going to cost me money. Where is the cost benefit? But I also think layered within that, and I totally agree with your thought processes, is that it's not marketing, it's not sales, but it's also everybody. So if you've won that account, if they have a really crummy experience paying invoices, trying to get a hold of the service team, um, not being invited to your big event, you know, where that whole lifecycle of of a account management is beholding across the business. So it is sales and marketing and the finance team and customer success and everybody else in between. And I think the key point that I've learned over the years is you need to bring those people in at the start of that journey, um, so that there is that, as you quite rightly said, organization to organization approach, um, which doesn't just make what you're doing successful, but makes that stick because there's nothing worse than putting all that effort in. And then next time something comes around, you're not in consideration. Yeah. And I think it's interesting what you said about the sales guys. Um, we work in lockstep, you know, otherwise there's no point. Um, but that is lockstep with them, the product guys. Customer success. Everybody needs to be in the room when you're planning what that activity is going to be in terms of trying to convert that account to sales.
And practically how to create.
How do we create these structures?
So we don't need to rely on one person doing their their job. Um, what kind of structures do you have in place to, to to apply ABM.
Yeah. So I think it's a good point. You know, the individuals are a conduit, right, for the organization. So I think there's some some really hit on that, which is an individual. You could have a great product and a great organization behind you, but an individual could deliver a really crummy experience. Right? They could convey the message poorly. They could be late getting back to you, they could be late in the meeting unprepared and so on and so forth. And that that is going to hamper the trust and credibility that your organization is, is presenting to the stakeholders on the other side. So it's really, really important to. People buy for a mix of both emotion and rational reasons. Right. And it's really important that you it's not one or the other, you know, you can have logically a fantastic looking product. But if someone doesn't trust the person in that organization, it's going to be really hard to get that deal over the line. Equally, they could want to go for a drink with them and a dinner and, you know, think they're their best friend. But if you've got a poor product and it doesn't stack up, they're still not going to buy from you, right? And you've still got to get it past the CFO, particularly when we're talking about the type of cheque sizes that ABM typically deals with. Now, I don't know if that's answering your question, but I think to answer your question more directly, how how do you create structure and consistency around individuals so that they are, um, presenting the organization in the right way? Um, I actually think there's. There's there's some obvious answers, right? Good training, good onboarding, good sales enablement. Giving them the right collateral, giving them the right materials, embedding a system and a process. This is our sales methodology. This is how, um, how we should be presented in in market. These are the types of things that we need to understand about a client before we progress them to having some, you know, qualification methodology like metric. All of these things go a long way. Um, go, go a long way to improving things. But I, I do caution and this is more on the sales and the marketing side that we can go to the nth degree. And people want to buy from robots that are reading off scripts. Right. And some of the magic and the art of sales is giving people a bit of artistic license to take the the basics of your brand and your message and tailoring it to the prospect in a way that resonates with them. That's the beauty of human to human sales, right? So yes, you need processes, you need systems, you need consistency. Um, but actually everyone ish knows what Medpac is, right? Everyone has a brand house. Everyone has these things at their disposal. How do you stand out? Well, it's applying a bit of creativity and personalization to to the process.
I think that's down to empowerment, that you empower people to do that within your organization. Many years ago, I worked for a company that I shall not name that sold. This is how long ago it is photocopiers, faxes and telephones. I mean, the telephones that you picked up and did this with and pressed the buttons, um, way before anybody on this calls time. Um, and they had a separate sales team for each one of these, and they sold into corporate. And it frustrated the hell out of me when I first got there because. The fact boys would go into a company and sell a fax machine, and there would be a telephone system designed by Alexander Graham Bell, and they would not bring that information back in to the business, or they were still doing the roneo copying. You know, I mean, there was it was hilarious that you'd have people just targeted at that one thing. And I think if you empower people and as you say, the ability to tell that story and personalize that story, because you may be speaking to the customer about what you think is the issue. But a skilled salesperson has great antennae and can hear what that is. And if they're talking to the finance guy, they can hear what the undertone is. Or the chap on the on the mailroom floor who can't recruit, you know, um, so maybe the answer isn't that it's about automation and software. So I think it is really important that you empower people within that process to be able to have those rich conversations, and where having good materials, absolutely good sales enablement, good training, etc., etc., etc. is absolutely fundamental. Breadstuff um, you know, we've got to put a put a bit of butter in. Sorry, sorry. Top of that. I was just saying we just need to layer that up. So I see where you're coming from on that one. Um, Mark.
I'll even throw one other element of this, right. There's the fact that attention spans are reducing. Then I've seen this research from Forrester that says the new generation is not that keen to speak to salespeople from the get go. They want to experience the product from the start. So I think the the role of sales shifts a little bit in being more of this ability to, uh, quickly gauge what is the main touch, what is the main points that will, uh, build a credibility, build that trust, get, uh, get the product to really feel like it's something that's going to solve for the problems. What we don't want is to quote from the recent memes of another Willy Wonka experience of this is what the product is wonderful, but what's the reality? So it's almost on the sales person to ensure that the right, uh, you know, right bits are being showcased as quickly as possible and the most meaningful way. So that's where I think, uh, you know, Mark, to add to your point, I think that's where it's a case of we can't just like, have all that content out there and just hope that it gets read and been seen at the right time. That's what the sales person brings. But marketing then has to be that creating the structure, the scaffolding around all of this so that the best bits can be showcased in the most coherent, you know, brand aligned ways. That's how I view it.
Some. Sorry, I was going to ask you before. I don't want to put you on the spot, so feel free if you don't want to talk about this. But during our briefing call, you mentioned that you use a smart to structure your conversations and and and how you interact with cells and with your clients. Could you tell us a little bit about that, please?
Excuse me. So, um, I use a. It's a spreadsheet. It's not sexy, but it has a series of smart questions in that allows us to bring everybody to the beginning point. So when we're looking at targeting, um, a particular account, we'll say to ourselves, what is it we actually want to achieve? You know. Um, and what are the numbers and the realities around that? So it is S.m.a.r.t. Specifically, what do we want to achieve with this client? Yeah. And it's not sell one thing. Yeah. It is about what we want to achieve as a group of people. And that group of people we get into. The room at the start includes the sales teams, includes our product team, includes sales enablement. It includes the specialists from all the different marketing areas who might bring something new into that thought process. So, you know, your digital specialists might say, actually, really interesting piece from Forrester recently about, um, the fact that people don't want to interact at the first option with a salesman. They want to have some more information first. How will that allow us to design our marketing? Journey. What are the touch points on that? So the whole point of doing this smart exercise is to say, can we actually articulate what it is we want to achieve? And that isn't as simple as it sounds sometimes. Um, but if you get everybody in on that conversation that is involved in the process, then actually some really interesting stuff comes out of that. And it's, it's a, it's a. You know, part of the questioning in our smart is what assets do we have already that would be really useful to this customer. Do we need to redo something or is this something we've already done that's really worthwhile in their space or their, um, a big company that has a lot of issues around compliance? Well, this is great. We've got a great webinar that we could share out. So I think the whole point of doing the smart is to get everybody in the room at the start and have all the brain cells on it, because I don't think any of us have got the one answer, but there is lots of experience to bring in. Doesn't make.
Sense.
Totally. And I think it's a very way of how you structure the empowerment that you were mentioning before. Like it's a are totally aligned.
And it.
Working. Can I, can I actually jump in and ask Sam a question if you don't mind? Uh, which is, you know, with, um, with the practicalities of that, uh, Sam, how many, how many companies are you doing smart for? Because it can get such. It can get into such a long, drawn exercise. If you're doing it for thousands, you know, you'd almost be.
Planning it's.
It's not going to be thousands. If we're looking at large enterprise, which is where we would look to do the most effective ABM. Um, but I do feel that unless we nail down what the expectation is to the business, you know, we expect this amount of revenue in year one, this amount of revenue in year two, etc., etc. it is very difficult to go back to the business and go, actually, I'd like X amount of money, which is always the question. Um, and this amount of effort to be able to achieve this, and then you can look at what that lifetime value is, you can look at that LTV, you can look at the return on investment and look at how you then. Create what you're up to. Sometimes I feel that some ABM stuff is very much one off, done something and left. And actually, as we said right at the start, all of us agreed it was about that relationship building as well as making sure that we've got the numbers in the room.
Yeah.
So it's not something I would do. For thousands.
Yeah, I was sorry. I was just going to build on, on the the original premise of the question was like, how do you structure this, right to provide to provide a level of consistency and a really, really simple I don't even know if I'd call it a framework, but there's just three questions that you need to answer in order. Well, it's not even that you need to answer that a prospect would need to answer before they buy. Right. And you've probably heard them before, but it's worth reiterating. The first question that anyone has to answer is why would I change, right? Why would I do anything different? This is particularly when you're talking about account based marketing, large enterprise customers. You are talking about a big change management program, right? So the inertia is massive to start with. Like why should we do anything differently? Full stop. Right. You've got to be able to articulate that in a, in a really sort of compelling way to, to get someone to even the next stage of the buyer journey. The second question then is, okay, why now? Right. You can convince someone that they should be doing this thing, but actually driving that through to real behavioral change is a whole different thing again, right? How do you generate urgency? How do you implicate the pain of not not moving forward? Right. So you've got to be able to answer why now? And then, of course, at this point, hopefully you've educated them on the challenges that they're facing. And they really understand that if they don't change in a reasonable time frame, um, it could be, you know, materially negative for their business. But at this point, they're educated. You better believe they're looking at other competitors as well. So then you've got to answer the question of, well, why us? Right. Why are we the best alternative to solve this problem in the time frame that you should be solving it? Um, and you shouldn't with these other either direct competitors or potentially indirect competitors. Right. So it's quite a complex set of questions that you've got to answer. But if you can think it through in that way, that's a really great way to structure your campaign structure the content structure, the way you deliver the sort of sales pitch as you run through it. Like it's very, very simple, but it's really compelling because it's very biocentric and and it ultimately helps you answer, helps them answer the questions they need to buy from you.
Very much so. And I think part of. The work that we all do in setting up something from the beginning is to really challenge ourselves with those questions. I think it makes a huge amount of difference because, for example, if you're selling into a public sector client, they may have a buying cycle or a budget cycle. Um, so that will affect then, you know, why not now? Well, I won't have the budget for it for another six months. Okay. So what do we how do we plan through that. So I think that's a a good guide to having those conversations right at the start so that you get, as you say, get the right answers in terms of how you can then message, because not everybody is going to be in the same place at the same time.
Um.
Mark, I have a question.
Oh, there you.
Go. And then I had a question for you, actually.
Oh, okay. Cool.
Well, um, I will take what you said, and I think there is a framework there because I think there is, you know, you can't you can't only be betting on accounts that are. Still at the very top of the funnel, which are still asking, what could we do? Uh, you need some accounts, I think, that are at the Y now, at least, if not the Y us sort of question stages. And, you know, it's kind of nice that that stage, those questions almost kind of align with the funnel to some extent. So I think you need a mix of that. What I think is the real power, when you get really outsized outcomes is when you're able to scale good answers to why now? Why us back up to the people who are still at the what can we do? What should we even try to do kind of section? Right? And when I say people, I mean accounts that are there. And to me that's the balance that I think a good ABM strategy has. So from for me, like a grouping of accounts, some of which are my demand capture end of things, trying to tell them why now? Why us while at the same time using that to bring some other people on the journey and make them be aware that they should be doing this? Ideally with some FOMO of oh crap, my competitors are doing this to me. That's when you really get the big ROI on ABM accounts. So that's how I would group. And I can go into the kind of numbers and how we've done that. But that's my thinking on it.
I love I love.
That, and actually it kind of aligns with the question I was going to going to ask. So the question I was going to ask you, because I know obviously we've spoken before about some of the complexities of measuring account based marketing because it's over such an elongated period of time and you're you're really commercially driven marketer. As you said, the immediate challenge was, hang on, we need to measure this by revenue, but that revenue doesn't always land for quite a long time after you kicked off the campaign. So how do you think about measuring the success of ABM in sort of lagging leading indicators, as well as that, that lagging indicator? And, Sam, I'd love to hear your perspective on it as well.
Yeah.
So lagging indicator pretty much would be opportunities. You know, opportunities created in quarter value of the opportunities created probably actually further lagging is actual revenue. As I said before that's so critical. So so helping the sales team actually get a closed one. But leading indicators wise. Yeah, that is the ultimate question because you're sort of like, um, you're sort of looking for the trends and patterns that are going to tell you there's going to be the right outcomes in the end, the right lagging indicators. And so to my mind, there are things like the number of touchpoints in the relevant, uh, persona base. So you don't want just another touchpoint within Barclays with a very junior person who is just interested in learning about the product. You need to have it be someone who's going to be, say, a decision maker. Um, then you need to also think about the quality of those touchpoints, whether they are very kind of tangential. Are they are they just about seeing coming across your booth at an event versus are they talking to you, spending some quality time kind of coming to a round table, let's say, so that they're really hearing from you or they're, you know, not just attending a webinar where you don't even know if they're paying any attention. They might have it playing in the background. They may not even be listening properly versus they're engaged, they're asking questions. They're wanting to hear more about how you solve for this, for other players. I think once you're starting to answer you, I it could almost come back to some of the questions you posed, which is if you've got some accounts to be asking, why now? Why us uh, or. Well, they weren't directly asked that, but you've kind of got them in that mind frame. I think you're getting the right leading indicators going for you.
Sam.
Your thoughts? No.
There's nothing. Nothing that I disagree with. Um. I also think that. Having consistency of view on this is important as well. So in two ways I think the first one is if you're looking at the lagging, you need to think about okay, so we've had these opportunities sat around. Is there a reason they're not progressing? What do we need to do to help in that progression. As you say with the sales team? Is there something that we another person in the business that we need to connect with that we haven't connected with? So I think making sure that you interrogate the life cycle of your mql through your win off the other side, but that flabby bit in the middle, um, that little bit of marketing, middle age spread is, is sometimes an area that is missed. And I think you're you're very much right there, uh, taking, making sure that you are looking at those indicators in there and going, okay, so that's interesting. Why do we have a whole bunch of council calls that we have lovely chunky opportunities sat there in our in our systems waiting to be confirmed, and yet they're taking longer then these sorts of businesses. And that will give you indicators for example, on buying patterns, budget rates, turnarounds, etc.. So I think there's that, um, and I also think that your. Both, right? In terms of where we look at where people are within that journey. Um, and I love the idea of bringing some of them up forward as well. I think that works, but I think it is very much the answer to that is being very concentrated on where people are in that journey and understanding, as you say, what the quality of that is. Um, years ago I worked for a large company, international company, um, who did mechanical, um, machinery, very well known, very high end, kind of like the Harrods end of, of of mechanical machinery. Um, and they did a huge piece with lots of videos, etc., launching a new program that was explainers, that was histories, there was interviews. It was very much a large amount of work was put into it. Um, and one of the interesting things that came out of that was they went, wow, we've got a whole bunch of these guys who are coming in and looking at it, engineering guys we want to talk to. When we dug down into that, it was students. So they went, oh, we're not interested in students and went, whoa, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Those students are your customers of the future. And from that insight, the business actually created a university. Now openly shared the things that they were doing with student bodies and what they did. And, you know, those are your buyers of tomorrow. So talk about influencing early in the funnel. You know, these were these were way out. But I think if you're not looking at what's being engaged with and who's engaging with it, as you say, is it the right person, then you do spend a lot of time and effort on a wild goose chase.
Yeah, just can I.
It's just spark something in my mind where I was at at a conference several years ago now, and I saw the CMO of Aston Martin speaking, and he answered the question that no one had asked, but I think was in in the back of everyone's mind, which was, you know, why do they spend so much money on on that brand marketing to a mass audience who can never afford it? Right. What's the advantage there? You know, it feels like dead spend. But of course, there's two main reasons behind it. One is to create that desirability that then the few that can afford it are in this, this rarefied air. So it makes it feel more prestigious, not less. The fact that there's so many people aware of Aston Martin who want it. And of course, secondly, it's not always easy, particularly in consumer, to predict who's who's the next customer, right? Who's the next rich person that's going to be able to buy it. So you kind of need to spread that. And I think the dovetail to to what Karthik was saying around this importance of consistently building more brands into the top of the funnel or trying to answer the why, why change at all question, is that a lot of ABM programs that I see are quite stop start, right? And so they've got these defined beginnings and ends, and what they then lose is this, um, consistency of message of brand message into the market, which is that we are the business that can solve these types of problems for these types of accounts. And so if you can run an always on ABM program, you just build that muscle. You get better at it. You build the consistency. You constantly creating the flywheel of bringing more into the hopper as you bring you. Hopefully you close more out. But I do think there's this, um, tailwind that you get from it, which is which is a kind of brand recognition in the market that you guys solve these types of problems for these types of organizations that a lot of the mid-market aspire towards. So I think there's a really great trickle down effect that might be missed from ABM.
I think that links.
Very well with something that I've been wanting to to ask, which is about scalability. Kartik, you, you you asked um, Sam about if you could apply that smart technique to 1000 accounts or to ten accounts or hundreds. I don't know what's the answer, but why it's so hard to apply something like smart that you were describing Sam to 1000 accounts? Or can we apply ABM to 1000 accounts? Maybe that always on strategy that Mark was describing is the answer. What what are your thoughts on on that?
I yeah, I can, I can come in with some thoughts here. Um, basically I think it's about information and gleaning information out there in the market and trying to make sense of it. You know, if you've had lots of conversations with one account, you should be able to do smart. You're silly if you can't. If you've not asked the questions that enable you to do that, you'll probably be there. But how do you then scale that? How do you then get that to 100 accounts? And that's where I think that's why you need these kind of frameworks. And this ability to understand that not everything is going to turn into an opportunity and going to be even, you know, like a account that's ready to buy right away. So you have to bucket things into those different groupings and say, yeah, here I'm trying to create some touch points so that these people will believe a solution like this is valuable. Whereas at the same time, I'm going to work deeply with the sales team to ensure that some other accounts are really ready to go now. So through that, only with that mindset of it is going to be some quick wins and then some not so quick wins. If you have that sort of mindset, you can scale ABM 100% because you're setting yourself the task of getting to revenue, building that reputation, building that relationship, while simultaneously also ensuring that some other people who are completely new to this space also start to understand. So if that is the goal, ABM can scale. But if ABM is seen as do something for one account and show that it creates a, you know, specific outcome within a certain time frame, you're sort of like just kind of betting on this account has to be at that. Why now? Why us kind of stage of the buying cycle. And then maybe they're just not. Maybe they're a public sector account who's just not going to have the budget. Then you won't be able to scale. It is my thoughts.
Yeah.
I I've got a couple of thoughts. If that's that's okay. And then then obviously Sam I'd love to hear yours as well. But my so look how do you scale ABM is is one of the problems that I'm looking to solve with the business that I founded. But I don't want to make this a sales pitch. So let me just talk about the principles that that I think do and don't scale. So ABM, when executed, the certain things that I don't think will scale. For example, you can't invite hundreds or thousands of SMB prospects to nice Michelin stars dinners, right, or private events and, you know, send them expensive direct mail pieces and so on and so forth. Right. But that's kind of the icing on the cake. And I do think it's important to to have that for your really, really big accounts. Right. But the budget just will not let you scale it to SMB. But there are principles to good ABM that do scale across lots of accounts. Right. And I think that's what people lose. So the ability to tailor your message to multiple prospects within one account, to their situation, to what they care about, that is difficult to scale or was prior to I and having the types of technology at your disposal that can do a ton of research, gather all that insights, and then match it up to the relevance of your solution. And you can do it in seconds, rather than it taking hours or weeks and workshops and work groups that really does scale, delivering that message in a personalized way, you know, whether it's through a digital experience or outreach or whatever that that looks like that can scale these days as well. Right? So I do think there's certain things that weren't, but there are lots of things that will and therefore I don't think there's an excuse anymore to go, okay, we're going to use a ton of insights and research and really tailor and personalize everything we're going to do for just these top ten, 50 or 100 hundred accounts. And then we're going to do generic stuff for everyone else. I just don't think that you need to do that anymore. Right. And you can have highly tailored, highly personalized campaigns at scale. Um, and, and that is going to increase your conversion rates and give an account based marketing style to your wider marketing approach.
I agree.
I think it's very fascinating. Sorry, Sam.
I agree.
I think it's interesting to see how. New tools and techniques allow us to upscale and side scale, um, what we're doing. Um, in AI, in particular, personalization. Um, and it's interesting to me that a lot of these techniques have actually come from B to C or D to C. Um and for years market business to business marketeers were like, oh, you can't do that in business. It doesn't work. And it's like, well, I don't I don't become a different person. When I come into my office, I might be a little bit smarter dressed. Um, but I'm still the person who's hanging out on Tick Tock looking at the cat videos. Um, so I think it's important that we do understand how all of these new tools, um, can really help us. Um, and also do that with a sense of confidence. Yeah, so we're not having Nazi chat bots. I that makes things up. Um, and, you know, how can companies do that with confidence, I think is the golden is the golden ticket there? I think absolutely. I agree with what you're saying.
Actually, how you.
Measure the quality of the touchpoints that you were mentioning before. Karthik. Right. I think that's key. If you can, if you can measure and be confident somehow that, that, that the touchpoints that you're having are, are of a good quality, then you can put the right content with I, I think that's, that's that combination. I think it's fascinating.
I think it all goes back to alignment. So if, if the, if the AI is producing something and then there's someone in the sales team who's able to say, I'm not so sure because we spoke to someone at that account a while ago. And, you know, there's question marks that actually is quite valuable because, yeah, it might put a question mark on the AI overall, but actually, you're probably more importantly, you will learn where the AI is going wrong and not going right. I personally am of the mindset where we have to embrace this. It's a it's a tidal wave that's coming at us, so it's better to know where it's going to work, whereas where it's not going to work. And simultaneously, I think that's what again, going back to the alignment piece, I think if you have a good even a marketing team who's able to glean and understand the best use cases, like, sure, we can't afford to sit and think about smart for every account, but AI is helping us at least have one kind of sense of these things. We're not going to go wrong by sending out this message. It's a slightly better than just doing a generic message. I think that is already a starting point, and then you can hopefully kick start some feedback loops of, yeah, when we tried that message in the market, it actually resonated with that industry or that persona type way more than we expected. Then again, you will start to get, you know, better outcomes, quicker, faster learning, uh, about the industry much more quickly so that you can scale it much more rapidly. But Mark, maybe a question back to you. You've started doing some of this stuff. Um, how have you, uh, how have you seen the actual take up from sales and marketing? Is it is it almost a hand in glove kind of thing that happens? Did they both start deploying on these technologies together, or is there a quicker take up on one side and why?
Yeah.
It's a really great question. Um, so what I find is marketing tends to have a slightly longer terme view than sales, right? So while while we almost all are changed to quarterly cycles, um, I do find that as a rule of thumb, marketing will think a little bit further ahead in, in kind of their brand planning, their campaign planning, because they know how long it will take to take out something. Whereas sales, you know, beyond building pipeline, they're so focused on this quarter's number and closing that down, it's quite, quite hard to get them to do anything that's not going to provide like an immediate and I mean immediate kind of ROI. Um, so what I tend to find is that the marketing teams will take these concepts and they will shape them. They're the ones that really care about, you know, the quality and consistency of the brand message and, and how that, um, sits within, uh, within the market and so on and so forth. Whereas sales can often be a little bit more gung ho on that stuff. So, um, marketing will then build the scaffolding. Um, but if you can then show to sales, this is how it is going to help you meet and exceed your quarterly number, build more pipeline with relatively little effort. Right? Is the juice worth the squeeze? Then sales can be the most enthusiastic participants because they are always looking for an.
Edge.
Right? They're in a very competitive environment, and whatever they can do to try and stand out just that little bit and provide a better experience. And as long as it's not going to take them a ton of time to do it, then then they'll embrace very, very quickly. Um, and yeah, sorry, you've just mentioned customer success as well. I think it's a really, really great point because they they often get forgotten about because it's, it's postale. Um, yeah. I mean, look, customer success are I mean, they're in a really tricky place. I'm now kind of talking very contextually about today's market. Um, you know, so many budgets are being constrained. They're being, you know, gnrhr is down in general. So net revenue retention for for anyone not familiar with every acronym ever in SAS. Um, so I think CS teams are also enthusiastic for two main reasons. One, they're in a really difficult environment. So again, any tools and technology that they can leverage to improve their current customer experience is going to be beneficial to them. And the second piece is um, the the continuum of delivering great account based experiences. If you can take all the engagement, all the insights, all the all the answers to the three wise we talked. About and hand that to customer success. I mean, they're in a better position to service that account and deliver value than if it's just thrown over the wall, and they have no idea what happened until they're they're handed the contract and told to her, told to renew it in 12 months.
Absolutely agree. And I think it goes back to the point we're discussing about getting the right people in the right room at the start. You know, they need to be there from the beginning. Um, and I think what you say is very point pointed in. Understanding that there's a behaviors of sales guys worked with sales guys all my all my life and they are highly competitive. But as you say, they don't have the same KPI situation. So we might look at. So it might be that they have that quarterly number they need to hear. Well I need to hit that number. I'm not really interested in maybe spending time on somebody who's going to convert here. I think that's different. If you've got sales guys who are used to working at enterprise level, because they do look at that, that over overview. But I think if you're looking at moving ABM practice into SMB, then how do you make sure that you've got all of that support and rigor within the process? Because as Kartik said, you know, it is scalable. Um, for the marketer, how do we make that scalable for the sales teams and also customer success? So I really like the way that that conversation is going. Bottle fizz around in my brain for a while.
Yeah, I was I was thinking about, um, my experience in, in B2C and working for a large winery and, and how we solve, kind of solve the marketing, sales and marketing alignment was making marketing accountable for all the revenue of the company. So marketing, we needed to present all the marketing plans to well, the cycles are a bit different, maybe comparing with the tech company, but we needed to present the marketing plans two years ahead of time and agree with with sales on those marketing plans, that those were the marketing plans that were going to drive revenue. But then when we needed to present the quarterly research results, were marketing the ones that that that that were presenting the results to the CEO and totally accountable for for that because we were the ones that we created the marketing plans. Of course, we had an agreement with sales, but we were 100% accountable of that. And. Doing that. Finally, we got a 100% alignment with with with cells. And the way that we we reported on that solved our our alignment.
Because it just reminds me of a quote from Charlie Munger who who said, if you show me, you show me the, um, the incentives, I will show you the outcomes.
Mhm.
Right. And it's just so true. So I think aligning incentives drives behaviors and it drives outcomes. So I, I love that example like.
I think if you can get alignment in those areas, then you're all going in the same direction at the same speed.
Yeah, there is a little danger though, particularly in enterprise sales and stuff, for us to say that marketing can drive revenue. And because then you're going to I think cause. Uh, the end outcome can be so far away that there's no optimization for a long time. And that is bad marketing, because if you're not iterating, if you're not even Mark, you were saying about always on ABM, I would say that even if it's a the the concept should be always on, but you're iterating, right? You're changing maybe even the accounts, but you're certainly changing the message. You're certainly changing the why. Why should you consider this? What is the obvious pain point that we're looking to solve? What's the top three? Even you might be changing all of those things and that can struggle. You might get into a holding pattern for years. And I know in this environment, in this current macroeconomic conditions, you can't afford to do that for too long. Um, so I guess that yeah, it's funny. I mean, I feel like this whole podcast could have just been called Why Alignment Matters, because that's what we keep coming.
But but if.
But if you have that alignment, if you have the right kind of like kind of hypothesis, I think it's I think that's the thing. It's a little bit of courage in having an hypothesis of these are the accounts that can buy today, but these are the accounts that will not or will will take some more doing and take some more handholding. Then you can, uh, say that, yes, we're all aiming for revenue. We're all aiming for getting, of course, more and more growth in the business. Good sticky growth. But here's what marketing will definitely be able to deliver this quarter versus some of this will be for the next couple of quarters, you know. And then you have the leading and lagging indicators that I wanted to that I was referencing earlier saying, yeah, you know, now we're this is a successful campaign because the worst thing you can do is say it's ABM. Always, um, these are the sales cycle, the three years leave it as is. You know, then I think you're going to lose trust in credibility right away.
Yeah. I think it's really important.
It's a really important point. And the way you solve for it at enterprise is different to SMB and sort of high velocity, for sure. Um, as a general principle, um, that I like to try and try and work my teams around is is having overlapping incentives. Right. So, um, yes, it's hard to, to put marketing on the hook 100% for revenue because they're not then thinking about what leads to revenue in a, in a in of detail and therefore particularly for longer campaigns, they can't optimize towards it, but they should have some revenue goal, right? Whether that's 20%, 30%, 40%, it's going to depend on on the market, the team, etc.. Um, and then the second piece, though that's really important, is distinguishing between KPIs and goals. Right. And I forget there is a it it's there's a specific time for it. Something's law. But essentially the law is when a KPI becomes a goal, it becomes a bad KPI. Right. Because you start to optimize over optimize for towards it and you forget what the actual goal is. Right. So I do think it's really important for marketing teams to broadly be goal towards revenue. And I know that that's that's kind of your your main incentive as well. But absolutely not. Forget the most important KPIs that lead to that and then optimize those without losing sight of the actual goal. So I think if you combine those overlapping incentives and not getting KPIs and goals mixed up, then you can have a really like really good working system.
Okay, so I.
Realized we are coming to an end. Time is flying. I want to say thank you so much for for your collaboration today. I want to give you, if you if you want to say a few words, you are very welcome.
I have to say, I really enjoyed today's conversation and there are now my synapses are now flushing away. Um, I think one of the things that I've learned today is there are so many different. Nuances, levers, approaches, insights that we should keep learning on and not become. Too frustrated with where we are, but try and look at how we can move that forward. And I think the challenges of AI, but also of alignment, all of those things. I agree we should rename the podcast. I think it's perfect. Um, you know, I just think I've just I've come away here with, with much more learning, um, and many notes.
Uh, many notes.
That's the idea.
Well.
Just to build on on from Sam. Just a huge thank you for for the invite. It's been been a really fun conversation. Um, love the challenge back and forth and, uh, you know, some good alignment, some, some good learnings. Um, and, yeah, I'd love if anyone wanted to connect with me after this then, um, LinkedIn. Mark Walker at Rev up. Uh, r e v e d um, we'd love to continue the conversation with anyone that's interested in, in, um, you know, talking about scaling ABM.
No.
Similar. Um, it's a shame we didn't get into some, like, nitty gritties of what has worked and what hasn't worked, but I think we had so much fun talking about the the concepts and how to scale it. Um, but yeah. So again, in my case, if you want to chat, um, what is working? What's not working? I'm Karthik Krishnan on LinkedIn, fairly active there. So you'll be able to find me there and always happy to talk like practical realities of ABM and how it can be deployed. What are the challenges when you're deploying it in smaller organizations versus big? So because I've touched a bit of both. Um, but yeah. Thanks, Joaquin. Thank you, Zach, for the invite. Really appreciate it.
