During the B2B Sales & Marketing Exchange that took place earlier this month, attendees were lucky enough to have an entire track dedicated to ABM strategies — as well as one keynote. Throughout the three-day event, the experts shared some hard-hitting quotes and advice… and we’ve collected some of the most insightful ones here:
“One thing we need to home in on and hyper focus on is content across various stages of the funnel,” said Jen Leaver, Director of Integrate Marketing at FullStory. “For example, I’m not going to serve up a case study to an account that’s showing very early behavioral signals and intent; they don’t care about the story at this point. Early-stage prospects want something more of a blog or infographic that talks to solving their problem. And then as the account starts to move through the funnel, that’s when you can get more tailored and customized.”
“On the research side, I like to focus on consistency of information,” said Daniel Englebretson, CEO and Founder of Khronos Agency. “You can’t have a super bespoke set of questions that only matter to one account; you need repeatable questions you can ask all the accounts you’re trying to target. From a content perspective, it has to demonstrate that you know their problem and how they experience it. And then from a tactics perspective, you’re looking for as many touchpoints as you can get. So your tactical mix needs to generate engagement data, whether that’s anonymously or opt-in.”
“The most important piece is speaking the same language between both sales and marketing,” said Dennis Wright, Field Marketing Manager at Bynder. “You want to make sure that the message is going out there from a thought leadership and a branding perspective. We’re talking about buyer’s journeys that last six to nine months, and it’s critical that the message remains consistent from the initial ad click to talking with sales. At the end of this journey, as it gets into the actual sales cycle and how we’re supporting both sides, you need to have business outcomes for the marketing campaigns that you’re testing, and this is a rallying point between marketing and sales.”
“You need to tell the entire story of marketing’s contribute to pipeline and revenue, and it should be looked at through sourced and influenced,” said Amber Bogie, Director of Global Demand Generation at Reachdesk. “I have never launched a display campaign where somebody clicked on an ad and immediately wanted to talk to sales. But that had an influence on the account and it allowed us to stay top of mind and be the vendor of choice when they were ready to solve the problem. That influence piece is a huge metric that we need to home in and, as marketers, be advocates for.”
For more insights straight from the #B2BSMX show floor, check out recaps for day one, two and three.
