The Lead Management Journey at BloomReach: Four Years In. JASON SEEBA Chief Marketing Technologist BloomReach

Transcription

1 The Lead Management Journey at BloomReach: Four Years In JASON SEEBA Chief Marketing Technologist BloomReach

2 JASON SEEBA Chief Marketing Technologist BloomReach Nerdy credentials: BBSes in jr. high. Started two early Internet radio stations, led marketing at three startups, built marketing technology/demand gen/sdr/abm at BloomReach.

3 It was 2012.

4 $16M in funding. 50 employees. BIG early deals. Selling into BIG E-commerce co s. 600 of them. No Salesforce/MarTech/Demand Gen/SDRs.

5 MANDATE: Profitable growth NOT growth at any cost Outsized expectations, little process in place Constraints + freedom to design from ground up

6 Let s do some targeted Adwords! 2500 clicks. 6 from Target Accounts. The Demand Gen playbook I was planning to run was not going to work.

7 Our enterprise focus pushed us toward Account Based Everything (before it was cool).

8 Everyone is getting their Dreamforce on. Me: That inbound Content Marketing/Demand Gen lead-centric model isn t going to work for us. Analyst: Good luck!

9 5 defining traits of Account Based Marketing (and sales) Targeted accounts (typically larger) Highly personalized programs Coordination across touches, channels and experiences Always on until account is removed from target list Marketing, SDR and Sales aligned Source: Craig Rosenberg/TOPO

10 OUR JOURNEY FROM ZERO TO ONE (AND SIX)

11 CORE TENETS OF AN ACCOUNT BASED TECH STACK Understand people at scale Map your universe Personalize everything Analyze data by account

12 Understand people at scale Define Target Accounts Define Ideal Customer Profile Prioritize by fit-to-persona

13 Define high-value target accounts For us: revenue (Leadspace) website traffic (SimilarWeb) pages indexed (Google/Mech. Turk) industry (Leadspace) Plus manual look at site for fit

14 Continually refine your target lists. Investment per account in ABM is HIGH. Make it pay.

15 Build your Ideal Customer Profile For mature products, look-a-like matching. For new products, it s complicated. We talked to customers, PMs, PMMs, Marketing, Sales, etc. Continue to refine.

16 Prioritize by fit-to-persona At scale, we know how good of a fit every contact is to each of our products. We use the data in target selection, campaign member selection, targeting for events, nurturing, website personalization, etc.

17 Map Your Universe Use personas to populate CRM. Acquisition of accounts and names can be done systematically. We add names quarterly. We now attribute ~80% of revenue on a lead source basis to these efforts.

18 Map Your Universe Route all leads to target accounts. Future state = the CRM is a link to external data sources and updates automatically. When someone moves companies, they move in Salesforce.

19 Personalize everything. Be authentic.

20 Automation is not authentic.

21 People are mentally filtering out anything sent by a machine.

22 Personalization vs. Scale 1:1 Personalization Balanced Personalization and Scale Highly Scalable Marketing Sales Development Sales

23 Each group is under pressure to scale (with technology as the shortcut). Things done at scale (at limited cost) come across as inauthentic.

24 Authenticity trumps scale. You lose trust, you lose the deal.

25 Inauthentic Marketing Adding your company, inc. to s Fake replies from MA Mass-produced hand-written letters Customized direct mail Adding to nurture w/o permission Rules-based website personalization

26 Inauthentic Sales Development Cadence management tool abuse Just bubbling this back up to the top of your inbox *.ai companies I heard you like the environment and went to Chico State. Now buy my SaaS product.

27 Inauthentic Sales? Already 1:1 Pressure to be more prescriptive in their approach. Don t just give more info when asked. Help guide buyers through the buying process with trusted up/down advice Keeper of customer stories

28 Don t sacrifice authenticity for an attempt at scale.

29 There is hope. Hint: it s not (just) about technology. Or Obama for that matter.

30 How to win with ABM: People & Process & Technology (in that order)

31 This is what personalization looks like. Execution is high touch. On purpose.

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34 Tradeshow Reports & Lookbooks

35 For best SDRs: provide constraints, encourage creativity, trust them.

36 Delight with exclusive experiences

37 Analyze data / measure performance by Account

38 WE DON T CARE ABOUT Vanity metrics like clicks, website traffic Number of leads created Using campaigns to get new names Lead conversion rates Traditional lead scoring models

39 Rethink SLAs. Alert on engagement in target accounts and let people decide the action.

40 WE DO CARE ABOUT Creating the right target account lists If we have the right people in each account Tracking engagement with the right people in those target accounts How targeted our campaigns are Tying marketing/sdr contribution to revenue

41 ANALYZE DATA BY ACCOUNT What matters? Engagement in target accounts.

42 ANALYZE DATA BY ACCOUNT Short-term Program Impact = Successes in Target Accounts Can combine with fit-to-persona score for more targeted. It may take time to get used to the smaller numbers.

43 ANALYZE DATA BY ACCOUNT Long-term Program Impact = Revenue attribution in Marketo Can be slow with long sales cycle. Directional at best. Most useful to compare within channels.

44 How to build your account-based tech stack

45 But first, how do I deal with this?!

46 It s getting worse 10X in 4 years

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48 And companies use the same buzzwords to describe their products Gamification (2012) Predictive (2014) Machine Learning/AI (2016) Self-driving Marketing (2018)

49 The Technology Paradox of Choice We have more choice than any group of people has ever had before, but we don't seem to be benefiting from it. More choices lead to more regret once a decision is made.

50 3 tips to deal with technologies 1. Set minimums. Like VCs, look at traction and the team. Place big bets, but not on core infrastructure. 2. Find your tribe. Proactively cultivate a brutally honest community that can help you evaluate and buy. 3. Limit people involved in decisions. Each person adds complication. A more complicated buying process means you will have more regret.

51 Map out your technology stack Source: CEB/BloomReach

52 Experiment with ~30% of your technology/budget/etc.

53 If you don t have someone to make a technology successful, don t buy it.

54 Technology isn t the answer. It s should support your people/process.

55 It s time to get real and get rid of technologies you re not utilizing. We consolidated half of our Marketing Technology stack in the last year.

56 The anatomy of an Account Based tech stack Predictive Analytics & Data CRM Marketing Automation ABM Data Management & Measurement

57 $97M in funding employees. Customers now account for 20% of all US E- commerce Traffic Still selling to BIG E-commerce co s Best-in-class Marketing ROI

58 JASON SEEBA Chief Marketing Technologist BloomReach