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The issue for many B2B companies is not that they don’t have enough content, but that they don’t know how to best leverage their existing content and analytics to accelerate deals. James McNamee leveraged this approach to revamp the company’s ABM program. With a skillful combination of content and engagement analytics, EnterpriseDB was able to identify the target accounts that are most likely to convert and deliver highly customized experiences.
McNamee’s team uses PathFactory to create content tracks at the account, industry and regional level. They also use engagement and behavioral data to better understand how accounts are engaging with content and, therefore, how interested they are, including how much time target accounts are spending with content and how many assets they consume.
By analyzing target account engagement and focusing on content quality over quantity, EnterpriseDB was able to increase pipeline value by almost $3 million between Q4 of 2017 and Q1 of 2018, despite producing a couple hundred less leads. The company also saw a 11% increase in target account engagement and a 22% increase in opportunity value of target accounts. In addition to transforming EnterpriseDB’s ABM program, McNamee enjoys hockey and co-founded a wine app that was a finalist for “Shark Tank”.
Can you share any particular achievements you are most proud of in your current role?
In my current role, I’m most proud of identifying a false start with ABM and managing our way through the account-based marketing hype cycle. Like many B2B organizations, we got caught in the ABM excitement and didn’t balance our effort with traditional demand generation correctly. We also needed to revisit our account selection process and prioritize accounts with growth potential for the sales team, basing our proposals on historical data (revenue trends, compound annual growth and other firmographic, technographic and sociographic data).
Refreshing our ABM approach, aligning with sales leadership and executive management on an account pyramid with a level of marketing applied to each layer and executing ABM in a more focused manner has helped us win.
Why do you think innovation is important in today’s B2B marketing landscape? Do you see a need for traditional approaches to be transformed?
I think innovation is important because in many cases, marketing teams are lean. Finding the right tools and aligning with sales is critical to marketing’s success. At the end of the day, marketing is measured on sales. However, to prove marketing’s value beyond sales, a clean attribution model can highlight influence and start to show what level of activity is needed to progress accounts to opportunities and beyond.
In terms of transforming traditional marketing, I think the need to be more human during interactions is very important. I also think providing commercial insight versus the standard solution-based messaging is what really accelerates conversations and pipeline. In B2B, and this is my opinion, hunting for the right personas and catching them before they’ve identified their problem and possible solutions is the sweet spot. Traditional marketing doesn’t get in front of the buyer and tends to result in a price war with competitors.
How have you helped try to foster a culture of innovation within your team and organization?
We’re always looking to create efficiencies due to the nature of ABM and how much work it takes to get it right. Software is not the answer all the time. In fact, we challenge ourselves to use less tools and simplify the approach, so the content and messaging is impactful. You can get bogged down quickly with training, troubleshooting and trying to capture data in various systems. We’ve also adopted an agile methodology to execute marketing plans for our most important accounts — and this team is separate from corporate marketing.
Any fun facts/interesting personal notes you would share that other B2B peers may find interesting?
I am the co-founder of a very popular wine app called Hello Vino, which was a finalist for ABC’s “Shark Tank” but we were not selected for the show. We did OK on our own though and it is still alive today. Cheers! I’m also a big hockey fan. As for music, my favorite band is Pearl Jam.
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As Blackbaud’s Senior Marketing Manager of Demand Generation, Maggie Carli oversees raising awareness for the company’s nonprofit solutions. Carli is known for continually pushing the creative envelope and embracing new content and channels, as well as targeting new buyer personas. She leads with an innovative mindset but is sure to measure every campaign put into market.
In May, Carli launched a new campaign designed to drive demand generation by engaging board members. The campaign included a direct mail piece that demonstrated how to prepare a thorough report for a board meeting in five minutes or less using Blackbaud’s solution. The direct mailer was then followed up with a digital copy and a voice recording of the board meeting preparation instructions that Carli recorded herself. In the few months since the campaign launched, it has already influenced 1,275 opportunities. By blending the art and science of marketing into carefully crafted campaigns, Carli is able to deliver real results and surpass her lead goals.
Can you share any details about how your team, or individuals on your team, have helped drive innovation? How has your whole team helped achieve results?
Our company sells software to nonprofit organizations. I started volunteering on the board of directors at a local nonprofit to gain some insight on our customer base. It became apparent that the board of directors has a much larger role in the buying process then we realized. From that, I worked with my sales managers to compile a compelling message through a multi-touch campaign for the board member persona. Through these efforts, we were able to target that group for the first time and saw incredible results.
Can you share any particular achievements you are most proud of in your current role?
I am proud of the innovative campaigns we’ve put together by collaborating with sales. I spent a lot of time working with sales managers and sales reps to discover what they were hearing first hand from the market — brand misconceptions, what aspects of our tools were winning deals and peaking interest, etc. Based on that, I was able to create some very successful programs that were outside of the box for our organization.
How have you helped try to foster a culture of innovation within your team and organization?
I always try to encourage crazy ideas. Crazy ideas are where successful ideas start. I also love to collaborate with other departments, including sales, to think of new and innovative initiatives. We all have different perspectives and need to capitalize on that!
Any fun facts/interesting personal notes you would share?
I have a background in sales at our organization. That has helped me understand the customer base at a deeper level and sky rocket my campaign messaging.
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Rebecca McIntyre is a content marketing connoisseur. She has 14 years of experience in B2B marketing and has mastered the art of bringing a brand’s personality to life with a combination of crisp writing, vibrant colors and humorous content. McIntyre leads with transparency, confidence and curiosity — thriving entails having the creativity to understand what will catch your target audience member’s eye in addition to the courage and judgment to know how far to push the limits to gain mindshare in your industry.
RingCentral wanted to gain partner mindshare and thereby drive revenue by getting its partners to “Think RingCentral first.” To do so, McIntyre decided that RingCentral’s channel needed to differentiate itself by creating a fun and engaging brand with content that would stand out from traditional, dull marketing communications. Through this nonconformist approach, McIntyre also aimed to capture the spirit of RingCentral’s innovative partner program, which is free and untethered by the constraints of older programs.
As a result of the marketing initiative:
Can you share any details about how your team, or individuals on your team, have helped drive innovation? How has your whole team helped achieve results?
The innovation and creativity that led to RingCentral’s channel programs team’s success in 2017 was due to the unique makeup of individuals on our team — something magical happened when our creative brains were unleashed together. We truly wanted to have fun, capture the attention of our partners and embrace the uniqueness of RingCentral’s partner program. It is also representative of the entire channel team’s energy, personality and passion (plus, we’re pretty sure we’re hysterical). Our channel brand voice is unique in that there really isn’t anything remotely like it amongst our competitors.
How have you helped try to foster a culture of innovation within your team and organization?
I advocate with all my might for people on my team as well as within my company to challenge the status quo. After all, we didn’t get where we are today by sitting back and doing things the way they always have been done, now did we? In order to get how far we’ve come, believe me, we’ve had to shun the status quo, push the envelope, tip over a bit to the unexpected. So, I think the best way to foster a culture of innovation is to model it myself. I’m not afraid to be different, speak up or be unliked. I raise my hand even if I’m not 100% certain my answer is correct. I feel very passionately that the best way to foster innovation in any group is to develop yourself as a leader and a mentor, and then share your knowledge in that manner.
Do you feel like B2B marketing needs to shake things up a bit to avoid being boring and dry and how have you tried to address this?
You know what? I say save all the bells and whistles, and let’s all improve our writing skills. Really crisp, witty (brand dependent) and concise writing can be more powerful than just about anything else sometimes. Especially in B2B marketing.
B2B marketers sometimes fall into the trap of slapping verbose, product description-heavy messaging that is not tailored for any particular audience in their marketing materials and calling it a day, which I highly discourage.
Any industry can be sexy. Early on in my B2B marketing career, I worked in the financial services, payments, telecom, architecture and engineering sectors circa the 2007 era. Before I had access to fancy tools, stellar writing was the only trick I had up my sleeve.
Any fun facts/interesting personal notes you would share?
I have two adorable Cockapoos, love to swim in the ocean, miss NYC terribly and sleep all night blasting true crime podcasts. I perform best in energizing environments — I love waking up in the morning excited to go to work so I can learn something new while tackling challenging and rewarding projects. I feel very passionately that there’s so much more we could do to develop women leaders, especially in the channel and the tech realm in general.
