Tell us about your role and how you got here. What inspired you to be part of Engagio?
I am the CMO of Engagio. I was inspired to join the company because I believe in the vision. As a marketer, I have done ABM for years but struggled to scale the programs and measure them without me spending hours in excel or bribing someone in IT to help me pull data. I also worked with Jon Miller at Marketo so it was getting the band back together. I knew that Jon understands attribution models better than most marketers out there, so I would not have to explain how they work!
In 2018, how would better marketing orchestration influence multiple attribution models?
Marketing orchestration is the process where revenue teams jointly engage accounts and drive the right business outcomes with personalized, relevant interactions. It is not about marketing simply passing a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) over to sales. As your readers know, for the majority of B2B deals, it is never just one sales touch, or a singular marketing touch. Rather it is a series of coordinated sales and marketing activities that drive an outcome. So, when teams go to measure how effective an initiative was, it is pretty important to be able to look at the collective group of marketing and sales touches at different time points, etc. to get a more accurate picture of what is working or not. Because marketing orchestration and ABM are becoming more widely adopted we are all learning more about better ways to measure B2B deals.
How has the maturity of data science and analytics improved the creation and mapping of real-time customer profile?
There have been impressive advances in data science and analytics, specifically regarding the volume and diversity of inputs we have from prospects and customers. It is now possible to identify customer data, map to the right identifiers (ex: channel type – mobile, Facebook), and then start to develop profiles where the data is automated. This is a bit more of a reality in the consumer space because purchases are transactional and usually involve one person. For B2B, I am not sure many companies have real-time customer mapping perfected. However, analytics in B2B marketing have come a long way in the last few years. Companies can now track the entire account rather just individuals. We can begin to map activities to buying centers, then deliver a more relevant message to the people that matter most.
What are the major challenges in the way marketers leverage account analytics to measure the full-stack marketing impact?
Account-based analytics are a shift for some marketers. It is not about volume or number of MQLs, and more about focus and business outcomes that are best for the organization. Account-based analytics are cool because they capture more activity and you can see the impact from all teams. The hard part for most marketers is educating other folks in the organization on how to evaluate account-based initiatives. When done right, account-based metrics actually paint a more complete picture and help you justify marketing and sales impact. When you have long, complex sales deals, it’s important to be able to connect your activities to revenue. It’s a major challenge for B2B organization, and it’s something we’re passionate about helping people solve.
Which startups in the martech/ad tech industry are you watching/keen on right now?
This is a tough question because there are many great companies – too many to list. I am very interested in the customer marketing space and tools for marketers to better understand what customers do. Pendo and Gainsight are ones to watch.
What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2018?
We have the classic set up of SFDC and Marketo for marketing automation. We use ReadyTalk for webinars, Uberflip for our resource center, Moz, Everstring for predictive, Bombora (intent), AdRoll, Google Analytics, and Sendoso, Buffer, WordPress, and InsightSquared.
Would you tell us about your standout digital campaign or a unique customer success story at Engagio? (Who was your target audience and how did you measure success?)
We have a defined ICP (ideal customer profile) and have done a lot of work to focus there (we look at firmographics, demographics, predictive and a lot of historical data). We measure success at different time points. I look at total engagement, how we are moving accounts to the next stage, and ultimately pipeline and revenue.
A standout customer we have is JDA. JDA had a new organization-wide initiative to focus on driving value and serving the customer, which they called their customer-first initiative. They were challenged with rolling out this initiative across sales, sales development, operations, and marketing while at the same time making sure they hit their increasing revenue goal. They turned to an Account Based Marketing strategy to align their team and hit their every-increasing numbers.
They never had a way to measure account engagement, which created misalignment among their entire revenue team and limited marketing’s ability to provide value to sales.
They used Engagio to scale their ABM efforts. Their entire organization was aligned around the same set of high-value accounts, and they had more visibility into engagement from the decisions makers at those accounts. Their marketing and sales teams are more closely aligned than ever before, and the results are there to prove it. Immediately, they were able to get 11 executive meetings and 5 opportunities created with over $2M in pipeline.
How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a marketing leader?
AI is exciting. I am not sure I need to prepare much for it other than start paying money to use it – ha ha! Anyway technology can help us be more efficient – as long as the results are trusted – I am all for it.
How do you bring people and technology together at Engagio?
We are lucky because we focus on ABM – a revenue team culture has been established from the beginning. That being said, there are a few key things that have helped:
- Having clear goals and a focus on an ICP. Focus is important.
- Defining a revenue model with touch points defined. We orchestrate our steps and avoid ambiguous handoffs.
- Using technology to support the coordination of marketing, sales, and customer success. We use Engagio and for us we have the same view of accounts and their status.
- Lastly, aligning marketing and sales financial incentives is great if you can do it. There has to be a shared view of winning.
What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
Slack, Evernote, Trello, Expensify, SFDC, InsightSquared, and Engagio!
What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
Your email and calendar are not your task list.
Get out of the building and learn from others.
I keep stickie’s everywhere because good ideas come to me in Target or driving.
What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)
I am currently reading When by Daniel Pink. I love the New Yorker but I have guilt because some of them I only scan and read the cartoons (Roz Chast is my favorite). Twitter, LinkedIn, NPR, MarketPlace with Kai Ryssdal are other places I consume information. I am busy so most of this only occurs on a good day.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
My father told me effort does not always equate to outcomes. He encouraged me to not work hard blindly but be smart about how to use time and get results. He didn’t smile when he said this.
Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:
I guess Oprah is not an option so I will tag the next best person – Craig Rosenberg.
Thank you Heidi! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.
