What is the most exciting aspect of being a part of a Marketing Tech company?

I love being part of a company that is helping marketers. I am a marketer, my team and community are marketers, so we get it. We know the challenges and how good technology can be an incredible help to support scale and repeatable processes. Having the opportunity to participate in the process is rewarding.

What’s the biggest attraction for you at Dreamforce 2018?

The biggest attraction for me is being part of The ABCs of ABM panel (The ABCs of ABM – Thurs, 27 Sept from 1:00pm – 1:40pm at Marriott Marquis) with Emma Chalwin, SVP, Marketing, Salesforce, Kirk Crenshaw, CMO Traackr, and Peter Herbert, CMO, FullStory.  They all have an incredible knowledge and it will be exciting to share our experience with the audience. I am also looking forward to connecting with people I do not get to see very often. Dreamforce is the Disneyland of B2B and I always leave motivated, more knowledgeable, and super tired.

Who are you keen to meet and huddle at the event? Which sections at the event would you be keen to attend?

For all things ABM, I plan to be at the B2B Champions Lounge and also the Palace Hotel where Pardot will have tons of great sessions.

Here are two good ones:

• The ABM Playbook for World-Class Marketing Teams on Thursday, 27 Sept from 11:30am – 11:50am at Palace Hotel
• Sriracha for ABM: 3 Ways to Spice Up Your ABM Initiatives & Skip the Heartburn on Friday, 28 Sept from 11:15am – 11:35am at Marriott Marquis

I also plan to watch the Salesforce B2B Marketing Pardot Keynote on Thursday, 27 September at 10:30am at the Marriott Marquis because they always share an exciting vision.

Which marketing and sales automation technologies are you most excited about?

The technologies that are the most interesting to me are the ones that make your life easier. I like Engagio for providing marketing and sales a shared view and understanding of accounts and what is happening – and then the ability to act on that information. That is exciting because I use it daily!

How have the ABM journeys evolved with the maturity of data management and intelligent analytics?

Data and analytics have impacted B2B marketing in significant ways. With the democratization of information and the proliferation of technology, companies have more inputs to decipher. This is good and bad. It’s great if you can utilize the data being collected to glean insights into what is happening at accounts and how they’re progressing through their journey. In theory, marketers can get closer to delivering a better customer experience (more personal, timely, relevant).  You can see the rise in popularity of CDPs for this reason. I still think many B2B marketers have a hard time leveraging data in a real-time way that can impact their business. It’s still tough but progress is being made.

How do you utilize Marketing Attribution technologies to justify ROI on your budget?

Measuring impact has been marketing’s holy grail since John Wanamaker famously admitted he didn’t know which half of his advertising dollars were wasted. ROI is most valuable when evaluating marketing investments, not justifying marketing. Given the reality of budget limitations, CMOs need to make tradeoffs about where to focus resources — and ROI provides a framework to improve these decisions. For example, I like to think of myself as an investment banker and it’s my job to invest the dollars I have to get the best result.  I often look at the pipeline to spend ratios to determine if the marketing program was successful.

What message do you have for your fellow CMOs in the industry when it comes to working with Intent Data?

Intent data is very interesting but they key is operationalizing it. For example, we have a set of target accounts (pre-defined ICP, etc.). Intent can be used to help in the selection process of accounts – some people use it that way. We like to use it as a valued signal, like a hand-raiser – so an ADR prioritizes reaching out to a surging target account first. We have also triggers set up in Engagio so we can act immediately on a surging target account (ex: alert sent to sales rep, or email sent).

Would you provide us your take on turning AI-driven and enabled by 2020?

AI means different things to people, but to me, it’s more about the benefits it drives – and of course solid algorithms! Today most marketing teams have more data and inputs than they can manually review and leverage. AI should make it easier and more scalable to use and learn from data for better business outcomes. If I can more accurately present buyers with the best and personalized experience – at the right time – that’s a win.  It’s even a bigger win that a marketer doesn’t have to stay up all night trying to figure it out manually! Here’s hoping we get there faster than 2020.

An inspiring quote from past editions of Dreamforce that you have ever heard—

“Make the simple things simple; make the hard things possible,” Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce.

Thank you, Heidi! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.