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The Convergence of Traditional Demand Gen and ABM · Sales Pipeline Radio

• 0:00
  Matt: Welcome everybody to anotherepisode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
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  My name is Matt Heinz.
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  Super excited to have y'all here.
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  If you are joining us in the middle of your workday live, I'm so excited
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  that you are here joining us live.
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  You have the opportunity to be part of the show if you're here live.
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  If you are watching on demand or listening on demand.
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  Thank you so much for downloading, for subscribing.
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  We are on episode, I think 340.
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  Or so on this Sales Pipeline Radio journey over the last several years.
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  And if you're just catching up and just catching in, coming in every
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  episode of Sales Pipeline Radio from all the way back to the beginning,
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  available at www.Salespipelineradio.com.
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  Each week we're featuring some of the best and brightest minds in B2B sales and
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  marketing as this continues to evolve.
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  Very excited to have with us today, Jodi Cerretani she's the
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  VP of Marketing at RollWorks.
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  Jodi, we've known each other a long time.
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  We can talk about the evolution of marketing.
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  We can talk about the evolution of our children.
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  And just evolution of our lives as all these things go as well.
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  But welcome and thanks so much for being here.
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  Jodi: Oh, it's my pleasure.
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  Yeah, I've been keeping up with all your episodes so it feels full
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  circle to be here speaking with you, and I'm excited to chat.
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  Matt: Well, we talked about a bunch of different things we could cover today and
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  I think the evolution of the B2B marketing role is kind of where I wanted to dig in.
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  I've known you for a long time.
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  We've both been doing this for a while.
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  , I don't wanna say pre ABM days, right?
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  But I remember when that wasn't an acronym that anyone talked about.
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  And now we've got ABM, we've got ABMX, or whatever they are now.
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  The job hasn't really changed, like the opportunity hasn't changed, I think the
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  tools and all the awareness of what marketing can do to support revenue
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  objectives and business objectives is a little more at hand, but I'm
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  curious to hear both in your role at RollWorks as well as in your career
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  where you've seen that evolution work and, where you think people should
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  be thinking about relative to it.
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  Jodi: Well, I actually feel like the requirements of the head of marketing
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  has changed pretty significantly in the last, I don't know, call it five years.
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  It used to be that a lot of folks in my role, the requirement was
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  that they were a storyteller first.
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  Perhaps they grew up in, in product marketing or corporate marketing and they
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  hired a really strong, number two in their demand gen function, you know, at least
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  in the last 15 years, who was an operator, a numbers native, and that kind of thing.
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  And together they would sort of, Have the whole suite.
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  But now I see, I see it as the requirements may be changing, and of
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  course it varies , by stage of company and all of that, but especially in the
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  last couple of years where you really need to survive, if not to thrive,
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  to understand deeply how every action that you take, every investment that
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  you make, whether that's your people investments or your, or your dollar
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  investments, how that's gonna translate into business value and how that's
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  gonna impact basically the, the P & L.
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  So I feel like I.
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  There has been a shift to some degree of the requirements and where folks really
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  need to go deep versus where they can sort of partner with other members of
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  their team to do some stuff and so that seems to be changing, at least a lot of
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  the conversations that I've been having.
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  I'm lucky enough to speak to a lot of customers and prospects, and it
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  seems like those that are winning and definitely have a different mix to
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  their skillset for whatever that's worth.
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  Matt: Yeah.
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  I think that's absolutely right and I think that if you get marketing
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  leaders who think beyond just my job is to generate leads and to think my
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  job is not just to generate pipeline.
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  My job is to generate business impact.
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  Right?
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  And so you start to have marketing leaders that think about, not just
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  pipeline, think about customer led growth.
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  Think about the impact that brand can have on driving demand, right?
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  And creating what I think can be a better balance and getting away from
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  what really have always been just sort of random acts of marketing, right?
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  Sort of these siloed campaigns ,campaigns giving air quotes because
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  they're really just sort of tactics.
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  They're sends, I'm thinking now about a real campaign, a real body of work
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  across multiple channels across time that has a bigger short-term and
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  long-term impact on the business.
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  Jodi: Yeah, absolutely.
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  And it feels like that everything, fundamentally is about trade-offs.
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  Every time that you're focused on one thing, it's almost by definition an
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  opportunity cost for something else that that you could be investing in with,
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  with people or, or minutes in the day.
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  But in terms of ABM and, and kind of how things have have changed, I think
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  honestly, Matt, we've been doing this so long that we know that there is some
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  amount of predictability in how a lot of vendors or thought leaders, they
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  start to kind of reject a system at a certain point, and conveniently they
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  introduce a new system that is sort of the antithesis of the last system, right?
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  We've seen that with outbound versus inbound.
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  We've seen that with the form and the mql.
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  Is it dead?
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  Is it not dead?
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  It's interesting if you kind of double tap on the folks that are really
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  vocal about things being dead and new things being the new way, they've
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  got something to gain typically.
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  And I think that the reality is, and you've said this before and I
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  think it's brilliant-- marketers tend to be dichotomous thinkers, but we
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  really have to encourage ourselves not to think black and white.
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  It doesn't always have to be an either or.
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  In fact, outbound is not dead and people are still using forms and MQLs are
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  still quite popular among B2B marketers.
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  And so I think thinking more about a blend can really, I think add some focus
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  and clarity to your organization and not get so caught up in hype cycles.
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  Right?
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  Matt: I'm so glad to hear you say that.
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  We're talking today on Sales Pipeline Radio with Jodi Cerretani.
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  She's the VP of marketing at RollWorks.
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  We've gone from account led to product led to event led to people
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  led, and it's not one or the other.
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  It's kind of yes to most of these, or many of these, I guess depending on who
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  your audience is, how you go to market.
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  I think we as.
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  Not just we as marketers, like we as humans, want the world to be easier.
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  We want the systems to be simpler, right?
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  And it's not, right?
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  I mean, I think we fool ourselves that it used to be easy and effective.
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  When we would send an email out, generate a white paper lead, send it to a 23
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  year old to get some pipeline, I would argue that that actually never worked.
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  Because there's always been a buying committee.
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  There's always been this need for a body of work and really investing in brand
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  and credibility before you get somewhere.
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  And so to me this the idea of thinking about an account based model.
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  I think we're kind of in this post ABM world where most companies in B2B
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  need to be taking an account based approach and then thinking broadly
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  about the jobs to be done within that.
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  You're talking to a lot of companies that are doing this.
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  What are you seeing?
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  And what are some of the themes you see that are making some of those
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  go to Market Motion Successful?
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  Jodi: Well, I think that there's some core tenants of an account
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  based approach that have always been good practices, but now I think it's
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  becoming more and more the standard.
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  You can call it ABM, you can call it, you know, sales focused marketing or whatever.
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  I mean, honestly, I think if you're really good at your job, you've probably
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  been doing ABM longer than ABM was ABM.
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  And the requirement is, is that you are fit focused, right.
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  The requirement is, is you're taking a surgical or precise
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  approach to how you are going after and trying to drive results.
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  Right?
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  And it also requires that you're very much aligned to business outcomes and the
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  rest of the go-to-market organization.
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  Definitely SDR and sales, but in, in a lot of organizations increasingly to the
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  CX side of the organization as well.
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  So if those core tenants are in place, I think one could argue that you are
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  practicing an account-based approach, or maybe it's just demand gen in a
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  post ABM world like you talked about.
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  I've noticed that people are starting to really understand that when these
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  two things aren't by definition, separate, totally separate, that
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  demand gen can really benefit from the precision of an account based approach.
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  And conversely, ABM as it's typically thought of, can really benefit from
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  the scale of traditional demand gen channels, technologies, practices.
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  So I think like I said before, if we are thinking less about siloed
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  teams, siloed practices, entirely different motions between account based
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  marketing and ABM, it really unlocks a whole lot of everything, right?
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  Because you can have that scale and that volume that we all are
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  desperate for right now with very high conversion rates, high velocity,
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  high average deal sizes, et cetera.
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  Matt: So we got a question from across the pond, Ross in the UK wants to know
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  all these different data sources, all these different potential platforms
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  and channels to use with ABM, how do you prioritize stack rank the right
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  tactics to get real business results?
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  And I realize that is a very big question and probably is a different
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  answer for different companies.
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  Is there a framework or a set of questions that you typically go
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  through with clients to say like, "here's how to land the plane.
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  Here's how to think about the tactics and the sequences that make the most sense"
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  Jodi: Love this question, Ross.
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  Thanks for asking it.
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  I always say that there's kind of two sides of demand generation, right?
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  There's, there's revealing demand or, capturing demand.
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  And there is true demand creation.
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  So I would always start with identifying what demand already exists, and that
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  really lives in your data sources or in what we, we like to call signal sources.
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  You're wanting to look for data that can tell you who is in market, whether
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  that's a person or an account, right?
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  Especially right now in this environment, when there's arguably fewer buyers
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  that are gonna be in market, they're out there but we can't necessarily
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  wait until they raise their hand and request a demo or become an MQL.
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  I would really recommend, and this is really to everyone, regardless
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  of their business, they get their data house in order to prioritize
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  illuminating in market signals..
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  At RollWorks we like to think of, obviously conversions, leads and
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  MQLS but also de anonymized people.
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  There's now new technology that you can actually de anonymize site traffic and add
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  engagers as a whole new source of demand, and you don't have to have those dreaded
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  unknown site visitors or unknown ad clickers that you can't do anything with.
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  Now that's possible.
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  Right?
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  And, and then also marketing qualified accounts and intent
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  qualified accounts when you're leveraging first and third party data.
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  So, I don't know if I would say that I have exactly the right, vendor.
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  Obviously I have a bias here because RollWorks provide
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  some of some of this data.
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  But I would say regardless of what tool stack you're looking at, Get really,
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  really laser focused on quickly actioning in mark signals on the person in the
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  account level to make sure that you're never letting a buyer go by and, you
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  don't have those buyer blinders on.
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  After you nailed that bit, then you could talk about what is the data that I'm
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  going to leverage to then create demand.
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  At a certain point that will run out, your existing demand will run
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  out, so you'll need to create more demand and that's sort of a second
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  phase that's important to invest in.
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  Matt: I think it's great advice.
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  And Ross, I just add that I think forever marketers have
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  prioritized prospect action.
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  And I think the real opportunity here is to really to go after prospect intent.
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  You don't have to wait for someone to come to your website.
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  You don't have to wait for them to download your white paper.
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  Just cuz they came to your last three webinars doesn't mean they're qualified.
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  It might be mean that they're bored.
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  Right.
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  And so that doesn't imply.
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  They're actively ready for a 20 minute demo letter on what you're selling.
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  So if you understand your audience well enough and are watching for, and,
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  activating the intent signals that exist and activating that across not
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  just your marketing efforts, but your sales and BD and customer teams as
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  well, that's where you start to win and I think as we got a few more minutes
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  with you here, This question of change management comes up every time we talk
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  about account-based motions and companies.
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  This is not a campaign, this is a culture change in most companies
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  in terms of how they go to market, how they integrate their teams,
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  the data, everything together.
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  What are the best practices you've found to get the broader go-to market
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  teams, sales, marketing, customer success to really work in concert to
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  make an account based motion successful?
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  Jodi: There's the standard stuff that folks talk about.
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  Hire the right people, put the right processes in place, have the right tools
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  to support, looking at the same data and taking action, in cooperation with
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  one another and I don't think I'm gonna say anything too revolutionary there.
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  You need to do all those things, right?
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  If, you've got the wrong folks that have bad taste in their mouth when it
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  comes to these different individuals or aren't sort of bought into the fact that
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  they're one team, probably you're gonna fail, you know, and, and along the road
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  that, that lots of folks talk about.
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  I would say that for me, if I'm just getting really real with you, I actually
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  put the, a lot of the alignment issue.
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  I, say if you're a, a marketing lead, it's the, the onus is on you in many ways.
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  Right.
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  Cuz we can't eat leads for dinner, right?
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  We eat revenue.
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  So the revenue teams are really, we're all at the service of revenue you know,
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  arguably on the go to market side.
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  So I think it's up to us as, as marketers to really prove the value
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  that we bring, and I use that word prove deliberately because I think
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  that one of the things that folks really goof up when they're trying to
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  get alignment is they put together a really pretty PowerPoint presentation.
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  They got that meeting, they got the right folks in the room.
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  Right?
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  And they show, here's what I'm gonna do and here's how it's all gonna work.
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  My understanding of a revenue focused sales and CX leaders, and
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  really the C-suite is, is PowerPoint presentations don't do anything.
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  It actually might work against you.
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  So I would recommend running a pilot on an account based approach.
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  They would typically will share with you who their top tier accounts
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  are, sales folks and AMs and CSMs by definition or account based, right?
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  And so they have their hot list of who they're trying to convert or
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  retain, get that list of, of accounts and show what you can do, right?
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  Run some programming, and then deliver the results in that PowerPoint presentation.
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  I promise you the buy-in will be there at least initially, and
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  then you can show them what the plan is, the go forward plan.
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  I would also say that there's a lot that goes into credibility.
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  And so a lot of times, you know, marketing, we're in a
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  super protected space, right?
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  We're, sitting behind our computers or what have you, but your frontline folks,
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  they're in it, they're in the hot seat.
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  It's tough.
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  So I would also say that if if you haven't made this a part of your practice to
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  sit on sales calls, to be in renewal conversations to cold call yourself.
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  And that's gonna earn you a ton of credibility that you know the pain
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  that they are often in when they're asked difficult questions or they have
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  a cold lead or not the right person.
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  I mean, it's tough man.
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  And I think that it really, really focuses the marketing team,
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  everyone in the marketing team to be thinking about the right stuff.
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  And at the same time, it really establishes that, that one team,
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  I'm almost reminded of, you know, my stepfather was in the military.
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  He talks so much about being in the trenches and folks that were, you know,
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  maybe in the office, in the military, they don't have the same street cred
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  as, as the folks in the trenches.
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  And I think the same idea applies, if you're not in that "with them" feeling the
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  burn, showing up, showing face, answering questions, you know, all of that.
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  I, think it's gonna be tough for them to really see you as
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  part of their organization.
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  So that's another small but meaningful tip is, get in there with them.
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  And, to summarize, it's, get in there with them, and prove it.
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  Matt: If you are listening to us on demand, go rewind six
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  minutes and listen to that again.
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  Cause that was really, really good.
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  Here's a few things that I heard and summarize out of that.
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  First is you can't eat leads for dinner.
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  That is going on the highlight reel for sure.
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  Look, this is not your grandma's marketing.
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  This is more complex.
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  This is more nuanced.
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  There's more tech involved, there's more integration involved.
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  So there's a need to embrace the complexity, but to do it together,
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  to make this a team sport, to do this and know that it's gonna be
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  hard to know that there's gonna be complexity as part of the process.
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  But if you're all in it together in the trenches, in the weeds, whatever you
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  wanna call it that's what's gonna win.
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  And you're gonna win as a team to find something that you
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  actually can eat for dinner.
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  How'd I do?
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  Jodi: Yeah.
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  Love that.
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  Matt: Awesome.
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  Well, we're out of time.
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  Jodi Cerretani, VP of Marketing for RollWorks.
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  Thank you so much.
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  It's great to see you.
• 15:31
  I think it's cause we have kids that we're prioritizing at home we
• 15:33
  don't see each other on the road as much anymore, but great to see
• 15:36
  you and get some time to catch up.
• 15:37
  Jodi: Yeah, likewise.
• 15:38
  Thanks for having me.
• 15:40
  Matt: Thank you everyone for joining us.
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  We'll be back here next week every Thursday, 11:30 Pacific, 2:30 Eastern.
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  Until then we'll see you next time on Sales Pipeline Radio.
• 15:47
  Take care.