Jillian Gartner (Head of Digital Marketing and Demand Gen) recently joined Kristina Jaramillo on the ABM Done Right Podcast to discuss the ABM challenges that Thomson Reuters and Conduent faced and how she had to revamp the programs. Some of these challenges included:
1. The definition and direction of ABM have become diluted. For example, before Jillian joined Thomson Reuters, the company had an opportunity to expand ABM in terms of the number of accounts and tactics leveraged in the program. ABM is not a tactic. It's not a thing to do. It's not a verb. It's not just a way of thinking. It's a business strategy on how you're going to get strategic tier 1 accounts to revenue and existing accounts to greater revenue growth. ABM is a strategy that improved the integrated interactions GTM teams have with prospects and customers and the experiences the teams are delivering.
2. ABM has become synonymous with ABM tech - For example, Jillian was hired at Thomson Reuters to assess, invest and implement ABM tech. They thought because they execute Demandbase, 6sense, Terminus, or other ABM platform that they were doing ABM. But, it was just account-based digital advertising. Jillian evangelized with leadership, sales, and marketing that ABM is about layering your digital and non-digital interactions in a way to move accounts forward.
3. ABM programs are disjointed - Before Jillian joined Conduent, the team was doing ABM for several years. ABM was done in pockets and wasn't being used across the complete buyer's journey and customer lifecycle. There was limited account intelligence for the sales team to carry on the conversations that marketing started. Now, the teams are coming together and acting as 1 team that is focused on revenue so sales and marketing can engage contacts in ways that the teams were not able to unlock before.
4. Lack of prioritization - In too many cases, teams are treating tier 1 accounts the same as tier 3 accounts pushing out content and messaging so it's all about the "campaign" vs. improving the interactions as leadership and teams go for "scale." When sales and marketing teams do "prioritize" and "tier" accounts, they fail to look for a reason for outreach and a reason for the account to be a tier 1 account that gets personal attention. For example, in one case, Jillian talks about giving the "white glove" personal attention to an account for more than a year and getting zero response. Sales and marketing did not align with the strategic goals of the account and show the unconsidered gaps and impacts.
You'll also learn about Conduent's balanced ABM program (1:many, 1: few, and 1:1), why their 1:1 program is the most successful, and how their ABM program is not just about personalized ads.