Virtual Event: B2B Marketing Exchange

The even was a combination of the new sessions and recording of popular presentations from previous conferences. What a great approach!

As humans are creatures of habits who may not want to change the direction of their walking, driving, or thinking easily, what can we do to compete with the status quo?

How can we connect our message to known concepts, minimize randomness in our messaging, and appeal to goals?

Go-to-market should be owned by the CEO (functional departments execute). GTM is a process…

…with three distinctive stages…

Excellent collection of charts and frameworks on the “Move” book site.

Interesting session on RevOps. The definition emphasizes alignment rather than a specific output. Companies with the RevOps organization report better business outcomes and higher satisfaction of internal customers.

The presenter introduced her book: From CMO to CRO

Forrester Decisions suggested that ABM and Demand are merging and the concept of ABM as a separate approach will disappear in 2025. The merge is driven by technology and search for efficiency in combination of separate silos.

TOPO Virtual Summit

New Go-To-Market Strategies for 2021

2020 was a year of unprecedented change. Companies needed to pivot and be agile; companies had to identify, evaluate, and immediately pursue new markets. We need to be ready to do it continuously; we need to look at the available data and search for new unexpected opportunities.

Though most organizations expect to return to “normal” in Q3 2021, current situation is still uncertain. The most important value to emphasize is speed to value – how the solution can help the organization in the immediate future? Planning cycles are shorter – 90-120 days. How can our solution help the customer immediately?

• Product-Market fit has changed
• Target markets are data-driven and flexible
• Modern sales enablement – built for the pivot
• Target accounts (and ICP – Ideal Customer Profile) are fluid – Follow the Data!
  • Internal teams should rapidly review a new segment via a standardized checklist. When the new segment is identified, programs should be launched ASAP.

Product-lead organizations and “Product-Lead Go-To-Market”

Topo observed growth of product-led approach in high-growth companies.

https://vs.topohq.com/agenda/session/433691

https://vs.topohq.com/agenda/session/433691

The Building Blocks of Quality Pipeline

Important: alignment between teams on segments and ICP (Ideal Customer Profile).

Segmentation example – important for the planning process

Channel mix for different segments is most likely different

Excellent event – recording – https://vs.topohq.com/agenda

Personification vs. Personalization

Hello, AI. You are doing much better since the last time I tried Google Glass and you could not understand my accent. Now you reliably call correct contacts and… mesmerize us, marketers, with possibilities to make us more efficient and gain more time to be innovative.

Two recent webinars (PathFactory and MeritDirect) mentioned Personalization and Personification. Both webinars offered invaluable insight, but the concept of Personification vs. Personalization was probably the most unexpected for me.

We have always tried to provide the best content for our prospects, plus, personalize the content and delivery beyond “Hi, [first name]” approach. We personalized on verticals (when we had the data 😉 ), or on general categories (you are browsing this product… here is a lovely related white paper!). Still, we found content delivery difficult.

…while Covid-19 remarkably increased interest in online content, and also increased the number of materials accessed at the same time.

However, what I thought was “personalization” in my experience, seem to be closer to “personification” – the content was “personalized” based on a category of prospects, rather than a specific prospect. Now, with the help of trusted AI, we might be able to do true “personalization” at scale… without any additional tagging.

PathFactory Website tools is one of examples of this option.

And lovely examples of very clear industry-based “Personification” schedule from MeritDirect.

Book – Storytelling with Data

Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals is an excellent resource for anybody in the business world trying to use data for decision making… or, rather, need to influence decisions done by somebody else. No SQL required 😉

The book is also trying to teach how to handle “the slide” – a significant part of the “story” – how the insightful chart need to be presented after escaping the intimate world of Excel or any other similar application. I thought I new the basics (no doughnuts, no pies), but the tips and very practical advice were immediately applicable for my next marketing program analysis presentation.

The example below shows how to transform the “data” into a very clear request for the needed action.

The example below shows very clearly (and effectively) the recommendation and also uses a long but up-to-the-point title to communicate the message.

I was always wondering what to do with multiple lines (tried to make them in different colors, many of which were the variation of grey… and even use the animation)! The de-emphasized series do not need to be different visually from one another – they still contribute to the point 🙂

Below is an excellent example of a survey results with a clear emphasis.

A brilliant chart of a complex comparison between many different categories. If only one category matters (Our business), the rest can effectively blend into the “grey mass” to make a point.

Two charts below include explanations (great for the handout), and can also be animated during the presentation to emphasize a specific part of the period, or an important point.

Excellent resource! Thinking what the “story” is before creating the visuals is the most important lesson 🙂

TOPO Virtual Summit

Excellent event with an insight into current situation from marketing perspective, sales perspective, and the most important perspective of collaboration between sales and marketing.

Interesting: many organizations are shifting focus to existing customers rather than net new, as the probability of getting net new diminished dramatically.

Industries and segments are prioritized drastically in ABM and Demand. Sales objectives in some cases moved to activity “meetings” rather than sales.

The concept of “extreme value” come to front of the conversation, even if it was discussed for years as a desirable approach.

New persona: “the deputy” replaced “the champion.”

Buying committee is also changing – the number of people involved into the purchasing decision is reduced, but it presents its own challenge and the decision is moving up in the organization.

• Persona information is outdated
• Important to incorporate useful research into client messaging “buyers want to learn what their peers are doing; mentioning company’s’ name is not important.”

ABM

• Account list is reviewed (weakest accounts are removed)
• Converting events to digital
• Raise of eGifts (Direct Mail is de-prioritized; though new approaches are in the experimental phase)
• Top programs: Webinars, Account based ads, Digital events, Content syndication

Demand Generation

Interesting: re-calibrating to the buyer and flawless execution is two most important objectives.

Demand Generation challenges seems to be common in the organizations, even if many organizations believe these problems are unique to their company.

• Campaigns are built ad hoc and may not follow a consistent format
• Organizing all campaigns run throughout the year can be problematic
• Providing the right level of detail to everyone in the organization is a challenge
• Not all campaigns have associated campaign briefs connecting all details, assets, and messaging in one place

Interesting: Brand and Demand need to work together, as content needs to fit into the demand objectives, but it can also be a challenge. Demand and Brand leaders need to be friends 🙂

Fantastic examples to steal

Interesting: email marketing frequency is going down as companies are trying to deliver “extreme value” to their customers.

Changing tactics seem to be obvious; the interesting point was the increase in SBM ads and decline of spend on the general demand gen ads.

Excellent conference!

DemandBase ABM Certification

Though I think I read many ABM articles and attended plenty of events, the certification helped to organize this “body of knowledge” into a more elegant shape and gave insight into more nuances of the topic. Plus – a few inspiring screenshots! 🙂

“Let us narrow our list and send a DM piece” – it is not an ABM.
Heinz Marketing

Many companies seem to struggle with defining goals. The certification course, brilliantly, starts with an explanation.

A great example of sales communication which highlights only three tasks for the week:

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) – checklist

Quite interesting point: a need to emphasize that only a portion of the company’s revenue will come from your account list. It seems to be obvious, but many companies do try to narrow down the targeting, through all available resources into the marrow segment, and find themselves caught by a surprise when the resulting volume is too small.

Another excellent point: Be careful not to “over-complicate” segmentation in your early stages – keep it simple.

An insightful example of an account-based dashboard for sales.

What to budget for ABM? 10% of marketing budget…. (however, this is the most unusual approach). More common is to use the innovation budget, roll into another initiative, find budget in sales org, etc. It is particularly beneficial to share budget with sales, as both organizations become invested in the success of the program.

And the infamous account chart… in practice 🙂

Exponential increase in the content is not required (lovely to see this statement!)

The course finished with the “shiny tech object” caution: “Strategy first, technology second.”

But when the strategy is clear, here is a lovely classification of the tech stack.

Excellent Course!

Book – The Product Marketing Manager

I work very closely with Product Marketing Managers (PMM), and was very lucky to meet wonderful, experienced, and incredibly knowledgeable individuals in the past. Many companies have slightly different job responsibilities and goals for PMMs with remarkably diverse set of performance metrics. This book gives a concise summary of the PMM responsibilities and a few best practices any organization can explore.

What does PMM do? “Defining the positioning and messaging of company’s products as well as planning and executing product releases and launches.“

Product positioning constantly changes as products, technologies, and markets evolve. PMM also creates case studies, sales training materials, attends external events, and prepare materials for the internal ones.

An interesting tool PMMs might prepare is Proactive RFP.

There are two version of the “Proactive RFP:” one contains questions about the products, while the other one contains answers. The version with questions only is available on the web site for download, and the list of answers is used internally.

The author advocating using buyer personas and also “Jobs To Be Done” approach, which does not require personas.

A good internal check to understand if the company employees understand the product: randomly pick a person from each business unit and ask following questions. Can they answer the questions? Are these questions consistent?

• Using no more than five words, what is your product offering?
• What is the elevator pitch to expand upon the first question?
• What are some differentiation points that set our product apart from its competition?

Interesting: if a specific positioning or messaging is successful in one industry, everyone might have to adopt it. For example, the product might need to be “certified” and the company would benefit from collecting as many certifications as possible.

Good sales tool: sales wins videos, where the sales rep explains the sales process and what helped to close the sale.

The Product Book: How to Become a Great Product Manager

Remarkably, a free copy of the book is available online – https://www.productschool.com/the-product-book/

The book is a fantastic reference material created by the Product School, where students can learn and practice the nuanced task of product management.

The book outlines steps of the product management process, groups involved, and relationships between the groups. The difference between a PM and PMM is also highlighted at the end, though the PMM function can be included into the overall “product management” in smaller organizations.

Interesting: the book describes waterfall and agile methodology with pluses and minuses of each approach. We are aware about the advantages of agile, but the comparison was quite insightful. Agile sprints do not always result in an upgrade ready to be shown to a customer, but over 60% do produce a tangible result.

Book – The Leaders Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century

The book describes some of the common business practices, where employees efforts are directed on internal activities, rather than achieving business objectives of the entire organization.

A better approach, which combines aspects of multiple techniques, encourages to concentrate on the business objectives and empower individuals within the company to make customer-centric decisions.

SUMMARY OF RADICAL MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

• Delighting Clients
• Self-Organizing Teams
• Client-Driven Iterations
• Delivering Value to Clients
• Radical Transparency
• Continuous Self-Improvement
• Interactive Communication
• Implementation of Radical Change Management

On24: How to Create Amazing Webinar Experiences

Webinars are moving from “one-off” events to programs. “We need to become producers of serialized programming…” Useful, educational programming rather than promotions.

Slides are going away, videos are becoming more prevalent. However, the events do not need to have high production cost; basic equipment is sufficient.

Webinars are successfully used by many “boring” industries, which can easily find engaging content. A good recommendation is to create monthly series and brand them. The goal is not registrations, but an audience engagement. “Webinar experience is primary, white paper is secondary as an additional resource…”

Should we provide additional materials? Webinar attendees could be distracted… “If people are going to be distracted anyway, let them to be distracted by your content!”

• add a subscription to a newsletter
• promote the next webinar before you start the current webinar

Example – EllieMae webinars

Interesting: On24 MQLs webinar attendees very conservatively – a webinar engagement score is an activity considered in the overall scoring.

Interesting: On24 finds somewhat less engagement in on-demand webinars, but this difference is not significant. Recommendation to remind on-demand viewers about engagement options during the live event: “By the way, if you are watching on-demand, you can still do x, y, z…”

Registration sources: email typically generates over 90% of registrants. Recommendation for email promotions:

• Use both HTML/text email promotions
• Send an invite from the speaker
• “Creepy email:” a special message to those who clicked, but did not register
• “The first sentence in the email should be your point…” you have 5 seconds to convince the person to register

Too many questions? Put SDRs on the call to answer!

Interesting: the length of “watched” webinar increased over last several years from 38 minutes to 56 minutes... even if short form content is becoming more and more important, webinar viewers are actually stay longer.

What is the best webinar length? Give webinar in the amount of time you need to communicate amazing content!

• C-level: no slides, C-level speaker
• Thought leadership: about 1 hour

Example of an award-winning webinar