Sophie Leang of OpenGamma, Robert Norum of McDonald Butler and Lisa Schurter of BrandMaker
There is currently an epidemic in the world of B2B branding and positioning. We’re not standing out, we’re not being bold, and we’re not using it as a point of differentiation.
Most brands look the same, use the same language, and are saying the same thing – failing to distinguish themselves from the competition – and missing out on huge opportunities in simple ways.
Why is this such a problem in B2B tech? Sophie believes there are three reasons.
But, Sophie said, there is a great opportunity out there: “The fact everyone’s doing the same thing makes it quite easy to be different. You don’t have to have huge budgets, it’s just going to take a few small things to stand out.”
Account-based marketing (ABM) has become a buzzword in B2B over the past few years, but Robert Norum, associate director at McDonald Butler, says ABM can be a serious door-opener with your prospects.
There are many ways to implement the strategy within your business and that means there’s likely to be a method that will be most lucrative for your company, but a blended approach of methods can often be best.
ABM is not a tactic but a strategy and your ABM budget should reflect that, if you are struggling to find the budget but want to reap a higher ROI, like 87% of those doing ABM claim it does (ITSMA), look at sharing the cost with sales. Prove the business value to the sales team, before co-creating content and reviewing results in a joint meeting on a monthly basis.
But ensure you manage expectations, as using lead generation as a measurement of success will no longer be a viable option; Robert suggests you shouldn’t expect to complete more than 10 accounts a year.
Types of ABM:
One-to-one: An entirely personalised approach, this is the most resource intensive and one that should be used on your most lucrative prospects.
One-to-few: This still has massive value and allows you to scale. Find common pain points among similar companies and target to that.
One-to-many: A completely programmatic approach, using data-tools to serve up fairly tailored content.
Channels and alliances: A partnership with a competitor to target a hard-to-reach but lucrative company
“You’ll see a 15-25% increase in productivity because of putting marketing operations foundations in place,” said Lisa Schurter, head of business development at BrandMaker.
Those foundations focus on the four pillars of marketing operations:
Lisa discussed how putting proper tools and processes in place can reduce time spent on work by 30%. “I do what feels like half of the amount of work, have more output and more praise, because everything I do is logged and visible,” she said.
97% of companies say they have seen a decrease of 10% in the time it takes to create assets thanks to building a foundation in marketing operations.