BY LAURIE BEASLEY, PRESIDENT,

BEASLEY DIRECT AND ONLINE MARKETING

Building Your ABM Marketing-to-

Sales Playbook Using Meeting

Maker Campaigns

About me

• President, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing. Inc.

• President, DMAnc.org

• Instructor for DMAnc.or, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Santa Cruz Extensions, San Jose State University

About Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

Inbound Marketing

• PPC Management

• Display Networks

• Re-targeting

• SEO Audits

• Amazon Advertisng

• Content Creation & Dist.

• Social Media

• Landing Page Creation

• Website Design

Outbound Marketing

• Account Based Marketing

• Email Marketing

• Marketing Automation Management

• Salesforce.com Management

• Direct Mail

• Tele-prospecting

Why ABM

“Meeting Maker”

Campaigns?

ABM is Biggest Shift in Marketing Strategy

• The biggest change in B2B marketing strategy recently is to shift the engagement model from awareness campaigns to account based marketing campaigns. This flips the funnel and directs marketing to the target account.

Three Principles of ABM

• Target and manage accounts and account lists

• Engage target accounts across channels with offers and content

• Measure revenue impact on target accounts

What Are ABM “Meeting Maker” Campaigns?

• Multi-touch communication strategy to engage target accounts’ interest in a demo appointment or meeting.

• The number of touches can vary by marketing budget and complexity of sale. (We will discuss four program scenarios later).

Why Are “Meeting Maker” Campaigns Popular?

• Most VPs of Sales will tell you that if you can get a prospect on to a demo or sales meeting, 25-50% of them will eventually close (especially in enterprise software sales scenarios)

• Companies are waking up to the idea that creating a demo appointment or meeting for the Sales department is the ideal way to accelerate the sales pipeline, often bypassing many layers of lead generation and nurturing. But who makes this happen?

• Increasingly, marketing is being measured by how many opportunities are generated (not just leads).

• So…scheduling demo/meetings becomes the responsibility of marketing. (Oh joy!)

Congratulations You’re Now in Charge of Generating Demo/Meeting Appointments!

Sample Lead Requirements Calculator

Scenario Requirements

ANNUAL SALES REVENUE GOALS: $13,000,000

Sales Revenue Goals/Quarter $3,250,000

Revenue per sale $115,000

# Closed Sales Required/QTR 28.3 Or 9.3 Closes/mo.

Estimated Closed Rate on Pipeline Proposal Opportunities 25%

# Qual Leads That Must Convert to Pipeline Proposals/QTR 113

Est. forward conversion rate from sales-ready lead into Pipeline 40%

# Qualified Sales -Ready Leads Required per

Quarter (Prospects meeting sales-ready criteria) 283

# Qualified Sales-Ready Leads Required per

Month (Prospects meeting sales-ready criteria) 94

Tom Judge, All Rights Reserved, Copyright Protected

Sales Presentations Rated Most Impactful During Buyer’s Journey

Meeting Maker Campaigns Short Cut a Lot of Steps

Meeting Maker Campaigns Can Bypass the Demand Waterfall

Four Keys to Success

• List: Get your ABM targets right

• Offer: Reward the meeting attender with something they’d want

• Creative: You can execute with email, direct mail, ABM display ads and…..

• Teleprospecting: The phone touch is the most productive

Getting the ABM

List Right

Identifying ABM Accounts Starts with a Conversation with Sales

• With ABM you’re targeting the accounts that have real significance for your business. You’re focusing on the accounts that are most likely to drive revenue.

• To me this starts with a discussion with Sales. They will value you listening to them about what types of companies and job titles they think are most important. Often they have named account lists ready for you to pursue for them.

What List Segments to Select

• Your target accounts can be selected in many ways. Here are some popular ones:

• Industry

• Company size

• Job Function or title

• Specific technology they employ

• Previous sales performance in other product categories

Identifying Accounts for ABM

• Here are few strategies for identifying accounts for ABM campaigns:• High yield: Identify top money-makers• Product fit: Look for companies with business needs that match your

solutions. (Technology selections help here.)• Quick wins: Seek accounts that have short purchase cycle due to their

size. (Revenue selection help here)• Competitors: Target companies using competing products (Technology

selections help here)• Territory: Helping sales people generate awareness and build pipeline

in their region will make you their best friend.• Review Customer History: Profile high yield customers and create look-

alike lists.

Most Sales Organizations Have Developed Named Account Lists

Developing Your ABM Contact Lists

• Dunn & Bradstreet/Netprospex

• Discover.org

• Zoominfo

• Mountain Top Data (my favorite)

• Stirista (a good choice too)

• Data.com (not my favorite)

Validating the Contacts

• I’ve NEVER regretted adding budget to a project for tele-verification of contact info. This can be done by more economical telemarketing resources, but I wouldn’t use the same kind of company for tele-prospecting after the emails or direct mail have dropped.

• Also I highly recommend validating the emails using something like Briteverify or Neverbounce, and only email verified contacts (don’t mail “catch all” or other designations)

• Email validation will drop your list size by 15-25% so plan ahead for this by buying more contacts.

Getting the

Creative Right

How Do You Decide Which Multi-Touch Program?

• A combination of factors contribute to how you structure a program:

• Budget (we can only spend $X)

• Commitment to get results (we can spend up to $X to get that appointment because we realize how hard demo/sales appts. are to get and how much they’re worth to the company.)

• Or…sometimes there’s an emergency (we’re not meeting sales goals and we’re all going to get fired if we don’t get some meetings. See Surfconrol case study in next section)

The More Complex the Sale…the More Touches are Needed

• Your prospects are:

• Facing REAL challenges to solve REAL problems

• Overworked

• Difficult to Engage

• Skeptical

• Need solid evidence they should review YOUR solution over others

The Magic of Multiple Touches

• The combination of multiple touches gives them:

• An opportunity to read and hear about your solution.

• A solid and memorable presentation of your value proposition (direct mail is especially good at this)

• A great offer works to move them from ignoring you… to engaged…. to attending a demo.

• Each touch generates incremental inbound response, and supports the outbound calling, which will be your MOST productive part of this effort in terms of generating a demo/meeting appointment.

Scale Your Program to the Budgetand Complexity of Sale

Program Type 1: Email + Tele-prospecting

Program Type 1: Pros and Cons

• Pros• Easier to get started• Don’t need a valid postal mailing address• Economical• Proof of concept for product positioning/offer

• Cons• Might need a higher priced offer to get engagement• Less recollection/engagement on phone call; more calling time

needed• Generally fewer overall completed appointments (when tested head-

to-head with other programs)

SurfControl Case Study

SurfControl Project Plan

• Emergency need to generate new sales based on poor quarterly results. Launching a new product.

• Decided to tackle installed base first with creative & messaging established, and roll out to prospects later.

• Upgrade offer of free iPod shuffle• Call to action: Respond and register for a demo and get your iPod

• Email sent to customer base• Inbound responses to landing page & call center

• Outbound telemarketing call to non-responders

• Contacts are to be pre-qualified based on needs and registered for a sales demo:• 1:1 custom demo• Group on line demo

• Close loop tracking of responses, contacts, qualified leads, sales progress and $ revenue reported

Results

• Email sent to ~ 10,000 to 12,000 customer base• 668 Inbound Responders on landing page

• 552 were outbound called to validate and capture qualification info

• 66 Inbound 800# calls received and qualification info captured

• ~618 leads from inbound responses to email

• ~24% of qualified sales leads generated

• Outbound telemarketing call to ~9,250 non-responders• 3,261 completed interviews with profiled needs

• 1,949 qualified sales leads from outbound calling

• ~76% of qualified sales leads generated

Revenues Generated First 90 Days

• Revenues reported within first 3 months @ $164,093

• Revenues from inbound responses~ $39,382• Costs associated ~ $20,000 for a

• Short term ROI = 2:1

• Revenues from outbound calling~$124,711• Costs associated ~ $40,000

• Short term ROI = 3:1

Findings:

• Report shown is at 90 days into program.

• The average sales cycle is 90-180+ days and ROI’s were predicted to continue to climb

Program Type 2: Email+Flat Direct Mail+TM

Program Type 2: Pros and Cons

• Pros• Adding Direct Mail increases engagement dramatically• More engagement makes tele-prospecting more effective (overall

more scripts completed)• Flat Direct Mail is more economical than dimensional direct mail

(though a bit less effective)

• Cons• Longer lead time to get program launched• More expense to add direct mail • Regular mail delivery can get caught in mail room so best to send via

UPS, FedX or USPS Priority Mail to bypass mailroom

Veritas Case Study

Veritas Campaign

Program Type 3: Email+Dimensional DM+TM

Program Type 3: Pros and Cons

• Pros

• Adding Dimensional Direct Mail increases engagement EVEN more dramatically. Like “knock your socks off” more…

• High memorability makes tele-prospecting more effective (overall more scripts completed)

• Cons

• Longer lead time to get program launched

• More expense to add dimensional direct mail

• Best to send via UPS, FedX or USPS Priority Mail to bypass mailroom

NetApp Case Study

NetApp Case Study

Results: Outstanding Metrics

• Several metrics gave us early proof we had a hit on our hands:

• We were able to complete more calls—35% more per hour than projected, indicating the prospect was interested enough to take the call.

• 40% more scripts were presented per hour than plan.

• And, most important, 65% of completed scripts were converted to demo appointments, vs an anticipated 10%.

Results: Viral Referrals

• Eleven people referred us to someone else in their organization who is responsible for tape backup, and of those 5 became qualified leads with a demo scheduled.

• We have found that you only get those kinds of valuable referrals if you’ve done a very good job of presenting the value proposition to the original recipient and they are enthusiastic enough about the solution to refer you to the decision maker.

Results: 230 Demo Requests from a List of 1,335

Results: Anecdotal Notes from TM Reps & Sales

• Anecdotally, the telephone reps told us the people they talked to were highly engaged, remembered the direct mail and offer, and were eager to talk about it.

• They found the “Ultimate IT Geek’s Toolkit” an appealing reward for their time in taking the demo, and they appreciated the research we had made to match the premium (a set of quality tools used for tinkering with electronics) to their interests.

• Sales told us very few people just wanted the tool. They were interested in the product and solution. I believe this comes from them engaging with the value proposition at the dimensional direct mail stage.

Program Type 4: EM+DimDM+Display+TM

Program Type 4: Pros and Cons

• Pros

• Adding Dimensional Direct Mail increases engagement EVEN more dramatically. Like “knock your socks off” more…

• High memorability makes tele-prospecting more effective (overall more scripts completed)

• Adding Display ads can extend your reach beyond contacts in your list

• Cons

• Display ad responders tend to be less qualified and dicey to offer super nice reward to. Think about using display ad to get initial engagement and pre-qualify before making offer for attending a demo mtg.

• Direct mail is longer lead time to get program launched

• More expense to add dimensional direct mail

• Best to send via UPS, FedX or USPS Priority Mail to bypass mailroom

Reputation.com Case Study

Reputation.com

Display ads were run throughout the program on DemandBase offering white paper and report assets. No mention was made of the Fitbit offer. This was made after a prospect filled out the landing page form.

Results:

• Program is on-going.

• From Aurelie Tyser, VP Marketing, Repuation.com: “The results of the campaign were through the roof! Engagement and conversations are way above our expectations. In a matter of a couple weeks, we managed to get demos with accounts we had unsuccessfully been trying to contact for months if not years. We got 17 demos booked out of 38 accounts!! The reps reported the custom report was great added value and a real wake up call for those accounts. The Direct mail part helped a lot to stand out and get attention. It was certainly a huge effort, but totally worthwhile.”

Results, cont.

• Did Display Ads have an impact?

• According to VP of Marketing: “We did a lot of work to analyze Demandbase impact, as it was not very obvious (only 2 conversions = asset downloads). We were not able to see direct causation, but there seems to be some correlation between accounts that have engaged with our Demandbase campaigns and accounts that have converted into demos.”

Getting the Offer

Right

Why an High Value Offer?

• Rewards very busy people for their time

• Shows them that we respect their time

• Overcomes the objection of “not now, talk to me later”

• Gets people to the demo/meeting in a way maybe nothing else will

Things to Consider

• What level or type of person are we marketing to? You’d give a CIO a higher value item than a Manager of IT probably.

• It doesn’t have to relate to the product. Make it something highly desirable to recipient. Nice to have a tie-in to product but not mandatory.

• Make it easy to understand. I have a rule for my creative team. If the offer cannot be described in 10 words or less: Scrap it!

• Does it need to play worldwide? One client does different offers US (Fitbit) vs. Asia (Crystal Wine Glasses). You can make the creative template to accommodate different offers.

Things We’ve Offered Lately

• Apple Watch

• Fitbit 2

• Ring Doorbell

• Star Gazing Binoculars

• Really nice toolsets

Getting Tele-

Prospecting

Right

Should You Use Inside Sales?

• I say no (with a few exceptions)

• Inside sales staff generally hate cold prospecting, which is what this is a lot time.

• They are hard to find, keep, and train. Their time is better spent working on doing demos and maturing good leads in prep for closer.

• They are generally 50-75% less productive than outsourced resources, when it comes to dials/scripts completed per hour. Why? Not the same level of dialing software, training, and management.

Questions to Ask

• Is inside sales “ready to go”? Or will they need to be trained? Do we have training staff? What will be their ramp-up time?

• Can they be as productive as we need them to be? Do we have sophisticated dialing technology? How many calls/hr can they complete?

• Are they scalable? If the product/program is successful, can we ramp up quickly?

• And here’s the real stickler … who is going to report and refine the program? Does Sales have an analyst on board?

• If the answers to the questions above are “no,” then it’s time to look outside.

Use High End Resources

• They are representing your company. Choose someone you can trust.

• Suggest you use high-end, US-based resources

• Need to have experience with complex sale conversations

• Need to have exceptional script writing, training and reporting capabilities

• Warning it can become addicting. Most of my clients continue tele-prospecting efforts way beyond my campaign tenure.

How Productive Should Teleprospecting Be for a Complex Sale Product?

Summary

Summary

• Accelerating demo/meetings is imperative for a company’s bottom line

• Work hard on your list

• Come up with a GREAT offer

• Engage the prospect with intriguing and informative creative

• Make sure the tele-prospecting effort is staffed appropriately

Thank You!

• Laurie B. Beasley, President, Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc.

• lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

• 408-782-0046 x21