How You Can Align Marketing and Sales in an ABM World

Joining us on the is Mike Volpe, the Chief Marketing Officer for Cybereason, the world’s most powerful cybersecurity analytics platforms.

Often called the “godfather of inbound marketing” for his work in taking inbound marketing from an idea to a movement of tens of thousands of people, Mike Volpe is one of the most sought-after B2B marketers.

Today Mike is going to demonstrate how to replace leads with real opportunities for the sales team through the use of account based marketing. ABM is the motion performed by both marketing and sales to replace coordinated game plan with integrated actions that drive demand more than either could do on their own. When done right, 1+1 = 3.

Below is a timestamped summary of the show segments and the topics covered. If you’d prefer to watch a video of this interview click here.

Segment 1: When Does ABM Make Sense for a Company? 

 

• Determining if ABM is right for your company. minute 3:37
• Big ABM vs. small ABM. minute 4:46
• Looking at the target market relative to segments when determining a fit with ABM. minute 6:14
• The demand generation strategy for you. minute 7:54 

   

Skip to minute 3:59 to listen to Mike’s strategy for determining what type of ABM is right for different companies:

“You want to be hitting multiple personas in different ways. We mapped out all the accounts that are currently in the forecast, and then we identified about six different plays, many of which work against these different personas that we have, and our goal, and marketing’s goal for the quarter is to run at least four plays against every account that’s in the forecast this quarter…”

Segment 2: What a Successful ABM Program Looks Like 

 

• How marketing uses ABM to support sales to reach new buyers and influencers. minute 11:05
• Executing interlock between sales and marketing. minute 13:20
• Driving sales activity. minute 15:29 
• Critical ABM roles in sales and marketing. minute 17:50
• Using connectivity of field marketing to drive content and messaging. minute 20:15
• How long it takes to build a successful ABM program. minute 21:27   

   

Skip to minute 18:17 to hear Mike discuss the critical roles needed for your ABM program to succeed:

 “At a high level, sales is really the quarterback for any individual deal, and marketing is more of the offensive coordinator, setting up what the playbook is to help advance the deal. For enterprise sales, for big deals, the sales rep is more like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, and they’re on the field, and they have a huge amount of authority to audible and run the offense…” 

 Segment 3: Aligning Marketing and Sales 

 

• Executing the account planning process. minute 23:15
• Implementing a meeting cadence to drive interlock. minute 24:49
• Bringing in new accounts. minute 28:40
• Revenue attribution. minute 29:36  

   

Skip to minute 24:28 to hear Mike discuss the critical roles needed for your ABM program to succeed:

 “Marketing’s role is I think to bring as much to bear and as many great plays to the table as possible, and then work the sales team to try to implement the right tactic so we can all hit that number…” 

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