Tell us about your background – when did you become a marketer? Was it something that you always wanted to do? Or was it something that you stumbled into?
I initially started in the PR industry over 20 years ago now – working as an office assistant supporting on big film releases and events such as the Cannes Film Festival.
I moved from that role into an executive assistant position supporting C-suite and the Board at one of the world’s largest recruitment firms which then morphed into marketing and event support when I was in my early 20s as back then we didn’t have a large PR or marketing team.
Working directly for the C-suite back then so early on in my professional career helping to run company events, annual report and shareholder announcements, internal comms etc gave me such great exposure to the boardroom and different persona types as well as early insight into communications and marketing more generally and so seeking a career pathway where I could expand into this and grow further became the goal.
I moved from there to Starbucks where I worked as a Public Affairs Assistant and got to work on some exciting consumer campaigns with media and key partners such as Fairtrade Foundation, RED and also worked across the team to support the UK press office and key internal comms events such as the annual partner conference with Howard Schultz.
After that I joined Thomson Reuters and was there for about seven years, initially as the Global Event Manager before moving into a broader European marketing manager role before being promoted to Marketing Director, leading the European campaign team across all of financial services and then moving into a global director role.
Prior to Capita, I worked at the NHS to transform and set up a completely new marketing function whilst also managing internal comms, press and public affairs for the entire NHS estate across the UK reporting to the Board and then most recently joined Capita to set up and lead the new function on ABM and Industry, recently also taking on the director role for our capita wide GTM campaigns across the whole organisations working for the CMO and wider board.
I have been fortunate to work across B2C, B2B and cross industry in both marketing and PR roles and have always been extremely passionate about knowing what makes people tick and how to communicate to all different levels of people within a company and so it couldn’t be the more ideal profession for me to be in!
What is it that ignites your passion about marketing? Why have you stayed in the profession and grown with it?
It’s one of the most creative industries out there which is what I continually tell my 9 year old daughter when she asks me what I do!
Marketing messages need to be constantly refreshed, renewed and transformed in order to cut through the noise of competing messages. You have to continually work at new ways to approach a problem and think outside the square, and there’s no place for complacency. Few jobs hinge on creativity and innovation the way marketing does.
You can apply your creativity in all sorts of ways – from developing big-picture marketing strategies to the details of what text and images to use in a personalised comms – for me communication and story telling is the at centre of everything.
And when it all clicks – when that kernel of an idea puts the glint in your teams eye, when people become animated about discussing it and when the campaign gets a massive response and receives great client feedback and external recognition that’s when you know it was a good one! Its those initiatives that keep me in marketing and keep me wanting to seek out the next big idea!
When start doing ABM? Was this with your current employer, or did it start elsewhere? Was the company doing it before you were doing it?
First started doing ABM when I was at Thomson Reuters so approximately 5 years ago. It was a relatively new concept back then and just becoming a big buzz word in the industry. At TR with ABM being so new it had been relatively untested as a marketing strategy, getting everyone on the same page at the start was key to success and we had varying degrees of where this worked well in some pilots, less so in others. I think this notion of agreeing upfront in a collaborative way in order to have the same cultural mindset about why we are doing what we are is crucial at the heart of any good ABM strategy and this was definitely a tip I took from our initial pilots back then.
At the NHS we when I joined to transform the team I started to branch out into a form of ABM although being the public sector it was called a relationship management programme however very much aligned with the methodology of ABM and key account partners
At Capita, I obviously joined to set up the team and so across my past three roles I suppose I have been the person leading on the implementation and set up of it as a strategy and approach.
ABM has been a hot trend for the past five years or so – was that part of the appeal for you?
For me ABM has always been about customer, creativity and communication. Given my previous roles have always spanned marketing and communications I am avid believer in bringing the two together to achieve optimum success with the customer at the centre. Recent stats have shown based on ABM principles, clients are demanding a different experience:
- Interaction needs to be personal, contextualised and relevant
- Personalisation reduces acquisition costs by 50%, lifts revenues by 5-10%, increases efficiency in marketing spend by 10-30% (McKinsey)
- 80% of B2B buyers expect real-time communication (McKinsey)
- Firms adopting ABM strategies across the tender cycle see 80% value win, vs 20% with RFP engagement alone (BDCMM)
These five data points alone reinforce the need that now more than ever with the recent pandemic that our customers expect bespoke communications that are relevant to them on an individual level, a response that helps them move forward with the challenges they face across their own organisations and therefore the value marketing can bring to this is immense, for me that’s the appeal and always has been, how can we make our marketing strategies cut through the noise, be differentiated and connect with the customer in a very real and human way that ultimately helps them achieve what they need do whilst also having one eye on the commercial outcomes that are needed to help ultimately sell the capabilities and services that you need to.
Tell us about your ABM activities and challenges now – how long has the programme existed for? Who are you targeting?
Our programme here at Capita was launched at the start of this year – the first task was to define what ABM was for Capita and the benefits it could bring whilst also recruiting into the group a new team of industry marketing experts that could bring their knowledge to the table to expand into ABM strategy when targeting key clients.
We target here private and public sector and the ABM teams across the different industries we serve are currently supporting pipeline opportunities in the billions across some of the UK’s biggest brands.
For us, from a challenge perspective, our challenge is actually our biggest opportunity! It’s been relatively easy to get the organisation to see the value ABM can bring, the sales teams love the direct support, the customers respond to the in-depth understanding of their challenges, the people appreciate the time and investment spent on them at a personal level and in a very short space of time we have been able to quickly mobilise as a team and create some compelling case studies, unique C suite engagement programmes and deliver some initial high value wins through the support and strategies the team have delivered however the challenge can sometimes be the success – its only a matter of time before the sales teams start asking for more support, adding more accounts, adding origination, adding DBM and for us over the past couple of months we have definitely seen this demand.
How does your ABM programme fit into your brand’s broader marketing activities? For example, is it a sideshow, or is it the main focus of activities?
We hear a lot about marketing and sales alignment for ABM, this is essential as we know, however what we are seeing at Capita is something even bigger than this and whole company alignment around ABM – what started as a important new team and a stream within the marketing approach has very quickly become the most successful way in which to reach our customers and demonstrate ROI and this has been recognised across the organisation which is exciting to see.
Recently, we launched internally an Executive Board steering group here that focuses on account management with marketing having a seat at the table representing the importance of not only ABM as a strategy at the highest level but brining the relevant experts around the customer into the discussions at the start from a strategic level. Also bringing areas such as CABs and Partner marketing into the team so that we can leverage ABM strategies and utilise the new workstreams for even greater customer insight at that board level creating a complete lifecycle with ABM as the key GTM strategy in the centre.
What are your expectations for the future? Is it going to become more prominent as part of the mix?
For me personally I do think the term ABM/ABE disappear over the coming year(s) and just become the new norm of what marketing is as a strategy. Here at Capita for example moving into 2021 our sole focus from a strategic perspective will be to grow at existing accounts.
This has led us into discussions around how ABM as a strategy will be at the forefront of not only accelerating opportunities at accounts, but also using the same methodologies for DBM as well as wider origination, something more traditionally done previously by demand gen or lead gen initiatives and for me is personally an area I am excited to explore further.
Bev Burgess says that ABM is ‘just good marketing’ and Prof Malcolm McDonald says pretty much the same thing too. Do you think there will be a time when ABM takes over the rest of B2B, or when we won’t see it as something different/unique?
I completely agree per my observation a moment ago. I love the relationship building aspect of ABM, the understanding of the customer at the highest level mapped to what they actually need and so for me this is a mindset and approach that should be at the core of every marketing strategy whether its called ABM, demand gen, cross and up sell etc etc
For me if I am being honest in looking across the three different types of ABM practices when they were initially launched into the marketplace I have always questioned the 1:Many trench of ABM and have never really understood why this was called out separately – I think the methodologies of ABM should be used whether you are a an elite customer in the top 10 or indeed a new customer completely or a recently onboarding customer that doesn’t yet warrant being in the top 10 – it is about marketing to them in a way that gives them a great customer experience across the full marketing buying journey and organisational eco-system – only that way can you ensure your customers want to give you new business, retain their business with you, grow their existing portfolios and ultimately advocate for you as a key partner throughout the whole process.
In B2B Marketing’s ABM Framework, we have five criteria which ABMers need to focus on to determine the success of their programme: Account selection, data and insight, content and campaign execution, sales enablement/alignment, and technology. Which of these have you found most challenging?
For me, definitely the area of technology. We have all seen the ever expanding martech stack diagrams showing just how many platforms are out there across marketing in general. Unifying ABM around one platform and what this should look like so that everyone is on the same page, using the same data and therefore leveraging the same insights is critical.
Here at Capita, we are exploring a pilot with SFDC using QUIPP and Einstein analytics to run all account management, plans, marketing and whitespace analysis with propensity to buy modelling all in salesforce, with everyone feeding into the one platform to design the strategy, its an incredibly exciting initiative and one that will also help feed into digital selling and new ways in which we should use intent data to help model our strategies on.
Has Covid changed the way that you think about, or practice ABM?
For me, a term I have seen come out of COVID is one around being Pervasively disruptive. The coronavirus has dramatically changed the way we live and work. It affected virtually every element of life. The grocery suppliers were disrupted, schools became virtual and people who could WFH were required to do so and industries across the board have seen how COVID has accelerated digital transformation, 2021 is likely to be a time of strategic review across all things professionally and personally that I think every individual and business leader will be assessing to see how longer term visions and views are impacted and changed as a result.
When thinking about this term of disruption more broadly, I think ABM as a strategy is even more placed to help ensure our marketing strategies are born out of relevancy, agility, personalisation and ultimately authenticity to make real impact at a time when disruption is going to become commonplace of the world in which we live in for some time to come.
Our data shows that most marketers are at the early stages of ABM. What advice would you offer to people in that situation who are looking to accelerate their journey, and become more successful? What one area would you focus on?
For me, it is about positioning marketing upfront as the strategic leader of ABM and bringing those around you on the journey through showcasing the value you can add quickly. Create a “contract” with sales that has shared targets and clearly spells out the roles and responsibilities of all those involved so everyone is clear on what is needed, by who, by when and what marketing then brings to the table from a shared attribution and target perspective – use figures and tangible metrics to show them what good will look like so that everyone is on the same page.
In one word what’s the key to being a great ABMer?
Curiosity. ABM requires a fundamentally different mindset – you’re moving from thinking in a volume of leads to quality of accounts and conversations. You can’t be stuck in the mindset of a traditional marketer that might have existed some years back as you have to ask different questions and really put yourself in the shoes of the customer. If you aren’t asking the right questions within your marketing strategies up front, you can’t get the right answers. Some of the best ABM marketers are the most curious people in the room, the desire to seek out even more insight, to be even more personalised (without being a stalker of course) and come up with the creative idea that will stand you and your organisation out from the competition.
Thanks for agreeing to be part of B2B Marketing’s annual ABM Conference – can you tell us a little bit more about what you’ll be talking about there?
As you mentioned earlier a lot of people are early in terms of formulating ABM at their organisations and I have covered a lot about bringing people on the same journey, alignment across sales and marketing and how ABM might expand in the future as an approach more generally as a strategy and so the session I am running with a member of my team will look to cover:
A tangible case study of one of our first ABM pilots and how we approached it with some examples of account research, approach, content and assets designed to align – hopefully giving the attendees some real tips on what they too could consider implementing at the start of their pilots. Also included as part of this session will be a a discussion around how ABM can quickly evolve and how you can consider scaling at pace to expand the accounts in the programme and leverage ABM methodology for wider origination.
I am also in a separate session talking about C-suite and how we at Capita have used ABM to drive better social outcomes and better relationships at the boardroom level with a case study on maximising sponsorships and partnerships and how to use ABM techniques to authentically reach key decisions makers to not only drive social change but also accelerate revenue pipeline at key accounts in a very unique and human way. Hoping you can make it!
