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ABM is about figuring out your most important accounts. Sometimes we forget that in our rush to scale we say, oh, this is a great approach. We want to cover more accounts. One of the things that AI is enabling us to do is filter out the less important accounts faster and more comprehensively. So how do we really figure out the accounts? We have to wait and have to grow.

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The B2B Marketing Exchange brings together B2B marketing and sales practitioners from across the country to get the latest tools and tips they need to succeed. Now we're bringing the insights from the stage to your ears. I'm Claudia Tirico. And I'm Kelly Lindenow and this is the B2B Marketing Exchange podcast. Hello, hello and welcome to the B2BMX podcast. We are back with another episode to share more top rated sessions from our B2BMX east event that took place in Alpharetta, Georgia this past October. This week we're going to keep the ABM talk going with a session replay from Momentum ITSMA's Rob Levitt, who took the stage at MX east to get the audience to rethink ABM and the role of AI. This session is going to dig deep into the three key questions that will separate winners and losers in the world ofPrev, pervasive ABM and AI. Rob will talk about the best ways to define and sharpen campaign focus, the best ways to leverage AI to enable real creativity in campaign messaging and content, and new ways to break through the fast growing use of AI on the buy side. There's a lot to cover today, so let's roll the tape in three, two, one.

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So I'm Rob Levitt. I'm a partner at Momentum itsma. Very happy to be here. Talk with all you guys, ABM veterans, newcomers in betweeners. We'll talk about challenges and opportunities. I was just saying whenever you use the word optimizing, it sounds a little technical. This is not going to be a technical conversation. I am, as I said, I'm going to tell a tiny bit of history, a little philosophy, and then hopefully give a sense of some key initiatives and directions of work that we should be thinking about over the next couple of years as we try to improve performance, especially for those must win accounts. A little bit about me, a little bit about us. I am the grizzled old veteran. I've been doing this for about 20 years. You can see the personal stuff. Momentum ITSMA, we are a growth consultancy. We're based in London and Boston. Work globally, help companies reorganize marketing. Marketing Strategy, develop, design and develop and grow ABM programs. My colleague Michael Tomlinson is here, happy to help out with any further questions about who we are. But why don't we dive in? We are at an incredible turning point, not just in the history of account based marketing, but marketing, sales, business and pretty much everything else. I love this quote. This is a coach that we had speak at an event of ours a couple of months back. You can't trust the future to anyone that champions the past. The future demands to be different. We're at a really interesting time in our history. How many folks here are actively using gen AI for work? Everybody. Just about everybody. Good. That's the elephant in the room. We need to think differently. Even if we're just getting started, things are different. I'm going to talk about that and here's my quick history lesson. So I see where we are now as really the fourth generation of account based marketing. We started ABM back in the early 2000s and there were barely CRM systems and email at that point. There certainly wasn't a. I mean maybe there was AI somewhere deep in the background. There was, but it wasn't about tools, it was about working hands on one to one with a few of your most critical accounts usually existing. How can we dramatically expand the business that we do together? How do we grow together? We laid out a set of core principles 20 years ago. ABM is about working with your most important accounts. It's about value to the client, client centric. Truly we are about how do we help bring our clients more value for their business. Thinking long term, thinking strategically. These are the accounts we want to grow our business with over time, together and full collaboration, full partnership. So what's interesting to me is I would say we're now in the fourth generation. ABM was a small niche practice mostly with very big tech companies, professional services companies back in the early 2000s and kind of worked along and made some progress and had some really powerful results. As after the crash in 0708 and as digital became more central into the forest, we started seeing tools and platforms for account based marketing and so moved into the digital era. Seriously and of course began thinking about scale. How do we take the goodness of what we're doing for five accounts, 10 accounts, 15, 20 accounts and blow that out. So that was the next wave. Still mostly tech companies by five years ago. ABM is the top B2B marketing approach and strategy. It's pervasive. What that means is that very different kinds of companies in very different markets with very different types of accounts, with very different offerings, things that you're selling. And so this is not the original abm. This is a much wider set of approaches and practices and priorities. And then almost two years ago, it all changed. What's that date? November 30, 2022. ChatGPT OpenAI announces ChatGPT opens to the public. Fastest growing technology we have ever seen in terms of adoption. We have no idea where this is going. If anybody tells you they know what this is going to look like in five years, don't believe them. Everybody's working with it. We're testing it, we're playing with it, we're doing serious work with it. We're seeing interesting results, but we ain't seen nothing yet. You know, this is the Internet 30 years ago, this is social media 20 years ago, ET cetera. So here's what I'm not going to talk about. We're in the Gen AI era. So of course I asked Copilot, I'm giving a talk to a group of B2B marketers and I want to talk about optimizing campaigns for must win accounts. So I get this, right, it's not bad, it's not bad. But if we don't all know this stuff already and we're not doing this, we're not doing personalization at scale, we're not collaborating, we're not being data driven in database. We will be, we have to be. This is table stakes. Of course we're all going to be doing this. Now tell me something interesting, right? It's not easy. And for a lot of us, especially when we're just starting out, it's going to take a while to figure this out. But the train's moving so this is going to be table stakes soon. Again, not easy. We need to do it, but we're all going to be doing it. There's not going to be great competitive advantage in a couple of years in doing this unless you're doing it really differently, really better, with real focus. So that's what we're actually going to talk about over the next 25 minutes or so. So the future is here. Two years ago is the launch point, right? And we are now seeing companies, people, teams, using Genai in every aspect of account based marketing. So this is our methodology. We literally developed this almost 20 years ago. Prioritize accounts, understand the accounts, align with their needs and so on. So we're using AI and Genai even every step of the way. It's not just about personalization, it's not just about account intelligence, although those are really important use cases. It's across the board that's happening. We need to go faster. It's not easy. There are real risks involved in how we start using these incredibly powerful tool sets. But we have to do it. We have to do it faster because of course, our buyers are doing it too. So I think we're. A year ago when I'd go to talk at events like this and everybody was just talking about how marketing can use AI and not thinking so much like, well, how are our customers using AI? Is this like our bots are going to talk to their bots? We're not even in the conversation anymore. Yes, to some extent that will happen, but we have to keep up with this. But I'm being a little dramatic, but I think that's table stakes. So this is some research that we've done recently with buyers, large companies, different roles, high value solutions. That's what we really focus on. And yep, we're using it to search for providers, we're using it for evaluation. And they understand we're just barely scratching the surface. This is going to be fundamentally reshaping the way we buy, the way we work, therefore the way we have to market and sell. So at times like this, when we're in a real fundamental pivot in the way we work, I always find it useful to go back to first principles because it's easy to get caught up in the tech and the tools and the tactics. Let's take a step back. What is it that we're actually trying to do with account based marketing? What are we trying to achieve? How many people here use some version of the three Rs? When you talk about measurement, reputation, relationships and revenue, A few. Come on, guys. If you think about the growth of your business, you can't do it without the right reputation. That gives you some permission to play. Especially when you're selling complex solutions. High value solutions, relationships are in the center of it. You need trust, you need confidence with people, the buying committee, the stakeholders, the influencers. With that, you are much more able to accelerate revenue. Okay, so side note, go back, take a look at the three R's. If you're not already putting that at the center of your programs. So anyway, let's hear the. And think about the other core principles. Most important accounts, full partnership with sales and marketing, client, centric value insight. Those don't change. The world changes, the context changes. We're in really different kinds of companies, so our markets are different. This all stands the test of time. So stick with this now. How do we go forward? What do we think about going forward? I want to talk about three things. Narrowing our focus, deepening the conversation that we're having, and humanizing the connection. I need to take a sip of water. How are we doing so far? Make sense? Let's get into the heart of it. Fewer accounts, not more. For the last 10 years in account based marketing, it's all been about scale. Mason actually touched on this earlier this morning. I thought made a good point about this. ABM is about figuring out your most important accounts. Sometimes we forget that in our rush to scale. We say, oh, this is a great approach. We want to cover more accounts. One of the things that AI is enabling us to do is filter out the less important accounts faster and more comprehensively. How do we really figure out the accounts? We have to win and have to grow. People have been talking for years about flipping the funnel. We get another chance to do that in an even more sophisticated way. Now most companies have some version of this pyramid. If you think about your accounts, you've got a relatively small number of really strategic accounts. Next level, if you're dealing with enterprise and SMB or commercial, everybody calls them slightly different things. How do we think about. And it may be that 1,000 or 5,000 makes sense. Is it the right thousand? Is it the right 5,000? I mean, I always think your top 10 are disproportionately important. You know, not only are they driving a substantial fraction of your revenue, these are the accounts that you innovate with. These are the ones that you really have trusted relationships with. So you learn from them, you co create, you co innovate. So I always say put a lot of resources into that very top tier. But most companies can't just live on 10 or 15 or 20 accounts. Few can. So let's go deeper. So I want to tell a quick story and Danny will know this. Danny organized an event last week in Chicago and we had this great case study from a small company in Boston that does fraud detection for banks. CMO was there. He said, we have a list of 523 global banks. That's it. That's all we care about. We already have 150 or 175 of them as customers. So every time we win, the list of new logos that we're going after actually gets smaller. The salesperson comes and says, I got a great opportunity. These people are prime. They already know us. They love our product. Good revenue here. Are they on the list? Nope. See you later. There's a real discipline that comes with that. This is a company that knows its market, that's focusing in tightly and they've got some segmentation within the 523. But that's powerful. That's about no distractions, real focus. So that's the first point. I'm a big fan of lighthouse accounts. A lot of times when we look at groups, whether it's industry, region, country, even buying groups, we take a top down approach. Let's take a look at global banks and we sort of start from what are banks up to? What are their big issues? I believe in bottoms up, lighthouse counts. Let's get really granular. Let's really understand one bank, how they talk about things, how they work, how they buy, how they work with partners. Real nuance, granular understanding. Now we can go after look alikes, the similar approach. So bottoms up approach. So I want us to think about fewer accounts, more granular understanding. I mean I'm a big believer that strategy, half of strategy is saying no. What is it that you say no to? Not those accounts. Not quite a great fit for us. Not going to be profitable. They're going to churn. We can do much more of that now in the fourth generation of ABM with the tools and data that we have. Next piece. What kinds of accounts are we talking about? What are we trying to help them achieve? Here's a really simple. We call this the account growth matrix. So you got two axes. New accounts, existing. Are they trying to reinvent their business or some portion of their business and is that what we are trying to sell them? We can come in and help you transform your business or are we just trying to replace something that they're already doing with better, faster, cheaper. So really different ways to think about your accounts because they wherever you are, and a lot of us are in a few of those quadrants, but wherever those accounts are on this matrix is going to push you in a different direction with how you approach them. What's the story you need to tell, what's the conversation you need to have? So think about this matrix and where are those must win accounts? New, existing, more transformational, more incremental improvement, efficiency, things like that. Different value propositions. So a little bit more, you can look at this later. What are the kinds of things we should be doing to engage them depending on where they are in the matrix? Make sense? Different strategies, different motions, different messaging, content, sales activations, on and on and on. All right, now let's talk about deepening the conversation. I laughed earlier because Mason showed this the Martech map. It's. There are over 14,000 martech companies now on the latest version. What I wanted you to think about when you look at this is, I mean, you may be a Martech company or not, doesn't matter. What do you need to be known for? How do you stand out from this? No matter what market you're in, you have all kinds of competition. Some of them are just like you, some of them are adjacent. Some of them might be above you in a certain way. They might be a big consulting company that's going to do the hard work, and then maybe they'll ask you to come in and follow up and do a little bit more. So what do we really need to be known for? It's an unbelievably crowded marketplace. There's so much noise and it's changing so fast. We better get that right. 523 accounts. One big story we're seeing in marketing, a real comeback of brand investment. I think there's a little bit about this yesterday. I mean, I think everybody now knows the statistics. Any market you're in, only 5% are actively buying. You need to be showing up for the other 95%. But that's not tens or hundreds of thousands. That's tens or hundreds or a few thousands. The accounts that you have to win keep and grow. So with them, what do you need to be known for? That's core. Who you are, what you're all about. It takes time to evolve that. Lots of us are trying to get into new markets, reach new kinds of buyers. Reputation changes slowly. So get this right and stick with it. Thought leadership is absolutely critical because markets are changing so quickly. All of our clients and prospects, customers, they're always thinking about how do they stay ahead of the turmoil, all the disruption, upheaval going on in the market. They are looking for new ideas. I do a lot of work on thought leadership, and a lot of times we take shortcuts. Oh, Gen AI is going to change your world. It's like, yeah, we know that. That's not thought leadership. That's a statement of fact. If that's central to who we are, do we have a differentiated story to tell that helps the core customers that we need to grow with understand how important we are, how thoughtful we are, how expert we are. That takes time with that. We need to double down on one or a few stories. So when we talk about deepening the conversation, it's about those core issues to our customers. How many people Are it's hard to even keep up with the number of campaigns that you're building and launching and activating. Is that a challenge? That's the reality on the left. It's like oh, we got a product launch and oh, we're doing something in APAC and oh, we got a win back campaign because our churn rate's a little hot. Right? It's overwhelming. The power of AI enables us to go from core long term issue based program to individual nurture. It's not about a million campaigns that are micro targeted and we do them and then we forget them and we do another thing. We need to constantly reinforce that central story. And some of us are companies where one story is enough. A lot of us, there's some different flavors because we're serving several big different kinds of markets. But stick long term, this is what enables ABM to be more effective. We're constantly reinforcing a narrative, a story, an expertise in an area that really matters to that core group of accounts. This takes time. This takes time. And a big part of the turmoil is the incredibly cautious nature of buying Today. Every decision is high stakes. The buying committees keep getting bigger, it takes longer, deals are on the road to nowhere. We have issues, we have expertise, we have solutions. Now we have to deal with this. It's like okay, not only tell me why this is going to help my business, tell me how you're mitigating risk because my neck is on the line here. If I'm going to make this big decision and it goes bad, I'm done. So this is huge. Companies are overwhelmed, they're risk averse, it's really hard to sort through. They are using AI and Genai to sort through. Is that going to help us? I don't know. Right? I mean it's the next generation of slight digression. But our folks. I learned about another thing last week. I learned about a great new tool called Danny. What was this Revere that Jonathan was talking about where it helps you understand how you are showing up in large language models. So this is the next generation of SEO. So slight side issue, but as AI becomes more and more central to the buying process, we need to understand how we show up. So anyway, deep in the conversation, it's not just about issues, content, solutions, value. It's about risk, mitigation. This is central to so many of our buyers. I'm just not quite there yet. I'm nervous. Tell me a little bit more about implementation. Tell me about support. This is where a lot of deals go Bad Part three, humanize the connection. Two data points or data sets here from another study of senior level buyers on the left. How many people here, as marketers, you talk about, we want to be the trusted advisor. We're not a vendor, we're a trusted partner, everybody. You don't do it, you do do it. Okay, here's the cold, hard reality. We ask buyers, how many trusted providers do you have? The immediate answer is less than 2. Wow, that's scary. It's going down five years ago it was about 4. Still not a big number. Better than 2 or 1.8 if you want to get there. This isn't about more accurate targeting on LinkedIn. This is about deep conversation. Are they calling you to run ideas by you? Right? You call your friends, hey, I saw this. What do you think? That's trust. That's hard, and that's with people. That's not with companies, that's with people. So then we ask, okay, well, who do you have those trusted relationships with? Not surprisingly, it's not your salespeople, it's not your marketing people, it's your experts, it's your executives. So when we talk about humanizing the connection, literally that's what we're talking about. How do you enable, as marketers, as abmers, how do you enable your experts and your executives to get into deep conversations with the decision makers and the influencers and the accounts that matter most to your business central? All the digital stuff in the world can help. This is where the rubber hits the road. Now you got to say, okay, well, why should they take the time? It's like, oh, I'm going to set up a call with my cio, with their cio. What's in it for them? So more research we've done over the years and really simplified here. Of course, everybody wants to improve their business performance, obviously, right? But underneath that, why should they take time to talk with you? Different reasons, different people have different motivations. They're looking for new ideas, thought leadership. They want to influence you. It's like, I like what you guys are doing here, but you're falling short here. If you could do more to build out this capability, I'm in. They want to influence you. They want to meet their peers. That's why we're here. We learn from our peers. Are you providing a platform to bring people from your most important accounts together with their peers under your auspices? A lot of times young, up and coming leaders, they're trying to build their own brand. They want a platform. Are you providing them A platform where they can stand up and speak and show how smart they are. These are the kinds of things that we need to be thinking about to build those trusted human connections and relationships as a central part of our account based marketing program. This is an old graphic that I built years ago, but it's still really important when we build human connection, when we build trust, Ultimately we're trying to create champions, we're trying to create advocates, because our customers are going to trust their peers even more than us. We want those advocates. They have different motivations, we're at different stages of trust with them. We need to provide an array of activities and programs that support that human connection. Yes, of course, more digital. Some of this is virtual or can be, but this is about having real conversation with the important people at the accounts that are important. Again, you can look at this later, but innovation programs, executive briefing centers, executive education, that's an interesting one. Some companies do that. Are you in the right associations? On and on and on. Philanthropy, community service, great one to think about. But the general point is multiple points of entry, multiple ways to engage, different groups to connect with and so therefore different pathways to trust. And every touch point matters. Every moment is a moment of truth. People don't have time. A bad experience means they're not coming back. A good experience means maybe they'll come back again. And then a bad experience means they don't come back after that. All of these different activities which are often run in your companies by different people or different teams, how do you orchestrate a positive long term experience for the people that matter most, such that every moment has value to them, is high, quality, is memorable, you learn from. The internal learning piece is really, really important. All the online research we can do, and even with AI now, there's still no substitute for a senior leader at a company you care about pulling you aside and saying, rob, listen, I know you guys are doing this, but you're missing the boat. You got to do this. There's no substitute for that. Build out the human connections, the different platforms, the different programs, the different activities. A lot of your ABM effort needs to go there because that's how you build trust. There we go, a quick whirlwind. Three key points. Narrow your focus. Fewer accounts, not more. Deepen the conversation. Fewer campaigns, bigger programs. And then humanize the connection. Build trusted relationships. So super quick. Not sure. I don't think we have time. Do we have time? I know we started a little bit late. Thoughts? Questions, please. So you're talking about human connection. Human connection. Longer term programs execute or measure. That's not an or. Oh, I see. Will you launch new programs, say things like these? I'm guessing, right? Without knowing how to measure? Yes. With some of these activities, I started an executive advisory board about 10 years ago and I said if they come back to a second meeting, we're making a difference. Sometimes measurement's not that hard and we get caught up in hyper structured science projects. Those are important, don't get me wrong. But when we're talking about our most important accounts, the most important people in those accounts, and building relationships and trust. Yes. I mean, you know, you got to put a lot of thought and effort and planning and so on to do these right. But yeah, the measurement is actually a little bit simpler with things like this. Okay, thank you guys, really appreciate it. Hopefully helpful.