Overheard At The Just Media-Activate “Peer To Peer” Marketing Roundtable
Most marketers want to hear about peer experiences, according to results from a survey Activate Marketing Services and Just Media conducted in preparation for its first joint roundtable in Silicon Valley.
The sharing of peer marketing experiences is exactly what occurred at the Four Seasons in Palo Alto last week.
Specifically, a group of key marketers from B2B tech organizations and marketing firms came together to discuss key pipeline improvement strategies implemented by marketers today – and how innovative techniques around content and account based marketing is fulfilling that deep desire.
Marketing and thought leaders from Qlik Technologies, Nutanix, CommVault, Just Media and Activate shared their tested strategies to improve pipeline conversion.
You can learn more about the event here: http://www.justactivateevent.com/
Here are some of the key statements overheard at the roundtable:
Validate, Educate, Stimulate
Howard Ting, Sr. VP, Marketing, Nutanix, pointed to the funnel as the first key step to building an effective demand center strategy in your business. You could call the funnel stages what you want, but it is important to apply the funnel framework and the buyers journey to market content effectively.
Data driven interlocks between sales and marketing
Riley McNeilage, Hub Marketing Director, Americas, Qlik Technologies emphasized the importance of data driving the weekly conversations between sales and marketing. Ting echoed the same sentiment when he mentioned success in the sales-marketing relationship occurred when closeness between the two functions was sustained – and continuous.
Optimize Relentlessly
Several speakers spoke about the importance of testing, but Ting also suggested not too get too wound up in minutiae. Don’t overanalyze the analytics. We live in a big data world, and we are all tempted to gather as much data as we possibly can. But lets not be too obsessed with every minute detail.
Content Marketing Techniques That Work
A session on boosting content engagement was presented to the audience by this author, also Activate’s VP of Marketing Strategy. Creating content so it is helpful to the customer at every stage in the buyer’s journey was a running theme in the presentation. It is also important to remember that users don’t read – they scan for keywords they want to engage with. Give them those keywords immediately, urgently so they can engage quickly. Also revealed in the presentation was an email that experienced a 600%+ lift in conversion rate.
Content Selection, Mapping and Measurement
Not all content is created equal, explained Staci Gullotta, Director, Worldwide Digital Marketing, CommVault. When creating a content strategy for a digital program – consider where and how the content will be consumed. Define KPI’s before launching a program – and make sure everyone understands the KPI’s.
Account Based Marketing Tips For Success
A special session on account based marketing (ABM) by Dick Reed, CEO, Just Media revealed the strategy, process and results around a real case study that leveraged ABM. It also directly answered the question around what infrastructure is needed to be in place to deliver the right messages, measure impact and act upon the opportunities created. Valuable tip: there is no one vendor who can deliver a complete solution but some can help kick start your programs with off the shelf solutions.
We look forward to hearing about your marketing challenges in the next peer to peer roundtable (or you could contact Activate or contact Just Media with any questions, anytime).
Imran Suleman
VP Marketing Strategy
Activate
