ABM in the Age of AI
Join Ari Cignarale, CEO of Nomad, and Sarah McConnell as they dive into the state of ABM now that AI is on the table.
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All right, hello everyone.
Welcome to Scaling Your ABM Strategies.
I'm Sarah McConnell, the VP of Demand Gen here at Qualified.
And today I'm joined by Ari Signorelli,
who's the CEO at Nomad Marketing.
Ari, welcome.
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Pleasure to see you again.
Yeah, it's great to chat with you.
I'm so excited.
ABM is always one of my favorite topics to talk about.
And I know you are such an expert on this topic.
So I'm really excited to dig in and give everyone that's
listening to this some useful tips and pointers
for their ABM strategy in the age of AI especially.
So, Ari, my first question for you is,
clients can sometimes be struggling when
it comes to establishing and scaling ABM motions.
Do you see ABM as a status quo for BDB marketers right now?
Or where do you think BDB companies are at in their adoption
cycles of ABM?
Yeah, great question.
So it's been a few years just since we opened up
the trade show conference circuit.
And I think in like 2022, 2023, demand base, 6 cents
were really intriblio.
Like we're really like doing these big pushes
on getting people by ABM.
They kept saying ABM is the new thing.
But I think up until this year, the adoption of ABM,
truly adopting it, it's just beginning.
We're just scratching the surface,
although everyone's been buying the products.
I don't necessarily know if they're truly leveraging it
because there wasn't really a plan in place.
I think because it requires planning and resources
in a team, the platform doesn't just do it for you.
You really need to write it.
The platform cannot solve it.
They can help you.
But you actually have to work with your marketing team
and come up with a full ABM strategy.
Therefore, buying the platform, for me,
is a waste of ROI until you really
have your docs in a row and you're ready to go.
In terms of adoption, because of that,
I've noticed the enterprise companies are really moving on it
because they have more internal resources.
They have a larger marketing team.
They have more budget to buy these technologies and be ready
because there are a lot of elements that go into play
to do true account-based marketing.
In terms of mid-market, probably at 15%, 20% and SMB as well.
The desire to do it is there, but they just haven't made the plans
and use the resources they have and really sat down
and made the strategy so far.
It's very much, instead of crawl, walk, run,
it's like buying the really expensive platform
and then like--
Figure it out.
--spend your wheels, maybe implement it, maybe not.
I feel like I've spoken to a lot of my clients
in the sales cycle where we have a sixth sense.
I'm like, OK, cool.
Who implemented it and who's using it?
And they're like, oh, we're not there yet.
So my methodology is get your ducks in a row,
start building the strategy, and then maybe invest
in that technology.
That is such a good point.
And as someone who has bought an ABM products
before we had our ducks in a row or a plan in place,
I have been in the shoes of your clients
where if they really wanted ABM and we
like bottle the things that we needed and then we're like,
oh, shoot, we don't have the resources or the strategy
in place to do anything with this.
So I love that.
Now, in your experience, you kind of
mentioned having your plan in place,
what do you think teams are missing or what--
like, what's going on?
What are they missing when they're setting up their strategies
that you would recommend they thinking about now
before purchasing any of those ABM products?
Of course.
And I know this is in our other question,
but maybe we just talk about it now is--
talk about-- look at your technology.
Look at your tech stack.
And then look at your staff.
So in your tech stack, you meet the contacts.
And you meet the database.
You probably need a clean CRM.
So I'm probably going to talk in the Salesforce
because that's probably-- if we're talking about ABM,
chances are you're using Salesforce.
But are your--
stop using leads, right?
It helps me account-based marketing.
When you're using leads in Salesforce,
that means company name, not account.
So clean up your Salesforce instance.
Have all of your contacts in the account.
Look at-- identify the buyers, identify the titles,
get their information, emails.
Have that in place, which I guess that means you need a Zoom
info or an Apollo or WISA where you can get all of the information
and that it's current.
Turnover is really high right now.
So you need to be sure that your database is up and running
and very clean so you can start executing.
That's definitely one of the things,
like to get the duck and a row.
Second duck content is your marketing team writing the content.
That's going to be really useful because the key part
of account-based marketing is giving them the content
and identifying their influence for their business need
and also going across all of the buying grips, right?
So if you have a product that is--
we're both sales and marketing-- tailor your content to that
and how your product can help a salesperson
rather than how your product can leverage within a CMO
or the marketing organization.
Really tailor that content for a person.
That's going to take some time.
Content takes time getting good copywriters that
understand your business or identifying who on your team
is the content writer amongst their other roles.
So having that duck and a row also really
makes a lot of difference because say you have that intent data
and you know they're ready but you don't have any content to give
them or you only have one pronged case study or one pronged
pain point to always talk about, that's not going to be ABM.
You've got to be ready to talk about all things that make
sense for that business and for that specific buyer.
Last but not least, understand your team and your staff.
Because AI and ABM and all these require an orchestrator,
you need someone that is identified as the tool user
and helps build all this out.
This requires a lot of process.
This requires that clean sales force, that big strategic marketing
initiatives.
So you need to have someone that is owning this project,
not just every-- all bought out like cooks in the kitchen,
right?
Then we'll never get it done.
And then we'll never really have a timeline
to when this is going to work.
So have clear ownership, have clear deadlines.
Really spend that time with your marketing team
to understand who's doing it.
I've also had clients that before they sign on with Nomad,
they're like, yeah, we have the expense
or we have these ideas, but we don't actually
know how to build it.
So get someone on the marketing technology
to join your team or get a consultant like Nomad,
because that will help you execute it
and execute it or tap it.
Absolutely.
I feel like, again, as someone who
set up an ABM strategy before we were ready to,
that content piece, that second one you talked about
was so important because we did all the other things.
But then we realized we didn't have the content in place
yet to really offer personalized experiences.
Which, your point, it's not ABM then.
So I love all of those.
Now, you mentioned in one of your--
I think the third duck, you talked about intent.
And I feel like intent selling is becoming more commonly
talked about--
can you tell me a little bit about why intent is so important
when you're doing account selection for ABM?
Yes.
So intent means that your buyers are on the sites,
they're researching, they're ready to buy.
Usually, you're not casually researching and really
perusing and educating yourself if you're not really
considering that you need whatever you're selling.
So any product that's in the market, for me,
it's go time on your sales and marketing side,
because they're signaling that they're interested.
I had a sales--
I had a sales one time when I was sitting in one
of their meetings saying, time kills deals.
And it's true.
You need that momentum.
You need to go.
And chances are also that your competitor is doing intent
data at ABM right now because it is the buzziest thing.
So you've got to beat them to it.
You've got to really get aggressive
and start hitting them with the content
and really keeping that momentum going
because they are looking.
So what's better than getting all this information popping up
when you're signaling that you're interested?
It's the same thing for me.
On the B2C side, when I'm an Instagram
and I click a really cool skincare company,
and next thing you know, I'm getting all these really cool
creams and anti-aging properties that are showing up.
And guess what?
I did click buy because I was looking for it anyways.
So I think if you remember your personal buying experience
and how that relates to tech sales and tech ABM,
it's the same thing.
Build that momentum, get ready, and signaling means,
I'm interested.
I am laughing, Ari.
We are the same person because I am a marketers dream
in B2C because I've spent way too much money on skincare
that I did not mean, but I've given them
intent signals that I am interested in.
They spend the money to make sure that I buy.
So that was a perfect analogy.
Yeah, exactly.
It's a good one.
It just does.
And I mean, one time I foot her.
Next thing I know, I bought a film roller for my foot
because they saw and I was like, you're right.
My foot hurts right now.
I'm just better than we do what we need.
So thinking about data when you're talking about ABM strategies,
if you're a marketer or salesperson listening to this
and you're either running ABM or you're
thinking about running ABM and you are like, how do I measure this?
What's the data that you think you absolutely
need to be measuring?
And what do you think is data that you can kind of like,
it's a nice to have or it's fun, but you don't absolutely
have to have it?
It's interesting.
So I think one thing that people really
need to pump the brakes on is measuring the deal cycle
right now in the links because chances are ABM
means that you're going after the bigger accounts.
We're calling them whales.
That means like they're the big ones that you want.
They are going to take a while.
There are multiple people on the account
that you're going to be reaching out to and getting that buy in.
So one data point that I would like for people to just put on ice
right now is how long the deal cycle is taking.
Chances are the point of success within true whale hunting
will take a lot longer than what you're used to.
So that's one data point.
I want people to just put a pin, be patient,
try not to really set like, oh, wow, it's
like really changing our deal measurement
and like the timeline from sales rep opening all the way
to close one, close the last.
So that's one thing.
Another really interesting data point that is like complete
accounts, that really matters right now.
What we talked about, getting the right data into the accounts,
the accounts are complete.
Chances are the success of your ABM strategies
aren't going to be working.
And then obviously like marketing qualified accounts
versus sales qualified accounts are we aligned,
having that alignment, that's going
to be really crucial to you because we can't have the signals
and speaking to all of like speaking to the BDRs,
having them build up momentum, start sending everything out,
having these playbooks, if the sales team doesn't
agree that this is a qualified account.
So having that marketing sales aligned men is really important.
On the flush stuff, stop looking at email metrics.
Who cares?
I've never understood that.
Oh, are emails being opened?
Are they not?
This is so personalized.
Like you, you're not going to spray and pray.
This is like two one specific person.
Get rid of email metrics.
Doesn't matter here.
It's not general marketing.
This isn't an event either.
Like it's not like we're signing up people
to join an event.
That email metrics for me just don't really make sense.
Yeah.
That is super helpful.
I am curious, going back to the intent data a little bit,
do you have any plays or things that you recommend for teams
that have intent data and how they can get that in the hands
of their BDR teams in a way that makes their outbiting
experiences?
Did you kind of talk about that one-to-one experience?
So if they're using intent data, how can they
leverage that better to make sure those emails are more
personalized and just a better ABM experience?
Exactly.
I think enablement on BDRs could be one of the more important
aspects that a lot of teams forget.
They're not just general sales automation.
They are the first human touch from getting these signals,
getting marketing teams ready to start sending their marketing
emails, working on that retargeting.
But then also, like, BDRs are first.
That's the human contact.
So first off, give them playbooks.
Get them to know their data.
Get them to know where to access it.
And also give them recommendations
on who they should contact first.
They shouldn't be contacting a bunch of different people
at once, doing that spray and pride methodology.
But they should say, OK, if you're contacting,
the demand gen versus the CFO, they need to receive this
content.
Remember, talk about those pain points to that fit the job
level and the right job first.
So I think having playbooks for BDRs to understand what is
relevant for certain buyers really makes sense.
And then you can put that in a nice cadence and automation.
So the BDRs are feeling supported and enabled.
And they're really understanding when
to contact someone versus one feature of a platform
and one case study versus one to contact another buyer
versus the complete different use case and case study
and how that resonates with that buyer as well.
Totally.
I know from our end of qualifying,
we had to share a point of, like, there's
different content for different buyers
and giving them playbooks.
And we created a matrix that was, like,
OK, based on these particular levels and titles.
And it was just a giant matrix.
Like, here's their pain points.
Here's what their day to day looks like.
Here's some case studies.
Here's things you need to be thinking about.
So our BDRs could always go back and reference that matrix.
So I love having, like, playbooks or matrices,
something that helps those BDRs understand more beyond just,
like, oh, we sell to sales and marketing.
It's like, yeah, within sales and marketing,
there's a lot of nuance and variation.
Like, a marketing ops person cares very differently
about something than someone in demand gen
or product marketing.
So I could not agree more.
I've seen how much it can help to get those, like, playbooks
or matrices to your BDRs.
Yeah, and it's really interesting.
Sometimes people just look at a BDR just to send emails
and get meanings.
But there's so much more important to that.
If you leverage them, they can be that single touch that really
gets someone to jump on the phone versus a competitor's BDR.
That's just shooting stuff off.
That doesn't really resonate.
The more enabled a BDR is, the more successful everyone will be.
So really get them to buy it, teach them, give them content.
Don't just let them flounder.
There's so much more potential with the BDR
than a lot of companies use them for.
Absolutely.
OK, I'm going to shift gears a little bit because it is 2024.
And can you do any recording without using the word AI?
And I think the answer to that is no.
So, Ari, with your experience, where are you starting to see
AI pop up in ABM platforms?
Like, do ABM platforms have AI?
And if so, how is it being utilized within those platforms?
Woo, OK.
Within ABM platforms.
So I think it's really important to the chat bots.
That really matters, understanding
that you can better route in visitor to the right content
on the site.
So once again, what makes sense for someone in demand,
Jen, versus what makes sense for the sales manager,
although a lot of these platforms are full revenue
operations and they service both, understanding who's there,
who's visiting, can route them better to the right features,
the right things that they need to be seeing,
get that visibility.
So I think AI is really important there.
I also think it's really important to build that content
and website personalization.
Having that better user experience,
you do have the power right now to do that.
So using AI there, you end the chat bots.
I think it's a really perfect mix
to change that user experience.
So it's really tailored and catered to that.
Absolutely.
I know from our standpoint, I get to--
I'm really lucky.
We have a show called Go to Market AI
where I've gotten demos of a lot of AI products, which
is really fun.
And particularly with ABM platforms,
the thing I've found the most interesting is a lot of them
have had AI in their platform for a really long time.
And we just didn't know it because it's still chat GPT.
It just wasn't as top of mind for everyone,
but the predictive AI of telling you which accounts
are in market and ingesting all those intense signals
and being able to say, based on all of this data that we're
seeing, these are the accounts that we think
are going to be most likely to convert.
I feel like that's something that ABM platforms have
had AI for a very long time.
And it's just kind of in commonplace,
and we're so used to it now that we just
don't even really think of it as an AI feature.
But it is something that does have a predictive AI backbone
that we're seeing.
So now, if you are a marketer or a salesperson
and you were looking at any sort of platforms
and now that AI has come to be such a big thing,
how do you recommend people evaluate ABM tools?
Do you think they need to think about AI
as much when they're evaluating these ABM tools?
Or do you think it's just like a nice to have,
like what's your take on platform evaluation in this age of AI?
OK, there's a few things.
Well, first off, privacy.
Where does all of it live?
In terms of AI, I think that really matters.
Is it being open sourced?
I mean, I think that when you are evaluating this type of unique,
intricate type work, are we being respectful of privacy?
And are we being respectful of GDPR?
So I think that's one thing is truly understanding privacy.
And how is AI leveraging all the data?
Another thing, too, is the AI tool,
how is it learning your business?
Is it working?
Is it not working?
Could you be getting-- I remember they just
launched Google AI for when you search something.
And then I don't know if you saw all the news,
but all their searches, all their information,
when you were searching, something was wrong.
So it's like, how quickly is AI learning your business?
Does that really make sense right now?
Is it the right use for your company?
And then the second thing is, when you're doing all of this,
AI does need an orchestrator.
So make a plan before you buy.
AI is not set and forget.
So you really do need to have someone that has eyes on it,
that is operating AI, that they're really spending their time
training AI and making sure it's doing the right stuff
for your business.
And now that's kind of embedded on your site,
it does still need that operator,
or else things can run them up, and it doesn't actually give you
the ROI that you were hoping for.
Absolutely.
Now, the last thing about AI I want to chat about
is I think we've seen a lot of prevalence of what
generative AI, obviously, content.
That's such an easy use case for generative AI
is helping write content, both for sales and marketing.
So with the prevalence of AI generated content,
do you have any recommendations for people managing
a BDR team or an SDR team, and how they can still stand out
from a messaging perspective, particularly
because ABM is so targeted in this world where generating,
using generative AI to write emails,
is just so commonplace?
You know, this is a really, really good question
that I actually had a conversation with my co-founder
and my growth assistant about right before he joined was,
AI, although it can generate content,
it can't tell stories.
It's not there yet, that those stories are human and personal.
So I just, sometimes it doesn't resonate so much.
I think AI is really good at getting facts
and giving you really good grammar and good takes,
and maybe removing some of the fluff from your content
to make it more straightforward.
But it can't tell a story.
And another way I noticed it, although it's not marketing
content or sales content, but when I read applications
and I'm reading cover letters.
And they're, and I'm like, did you write this on chat GPT?
'Cause it really isn't that, like, it's not heartwarming.
And I don't see their experience in it.
They just plugged it, hey, write a cover letter
based on a resume.
But it's like, where is that human aspect?
I wanna read about your story.
I wanna know more about you before I hire you.
And I think, in a sense, AI doesn't have that nice human touch
that we're all still really craving.
Although we're in the age of AI,
we still need to communicate as humans and be humans.
And I think, like, not losing that touch is really important.
And then also the companies that keep that touch
versus the others, I think they will stand out
because reading emails, reading content,
now we have, because so much now is there,
because of AI, since it's really removed that timeframe
of how long it takes to turn around content,
so we're probably going to get flooded
with more content than we ever had before.
The ones that really do, like, having that AI orchestrator
and really embedding those storytelling aspects,
they're gonna stand out the most.
- I love that answer because, to your point,
AI's so good at ingesting massive amounts of data
and then being able to regurgitate that.
So when you ask questions about something
and you talked about, like, learning someone's business,
you can train AI on your unique business,
you can feed it your content,
and it will be able to ingest that
and then respond to questions really, really well,
but it doesn't have a personality necessary.
Like, it's not injecting that, like, storytelling,
so I do love the concept of, like, yeah,
we've heard a lot of using generative AI
to help you start, like, a first strap,
but you, as, like, the human need to be able to, like,
tell that narrative, tell that story
and sort of give it that personality
that you talked about cover letters,
you're probably not seeing in cover letters,
they're probably doing pretty, you're like,
"Hey, these all are starting to sound the exact same."
And there's a reason why for that.
- Yeah, I think it's so funny.
The amount of cover letters that I read
that kept calling Nomad using cutting-edge technology,
I was like, "Okay, all right, like, come on,
"it's not that cutting-edge, we're not like,
"cheering tancer with, like, robotics,
"like, we're, you know, marketing automation,
"platform, like, consultants, how cutting-edge is that?"
Like, I'm all for it, obviously, this is our industry
and we're talking about ABM and AI, but, like, damn,
cutting-edge is a really, really intense
and I was getting a lot of that in cover letters.
- That is, to me, I love that because it's such a, yes,
that is one of those, like, keyword giveaways where you're like,
"Shut GBT wrote this," or, like, "Generd if AI wrote this,
"because I know I also like a lot of things into, like,
"a chat GBT or, like, a generative AI content creator,"
and cutting-edge does seem to be, like,
a preferred terminology for it.
- Yeah, I know, it's like, is that really why
you want to join Nomad?
'Cause we're, like, adminning cutting-edge technology.
It's like, I don't know, I think there'd be, like,
way cooler places to join, like, I don't know, NASA or something.
(laughing)
- Yeah, from a comparison standpoint, like,
NASA is really unfair with cutting-edge.
(laughing)
- Okay, last question for you.
If we take AI out of the factor here,
like, obviously, it's here to say, we know that,
but what are some other trends that you're predicting
we're gonna see in the latter half of 2024,
really 2025, as it pertains to ABM?
- Good one.
So, I think, with all of the movement,
in vendor consolidation, ABM will only increase
because you will have to increase your buying groups, right?
Like, if, like, a really good one
that, like, a vendor consolidation would be, you know,
qualified.
You keep coming up with the new ways
to build your sales automation, right?
From what went to meeting scheduling,
then went to chatbots, then went to, you know,
bigger plays for everybody.
It wasn't just now, for the sales team,
it's also for the marketing team,
which means you have increased your buying group.
You're not just going after head of sales,
you're also going after CMOs.
That vendor consolidation will only increase
how many contacts you need in your account-based marketing.
So, I think that's gonna be really important
that we're gonna be seeing for companies across the board.
Another thing is deal velocity.
Right now, where a lot of people are going,
how can ABM increase our deal velocity?
Because right now, like, we talk about you need to be patient,
the deal cycle will be longer,
but is there anything that we can push through
to make it just a little bit faster?
I think part of, so it is that catch 22,
a full, very patient with ABM.
Once again, we're still very new,
we're still scratching the surface.
People are finally getting it right.
But will that then increase the deal velocity?
Like, when can will ABM be able to,
maybe it's the time between interested to open,
like, opportunity open?
That could help increase the deal velocity
versus opportunity open to close one close loss.
So, I think the deal velocity, if anything,
will be on before they open that opportunity,
like, how much time is it gonna take
to get that team to become an opportunity
within your organization,
you can really start getting them in front of sales
and working them.
Right now, I think that's where the deal velocity
is going to live versus on the other end,
because I do think, as we talked about earlier,
these are the whales that you're looking for,
chances are it's going to take a while,
you're gonna have a lot of buy-in from multiple groups,
so then that side will be longer as we expected,
it won't always be that instant success,
the way SaaS companies do experience with smaller accounts.
So, but, you know, maybe in 2025,
they're gonna try to come up with tactics,
really to use AI to trigger more content
that gets to all the buyers
and can really push those deals along.
Yeah, the vendor consolidation is so interesting,
because going all the way back to the beginning
of this conversation, when you talked about,
before launching anything ABM,
you have to have your content ready,
you've gotta have, like, your buyers,
you've gotta have your content,
is as products begin to expand,
and I'm sure if you're listening to this,
your team is probably no different,
your product is probably expanding into new areas,
which at your point opens up new buyer groups
that didn't exist before,
as there's a lot of legwork that goes into figuring out,
like, who's your new buying committee,
and who do you need to get into your CRM,
and creating a lot of content
based on where they're at in their buyers journey.
So, I really like that you made that point,
because I think for anyone that's listening to this,
if that feels like your product,
you should probably be working with your marketing team now
to be writing all that new content,
all these new buyer groups that are gonna go open up
and the enablement with your sales team
as that new buying committee starts to open up
as your product expands,
and there's a lot of this tech consolidation,
so that is a fantastic point.
- Yes, exactly.
Don't just expand your offerings
without understanding that you need to expand
who your buyer is as well.
- Absolutely.
Well, Eric, thank you so much for joining us
on Highplane Summit Summer Care.
It was so great to have you here to chat about ABM.
- Yes, thank you so much for having me.
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