Unraveling MarTech Madness and Scaling ABM

About the Guest

Joy is an experienced marketer and sales professional, currently a partner at Access Marketing Company. Her career spans roles on both the client and agency sides, covering strategic messaging, product consulting, and hands-on marketing. What sets Joy apart is her solid background in sales, which she actively engages into this day. This blend of marketing and sales experience gives her a unique perspective, especially in sales enablement, understanding not just how to make marketing efficient but also how to make it effectively drive sales. Her hands-on experience with quotas allows her to relate to and address real-world sales challenges.

Connect with Joy Milkowski

Key Takeaways

• Shift from collecting many MarTech tools to focusing on used and valuable ones.
• Always start with your end goals and work backwards to determine the necessary tools.
• Shift focus from alignment to active collaboration and coordination between sales and marketing.
• Understanding and segmenting your target audience is not just beneficial but essential. Recognise that different segments have unique needs and preferences. 
• Adopt the GIVE Method for Content Creation: Goals, Insights, Vision, and Evidence. 
• Every piece of marketing and sales activity should start with the user’s perspective in mind. 
• Encourage regular and meaningful collaboration between sales and marketing. 
• While marketing teams should focus on creating broad, macro-level content that addresses general needs and trends, sales teams should personalise this content at a micro-level. 
• The impact of content is not determined by its length but by its relevance and personalisation. 
• Both sales and marketing should engage in regular discussions to validate and refine content strategies. 
• ABM success varies among salespeople; segment them based on their commitment and ability to engage in the program.
• Tier accounts for targeted outreach. Classify accounts into different tiers based on potential ROI and customise your outreach efforts for each tier.
• Encourage ongoing feedback from sales teams and adapt strategies based on this input to refine the ABM process.

Quote

“If you are not starting every marketing and sales activity with your user first in mind, not what you want to say, but what your user needs to hear, it is likely not going to make a dent, hit the mark, or cause any sort of engagement.” – Joy Milkowski 

Highlights from the Episode

You’ve got a strong background in building marketing strategy. Can you share your career journey over the years with our listeners?

Joy’s journey from journalism to sales and marketing illustrates how skills from one field can be effectively transferred to another. This narrative underlines the importance of storytelling in marketing and shows that a non-traditional path can offer broader perspectives and deeper insights.

How can businesses determine which Martech tools and platforms to prioritise, considering the current trend of scaling back on these solutions due to their complexity and underutilisation?

Businesses are moving away from accumulating numerous MarTech tools to a more selective approach, emphasising actual usage and ROI. The critical lesson is to avoid buying based on mere potential; start by understanding your needs and processes. Consider how technology can enhance or replace current practices and ensure seamless integration with existing systems. This mindset will become increasingly important in 2024, with a higher technology utilisation and ROI standard.

How do you advise your clients to enhance coordination and collaboration between sales and marketing teams rather than just aligning them? What strategies do you recommend for bridging the gap and improving their collaborative efforts?

Joy emphasises the importance of discerning meaningful data from the information provided by MarTech and SalesTech platforms. The focus is on utilising data that drives sales, moving beyond mere technology as a means to an end. They suggest a closer relationship between sales and marketing, recommending tactics like ride-along and role reversals to foster empathy and understanding. The speaker highlights personalisation as a non-negotiable element in sales, advocating for a shift from mere alignment to true collaboration and coordination between sales and marketing.

How do you approach the challenge of creating marketing content that is often reworked or pared down by sales teams? Could you share your insights on how segmentation and a user-focused approach can transform the content creation process in marketing, making it more effective and aligned with sales teams’ needs?

Effective marketing requires understanding and segmenting your audience. Tailor your content to different scenarios and focus on your client’s goals, insights, vision, and evidence. Start all marketing and sales initiatives by considering what the user needs to hear, not just what you want to say. Collaboration between sales and marketing is critical, with marketing focusing on broader content needs and sales personalising it for specific accounts. Remember, it’s not about the length of the content but its relevance and personalisation that makes it impactful.

How do you guide companies in scaling their ABM efforts from small-scale, manual initiatives to more extensive, enterprise-wide programs while maintaining the personalised and relevant approach essential to ABM?

Joy’s approach to scaling ABM begins by segmenting not just accounts but also salespeople, identifying those willing and able to engage fully with the ABM process. This includes ensuring their personal and professional branding aligns with the product they are selling. Joy emphasises starting with a pilot program, using the best salespeople and a limited number of accounts to refine messaging and strategies. She advocates for tiering accounts based on potential ROI and customising outreach accordingly. Lastly, Joy highlights the importance of leveraging MarTech efficiently, extracting maximum value from existing tools like Demandbase before seeking additional solutions.

Can you tell us more about how Access Marketing Company bridges the gap between sales and marketing, mainly focusing on how you tailor your services to achieve tangible outcomes like meeting sales quotas and driving business results?

Access Marketing Company offers a pragmatic marketing approach, emphasising the synergy between sales and marketing teams. Their services range from MarTech solutions to content creation and sales enablement. The key takeaway is the importance of targeted, results-driven marketing strategies that fill gaps in an organisation’s marketing efforts and contribute significantly to sales success. This approach is more than just marketing; it’s about creating actual, measurable outcomes that boost sales performance.

Good reads: Is there a book, blog, newsletter, website, or video that you would recommend to our listeners?

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink 

Jocko Podcast by Jocko Willink

Limitless by Jim Kwik

Radical Candor by Kim Scott