Champion’s Spotlight

Demandbase: Tell us a bit about Anaplan and any unique challenges you have running an ABM program there.

Brevan: Anaplan is a software as a service (SaaS) company specializing in enterprise business planning solutions. As you can imagine, our ICP is broad, since we sell into almost any industry. This means we have to prioritize our messaging and targeting, taking into consideration an account’s current installs, engagement, and where we’re most likely to land and/or expand for new business.

From an ABM perspective, this means our segmentation is fairly complex, as is our execution of it, especially when we get down to the tactical level. We aim to deliver a seamless end-user experience where our messaging aligns perfectly to that account. And while that’s probably our biggest challenge, Demandbase has definitely helped us with it. The amazing flexibility it has in terms of identifying intent, the website personalization, creating dynamic segments, and pushing those audiences across all the different platforms, yeah, it’s great!

Demandbase: How did you hear about Demandbase? Was your company already using ABM technology when you came on board or did you help to bring in the technology?

Brevan: I started at Anaplan in November of 2020 as an SDR intern while finishing my undergrad at the University of Minnesota. That really helped me understand how sales and marketing work together, and gave me an appreciation for the sales prospecting role. Then I transitioned into the growing ABM team as an ABM specialist, and we were using Demandbase Classic at the time to run account-based ads. We were also using Engagio for broader ABM. As you know, Engagio then merged with Demandbase and that became my first exposure to the Demandbase One™ platform.

I got in on the ground level of figuring out how we could use all that the platform offers, like the sales insights, account-based marketing, advertising, and orchestration. And since then we’ve expanded into personalization, and using the integration with Adobe Experience Manager and the form enrichment, as well.

Demandbase: I’m impressed with how quickly you’ve become an expert in your field, going from an intern in 2020 to now being a Demandbase Champion. What made you decide to apply for the Champion program?

Brevan: Demandbase has been instrumental in my learning and career progression, both from a foundational perspective — you’ve written the playbook on ABM — and also because the platform is extremely useful to execute those account-based strategies. So, if there’s any way I can evangelize that, I’m happy to do so. Then, of course, I did it for career development as well.

ABM is different from company to company — no right or wrong way to do it. If there’s any tidbit of information I can share about what I’ve learned to add to that big bucket of knowledge, that’s fulfilling.

Demandbase: What have been the highlights of your career so far?

Brevan: Great question. In my short two and a half years so far, the big highlight is being trusted with the Demandbase platform and our ABM plan as a whole. We’ve been able to work Demandbase into our entire go-to-market (GTM) strategy and I was really central to getting that done. It has required a lot of cross collaboration between different teams. I work with analytics, sales, and marketing leadership, and have been able to help our demand gen team shift to an ABM mindset. Today, we’re very specific and intentional about who we’re targeting, which accounts and people within the accounts, and where they are in the buyer journey.

In our new fiscal year, we’re aligned on a set list of accounts across our GTM. Our budget is going towards those accounts and those accounts only. We still do both demand gen and ABM tactics to those accounts, but we’re able to work it through the Demandbase platform and deliver account-based experiences at scale.

Demandbase: Building on that, what do you like most about your current role?

Brevan: I love technology and figuring out how things work. Originally, I was a computer science major in college, so this job is perfect. In my day-to-day, I get to dive into different pieces of technology and connect the dots. It’s a big puzzle to me and that’s kind of fun.

Demandbase: Where do you want to grow from here?

Brevan: I’d love to move into a more strategic leadership role, but need to gain more experience first. So my next goal is to become a leader in the ABM space. Then, while it’s a bit intimidating, I would love to be a CMO someday. It would be a great opportunity to make a true impact and evangelize ABM even more. Once you get that executive buy-in, it becomes that much easier to align all of marketing and sales around that.

Demandbase: Any advice for others who aspire to be an ABM superstar?

Brevan: Be open and agile. Keep your ear to the ground for new developments within the ABM space. ABM is still fairly new in comparison to other marketing methods, so there’s constant evolution in terms of capabilities and best practices. I’m always looking for the next big thing, which is super exciting…and intimidating. And speaking about being agile, you have to realize that not every ABM program is going to work out of the gate. Be okay with that, and when you see a drop in performance, make incremental improvements.

From a getting started perspective, I’d say focus on your current tech stack and discover what it’s capable of. Can you do any account-based targeting, like advertising, for example, or email? It’s important to get those account-based foundations laid. And then second to that, work very closely with your sales team to figure out what their priorities are within their assigned list of accounts, and enable/supplement account-based discovery to ensure priorities align to the account-based insights you’re seeing. That can inform your ABM programs from a strategic and messaging perspective as well.

Demandbase: What’s your superpower? Or said another way, what aspect of your personality helps you be the most successful in your job?

Brevan: I’m a connector. Going back to puzzles, I make these connections between what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. I need to connect those dots before I can execute a particular program or project.

Demandbase: Is there anything else you would like to cover or highlight about your ABM program?

Brevan: We drink our own champagne at Anaplan and use our platform to do a lot of performance reporting. We’ve been able to connect our Demandbase data to our marketing performance and GTM planning dashboards, so we get a more centralized view of our performance. You might say we’ve built a new Demandbase integration. (Maybe there’s a future business partnership between us?)

The dashboards help with our account identification and TAM calculations, and we also use them to look at propensity metrics, which is where the Demandbase journey stages become central. We also use the data for performance reporting, looking at those journey stages and engagement metrics to see if we’re hitting the right people. Is our messaging resonating? Do we see that uptick in engagement that we’re after as a marketing org?

We report on 3 key metrics as a marketing team and, as of this year, the account-based engagement metric is one of them, which is a pretty big win for our ABM program. It’s especially important with our ICP being so broad. We can now spend our dollars on the targets that matter most. I was proud to play a significant role in making that happen.

Last thing, I’m constantly pushing the boundaries of what the platform has to offer. I work closely with Ian Thompson, our Demandbase CSM, providing feedback around how the platform can be improved and asking about new use cases. Together, we push the boundaries and it’s really fun and rewarding from both a business and a personal perspective.