ABM Strong: Casey Patterson Cultivates Collaborative Relationships with Sales

Demandbase Champion Casey Patterson, Manager of Account Based Marketing at Fivetran, began her career in tech as a seller, first as a BDR and then an AE. Each role was a crash course in what makes people tick — what motivates them, changes their mind, and convinces them that a better way exists. This early insight led Casey to shift from sales to account-based marketing. We sat down with Casey to discuss the importance of a tight relationship with sales, how she delivers hyper-personalized campaigns, and the power of active listening.

How did you get your start in ABM?

As a salesperson, I’ve cold called through the phonebook, and I know that being a BDR is the hardest job in the business. When I moved to an AE role, I noticed that the direct marketing efforts and process support for sales could be improved. While continuing to sell, I started running targeted marketing campaigns in my spare time, in order to generate warmer, sales-ready opportunities for me and my teammates.

When the opportunity to build an ABM program at Fivetran opened up, I jumped at the chance to continue marketing while staying very close to sales at one of the fastest growing data companies in the world. I decided the guiding principle of the ABM team would be a commitment to serve sales and bring their strategy to life in marketing. To accomplish this, the team meets one-on-one with individual AEs and BDRs to discuss their top accounts and any problems they’re facing. Acting as an orchestration layer between teams, we share account intelligence and create joint action plans that will generate conversation and opportunity at top accounts.

Can you share a time when your ABM efforts paid off?

An example that immediately comes to mind was experiencing the success of an account-based program with the Denver Broncos. The awesome AE who was assigned to the Broncos selected it as an ABM target account, and the race was on. The AE provided account intel and focus, the BDR focused on prospecting, and the ABM team ran a multi-channel campaign. Fivetran even commissioned a billboard right outside of Broncos stadium. Fast forward to today, the Broncos are a happy customer — so happy they recently filmed a customer case study with Fivetran at their stadium in Denver.

How do you make Demandbase sing?

Each day I leverage Demandbase to deliver highly relevant insights to sales — whether it be the most engaged target account in each territory, the account with the highest intent, or specific people within an enterprise searching for our product or visiting the Fivetran website.

Demandbase is also utilized to send a territory-specific weekly update to every AE and BDR, surfacing the target accounts and contacts ripe for outreach. I measure the journey stages of each account, using the funnel view to quickly and easily check the status of an account. From there, my team conducts research and runs tailored ABM plays in tandem with BDRs, AEs, and the field, demand gen, and partner teams. The integrations with Salesforce, Marketo, and other technologies centralize all the account’s buying signals in one place, allowing seamless reporting, and significantly cutting down manual work.

Account-based marketing is a newer marketing strategy, and the playbook is still being written. Gaining trust with sales team members, solving their problems, and focusing on a small set of accounts together are the first steps to successful ABM in my opinion. Demandbase will jumpstart your success in all three of those areas.

What do you like to do outside of work?

I enjoy weightlifting to build strength both mentally and physically. I find it empowering to head to the gym and lift something really heavy. After hitting the gym, I like to experiment in my kitchen, create new dishes and sweets, and share my creations with friends and colleagues.

What are your superpowers?

I am always focused on asking open-ended questions and actively listening to the answer. I go into every meeting with three prepared questions to set the stage and to understand each person’s perspective. Active listening helps me determine the business problem and how to collectively solve it.

What advice do you have for ABM newcomers?

• Closely align with your sales team and understand their challenges and goals.
• Figure out what’s important and fill that problem with the right technology tools (I chose Demandbase!)
• When you introduce the technology, make sure you directly relate it to the problems you discovered when talking to sales. By articulating the problem you’re solving, the benefits will be communicated clearly. This will promote adoption and credibility for the program.

About Fivetran 

Fivetran is the global leader in modern data integration. Our mission is to make access to data as simple and reliable as electricity. Built for the cloud, Fivetran enables data teams to effortlessly centralize and transform data from hundreds of SaaS and on-prem data sources into high-performance cloud destinations. Fast-moving startups to the world’s largest companies use Fivetran to accelerate modern analytics and operational efficiency, fueling data-driven business growth. Fivetran is headquartered in Oakland, California, with offices around the world. For more information, visit fivetran.com.