Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – So, today I'm joined by Marta George, who's the Head of EMEA ABM Programs at Ping Identity. Marta, thank you so much for joining us today.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Thank you so much for having me, Declan. It's much, much pleasure.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Well, let's, you know, spend the next half an hour or so talking about yourself, your ABM journey, your experience running ABM at different companies. Your experience now at Ping Identity.
And let's kick off with a deep question for you.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Ha ha!
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – I think when we were chatting previously to this recording, I think you were saying to me that you were the first person, marketer, to come into Ping to run ABM. And I think it'd be interesting to hear what those early days were like.
And I think you were saying to me, you originally, it wasn't that you were trying to bite off more than you could chew, but there was definitely a sense of there were a lot of accounts that you were looking to target, and you weren't able to reach them all. So maybe for the audience, share a little bit of that early journey at Ping and, you know, what those early days were like.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Sure. So my first kind of touch with ABM was when I was still at ForgeRock. So, before the merger of Ping Identity and ForgeRock, I've run a few pilots, regional pilots. So it was a few accounts in a One-to-few model and one account in the One-to-one model, purely regionally in the UKI. And when the merger happened, I had the fantastic opportunity to step up and run the EMEA programs for Ping identity as a new joint company.
And that's exactly what happened. There was no one else on that – on that job title – in the whole organization. We, myself and the team, decided we're gonna jump for 87 accounts. We selected 87 accounts and we said: Let's do it! And it was tough, you know? I'm not gonna lie! As only one person trying to build the whole strategy for ABM that can be then replicated across different regions. But also trying to do it without really, the company having a knowledge and kind of idea of what, really, ABM is.
Everyone knew about it – that it's great and it's like a golden goose laying golden eggs! But how it's going to work and how to tackle it as a one person, it's... it was a really tough journey. I'm not gonna lie. It was a little bit scrappy, experimental at the beginning. You know, we wanted to run all of those 87 accounts, trying to prove the value of ABM, fast. Trying to prove the need for me, as a person, as a Head of ABM, very quickly.
But it also became clear quite quickly that we were... we were very busy! I was very busy, but not necessarily effective. There was a lot of volume, a lot of noise. But did we actually see a great result? Not necessarily. Could we actually handle all of those 87 accounts on the level that ABM should be handled? No. So we shifted.
And we moved from kind of chasing that coverage to focusing on more strategic accounts. And we did something that people are afraid to do. We scaled down to scale up. And we really reduced the amount of accounts that we're gonna focus. We asked for help, as well. I think that was one of the big shifts in our mentality – that we asked for help – and we didn't, I didn't just do it on my own. I had a team to help me out with it. But that's kind of how it went. You know, we just had to scale down to make sure that we're scaling strategically.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Yeah. Interesting!
I made some notes here about some of the points you just mentioned, but it's interesting when you said, and I think this is probably a problem for a lot of companies, and a lot of people listening to this episode, is: If that message is going out there saying that ABM is the golden goose, it lays golden eggs, it's going to save your bacon, or whichever other, you know, similar expressions people use.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – That's a massive problem because obviously you're setting yourself up for a fall, because obviously ABM isn't the golden goose that lays golden eggs! And it's not gonna save your bacon. Other types of marketing will save your bacon, right?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah, exactly. I think a lot of people see in ABM, there was a moment in time that ABM was very... everywhere! Everything wanted to do it. Everyone wanted a piece of ABM, so let's just do it! And ABM, you know, we are now, in B2B Marketing in general, very used to an instant gratification. Something that comes quickly.
How many times we've heard the phrase of low-hanging fruit: 'Let's just get the quick wins'; 'Let's do this!' ABM's not gonna give you low-hanging fruit; it's not gonna give you the quick wins. It's a complete mindset. It's a completely different shift from Demand Generation from, you know, badge scanning on an event... to a strategy.
And the whole company needs to be behind it. And to understand it. Not just us marketers, but everywhere: Leadership, Sales, Customer Success, CEO, Chief Revenue Officer – all of them need to understand that ABM is a big investment. It's a lot of work, but it's not a quick win. But it will bring that win – just not tomorrow.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Okay. Well, do me a favor. I'm gonna just gonna throw a...
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah?
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – ... a curve ball at you, to use a baseball term: Talk yourself out of a job! Tell me in what example... or let me give it another way: You go into a company and you have a good sniff around, and you say, Hnnn! This is not a company for ABM. What does that look like?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Mmm. They're talking about quick wins. They're talking about they need to expand their outreach to different ICPs; they need to gain much more net-new logos and they just need to do a lot of MQLs, because MQLs convert very quickly. They want to do strategic ABM campaigns to 300 or 500 of the target accounts across different verticals or in one vertical. That is not ABM. That's Demand. Ha!
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – So if you walked into a company like that, you'd obviously either say, somebody's gonna help me to support me to get this right, or you're gonna walk away, right?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah, exactly. That's not a company who actually understands ABM and how it's going to work.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Yeah. And going back to your point, Marta about you sc... – not many people do that, what you did – which is not scaling up, but scaling down. What, when you saw that many accounts and the fact that there was limited resources, you said: Well, let's do fewer accounts, but let's do more work, I suppose is what you said, really; less, fewer accounts, more work. So, what... ? Talk me through that transition.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Well, we, you know, I was only one person running it at that moment. I, it was me as a whole team. Me writing email nurtures, me writing or, you know, we utilized some kind of freelancers to help with the biggest content that we had to write. You know, executive summaries, whitepapers, anything. The majority of it was me trying to manage all of this on my own.
I hit the moment after the first eight or nine campaigns went live. And I was again preparing in another four or five to go live – creating, writing, you know, sitting in Canva, doing images myself! And using templates to kind of just put the stuff together, content back on a template together. I realized, well, I don't really have time to review what happened in those first campaigns.
So, that was the biggest kind of shift of like, well I, I can't run it on my own – because I have no time for actually strategy! I am just fully in execution mode. But how do I actually measure the results, if I don't have – physically – time to go and review it? I don't have time to pivot. I don't have time to speak with Sales, to speak with Customer Success, to get the team together and see if what we are doing's actually working.
So, we decided it's time to slow it down, to choose strategic accounts, you know, must-win accounts, must-keep accounts. Because we've decided – and that's gonna be maybe interesting to people listening here – we've decided that we're gonna run ABM to customers. That's when that shift happened. We chose customer accounts that we have to keep, expand, build better relationships with as our ABM targets moving forward.
And yeah, we cut them in half. We went from 87 to about 36, I think, accounts? We've then decided which ones are the strategic One-to-one motions. And by One-to-one motion, I mean really personalized outreach through those accounts, but long-term campaigns – they are not One-to-one campaigns, they run for three months and we're just gonna switch them off. We planned them for three years, we planned them two, three years' outreach. What do we want to achieve with those accounts in the next 24 to 36 months? How do we want to move our relationship with them from a transactional to a strategic partnership? That was the goal.
And that's where we kind of went for it. And suddenly Sales started understanding it, because they understood the impact that we can make. It wasn't just throwing some adverts up to accounts and hoping something's gonna stick. It was very... it was working in the partnership with them, talking with them, educating them, making sure that we are getting all of the insights for this account, taking them on a journey with us.
And that helped us... it helps us a lot to actually build that strategy for those accounts, because Sales and Customer Success and Engineers and Product Managers and Product and Solution Marketing became a part of our team and not just people on the side of it.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – It's interesting you used the term 'journey' as well; it's not just ABM as a journey for yourselves in the marketing sphere, but also that the Sales colleagues, if you can bring 'em on that journey with you as well, you've got a better chance of...
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Absolutely!
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – ... of success. And it's really interesting, I think, there aren't many companies who have that 24- to 36-month vision. I'm just thinking back – some of my previous guests on Let's Talk have tended to be kind of like the Microsoft, the Googles, those companies that can actually, can in inverted commas, 'afford' to invest that time. But it's great to hear that at Ping you've got that long-term vision for your customers.
And I think that ties into a lot of the research that's showing that, you know, the new kind of north star metric for many companies now is no longer, you know, revenue, deal velocity, average order value, but it's actually customer lifetime value. And you can act – going back to your point – if you can actually justify your investment and your... yourself as a marketer, as an ABMer and the team that you've built around that. And you can say, well look at these customers!
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Mmm.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – The lifetime value that we're seeing from these customers. That's, there's probably no better metric than that, really.
Going back to that point, I think you mentioned about one of your kind of philosophies about ABM, and I think you were saying to me before, Marta, that you had said that for you, ABM isn't a campaign, but it's actually a way of building relationships one by one. So, how does that philosophy show up in your daily work and your daily approach to ABM?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah, I completely, I definitely mentioned that! 'Cause I say it quite a lot. It is, a lot of people still see ABM as it's just a campaign, that you just launch and forget about it.
It's not a campaign, it's a program. It's a mind shift, complete change of approach to go-to-market as a strategy. ABM needs to be built into your go-to-market. Your go-to-market needs to be based on ABM regardless if it's digital marketing, channel marketing, anything.
There are parts of ABM in any aspect of marketing. And we just, we do it. That shows up in the way we operate. You know, our One-to-one engagement programs, executive sponsorship, regular check-ins, deep research. We are living with those programs together.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Hmm.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – I am obsessed with the programs and not just fighting to launch it and let it be. It's a constant checking, constant pivots, adjustments of those programs. That's how I see it. You know, you can't just treat it as a campaign, because it will flop. End of the day, that's what's gonna happen! Those strategic accounts changing, the people talking with them, there is so many actions still happening within those accounts that you need to be ready to jump in and pivot; jump in and change if you have to.
And sometimes you might do something wrong and it's okay, because we learn on this. If you fail on something, fine! That's why you, why you're so connected with that program. That's why you're obsessed with it. Because you just pivot if you have to, you know? And at the moment we in Pink Identity and myself, you know, shifted from that campaign language to the relationship language. The conversions just changed and the outcomes changed. And suddenly the engagement with our programs and assets just skyrocketed. Because we started talking to those accounts on a relationship level.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – And perhaps linked to that with regards to change, which you mentioned several times then, and it's okay to fail, you know, the kind of whole kind of Google mantra of 'Fail fast, learn fast'. Does that mean that with the programs that you've been running, have you been moving different accounts from One-to-many to One-to-few to One-to-one?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yes.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – And like promote – excuse me – promoting and demoting?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yes.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Have you been doing that as well?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yes, that's exactly what we're doing. You know, we've selected the accounts, we mapped them originally and structured them originally: these are our One-to-ones, these are our One-to-few. And as we go through the campaign, you know, and it's not gonna happen in the first week, but after first three, four months, when we sit down and review those campaigns and the programs, and we see them, we see the engagement of the account, we do demote them.
There are accounts that I pulled out from the One-to-few program because we just had to. There was no engagement, they were not ready. The intent was showing that they were just not ready for an engagement now. They should be demoted to the One-to-many or to the Customer Marketing in general, that kind of base group of Customer Marketing. And some of the accounts really been upgraded to a One-to-one, because of something that's happening within an account currently. I dunno, there is a, we needed to shift.
There's a great example of an account that we shifted from One-to-few Marketing, One-to-few ABM program, to One-to-one, but really pushing the Deal-based Marketing on this because there was a, there's a deal happening. So we need to shift not just the approach and how we target it, but also the messaging and everything around it, and people that we target, and how we actually go in to connect with them.
So that is a constant, constant move! Every quarter, we review that and we move accounts here and there, and we don't treat it as a failure that the account is not engaging; they're not engaging now, you know, we all heard about it. Only 5% of your total addressable market will be in the market at that, a certain time. They're not ready now. They might be ready next year.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Yeah, I dunno whoever had that quote of 5% / 95%, but they should have trademarked it, 'cause we all...
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Oh! We all use it. Aren't we?
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – It's probably not true actually, to probably, you know! We all use it. It's like one of those kind of urban myths...
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah!
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – ... that people tell you, you know, but yeah! I mean, obviously, the majority of people are not in market and the majority of people are not gonna buy from you today, but they will buy from you potentially tomorrow.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – But it's interesting, the deal-based approach and that's really, so that triggered – the fact that there was a deal in play – triggered the One-to-one promotion.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – So, not, well it didn't necessarily trigger that, because we do promote the accounts from One-to-few to One-to-one anyway.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Yeah.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Based on their engagement and what we see as an outcome. This one was just very specific.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Yeah.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – We just had to shift them, not just to One-to-one, but actually push the Deal-based Marketing to them.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – That's good to hear. And I think DBM and Pursuit-based Marketing – which is another term – is something that, you know, dovetails really nicely with ABM.
Let's just talk about, there's a point obviously with your company, there was a point that you mentioned when we were chatting about the, your approach to market is... is it? Do you have also an approach through channel partners as well? Is that right?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yes, that's correct.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – So are you... ? How do you coordinate ABM – or do you? With your channel partners?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – So yeah, this is kind of a new initiative that I'm just starting. We originally, when we started ABM, we kind of kept it on an ABM field level. But now, we've decided, well I've decided, it's time to incorporate partners. We are talking about being partner-first and really focusing on this.
We have fantastic partners with Ping Identity. So, we are leveraging that, you know? ABM with channel partner adds a completely whole new dimension. We are piloting the One-to-few approach at the moment with selected partner. We're co-creating the value for the shared accounts that we are both going after. You know, the benefits from that – we get double the influence. It's our brand and the partner brand. They are big GSI partners and I'm not, of course they're very known. It's a really big upside to partner with some known partner with us.
So we've got double the influence, double the outcomes. But it doesn't come without a challenge. I'm not gonna lie! The challenge is always the alignment. The bigger the partner, the bigger the GSI, or reseller, or whoever you wanna partner with. The alignment between the teams is always a big challenge because they are very complex. And sometimes if you go in for a One-to-few campaign to, I dunno, a hundred selected accounts from different regions for me, all of those accounts I look after.
And I've got everything in my team. For them, there's probably five different teams that needs to align to it. So, there is a challenge; it can slow process down. But I think the outcomes and the upsides are much higher and it's worth to actually push through it.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – So, is that kind of in the pilot stage or have you gone past pilot?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – No, it's in the pilot stage. We're developing it now. Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Okay. And then if you, and then based on how... you'll make some changes, and then you'll roll it out wider to the... ?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah, that is the plan. If it works and if we get good outcome, and we don't go through too many breakdowns, we can just roll it out with different partners. I think that's the plan.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Yeah. So talking about pilots and getting things right, obviously a very sticky question for a lot of ABMers is measurements, right? And, you know, how do you report back what you're doing, the success?
You mentioned at the very beginning, Marta, that you were, when you were first doing this, you were saying, Hey, I need to justify my job, right? My job, this new position in the firm, et cetera, et cetera. So now, you're in the job for... how long have you been there now for?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – In total three and a half years. But I'm doing ABM since January 2024.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – So yeah.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – One and a half years.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – One-and-a-half years. So yeah, 18 months, 20 months, something like that.
So how are – based on what you've been doing to date over the course of the last 18 months or so – how are you going back to the business and saying, 'Look guys, this is what we've achieved!'? Are you going the metric route? Are you going the anecdote route? Are you mixing the two? Have you got some amazing spreadsheets? Have you got some amazing technology? Can you reveal what you've got?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Both. It's a mixture of both for sure. And that, it always has to be a mixture of both. We need to think about it, you know, ideally if we think about ABM, we want to forget about MQLs and pipeline and the quick revenues and what, how many meetings have you booked? That would be the utopian, probably, stage for every ABMer in the market. But we can't do this because companies still report on this. They still need to track pipeline revenue, MQLs; these are the table stakes.
You have to do this. So we still report on that. Let's not talk about them! Because this is a, it's a sore subject. I just don't really like MQLs! I'm really against them. ABM lives in the new ones, you know? So when I report on ABM and I talk, I try to tell a story that it's not just pipeline and it's just, not just revenue, but there are the anecdotal KPIs that you can't really see on a paper directly.
You know, engagement depth: Are the senior buyers active? Are they engaging? What buyer groups are engaging with us? Are we connected with the C-suite? Are we connected with more engineers and architects? Where is that engagement coming from? You know, sales velocity: are we accelerating the deals? If we're talking about Deal-based Marketing. Are we getting there quicker? Because they, you know, they're engaging with us. Conversation quality, you know: are we shifting the mindset? Are we… it's not just what you know, it's not just what we measure, it's how we interpret it I think. That's the main point about it.
And talking – you ask about technology and if we've got dashboards and spreadsheets – we do, you know. Everyone's got dashboards. Everyone's got spreadsheets. You are not gonna know all the details from dashboards and spreadsheets; speak to the Sales, speak to the Customer Success. The account owners are your knowledge because they, if you're doing ABM to customers like me, it's those people who actually speak with the customers on a daily / weekly basis.
What are the conversations are about is: are we started talking about something new? Have they told us that they've seen the different campaigns? Have they told us about, 'Oh, we've just seen this episode or webinar, someone sent it to us, or it appeared on LinkedIn. Can we talk about it?' Are we actually engaging with them?
But also a very interesting metric for me – and it's an example from one of the campaigns that we've done with a fairly, you know, transactional customer of ours – we took the customer on the journey. We kind of told them that we're doing a campaign like this to different parts of the company. We are lucky enough that we can kind of target very different buying groups.
So we're targeting a little bit different buying groups than the champion that we already currently engage with. And he was really interested and he really wanted to kind of help and be on the journey. We asked him to participate in one of our webinars / podcasts. He joined, he was happy. And then, a few weeks later, he wanted to participate in another global webinar. And then he said, 'If you ever need me to go on stage and talk about something on one of your events, I'm your guy. Just hit me up. I'm happy to do it.'
How do you measure this? How do you measure someone who you barely spoke with to someone now being happy to be your advocate of your brand, and be on a podcast, be on a webinar, be on the stage? You can't measure this! But I think that kind of change is really visible. That kind of change is really visible.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Yeah, no, I literally just wrote down before you said the word, I wrote down 'advocates' as well and the power of advocates is so, so important. And okay, two questions linked to that then.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Mm-hmm.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – What do... ? Well, you mentioned the word 'engagement' quite a lot there; what do the C-suite think about that metric?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Now? They understand! At the beginning, probably they didn't. I'm not gonna lie. And I think it's the constant education, not just external, but internal, you know. And then telling them about how ABM should look like.
For C-Suite, for the Board of Directors, for anyone high up there, numbers are still very important. So you still have to report on numbers. But it helps you sell the story. It helps you sell why you're investing that much, and why we have to wait a little bit longer for those tangible results that you see on the dashboard in your CRM system. Because the relationship is building that way, and that relationship will bring the results in the future. So I think, if I was just telling about this, no one would listen to me! But because I combine it with the actual numbers, it makes complete sense.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – And then the second question, Marta, linked to that is: If you were a fly on the wall in a Sales meeting, what would they be saying about you and your ABM efforts?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Oh my gosh! That's a great question! I think they would talk pretty well about my ABM efforts, to be honest! Because I work with them; they are part of my team.
I don't just deliver and tell them or want something from them. I actually take them again on that journey with me. They are a crucial part, and I always tell them, '70% of success of this ABM is you guys!' Because they give me so much insight. I speak with them on a regular, you know, weekly / biweekly basis. They help me develop the value proposition. They help me develop, you know, who we're going for. Map the relationship, the buying groups. And they are really engaged, you know?
And this is one of the kind of tips for whoever's gonna start ABM: If you want to start a strategic ABM program, regardless if it's One-to-one or One-to-few, and you start talking with Sales and they don't want to do it because very often they say: 'I don't have time. I'm sorry. I don't have time, I'm not interested. Just run something! I'll be happy whatever you bring.' That isn't probably not a good target account for your ABM efforts! You need an engaged Salesperson with you. To help you out.
So, I think because we get close and we really work on it together, they like it and they see the effort. That's what I hope for.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Good. Well, we'll have to ask them.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Ha ha! Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Or you can send 'em this episode of Let's talk ABM, and ask them their... to share it on Slack or whatever, right?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah. Somewhere.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Quick one for you Marta. There's something you said to me when we were chatting before the recording. You said something about the kind of misconception that ABM is 'a campaign in a box'.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Ah! Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – And I've heard that a lot. What do you think is going on there? And how do you push back on the fact that it's not a campaign in a box?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – I think it came from the fact that a lot of companies wants to see the results really quickly. And 'If something is working, let's just replicate it!' So the easiest option is 'Let's build a campaign in a box and then copy-paste it to different accounts. That's where we're gonna scale very quickly!' You know, 'From one account we're gonna make it into 700 accounts!'
ABM is not a campaign in a box, because ABM, it's... I always see it that way: Every target account for ABM is a separate go-to-market; treat it as a separate go-to-market. What works for one account will never work on a second account. You can't put it in a box and copy and paste it, and replicate it. Every approach is completely different. It's not a toolkit you deploy, it's a strategic shift.
You know, when people see it as a campaign in a box, they treat it like a Demand-gen with just a little bit prettier label because ABM is very in fashion now. So I do push back, push hard on it, like I really push back hard on it. And I always say, if it works here, great – we are not boxing it! If you want to deploy another program to another account, we need to work on it exactly the same hard as we just worked on this one. There is no copy-pasting!
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – I'll put that on a T-shirt: 'There's no copy-pasting with Marta.' Right, that's how it is!
Right, talk to me about... this is kind of going back to that question around ROI and measurement. It's another kinda hot topic is how you can actually do a very good event and kind of almost ABM the event. What's – and not a lot of people get this right – so what's your advice? Or how are you doing it and what kind of advice can you share with the audience about how to truly run a great ABM event?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Great advice: Don't even try! No!
It's a tough one and it's hitting a nail on the head, because I was get... I was very frustrated three or four weeks ago about it, after speaking with probably about eight different event vendors who, you know, promise you that they're gonna run an ABM, great ABM event for you and you're speaking with them, you're doing this 30-minute intro call and they tell you: 'We can connect you with thousands of decision-makers from your ICP.'
I'm not interested in ICP! And that's always the same conversation: I'm not interested in ICP. I target seven accounts from your region. These are my seven accounts, that's what I'm interested in. 'Okay, great! Seven, great. And then we can find another 200 similar to those... ' No! Let's go back to it. I'm not interested!
So there is a lot of those vendors who call themselves ABM events. But, end of the day it's just... they just rebranded webinars or fancy dinners, or I dunno, trade shows, which completely throws me off every time. If they say, 'Oh! It's just a trade show, but it's an ABM trade show' Great! I dunno how you... I dunno how that exists!
So for me, a real ABM event is intimate, it's curated, it's account specific, and it's built around the buyer, not around the brand. No banners, no talking about how amazing we are. No generic X, no death by PowerPoint! No one is interested in listening again to everything that they can find on a website, and read on any whitepaper. Bring them experience!
Let them talk between each other, openly, peer to peer. Create a relationship-building environment that doesn't revolve around you as a vendor, as a brand. Don't sell to them. Let them talk. And again, going back to that advocacy between your customers, if they are your customers you don't have... and they're happy with you and you're creating a happy environment for them to be around... you are never gonna have to ask them to talk for you. They just do it.
We do that, people do it. It's in our nature. If you're happy with a brand, you're gonna go and tell your friend about it, right? So, give them space to do it, without pushing, without talking about upselling and cross-selling. Like, yeah, we know it's important! But let them talk! The relationships are built that way and the deals are born that way as well. It's gonna take a little bit longer and you're not gonna have an MQL from it and a hundred scans, but trust me, it's gonna work in your favor.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – No, I think there's some great points there. And building it around the buyer, not the brand. No death by PowerPoint! Bring them an experience and create a relationship and build around them, and get them to converse and to talk. I think those are great advice for anybody trying to run a good event.
Let's talk about something which obviously maybe a year or two years ago, or more than a year ago, I definitely wouldn't have had as a question, but now it's a default question. It's a question around AI.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Ha!
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Two questions, I suppose. One, obviously, is where are you? And obviously Ping and I'm guessing with your organization there's an awful lot of AI in terms of how you go to market and in terms of the offer you make to your customers.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Mm-hmm.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – And to the market. But in terms of yourself and your approach to AI and your ABM program, are you AI enabling your ABM program? Or is it early stage? Or where are you with that?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – We are definitely there. We use AI. You know, I think we will be stupid not to, it'll be dangerous not to at this time.
So, everyone wants that kind of personalization at speed. There's a hype of 'AI will speed up the process for you and everything's gonna be quicker and better and faster, and the results will come yesterday!' And yes, at some point, AI helps with speed. You know, it helps us speed things like insights gathering you know – content customization, intent analysis.
Of course it helps speed up that process, but it doesn't replace human strategy. You still need people who understand the nuance of the account. You still need people to put that thing together. The politics, I dunno, the people, the message, the challenge... AI's not gonna do it for you.
I posted about it a few days ago, I think a few weeks ago, that if your ABM strategy can be done by AI, it shouldn't have been done in the first place. ABM, it's very personalized and it needs a human touch. So, it's an enabler. Absolutely – AI is an enabler. It's not an answer to everything. Use it; use it wisely. Don't forget that people are the ones who bring the biggest value to that program.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – And just linked to that. Where... ? Is there an example you can share with the audience about where you say, 'You know what? I'm doing this at the moment and it's hard to remember what it was like before I did this.' Is there an AI use case that you've got that you think, 'Well, you know what? This is helping me a lot'?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah, definitely. With customization of the content. We are really focused on content being customized and personalized to buying groups. So, you know, the value proposition is kind of main value proposition to the account or the specific sector that we chose, or a cluster of accounts that we chose.
But we personalize it for different buying groups. You know, the C-suite, the architects, the Finance guys, the Fraud guys. And we utilize AI for this a lot. I'm doing it, you know, I'm working with a team who's doing it as well. And it's much easier to do it that way. You know, we have so much insight, because what you do, you know, the surveys, the buyer group surveys, and you kind of have an idea of how the same message should be positioned to different buying groups, the different decision-makers.
But doing it yourself sitting in front of the Word document and trying to write the same message in a different language is very difficult. Even for, you know, content writers who are like – I'm not a content writer – even for a content writer, once you kind of write in the same voice, it's very hard to switch to another, especially if you have to add another three or four. This is definitely one of the biggest helps. Like, it just takes such a short time now to run it, to do it, to customize it. We still don't copy-paste it and we still check it.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Yeah.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – We still make sure that it matches what we wanna say. But I can't imagine not using AI for this now.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – And is that like a custom GPT? Or something internally you've built, or... ?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – No, it's like a custom platform that the team that I'm working with, the agents that I'm working with...
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – They've built it.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Yep, yep. So one question to finish off, before we ask you some rapid-fire questions: If you had to summarize perhaps your approach to ABM at Ping in a single sentence, what would you say your, that single sentence is? Or what's that north star? What are you trying to achieve?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Build fewer, that better relationship, that drive bigger revenue. That would be my one sentence.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – If you've just said that off the cuff, that's pretty good!
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Ha ha ha!
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – And you say you're not a content writer! That's pretty good.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah, there you go.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – There you go, Mata. Well done. Thank you! Just to – okay – I ask every guest, just at the very end of the show, four quick questions...
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – ... to get four quick answers. Tell me, what's been your greatest ABM learning?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Hmm. That ABM – real ABM – success isn't fast. It builds and then breaks through.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Good. Next one: Hardest part of ABM in your opinion?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Hardest part is explaining the fact that ABM isn't fast to other people, and holding that line when they only want quick wins.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Yep, that's a hard one.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Very.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – And we've talked a little bit about this today, but the greatest misconception in your opinion about ABM: What would that be?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – That it's a campaign.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – That it's a campaign?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – It's not a campaign; it's a business strategy and we have to switch that thinking about it.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Gotcha! And the last question: We're recording this on a Tuesday lunchtime. Let's fast-forward to the end of the week. I know it's very warm there in the UK this week. You're looking forward to sitting in the garden enjoying your Pimm's, or...
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Oh, yes!
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Whatever kind of British thing you get up to now. But, you get a phone call from an old colleague, says: 'Hey, Marta, listen, I've gotta do a presentation on ABM on Monday morning to my CEO. What on Earth do I make sure I say that will resonate very well with him or her? What's that one piece of advice you say: 'Make sure you don't forget to say... dot dot dot!'?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Hmm. Actually, don't forget to say? Um. Maybe not, make sure that, let's not forget to say... I would probably say: Don't be tempted to do more straight away. Resist that temptation. You will be tempted to do more, because it's a big presentation, it's a big thing. You'll be tempted to just jump into 90… 20 – 120 accounts straight away. Don't! Start slow, build it up, and then scale.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Great advice. So don't bite off more than you can chew, basically. Right?
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Okay. I think that's good advice for most things in life really. And it applies to ABM as well.
Marta, thank you so much for joining us today, for sharing your ABM journey, and I wish you and the team there at Ping every success for the coming months and years. Thank you.
Marta George (Ping Identity) – Thank you so much, Dec. It was absolute pleasure to speak with you today.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) –Thanks for having you.