Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - So today I'm joined by Caroline Kite, who's the Enterprise ABM Manager at Swoogo. Caroline, thanks so much for joining us today.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Thanks for having me.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Well, we're going to talk for the next half an hour or so, about Account-based Marketing, ABM. And we're going to talk about your work you're doing there at Swoogo.
But I think it's interesting, again, I think we'll touch on it a little bit later in the chat. Obviously you've joined a company that does events. And I think what will be interesting for the audience will be to hear it's not just the kind of classic B2B events that we all know and love, or know and hate depending on whether you like doing event management or don't like doing event management. It's not my favorite cup of tea. I think there are other people in my team who are much better at it than me.
But let's, we'll talk through that and you can give us some examples. And I know that you're using a lot of your own kind of technology, and how you do things as part of your ABM program. So I think that'd be really interesting.
So I think if my understanding is right, when you first joined Swoogo, they asked you to come in to build the ABM program from scratch. So tell us a little bit about what was your thinking there when you, having done ABM before coming to a new company, a new sector, a new way of working, new culture.
What did you kind of think about doing the first 90, 120 days? And tell us, give a kind of a little bit of a guide for people who might think, 'Oh, I'm going to be doing that very soon myself.'
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Sure. So I'm about two and a half months in, almost three months into my role at Swoogo. And part of what was so exciting to me about it was being able to build a program from scratch, which I've gotten to do once before, and loved being able to come in and just basically be a fly on the wall for the first little bit, and try to get a sense of the lay of the land, the environment that you're building for the organization's goals.
I'd say one year building an ABM program from scratch, that's a good move to just not be afraid to be a fly on the wall for a couple of weeks, and just absorb the dynamics of how the Marketing and Sales team work together.
In my first couple of weeks, I met with all my main stakeholders, so Sales leadership and different Marketing team members that I knew I'd work a lot with.
I then met with each of our AEs and just took lots of notes on current state, wishlist items that people would love to see from Marketing. And then just use all that input to start forming recommendations on how we could design the foundation of our ABM program. I think it's good to try to find quick wins early in the role, but not so much that you're going down a lot of rabbit holes, and going too far down one path in the first 90 days while you're just getting to know the organization either.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - I love that, you said about being a fly on the wall for the first couple of weeks, I think is great.
And tell me that last point you made. So you said it's great to get some quick wins, but it's important to avoid going down any rabbit holes. Tell us, just shine a bit more of a light on that rabbit hole.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, I think when... part of it is trying to resist. I know one thing we chatted about in the past was like re-running the same plays that you might've run before. Which, I do think that's part of why you get hired is that you've seen it before and done it before. But at the same time making sure that you're not overcommitting resources or any kind of ongoing budget too early to something that you're not sure yet if it's going to land.
I think getting to know the environment you're building in is just as important as bringing in the knowledge that you had in the past, and making sure that you're not just jumping into it and assuming that what you've done in the past is going to work again at the new organization is really important.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Yeah, and that's interesting you mentioned that because I was just thinking about that point you made when we were chatting earlier, before the recording about; one of the biggest mistakes you can make as an ABMer is to take what you've been doing elsewhere and apply it to a new company, right?
I was just thinking about the analogy between, you know, I'll say 'football' and you'll think; well is he talking about 'football' or he talking about 'soccer'? But we'll talk about football as in the first game that came along. But I was just thinking, you can hire a great, you can buy a great player and you're buying them for what they've done. But then obviously you drop them into a new team with a new team culture, new team members, new way of thinking, different coach, et cetera.
So does that analogy play well for what you found with ABM from one company to another?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, definitely. And I think part of the challenge of ABM is that everyone has a different definition of what it should look like or what channels it should cross or what teams it should sit on. And in a lot of ways it's kind of helpful to absorb what that is at your new organization. Where do they see ABM sitting before you jump in with your own definition of it. Even though obviously it's good to have a strong point of view on where you see the benefit to the organization.
I think ABM can feel blurry sometimes on convincing people that it works. So making sure you have enough context, essentially treat your organization internally like you would want your reps to treat their target accounts.
So I try to take that same discovery process that I would want my own reps to take and be really thoughtful about how we're building it to make sure that if you're taking a little bit of extra time upfront, hopefully you're building something that works right away and you're not, you know, spending too much time on something that might not actually click when you're still learning the company and the team yourself.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Yeah, and in the case of, you've mentioned you've been there for, is it two and a half months now at Swoogo?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, almost three months.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Two and a half months. How would you say that people perhaps in Leadership are looking at ABM now? I mean maybe it's too early to ask that question. But what would you say they would say in the elevator moment?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, that's a good question. I think one of the things that I loved right away about when I went through the interview process with Swoogo and just the way that I sort of hit it off with my new manager Stacy. I loved that she saw ABM as something that connects the dots across marketing and just helps bring more context to the way we're bringing our marketing offers to the market.
I think one of the benefits; this is a startup and a smaller, for me coming from, you know, 5,000, 7,000 person organizations over the last couple of years, it's really fun for me to be in a type of position where I get to help connect the dots across all the different channels instead of having ABM sort of in past roles, ABM was sort of an island on its own. Or a team of its own. And sort of treat it like a channel instead of like a connection point across all of Marketing.
So that's something that was really appealing to me about the way that Swoogo wanted me to build the program was 'How can we take all of what is happening across marketing and just connect the dots from a prospect journey perspective?' So that's been really fun. And hopefully I'm on the track to build it.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love that Caroline, in terms of, you know, ABM, you use it at Swoogo to connect the dots.
And I think it's also, it's an interesting observation, you said that a lot of companies, larger companies perhaps treat it as a channel? And I've definitely heard that before. And you treat it as a channel rather than connection point across the customer.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Which I think is a great way.
So let's dig a little bit more into the program you're running there. I think, unless things have changed in the last few weeks that you, I think you were asked to, or you decided to, look at about 400 accounts.
Talk us a little bit through your thinking there, why 400? How on earth did you take 400 and you know, segment, prioritize, tier? And tell us a little bit more about how you think you are, or you will, treat the accounts within each group?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah. So I am lucky that a lot of the list building in terms of our top ABM targets was already done by the time that I arrived. So we have about 400 ABM accounts that are essentially the agreed upon accounts that we wanna make sure are prioritized jointly by Sales and Marketing.
Just representing the accounts from the Marketing side where we wanna concentrate our focus and make sure, you know, high value offers are in front of these accounts, make sure there's coverage across these accounts. And then at the same time the Sales team is also, they're kind of their priority accounts as well.
So. In general, I like to tier out sort of the must-win accounts, like what's that top 10, top 5 from the broader named account list? Because I think from an ABM perspective, it just helps you focus. If you're gonna go the extra mile with the budget or the customization, or if you are going to run a One-to-one program or more of like a deal acceleration play, which accounts should those cover? I think it's important also to build for broader awareness so that you're not, you know, not every account's gonna be ready to engage. So having even 400 can be a relatively small list if only, you know, X% of them are gonna be ready for a meeting or ready to talk.
So I think it's also important to build what's that sort of like broader tier? More of like, almost like a reactive or responsive ABM program where if you're seeing accounts with high intent or you're seeing accounts that have signals that they might be a good target, you can quickly run a play to those and not have it be this big build from scratch. I think the balance of like tiering them out. Often you'll see 'these are our One-to-one accounts' or 'these are our One-to-few'. Even if you're not doing a ton of One-to-one, I think it's still good to know what the sort of top, dream logos are. And then still giving yourself the flexibility to go off your list because there's only so many at bats that you can get against a list of a couple hundred accounts.
So I like having the flexibility to go broader and just run something to 2000 accounts that all share, you know, a certain characteristic or behavior that we might wanna try to capture. And luckily in my role I have the ABM and sort of broader campaign function. There's a lot of overlap there so I do think there's gonna be a lot of room to try all kinds of different scaled approaches with with our accounts. But those 400 are sort of the, you know, if we're running an advertising campaign or something that, you know, with broader reach, I'd still wanna make sure those 400 are covered. They're just, it's a good way to help make sure we have coverage around the accounts that Sales cares about most.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - And those 400, are they primarily it's all net-new? Or have you got a mix of existing customers as well?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, it is mostly prospects. We have, actually the same day as me, we had a Customer Marketing Lead join Swoogo as well. So I cover most of the new business and prospecting side of it. And then my teammate Shay is building out the Customer Marketing program. So our ABM list is primarily new business focused. But I do think obviously as you know, some of those become customers, there's probably a good handoff point where the ABM program can extend from kind of, education and getting them in the door, over to customer advocacy and upsell and all that too.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Yeah. And in terms of the mix, are you mainly running One-to-few, One-to-many? Or are you running across all three?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, mostly One-to-many and One-to-few, which is exciting for me because I have had roles in the past that were very One-to-one centric and in some cases I think doing a lot of One-to-one taught me the value of One-to-many and One-to-few.
I think unless you have a really strong, you know. A strong reason to customize on the account level, I I don't always think it's necessary. I think you get more chances with more accounts if you don't go to the One-to-one level. I think, I don't know, just seeing the mix of the way ABM budget can get spent against an account that, you know. Would you have won it anyway without a custom campaign potentially? Or would you have won it with a lighter touch campaign and a little bit less spend per lead? So I'm glad to have had roles that crossed all different tiers of, you know, ABM is only custom or ABM is only One-to-many. I think it's given me a good point of view on the fact that it can actually, there's good reason to build for both ends of the spectrum, but I like the scale and the reach of One-to-many and One-to-few.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Yeah and I think to the point you make about One-to-one, the way we often talk about it with our customers is it's to do with risk.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - And if somebody is relatively new to ABM or a company's relatively new to ABM, we would never advise them to do One-to-one.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, it's a lot.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - It tends to be a better play to go One-to-few or maybe bring it a little bit more broad as you said.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - But let's talk about ABM and Field Marketing. I know it's something very close to your heart. You mentioned to me that there's a great intersection between Field Marketing and ABM. How do you see those teams working, and perhaps what's missing from the relationship at the moment, that you'd like to see brought in going forward?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, I think that. So I've seen in past roles, in larger organizations where you naturally have to kind of stick ABM somewhere. You either stick them on the Demand Gen team or the Field Marketing team typically. You wouldn't typically see ABM as its own function on a larger marketing team.
I think even in cases where ABM was sitting within the Field Marketing team, and I essentially was a Field Marketer, I still felt a bit disconnected from the work of the Field Marketing team. And at Swoogo we also have the benefit of, we're a relatively small marketing team and we all work very closely together, but what we're building towards, between ABM and Field Marketing is having more of that constant loop of feedback between Field and ABM.
Obviously events are a huge part of our marketing strategy in general because we sell event technology, but how can we co-design field experiences and events that engage the right people at the right time in their buying journey. But then how can we bring that intel back from events and field activations to inform the broader campaign plan and the ABM plan?
We wanna run campaigns that warm up future event attendees and because we're throwing events for event people. So our events are kind of a cool way to weave that into our campaigns of, you know, how can we give people cool ideas that they can bring back to their own events? Or, every campaign we run is event-centric. So I think there's a unique opportunity for me now, on you know, running ABM for an event technology company to have just a different point of view than I've had in the past on the importance of using that event data in my own campaigns and using that to, you know, distinguish which accounts make sense and which ones are really showing that, literally in-person intent essentially.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Yeah.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Whereas so many Account-based Marketers are focused on anonymous buying signals and you know, the assumption of intent. And then at our events we can get that information directly. So it's been cool to try to think about how would I build this if I know events are kind of our bread and butter, and the core of what we as an organization wanna be bringing to the market. So that's been cool to try to kind of plan around that and just think differently about it than in former roles where Field Marketing was on this track and then ABM was on this track.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - No, and I think it's also. What you said there, Caroline, you said in terms of events. ‘We do events for events people’. So interestingly you've got to be really good at it, right? Because clearly…
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - You've got to be great at it.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Your solution is trying to help to deliver great events and great event experiences and, therefore as part of your ABM program, you're running event strategy to engage, right? So you're like a restaurant trying to sell, well trying to sell food!
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, that's true.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - At the same time. So, and also I think the point around Field Marketing, a lot of people I talk to on this show and just in my general conversation with ABMers there's a lot of an intersection as you were saying before, between great Field Marketers and great ABMers and a lot of Field Marketers end up becoming ABMers because it's almost like a natural evolution from managing many accounts in the field, to managing a smaller amount. But you've had that kind of background, right?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, no. there's a lot of natural overlap, especially with the field facing marketing roles.
I think, I see a lot of overlap between Demand Gen and the more scalable sort of almost less territory-centric. I think sometimes when I was on a broader field organization that was so territory-specific and so reactive to in quarter pipeline goals, whereas a lot of times ABM is a long-term play that sort of aligns more with the campaigns team.
It's an interesting balance, and you have to kind of fit whichever type of org you're on. But my preference was always for it to lean more to the Demand Gen side just 'cause I think you get more scale and more of that like global, how can we replicate this on an ongoing basis?
Whereas within a field team I found that the, the attribution for ABM felt a lot more like a channel because a lot of the budget was divided up by what channels perform best and in that region or you know, we have to hit this number for this territory in this quarter and ABM is not a quick fix. So I think there's so much overlap between both Demand Gen and Field Marketing. It can be tricky to figure out kind of 'where does it fit best' if you have to pick a spot for it to go. And typically at a 200, 300 person marketing team, it doesn't make sense to have ABM sit on its own island separately. So it can be tricky.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - But no, interesting point about the island. That's twice you've mentioned the island as well.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - So it's interesting that you. Let's talk a couple, like an extension to what we were just talking about actually. 'cause you mentioned a few times now that you are marketing to Marketers at Swoogo.
So you know. I'm a Marketer, you're a Marketer. We're probably a difficult audience to market to probably, right? So how do you go about marketing to a savvy audience like that, really? Any tips for anybody out there in a similar kind of role?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, so it is interesting, it's fun for me. This is the first time that I've had Marketers be a primary audience that I'm marketing to. Swoogo can be used to produce any type of event. Internal company events, college graduations, other non-marketing related events. But obviously Marketers are our primary audience for us and revenue generating events are a major use case for why someone would buy Swoogo.
And I'm not an Event Marketer so it's been fun for me to learn a lot more about a discipline that I'm very familiar with, but not an expert in. Obviously I can relate closely to it having worked with Event Marketers and Field Marketers through my whole career. But it definitely shapes my messaging because we can get really specific around the personas that care about events. Like what does CMO care about versus a Field Marketer versus a pure kind of Event Professional. All of them care about events and there's a slight kind of difference in terms of what you might say to them.
And it also shapes our tactics because since all of our campaigns are naturally about events, we're focused on how we can bring Event Pros together through our own events to share what works, share cool ideas with them, event concepts they can take back themselves and use. So it's fun to come up with campaign ideas when you feel like you under, you know, I feel like I understand the audience in a different way than I have in the past marketing to IT people or security people or HR people.
So I'm having a lot of fun with it and I think we, Swoogo is a fun kind of brand and company so it's been a blast for me to get to know just how we can shape, what's gonna hook these slightly different personas all around the same kind of core concept of the importance of bringing people together, enabling other organizations to bring people together and all the different ways that we can help make their lives easier. 'cause you know, especially, I mean I can't believe how hard a job it must be to, to be an Event Professional. There's always a fire drill or a something that pops up. So whatever we can do to make their lives easier is a win.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Absolutely. And a couple of things. You talked a couple of times rather, you mentioned about data and you said it's really interesting the data you can, that can be revealed from these events. Is there any data that you kind of have access to or you are privy to that makes you think, 'Oh I can use that in my ABM program?' Anything that you are seeing, from the events that you are running that helps your ABM strategy?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, so it's early on to see a pattern around that yet, but I do feel like the way I am looking at it now, where I used to see intent data as my kind of compass of how I would pick accounts that makes sense for a campaign.
Now what I'm really excited about is that I feel more connected to the event strategy than I have in past roles. And also the event data. Even, you know, despite sitting alongside the teams that were producing events in past roles, I didn't really incorporate event data into the way I was building campaigns or the messaging that I was sending to specific people. I think ultimately the events and the data that you get from the events, you shift from 'Hey we think that this account has intent based on the behavior we're seeing anonymously' to 'Hey, this person engaged with this topic at this event.' How is that gonna inform the way that you go after that account in general? If it's a decision-maker that's great. If it's not, that's great too 'cause it's a good signal of what the organization might be thinking about.
So I just think as we build the ABM program and just broader campaign strategy for Swoogo, the event data that we're able to funnel into it is gonna help us decide which account and which person fits into which track in terms of like all these different entry points across an organization of how they run events.
There's different ways for us to start conversations with, you know, a large company that has a Corporate Events team, a Field Marketing team, potentially someone that owns internal events. So it'll just help, you know, it's first-party data essentially the information that you can get from an event compared to ABM's very focused on third-party signals and things like that, which I think are a good layer to consider. But if you're considering just that, and it's sort of like in retrospect makes more sense now, like I wish I was using more event data in past roles.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - So it's more, basically as you said just there, more first-party data, more data you've got about the individuals themselves and their companies and what they've been... Is it kind of like the questions they've been asking at the event? Is it maybe some kind of interaction they've been doing with some technology?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, it could be
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - How do you pull the data?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - You know, if they're registering for certain session tracks and attending them, and then asking questions, downloading the post event resource that you might provide through an event app or something like that. I think there's a lot of signals that show beyond just registration and showing up, right? Because everyone has that data in some form of; they registered, they attended or they didn't. But how much more data can you pull from the way they're engaging at the event or can you track that, say you're running a virtual event, are they active in the chat asking questions? How can you feed that back to your Sales team to make sure they have information on the types of questions they might have or topics that they were interested in throughout. So I think there's a lot of. It feels to me now like that is so foundational to the way that we engage with people and make sure they're in the right, they're getting the right kind of marketing from an organization around how they're engaging directly with you.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Let me just ask you one question, which. Just when I was thinking about you joining Swoogo and you've obviously come from a larger company as, as you mentioned. More sophisticated companies, at least in ABM at the beginning, and then obviously you're lifting or you know, starting up an ABM motion from scratch there.
But what, when you were going through the process, what do you think, what were some of the markers or some of the kind of lights you would think; green, amber, red, when you were thinking, you know. What makes a company ready for ABM? And you were joining a new company, you were saying, “well I'm joining a new company, they're asking me to start ABM from scratch”. Are they indeed ready for ABM? What kind of things were you asking yourself when you were sitting there?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - That's a good question. I think the main thing that came across to me when I was interviewing with Swoogo is how strong the alignment was between the Sales team and the Marketing team. I think that's a key. Just one team mentality is helpful because ABM is hard to tell the attribution story around sometimes.
I think it was clear to me there was a well-defined place for ABM in the organization. Top-down support across the business was a key thing for me. And then I felt like I was gonna have room to pilot things, test things out before we committed long-term budget or turning anything into like a programmatic thing for the organization that we would have the room to test things and see like, does this work with this audience?
The main thing that I really liked, and I think has been hard to find in past roles because they were larger Marketing teams, is that I sort of overlay across the existing Marketing functions and help connect. Like I think ABM in its ideal state can connect your different marketing channels and teams. You see that sometimes, if a large company has an ABM Center of Excellence but that's really matrixed and really hard to, you know, there's a lot of cross-functional creation of templates that you just hope the regions will use. And I think that it, it's been really fun to have a more nimble experience with that where I could just hop right in and, and you know, see what do we have already that we can turn into a prospect journey? And so it's been fun 'cause I feel like I've been able to hit the ground running faster than I, than I might be able to if I was trying to find my way in this like big matrixed Marketing team. So,
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Yeah. Yeah,
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Fun.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Yeah. Well you know, it's interesting you said here about, once again you've used that term about helping to connect, and you were talking about helping to connect the dots or helping to connect teams. I think that's important for the audience to hear.
I think it's also; you made a reference to the ABM Center of Excellence, which as you said, it's more kind of ABM mature companies that's kind of on their roadmap eventually to build that global program or Center of Excellence some companies call it. And I think it's interesting you also said there that it's important to be nimble and I think that's a good one because I think ABMers have gotta be very nimble!
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - We've gotta move very fast and as you said, you were talking about there, piloting and testing and I think that's a great point there, and I think it's great that you've got the opportunity there at Swoogo to do that.
Talk about opportunity. This is a question I wouldn't have asked the guests a year, or a year and a half ago. And now I'm asking all guests, which is everything about AI and ABM. Artificial Intelligence and Account-based Marketing. So tell me what's your experience of that? Is AI saving your bacon, your ABM bacon? Or is it a friend? Is it a foe? Is it a foe to your ABM? I don't know. What's going on?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah, I think probably both a little bit. I think a lot of the ABM tech that we've all been using probably already had some element of it as part of it. So if we're all using the 6senses and Demandbases of the world, I'm sure we're all using predictive data and things like that already for years in our ABM. It just didn't feel like we were using AI maybe?
I do see a lot of value, and some downside to it. I think in my day-to-day it makes me more efficient for very time consuming things like account research or just enriching data on accounts or list building, helping just clean up drafts and tighten up my writing I think is great. I try to, I still try to use it as more of like an editor instead of a source of writing because I just, I don't know. I think I just don't want to lose my own voice in it I guess. But if it can speed me up to get through some of the more manual tasks associated with ABM, that's more time to think about the broader strategy, more time to think of cool ways to connect with people.
At the same time. I'm hesitant for, as Sales and Marketing becomes more AI driven, I do think ABM has a unique chance to still just make it about connecting with people and the human element and all of that. So I wanna keep that as part of my, you know, part of my strategy and not sort of over-automate it. But because of our focus on events too, I think that's a unique, I think events and ABM both bring that angle of like the human in real life element as a lot of what we do becomes more efficient and just quicker and easier with AI. So we'll see. It feels like it changes every day.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - So. We're recording this end of May, so this episode will come out in a few weeks. Are you positive? Are you positive about AI?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah. I think because there's so much noise around it I am positive about it, but it's sometimes there's so much to consume about it or just new ways to use it in your day-to-day that you can almost go down a lot of paths with it that... It's definitely making me efficient. And I like that about it. I feel like it frees up kind of the tedious things to, to focus more on the broader campaign strategy and things like that. So I am positive about it. I just think, you know, there's so much, there's also so much noise about it.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - It's, I mean. I think, you know, it's very difficult to try to keep up with everything that's going on.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - And there's so many tools and updates and, you know. O3 versus O4, versus O3-mini, versus I haven't got it, I mean people in in my agency know all about this, but I haven't got a clue what the difference is between... you're laughing. But I don't know whether you know the difference between O3-mini, and O4, I mean clearly, ChatGPT needs some help with their branding 'cause their nomenclature, their naming procedure is pretty awful.
But I think it's interesting and it's important I think Caroline, that you mentioned it obviously that ABM has a unique chance because it's all about connecting, and you mentioned that again.
And you mentioned about the human element. And we like to talk a lot, and I like to talk a lot about the empathy side as well, and that, at the end of the day we're trying to, we're trying to help our customers. And when I say customers, they can be current customers or future customers, but we're trying to help our customers be the best they can be. Right? And part of that is us understanding them as deeply as we can and trying to translate that into, as you said, into effective strategy. So a lot of that, it needs a lot of human
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah. Understanding human thought.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Yeah. And I saw a quote today from the CEO of Goldman Sachs and he basically said that AI can do 95% of the work that some of his teams did before, but the 5% it can't do. And that 5% is what matters.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - And so yes, the 95% is being done by AI and that's almost like a commodity. So everyone will have access to that, but it's actually that 5% with great ABMers at Swoogo, or great ABMers within a compan,y and how they can make the difference really.
Let's just talk about one more thing I want to.. you said to me when we were having a chat prior to recording. And let me see if I can quote you correctly or not. I think you said that ABM should not compete for credit. It should lift everything up. Now hopefully I quoted you correctly on that.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - I think you did.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - What, so my question on that is, what does that mean that ABM should not compete for credit but it should lift everything up?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - I think. I mean attribution is meant to, by design, assign credit to channels.
I think it's easy for when you intro, especially when you're introducing something new like ABM, it's easy to say, okay, we need to see results from ABM. I think the goal, in the best case scenario, the goal is ABM is helping shape the prospect experience, customer experience across all channels for a defined set of accounts. So ideally it shouldn't really matter what channel gets credit.
If you are looking at ABM from a kind of end-to-end journey design perspective. The way I like to measure ABM when possible is take a snapshot of your target account cohort before you launch the program. Then compare pipeline growth, win rates, deal size, engagement, six months out, 12 months out, 18 months out. And the question is, can you demonstrate that you're deepening relationships, growing the contact database, growing business within those accounts that matter most? Whether that's through, you know, you're supporting your Sales team with more effective outbound, that's a Sales - on a dashboard, that's a Sales kind of attribution, right? But like if you're supporting the Sales team with content and insights around how they can get into those top accounts better, that's ABM working well to help Sales do better outbound.
I think you get stuck when like if you have a really rigid attribution model that ties your budget to channel performance and efficiency, that makes it harder to show ABM's impact. And I think it signals that the business is not fully bought in on the idea of ABM if you start to have to compete with, you know, treating ABM like a lead source or a campaign source. I think that's why it's important to, try to talk through your stakeholders internally about, and try to get a sense for this too throughout the interview process that ABM is not a lead source, it's a strategy to prioritize your marketing efforts and your marketing offers around the highest value accounts and bring those offers to market in a more intentional way. That's really hard to… If you walk into an environment that is open to that it's great, 'cause you get a lot of freedom and trust to do great work.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Yeah.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - If you start to have to treat ABM like a lead source, it's really, it's a tough, it's an internally tough thing to navigate because there's no reason you should be competing against channels like events or paid search or, you know. Those things all are part of the mix of the ways that you go to market. And I think ABM sort of crosses all of them. Best case scenario.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - I think that's been very well put, very eloquently put actually in terms of how you need to approach attribution rather than using the existing models from other types of marketing. And I think otherwise you are trying, as you said, trying to push a boulder up a hill trying to convince people about the effectiveness of ABM.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - When they have one lens, when you actually ask, you need them to look through a different lens and as you said there, it's a strategy for your highest value accounts. And I think that's, the message we tell everyone actually, is you're, you're doing the impossible to win, grow and retain your most important accounts. And if that's important enough for your business, then you will, you'll invest in it. And if it's not important for your business, then you won't.
Let's finish off. I ask all guests four rapid fire questions so I'll, I'll hit you with four rapid fire questions and then you can just fire back.
Tell me in all your time doing ABM, Account-based Marketing, what's been your greatest ABM learning?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Be flexible and be... don't be afraid to be a generalist. I think ABM's very specific but because you cross many different teams, you work with every team, you get to work with all the channel experts in your organization, you get to learn a little bit about all the different channels. I think it naturally makes you actually kind of a Marketing generalist if you're an ABM expert. So I think be flexible and open to what the program could look like now, and in the future and just learn from everybody around you.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Great answer. Hardest part of ABM?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Everyone that you work with will have a different definition of what ABM is or should be or what it's been before for them in other organizations. So having your own point of view on it while still being open to that idea that maybe it could look like this. And maybe it does make sense to change your mind on what ABM looks like over time.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Okay, so going back to being flexible again. Right?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - True. I guess that's the same.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - In a different way. And tell me what do you, going back to that point, which probably, you touched on it there, but what would you say is the greatest misconception around ABM that you hear and have to kind of push back on et cetera?
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Yeah. That ABM is only ABM if it is customized to one account, slap the logo on. Switch. Slap another logo on. I think there is a sense sometimes that ABM is only ABM if it is built for an account and everything else is Demand Generation and I disagree. I think that's incorrect.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Good. I agree with you on that one. Final question. We're recording this on a Wednesday evening my time, Wednesday morning your time. We'll fast forward to Friday and Caroline, you've had, a tough week there. Batting away people who don't understand what ABM is and doing some great ABM events and all the rest of it.
And you're just winding down for the weekend. You get a call from an old colleague who says, Caroline, help me. I need to do a presentation for Monday morning. I need to make sure that I hit all the right notes. What's that one thing you tell them? Please make sure you include...
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Hmm. That's a good question. I think if it's something around ABM, is. Focus. I guess it goes back to the focus on the account, the set of accounts and the cohort of accounts and just the agreement across the business that that's, you know, we're all on board to move the needle forward with that set of accounts. I feel like that's what, no matter what channels you're responsible for or focused on, that's the consistent, you know, how can we improve this experience for the ones that we decide. The 400 in my case might be 1000 for someone else, it might be 5 accounts for someone else. But just that agreement on like, 'hey the business is all-in on this set of accounts and we're ready to have Sales and Marketing go get them however they can'.
Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) - Good. I mean I think that's sometimes it's easier said than done to make sure that everyone's in agreement 'cause everyone's got got their opinion on which are the right accounts. But you're absolutely right. Yeah, I mean it's a great answer. Listen Caroline, thank you so much for sharing your ABM journey with us today. I wish you and the team there at Swoogo every success for the future. Thanks for coming on the show.
Caroline Kite (Swoogo) - Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.