Declan Mulkeen (strategicabm) – Okay! Well, today I'm joined by Cristina Daroca, who's the Senior Director, Head of Americas Marketing, at Riverbed Technology. Cristina, thanks so much for joining us today.
Cristina Daroca (Riverbed Technology) – Hi! Thank you for having me.
Declan (strategicabm) – Well, it's great to have you on the show!
We were chatting prior to recording about the fact that you're originally from Spain, the country I call home now, and obviously you've moved over to the other side of the pond – to the States, to Boston – quite a few years ago now. And you've made your life over there, and with your family and everything. And you've got a great professional career that you've carved out there. So, we'll go through that now on the show, but delighted to have you, and thanks once again for joining us.
I think we'll kick off with a question actually about the company, and a little bit about the thinking that happened there, particularly from a CEO point downwards. I think you mentioned to me that the company had kind of shifted its approach from targeting thousands of accounts to a much more kind of a hyper-focused list of, I think it was 400 you said to me? And that this kind of dictat, or this kind of, you know, strategy came right from the top, right from the CEO.
So, just, in a way that's great – because that kind of leads nicely into Account-based Marketing. But how did that kind of shape your ABM strategy? How did that shape your thinking about pipeline revenue objectives, et cetera?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah, so it was really a company-wide initiative. It came, like you said, all the way from the Board, the CEO. They decided at one point a couple years ago that we were too broad. We were trying to, you know, serve too many customers too wide of a market and we didn't have enough focus. And so that, for us in Marketing, was great for an ABM strategy.
Because, like you said, we went from, you know, trying to target thousands of accounts to really honing into, you know, the Fortune 500 list, if you will. And so that really shaped our ABM strategy.
Before that, we had a very broad demand generation strategy. We were trying to target a lot of different customers, and that just makes it very difficult for marketers, right? Like you have to have way too many industries, users, buyer personas, all of those things, right?
Declan (strategicabm) – Mmm.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – So we went through that change and we, it's actually really great for an ABM strategy, because the entire company is account focused, right? Your sellers are account focused. Your customer success team is account focused. Even the product team is really focused on those accounts. So that really shaped our ABM strategy. And from there we started building, you know, all of the term programs to do One-to-one, One-to-few, One-to-many, and really, you know, strategize there.
Declan (strategicabm) – I love that, what you just said; the entire company's account focused and that's something you don't hear that often, which is great to hear that. Everybody. And you mentioned product as well, which is really great to hear.
And obviously, as you mentioned there, you dropped… or the kind of company was a much wider focused, much broader focused – thousands of accounts. And then you obviously then elected 400. We'll, we'll probably dig into a little bit more about the – what was behind that 400. And I'll make a note to do that.
But you mentioned when we were talking that ABM, for the company, isn't just a Marketing strategy. But it's much more of a company focus. How? And obviously, I think obviously it's clear you were involved with the CEO, et cetera – but how did you come about getting that alignment across the business?
Was there a general sense of, 'Okay! Well look, this makes perfect sense; let's get aligned around these 400 accounts!' Or, because you mentioned Sales, customer success, Marketing, product, et cetera. How did you kind of align around that kind of new focus?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah, there was a lot of education that we needed to do with the Sales team and the customer success team because they were used to a much broader Marketing strategy, right?
So we did do a lot of communication with them to say, 'No, no! We're now focused on the same accounts you guys are focused on, and you're gonna see a lot more targeted approaches from us, from Marketing, to really be aligned with you guys.'
And so there was a lot of education, a lot of communication. It sounds simple: 'Oh! Everybody changed to ABM!' But it wasn't simple! It's been, you know, now two years and we're still iterating things and, you know, learning and trying to get this right. But yeah, it was, the alignment really comes from communicating and really, you know, sharing plans and saying, 'Okay, we're, I'm gonna be aligned with you on supporting the things you are doing in the field.'
So that they would understand that, hey! They have a big account that needs, you know, some very targeted thing. They can come to us and we will put together a plan for that. So, it's really that communication and education that you need to go through.
Declan (strategicabm) – Yeah. And when you mentioned, Cristina, plans – is it the case that the Sales teams, or or the customer success teams, they have their plans of what they're going to do? Or are you kind of creating one plan across Sales and Marketing and customer success?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah, so usually the seller has their account plan, right? A seller has an account, they know their account, they do their research and they have an account plan, meaning how they're going to approach it from a Sales perspective. And what we do is we then team up with them, we look at their plan, you know, try to understand their strategy and what they're trying to do. And then we come up with a Marketing plan, which is, you know, in alignment with the Sales plan.
So you could call it, it's all one plan, because it's integrated. But you know, they have their lane, we have our lane, we all know what we each one is doing and some things will be together, other things won't be together. 'Cause you know, we're each doing our job. But yeah. But it's really making sure that the plans, or the plan, is completely aligned.
Declan (strategicabm) – And one thing, when we were prior to this recording, one thing you said to me which kinda jumped out; you said to me, 'I head up Field Marketing and I head up Account-based Marketing for the Americas'. And you said to me, 'I don't like to separate them'.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Mm-hmm.
Declan (strategicabm) – And I thought that was a great quote: 'I don't like to separate them' 'cause obviously in many companies, you have Head of Field Marketing, Head of ABM, et cetera. A lot of Field Marketers go into ABM, which is a kind of a typical career path. But tell me – 'I don't like to separate them' – tell me more about that quote!
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah, I really think they're doing the same job and that's why I don't like to separate them. I started my career as a Field Marketing Manager and, you know, what I was doing 10, 12 years ago – I don't wanna age myself! – was ABM; we just weren't calling it ABM at the time. It was Field Marketing.
But you know, what you had was a list of accounts, a few sellers, a territory, and you really had to hone into those accounts and understand what was happening in the market to then go and target them. Right? That to me is the definition of ABM.
That's what you're doing at ABM. You get your accounts, you understand them and you understand the market. And then, you know, put all of those things together. So we do have Field Marketing and ABM, as in different folks doing those functions, but they're all under me. They're, you know, it's all one umbrella. It's all Marketing.
I don't like to separate them and say 'This was, you know, Field Marketing-generated or ABM-generated'. Like we're all working on the same thing. And the thing is that whatever the Field Marketing team is doing in field, we, from the ABM perspective, are taking advantage of and, you know, integrating within our plans – and the other way around, right? If the ABM team is doing something that's really great, the Field Marketing team can either amplify it, or use it for their activities, or anything else.
Declan (strategicabm) – Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think the... I was talking to a previous guest, Fabiana, who was over at… well, she just moved on from that company, actually. She was saying to me that, as you said, Field Marketers is almost doing ABM, but on a much grander, wider scale.
A lot more accounts, clearly a lot closer to the customer. And that closeness with the customer, I think is what comes through from Field Marketing to ABM is actually, you know, you rather than knowing, I don't know, let's say a hundred or 200 accounts as an ABMer, you're getting closer to a smaller number, but in a similar fashion. Right?
So, another thing, we were talking about your Sales colleagues there.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Mm-hmm.
Declan (strategicabm) – You said to me that you didn't, or you tried to avoid, I think you said, you tried to avoid using the term ‘ABM’ when speaking to Sales. Now, obviously, ABM sometimes gets a bit of a, you know, dirty name!
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Mm-mm, yeah!
Declan (strategicabm) – Depending which corner you're in and who you're talking to, rightly or wrongly, depending on how, well, people's previous experience. But why is it that you... ? How do you position ABM rather perhaps with that audience that maybe resonates better with them?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah, what I found is that whenever we talk about ABM and just in general with like acronyms and, you know, Marketing jargon, there's a lot of different definitions for ABM and folks who are understanding different things. Especially folks who were coming from other companies where they had seen some ABM program and maybe it wasn't that successful, and they were already skeptical, right?
So I just stay away from definitions and buckets, and things like that. And I just say, 'Hey, we're doing marketing; this is how we're gonna support you, and these are the programs we're running.' So I try to talk more about programs rather than, you know, labels and types of things, and qualifications.
It's more, 'These are the programs!' Right? We're running a user group program, we're running, you know, whatever, a webinar program, whatever it is. But we talk about programs more because that they understand and it's clear to everyone. Versus, you know, ABM is such a nebulous thing at this point. It's, you know, everybody understands a different thing and it was just creating misalignment instead of aligning us!
Declan (strategicabm) – Yeah. Yeah, I just made a note there about acronyms. I remember when I used to be, when I first came to Spain many, many years ago, I used to be an English teacher. And one of the first things that we learned, and we were told and we were taught was always to, when talking to a non-native English speaking group is always drop the acronyms.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yes.
Declan (strategicabm) – Because that's one of the most difficult things for people to understand is, you know, what on Earth? You know, it's bad enough trying to learn a language, never mind trying to navigate the, you know, terminology and acronyms. So I think whenever I speak to an audience, I try to remove acronyms as well. I think us marketers haven't done ourselves any favors inventing lots of acronyms and...
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah! Way too many! Yeah.
Declan (strategicabm) – ... and that's normally when, you know, when Marketing walks into the room to give a presentation, the Sales people think, you know, they kind of say, 'Oh God! Not another bloody Marketing presentation!' Right? So that's, you've gotta win them over. You've gotta win them over with trust. And I think that's a great one there.
So maybe just link to that a little bit. I think you said to me that when you are working with the Sales team on those kind of one-on-one programs, or you, I think you said to me you were building custom strategies per account. Is that the approach you take with Sales on those one individual accounts?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – For our One-to-one program, yes. We don't have One-to-one for every single account, because we just don't have the resources. You can't really scale One-to-one in that way. But we do choose a handful of accounts each year where we are running a year-long program for that account.
It's usually accounts that will have a very big impact in pipeline and revenue for that year. Or, you know, must-win logos, things like that. It's usually accounts that we already know. I don't like to start with greenfield accounts because it's just too difficult to move anything, even within one year or so. Cycle is way too long for that.
So we start with accounts that are already customers, that they know us or we have relationships. And what we do is, again, we see, we look at the Sales plan to see what the seller is trying to achieve that year within that account. And then we create a Marketing plan alongside that. And so the goals are always ultimately, you know, pipeline and revenue.
But each account will have a different plan, different milestones, different goals within the year, right? Like, you can't wait a whole year to see if things are working. We do have, you know, leading indicators of: Are we engaging them? Are they coming to our events? Are we, you know, helping them get to an executive briefing, with our executives? Or we, you know, there's milestones like that, but each account is different. Each account will have different plans, different goals, et cetera.
Declan (strategicabm) – Yeah. And just one point there, you said year-long programs. Is it the case that there are some accounts that are in those programs year in, year out? And other accounts get promoted, and other accounts get demoted? Would that be the case?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yes. We are still trying to figure out when do you swap accounts for the One-to-one program? It's not easy. Sometimes it's very easy because you have an account and if they haven't engaged in three months, six months, then you definitely have to drop them and try something different.
But other times, you know, you get to the end of the year, it's all going really well, you've created a pipeline, we've closed a couple of deals, then what? Do we continue with that? Or do we pick up another account where we can have maybe more impact? Right? So that is a question that we're still trying to figure out ourselves.
But we usually have the year as, like, the marker. At the end of the year, at the beginning of the year we pick accounts, we work on them. And then at the end of the year in Q4, we usually do a very in-depth analysis of, 'Okay, is this working? Has it worked out? Excuse me! Do we wanna continue with this account?' Et cetera.
Declan (strategicabm) – Yep. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think with the way that we work with a lot of our customers is we have this kind of dynamic model for promoting and demoting, based on engagement, based on how the account responds. And obviously the more dynamic you can be and flexible, the better, really. 'Cause you just don't know!
I'm sure there's a lot of companies who perhaps would be – with what's happening with AI, for example – that perhaps are not the best accounts to go after anymore, because their business is gonna be significantly impacted by AI, for example. Just like perhaps the hotel business was impacted by COVID.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Right!
Declan (strategicabm) – When that hit back in 2020, or whenever it was. Let's talk a little bit about the programs you run yourself there, at Riverbed. In terms of the One-to-many, One-to-few, One-to-one. I think you're running all three types of program there, is that right?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yes. Yes, we are. Yeah, it's a lot. Ha ha ha!
Declan (strategicabm) – Well, give us a flavor, I mean roughly without giving away any kind of state secrets, but roughly how many fall into each one? What does that look like?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yep. So our One-to-many – I'll start at the bottom and go up – our One-to-many is a global program. So that is, you know, a person runs that globally. So it is across regions. I only manage the Americas, but this goes across regions. So it's all of our accounts.
But like I said, we went from thousands of accounts to hundreds of accounts. So we, you know, it is a very manageable program. We do segment accounts within that program. So we have different campaigns running for that program and we segment the accounts for all the different programs.
Then we have the One-to-few, which is usually, you know, 20 to 30 accounts per program there. We started last year doing industry programs. We then evolved that and, you know, we dropped some industries that weren't as impactful. We kept the ones that were more impactful and we are now adding use case programs there.
So we're going to segment accounts based on the use cases that we see with Sales, the opportunities that we have there, and target them based on the use case. Rather than, you know, just a cross-industry campaign.
Declan (strategicabm) – Yep.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – And then we have a One-to-one. And the One-to-one for Americas, for example, it's a handful of accounts, like I said, they usually run for a year. And it's a very tight relationship with the seller, with the customer success manager. And, you know, the account team to really embed ourselves into the account plan and have a Marketing plan alongside that.
Declan (strategicabm) – And with those One-to-one and One-to-few, are they? Do they tend to be existing customers rather than net-new logo?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yes, it's a combination, but we have a very broad customer base that we obviously want to maintain and grow. And so we do a lot of cross-sell and upsell to current customers. And then we have a portion of that that is green logos.
Declan (strategicabm) – Yeah, understood. Understood. And then you mentioned obviously that you said we'll start from the bottom up, from One-to-many...
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah.
Declan (strategicabm) – ... and above. What's your take on – it's a bit controversial – but what's your take on One-to-many? 'Cause some, you know, some people, some ABM practitioners believe that One-to-many is not ABM. And other people do. So, are you an atheist or agnostic? Or a full believer?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah! So again, this is where I don't like to have labels for everything, because who cares if it's ABM or it's demand gen, or whatever?!
The important thing is that you target your accounts, right? I do believe that the way we are doing it, it is ABM. Because, again, going back to the number of accounts, we have a specific number of accounts. We're not trying to go after, you know, everybody and everyone under the sun.
We sell to IT teams. So, in theory, you could say that, you know, any company that has an IT team could be our customer, but they're not. We're not, you know, we're not trying to go after every single IT team out there.
So the way we're doing it, because we're segmenting, by use case by product, because we are really taking into account the information that we know for all of these accounts and introducing that data into an analysis of who to target, I do believe it's ABM, even if it's One-to-many. And when I say many, it's hundreds. It's not thousands of accounts...
Declan (strategicabm) – Hmm.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – ... but I don't think it's ABM when you are just targeting, you know, the entire universe of accounts out there and you're just sending the same thing to everyone. That's not ABM
Declan (strategicabm) – No, that could be demand gen or something else, right? Yeah, no, I mean, there is a kind of a very blurred line between One-to-many and kind of almost, you could call it industry marketing. So, I think that's a fair argument. And I think your statement, 'Who cares?' is probably the right one. Because ultimately if you, if it's delivering what it's meant to deliver, then that's the most important thing. Right?
What about how you are measuring there? What are you? How are you measuring success? What kind of KPIs are you using? What does it look like when you track the pipeline, et cetera?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah, so our North Star KPIs are three: engagement, pipeline and revenue. So, we definitely want to be hitting those three across our universe of accounts. However, you know, each program has leading indicators and other indicators that we look at to make sure that, you know, things are resonating, the content is the right content, the activities that we're doing are the right activities.
So, you know, if you have an event, you're gonna look at how many people attend the event, you know, things like that. So we have other indicators, but our North star is really engagement, pipeline and revenue.
Declan (strategicabm) – Oh, you have three North Stars?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Well, three, yeah! Ha ha! Engagement, pipeline, revenue.
Declan (strategicabm) – But do you also track that against kind of the Three Rs Model of revenue, reputation and relationships? Or not necessarily?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – We have the model and we've looked at it. We just don't, we don't really report on it. But yeah, but we, you know, we do talk about it and we have it sort of like as a reference of things that are important to us.
Declan (strategicabm) – And just out of curiosity, Cristina, if you had to give a percentage when you're doing your reporting, what percentage is manual versus what percentage is more, kind of, automated? Are you busy crunching Excel spreadsheets?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – That's a good question. Not so much. I gotta say, we have a wonderful, wonderful Marketing Operations team and they do automate a lot of our reporting. And honestly, if we, whenever we put together an activity or, you know, think about an indicator, the first thing we do is: How are we gonna measure it? And can we measure it? And if we can't then, okay, it could be a reference, but it's not something that we're gonna be reporting on.
However, yes, there's always some manual thing, right? We have a few different tools and sometimes you have to pull numbers from different tools. So, there is a little bit of manual work that needs to be done. But we're trying to really, you know, distill everything into dashboards that are ready for us to just go and grab, you know, numbers that are there already.
Declan (strategicabm) – And then do you roll that up into some kind of executive dashboard for leadership? Or, can they see the relationship between what you are doing and how it's impacting the wider business?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yes, 100%. The dashboards are public and, you know, everybody can see them. We also report during QBR – so during quarterly business reviews – with Sales. All the Sales team have a slot in the agenda for Marketing. So the Marketing person that is aligned to that team reports, so my team report to their teams. I report to the SVP of Americas, of Sales in Americas, you know, my manager aligns with the CRO. So, we are very aligned there and we are reporting out to the business. Yeah, constantly.
Declan (strategicabm) – Gotcha! Let me just throw a curve ball at you, to use er... you're living in Boston, is it the Boston Red Sox?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yes!
Declan (strategicabm) – Is that the team?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yes.
Declan (strategicabm) – I don't know my baseball very well! But let's just throw a curve ball at you. Can you anonymize for us, perhaps, something that you are really proud of or your team there are really proud of in terms of the ABM program? Anonymize, obviously, don't mention any names of any customers or anything! But give us a flavor of something that you and your team have done that has made a material impact on the company.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah. So for example, one of our One-to-one accounts last year, I won't name names, but it was a very large healthcare organization. We did have, this was an account that had been, you know, a little bit neglected on our part in previous years. Just because there had been some changes on, you know, on the Sales side.
And the new seller that was assigned to this account took it. And we picked it as one of our One-to-one accounts because they were a customer, but there was so much more potential there. And we ran a year-long event or year-long program. We did, you know, events with them. We did digital. We put together content for them, personalized to them. We created a digital sales room for them.
You know, a lot of different things for a One-to-one program. And we ended up, we ended the year with a pretty large extended cross-sell deal that closed last year. And we are onto our second deal this year that is about to close. So yeah, very huge impact. One of the biggest accounts that we have now. And, in part, because of all the Marketing activity that went into it.
Declan (strategicabm) – And was that, was that like a JV – a joint venture between you and Sales? Did you sit down together and say, 'We must give a bit more care and attention to this account'?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yes, exactly. The seller was already on that path. And when we selected it as one of, you know, our high-impact accounts, we sat down with them and we said, 'Okay, these are the things you're doing from a Sales perspective, we're gonna help you from this perspective.
So we generated more contacts, we found the folks that we needed to talk to, we created all the content for that So the seller could do, you know, all the Sales activities, but then using all the things we were doing from a Marketing perspective, too.
Declan (strategicabm) – Excellent! Well, well done to you and the team there.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Thank you!
Declan (strategicabm) – That Sales and marketing alignment.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yes.
Declan (strategicabm) – You know, they say Sales is from Mars and Marketing is from Venus or whatever! But obviously, clearly, you've aligned the planets around this healthcare account. So, well done on that one.
Let's just talk about the next frontier for yourself there, for your team, for Riverbed, et cetera. In terms of the future of ABM. I think you mentioned to me before one of your plans is to take a deeper dive into buying groups or buyer groups this year, 2025.
Tell us a bit more about why you said that. What's your approach gonna be and how... just a little bit more detail about that kind of approach. 'Cause not many people necessarily understand how to go from the persona, much more to the person, and into the buyer group.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Right! Yeah. One of the challenges that we realized we had last year was that we are a little single-threaded on some of our bigger accounts. Meaning the seller has a great relationship with two or three people within the account, but these are Fortune 500 accounts. Their IT teams are, you know, hundreds if not thousands of people. So, that is just very risky for a business tool, to only have one or two contacts.
So we realized that we needed to support that challenge and help our sellers go wider and and higher within their accounts and really just establish those relationships with more folks across the account. So that's where, you know, the buyer group came into play. Meaning we need to document the buyer, research, the buyer group first. Document it, you know, the same way we used to do personas.
We are now extending that to a group of folks within the accounts and you know, you can slice it in a million different ways – by industry, by product, by all those things. But at least putting down the building blocks of: Who are the folks we need to go after? What are the challenges? What are they trying to achieve? How do we solve those problems for them? And then helping the sellers within each account to really find those folks, engage them, you know, start having conversations, et cetera.
Declan (strategicabm) – And that can be, 'cause you mentioned obviously with IT solutions that you are, you're selling into CTO, perhaps. Is that your main interlocutor? Is that your main person or... ?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – No, we're more on the CIO team and function. But within the CIO function or you know, the IT function within a company, there's a lot of different teams. There's the teams that take care of the devices; there's the teams for the network; there's the teams for the applications. You know, there's just a lot of different teams.
Unfortunately, a lot of times they don't even talk to each other! Talking about alignment here! So, you know, that is a challenge for us because we, our product, we sell a platform and so the platform solves a lot of different problems for all these different teams. But if they're not talking to each other, we're finding that a lot of these companies have a lot of tools that might be doing the same thing.
But it's only because the teams are not talking to each other. So you could have One-to-one solve all those problems. So really about, you know, understanding those relationships within those accounts and like I said, understanding the buyer group because each one of those teams has a different buyer group.
Declan (strategicabm) – I just made a note here. Is a CFO also part of your multi-threading?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – It is, although in a different view, I would say. Meaning we are not going to generate content for the CFO; we're not going to write eBooks for the CFO, right? They don't really care about the solution itself.
But, it definitely helps when the CFO has some brand awareness. They've heard of us, they know of us. They see us coming up on, you know, analysts' reports and things like that. And so it is a consideration and they are a part of our buyer group. It's just a different lens that we put on it.
Declan (strategicabm) – Yeah, yeah. Good! So talk to me about personalization, which is obviously a hot topic in ABM. I suppose there's a couple of hot topics this year. One is personalization, and one is gonna be the next question I'll ask you. Tell me about how you personalize content, and whether or not you're doing it manually with spades and shovels, or whether you're deploying technology.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah, so it's a combination of both. We don't do personalization for like One-to-many programs. For example, we don't do personalization at scale where you're just changing the name of the company and the title of the person. That to me is not personalization. That's just, you know, putting a token in your Marketo emails.
But we do a lot of personalization for our One-to-few and One-to-one accounts, meaning especially One-to-one, it's just all personalized, right? It's not changing the name of the company, it's really recreating the content and, you know, adapting the content to the challenges that that company's having. So, we do a lot of that with technology.
Of course, we use AI to do a lot of the account research to match our solutions to the account, to the challenges that we have uncovered in the account. And, you know, a lot of the content writing is via AI now.
Declan (strategicabm) – Yeah, that was... you mentioned AI, so leading nicely in there, obviously AI...
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – AI is your next question! Ha ha!
Declan (strategicabm) – Yeah, yeah! You teed it up very nicely! So obviously AI is transforming every business on this planet, Marketing and obviously ABM. And so I think when we were talking, you mentioned that there is some work around account research around content creation, as you mentioned, and around campaign automation. But maybe that... we're in March now... How are things progressing on the AI front?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Good! I'm excited, because every single tool that we have is now, you know, including some AI piece and they're all evolving on that front. So they're actually making the tools that we already have more efficient and just, you know, a lot more powerful. So that's great.
But then on our own, we're also using AI tools, like you said, for account research, for our persona research for personalizing things, content creation, some automation. So yeah, there's a lot more to explore and unpack there, but it's definitely the year for it and I think by the end of this year, things are gonna look very, very different.
Declan (strategicabm) – I think by the end of the week they're gonna look very different!
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Ha!
Declan (strategicabm) – To be honest, the way things are moving, you know?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – That's right. Yeah!
Declan (strategicabm) – I mean, you know, I... who knows whether, where, what we'll be doing at the end of this week!
So, well just for the audience, Cristina, can you share a couple of tools that you love at the moment? Can you tell me, or give me something you say, 'Do you know what? I really love doing so and so with so and so!'?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – So, yeah, we have Demandbase and I do love the way Demandbase brings in all the data for an account together. I am a power user of Salesforce, but unfortunately Salesforce hasn't really been able to do that account-level view, or not yet.
Demandbase does that for us and that is hugely impactful for all of our programs. You can pull up an account and you can see everything that's happening on the account. The activities they're engaging with, what they're searching, you know, how they're engaging, the pipeline, the revenue that you have, et cetera. We use it both from the Marketing perspective and from the Sales perspective.
So the sellers have their view in Salesforce for each one of their accounts. They can see all the data that comes from Demandbase. And it's actually very, very impactful for us. We have, you know, the sellers have been really excited about it and we love it from a Marketing perspective, because it really helps us understand the programs, the accounts, our reporting, everything.
Declan (strategicabm) – Well, shout out to Demandbase! They'll probably pay some... put..
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Ha ha!
Declan (strategicabm) – Huh?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – I said I need a discount now! No, I'm kidding.
Declan (strategicabm) – Well, yeah, they, well! They'll probably put some paid media behind this podcast episode! I'll have to drop them a note and ask them to promote it, if they're getting some free publicity on this episode! That's good to hear. It's great to hear, Cristina. It's great to hear that you're getting what you need and the visibility you need, which is amazing.
So we're in March, this episode will probably come out in April, or thereabouts. Tell me, any bold bets for 2025, from an ABM point of view? Have... you mentioned about the buyer groups... anything else you've got? Are you cooking up there to deliver before year end?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – I mean, I think the AI piece, right, that's just gonna be huge. It is, I really hope AI is finally going to help us predict a lot better and forecast a lot better. Our sellers have been doing forecasts forever, right? And we from Marketing haven't really been able to say, based on these activities, you know, these are the companies that are going to close sooner. Or these are the companies that are, you know, closer to pipeline, and things like that.
AI is finally getting us there. We've already seen some, you know, improvements there and we are trying to get there and be able to have that predictable model a lot more clear. So yeah, I think everything that is coming from the AI perspective is just going to be huge this year.
Declan (strategicabm) – Well, just one point on that actually: Where does that leave the human touch of ABM?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – That's a good question. And I don't know, honestly. Will everything be automated in five years? Maybe! But I think, you know, we will adapt with it. We will, you know, evolve with it for sure. I'm not afraid of losing my job because of the automation.
I think there is always going to be a human touch in Sales and in Marketing. People buy from people. And yes, maybe we get to a point where everything is online and you don't speak to anyone at all. But honestly, on our... in our world with the long, long sell cycles that we have and, you know, very high-ticket items and things like that, I do believe that there's still going to be a human touch.
Declan (strategicabm) – Well, let's hope so.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah.
Declan (strategicabm) – Let's hope at least until we retire, but let's hope!
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Ha ha!
Declan (strategicabm) – Right! Just some rapid-fire questions that I ask all guests. Just to finish off with. Quick questions and quick answers, please, Cristina?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Yeah.
Declan (strategicabm) – What's been your greatest ABM learning?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – I would say that it's not a silver bullet. It is a grinding thing! You have to put in the effort and the, you know, the work and the time. You can't expect results tomorrow. Good answer. Good answer. Hardest part? Execution, for sure. We all have really great ideas, but if we don't execute then, you know, it doesn't work.
Declan (strategicabm) – That's a pretty common answer as well, which is good to hear. What about the greatest misconception, do you think, of ABM?
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Similar to my first point, it's just not a silver bullet. A lot of people say, 'Ooh! We're gonna do ABM and everything will be fine!' And it's not how it works. ABM is just Marketing. It's more targeted and more focused Marketing, but it's just Marketing. So if you don't have a good Marketing base to start off, ABM is not gonna solve your problems. Yeah, I always say that ABM is not gonna replace a bad marketing strategy. Correct. It's not gonna help. It's not gonna help you.
Declan (strategicabm) – Okay. Last question. We're recording this on a Wednesday afternoon for me, Wednesday morning for you over there in Boston. We'll fast-forward a couple of days 'til Friday. It's been a tough week there for you, you know, shut that laptop down! Open up a glass of Rioja and something nice, something Spanish. And um, phone rings – friend of yours from your old days calls up and says, 'Hey, Cristina! I'm delivering a presentation on Monday to my CEO. They've asked me to deliver a presentation on ABM and our ABM strategy.' And they ask you: 'What is that one thing I must include to make sure that my presentation lands with impact?'
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Be very specific. Pick 20-25 accounts that have a common use case, a common product that you're trying to sell to them. Okay. It's something that they have in common. Pick that set of accounts, put together a strategy for that one use case, and present that. And say, this is gonna be our first, you know, touch with ABM, and then we will grow from there.
Do not present: 'I'm gonna take one account and try a million things and see how it works!' Because you won't learn anything from one account; you need a critical mass of accounts to see how they behave, where they engage. And then grow your program from there.
Declan (strategicabm) – Great! Great advice to finish off with. Thank you, Cristina. I wish you there, that you and the whole team there at Riverbed, every success for the future. And thank you so much for sharing your ABM journey with us today.
Cristina (Riverbed Technology) – Thank you so much!
Declan (strategicabm) – Thank you.