Using Paid Strategies to Enhance Your ABM Efforts with Brian Walker, Statwax

In this episode of SaaS Half Full, Lindsey Groepper has a conversation with Brian Walker, President of Statwax

Account-based marketing has been around for a long time, and SaaS marketers are constantly rethinking how to improve the strategy. As ABM becomes a more commoditized way to sell, sales and marketing teams need to work together to strengthen the power of ABM. Brian has executed paid strategies for SaaS companies and implemented campaigns to run alongside ABM to bring more data insights for greater returns. Whether you’re new to ABM or trying to revamp your strategy, Brain has insights to help you level up.

The Broad Stroke of Paid Search

Inherently, ABM is designed to eliminate the wide net other strategies cast, focusing instead on a pre-identified set of smaller targets. So, how can a broad strategy, like paid search, work alongside a narrow approach like ABM?

Paid can support your sales team, impacting the identified leads before they are contacted and providing additional touchpoints after the first conversation. In this way, when you implement paid is equally as important as how: “Nurture them a little bit before that direct outreach and then provide follow-ups afterward, without taking more time from your biz dev team to do that,” said Brian. “With all the noise out there and the short attention spans, there are many touchpoints and little nudges along that consideration path. But, do you want to be providing all those dozens of little moments in between with your salespeople, or can you deploy some paid tactics and help move it along a little bit?”

Let the Data Define Your Personas

When Brian begins working with a new SaaS client running an ABM program, the first question he asks is, “Why is this your target persona?” Often, the answer points to the identified title or titles being the decision-maker. And, while this is true, the sales team is failing to target the titles who have the initial influence and make recommendations to the person who ultimately signs the contract. 

Paid strategies help SaaS companies uncover the entire buying committee and increase awareness among this audience before sales outreach, which is a considerable assist the marketing team can provide to the sales organization. 

“That’s where we start to attach true ROI,” he shared. “Marketing spend that previously might not have looked successful because the person who signed the contract didn’t engage digitally, but the influence was put on the decision-maker by the rest of the buying committee; who engaged through marketing efforts.”

Brian suggests ABM can be where sales and marketing teams gain alignment and come together for a common goal. While sales ultimately own ABM, Brian asserts that marketing’s influence is undeniable and can unlock the true potential of ABM:

“You don’t even have to see the data or understand the numbers, just the concept of what more you can do if you’re capturing and telling the story that can influence everything that comes after. The ultimate goal is making ABM more efficient for everyone involved in the process, not stealing the job of sales or doing away with ABM. It’s about getting the machine to hum along that much better.”

For more of Brian’s insights, listen to Episode 319 of SaaS Half Full.