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Account based marketing has been around for a while now, but doing it in a highly personalized way is not something you hear addressed often. But if you can personalize your marketing you can greatly strengthen customer relationships and grow your footprint in the account. On this episode, Bernie speaks with Paul Johns, CMO at SAI Global, a leader in the delivery of integrated risk management solutions for enterprise customers across the globe, about how they help their customer win through highly personalized account based marketing.

Paul is a senior marketing executive with a track record of driving marketing strategy that has a measurable impact on ACV – average contract value. On this episode, they discuss how a highly personalized account based marketing strategy using microsites can help customers win more while driving more business with those customers – who Paul refers to as the “perpetual prospect.”

There are many insightful takeaways shared, so don’t miss this podcast conversation.

Do You Know The Path To The Number You Need To Hit?

Every marketer or sales professional is eager to hit their numbers, but many don’t know what it takes to actually do it. Paul Johns points out that three things need to be considered when determining an effective strategy for hitting sales numbers. And he makes the point that it needs to be done collaboratively between sales and marketing.

First – understand your product’s capabilities today and over the next year.

Next – salespeople need to know where they should go hunting for the best prospects.

Finally, marketing must validate that those targets really ARE the best places to go in order to generate the best returns.

Listen to this episode to learn more of the specifics.

Highly Personalized Marketing Plans Must Include Effective Cross-Selling

Are you familiar with the term “microsite?” It’s a term Paul uses to describe online “rooms” that contain content designed for specific clients that educate them toward an informed buying decision. His company creates these sites co-branded with the customer directly addressing the customer’s goals. Finally, their team connects these microsites with the technology that enables them to track customer interest and movements.

All of this helps both new and existing customers learn to trust them but also opens the door to ongoing cross-sell opportunities. It enables them to land customers then expand the services they offer that customer, indefinitely. Paul calls it the “perpetual prospect” concept. It’s a bit of a challenging concept to understand without hearing Paul explain it, so be sure you listen to this episode.

Stop Selling And Become Passionate About Helping Customers Win

Your customers are looking for solutions to their problems and you may have the exact solution they need. But there are often so many layers of management or leadership between you and the decision maker that you can’t make any headway. That’s why you need to build the kind of relationship with contacts within those businesses that empower them to be your sales advocate within their own company.

Work together with them to publish content in a co-branded microsite that addresses their company’s needs and help them get it distributed within their company. This will demonstrate your solution across departments, allowing various managers and decision-makers to see how your solution could benefit them as well. Listen to hear more of how Paul’s team does it.

Modern Marketing MUST Incorporate Beautiful Storytelling And Emotion

Somehow we marketers and sales professionals forget the tremendous impact emotion plays in buying decisions. We step into the office and suddenly approach everything through data, scale, and analytics. Those are not bad things, but alone they are not enough.

Whether the prospects you’re pursuing are CIOs, CEOs, or middle managers, there is a human element involved in the buying decisions they make on behalf of their companies – and it includes emotion. What can you do to tap into and address the emotional aspects of how your customers make their buying decisions?

Paul suggests that you need to learn to be provocative, bold, and gutsy in the way you market – then once you’ve tapped into the emotional motivations behind the buying decisions, be able to communicate that you are looking to help your customers win. It’s easier said than done, but Paul has a wealth of insight about how you can shift your marketing messages toward the kind of storytelling that resonates with buyers. Be sure to listen.

Outline of This Episode

  • [2:08] What it means to do highly personalized account based marketing
  • [4:20] Determining who the exact targets are for marketing and how to hunt them
  • [6:04] Techniques to make account based marketing MORE personalized
  • [8:22] What is the perpetual prospect and why does it make a difference?
  • [9:35] The advantages of building microsites that are collaborative in nature
  • [11:42] One to one marketing through personalization – and how to do it to scale
  • [15:08] What personalized account based marketing can look like month to month
  • [18:19] Why we don’t sell anymore – and what we are doing instead
  • [22:59] What is the role of storytelling in account based selling
  • [32:10] One of the original approaches Paul uses to find cutting edge marketers

Resources & People Mentioned

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