Declan Mulkeen (CMO at strategicabm and host of the Let’s Talk ABM Podcast recently posted on LinkedIn that his firm just won a new client – a billion-dollar business. And, the source: his Let’s talk ABM Podcast.
At Personal ABM, we also recently won a new client, Uniphore, a conversational AI firm with a 2.5-billion-dollar valuation, and the source was our ABM Done Right Podcast. Vijai Shankar (VP of Global Marketing at Uniphore) was one of our podcast guest experts, and we talked about why product marketing should lead ABM. We’ve added Vijai’s podcast episode at the bottom of this page.
In the short podcast below, you’ll see how and why a decision-maker podcast strategy should be part of your ABM program.
Here Are Some of Kristina Jaramillo’s Insights That She Shared During the Podcast Above:
- Most people that are hosting podcasts or are thinking about starting a podcast are too focused on building awareness and increasing their reach. While it is important to Kristina that we educate our community on the right way to do ABM, as 2/3 of ABM programs under perform. It is not her primary focus. The primary reason is to build stronger relationships with key decision makers and influencers and an environment where they are comfortable to open up and share insights on their approach, their vision, and their challenges.
- It’s important how you position your podcast from the very beginning. When Kristina connects on LinkedIn or emails potential guests, she discusses why she wants to build a relationship with them, exchange approaches and potentially have them on the podcast. She lets them know that in return for a conversation, she’d share a personal account-based approach that would help them with an issue that she knows from our research is important to them as we want to personally connect with them and not just connect for the sake of having them on our podcast. When she has an initial phone conversation, she lets them know that she first focuses on building a relationship before she talks about the podcast and that she wants to make sure that there is alignment. She lets them know that in many cases, we have ongoing conversations with our guests as we continue to bounce ABM ideas back and forth after the recording. She learns about their specific ABM approach, their vision, and their specific challenges, and she shares growth opportunities that she sees that they may want to think about in the future and open up their eyes to new approaches and how ABM can be used to fix business revenue issues along the buyer’s journey and customer lifecycle. In many cases, our guests mention – can we talk after the podcast because I’d love to get your thoughts on (whatever topic we got them thinking about!)
- It’s important to have a healthy idea exchange during the podcast. If you’ve listened to a number of our ABM Done Right Podcast episodes with guest experts, you’ll see that we do not just do a Q&A. Kristina, Eric, and their guests are all co-stars, which means they’re all adding value to the conversation. Both Kristina and Eric look for ways to reframe not only their prospect’s thoughts but also the thoughts and ideas of their guests. They’re telling stories that would be relevant to their listeners but even more important to their guests so they can see how we can help them specifically.
- You need to have the right processes in place for the podcast to support ABM. Throughout their whole process, Eric and Kristina gather insights to nurture guests and other decision-makers and influencers across the target account after the podcast. These insights guide the content we should be creating for the follow-up conversations that we need to have with guests and their teams.
- ABM is not campaigns. It’s about the interactions that you have with the human buyers and influencers in the target accounts that you want to win, protect and expand. It’s about the experiences you deliver to the human buyers and influencers inside these target accounts. Your podcast, if done correctly, can drive the interactions you need to have and the experiences that you need to deliver. It’s through our conversations and through the podcast with Vijai Shankar that we learned that Uniphore is building a strong pipeline with their using technology like Demandbase – and how they are challenged with accounts going dark (especially after sales engagement.) We learned about his ABM vision and how he’d like to evolve the program to drive greater stage progression and revenue growth, and we showed him how adding a middle layer between sales and marketing would support his vision and what account-based enablement can look like. Now we’re working on supporting sales teams with content that teaches for differentiation against competitors and the status quo. We’re providing content that shows target banks why they are still not meeting customer expectations despite their investments in CX and AI technologies – and the role Uniphore can play in their specific strategic priorities. We’re providing them with account research that guides the interactions that sales and marketing teams need to have with target accounts. And it all started through building alignment and creating a strong connection through our ABM Done Right Podcast. You can listen to the episode with Vijai Shankar below.
Your Next Steps:
It’s time to think about what 1:1 connections you can make – and the interactions you can have with key decision-makers and influencers in the accounts you want to land and expand. It’s time to think about how a podcast can support your ABM program, just like it helped Personal ABM land clients like Uniphore, which has a 2.5 Billion dollar valuation.
To learn more, click here to book a free ABM strategy session.
