Editor’s note: This is the second of two Breakthrough 2023 daily recaps. You can find the first recap here.
Yesterday, we shared some of the ways customers are living the commitment to BE MORE. They provided insights on how 6sense has fostered creativity and success in their organizations.
We come back today with recaps of five more compelling customer stories:
- Armis on BDR management
- Textio on resetting your 6sense strategy
- Aprimo on AI-powered marketing plays
- BILL on using ABM for SMBs
- Ivanti on reducing customer churn
Before we dive into these sessions, let’s open with how the day got off to an uplifting start.
Inspiration and Insight
Our guest keynote speaker was Sekou Andrews — a Grammy-nominated spoken word poet who is also a teacher, musician, actor, and entrepreneur. Andrews delivered an inspiring and touching message of encouragement that got us pumped up to BE MORE.
Later, Kerry Cunningham, a former Forrester and SiriusDecisions analyst who now heads 6sense Research, took the main stage to share some mind-boggling findings about the way B2B buyers make decisions, which included insights like:
- How to increase your chances of winning a deal from 20% to 80%
- When and how decisions are being made by buying teams, and how you can make it easier
- What B2B Buying Cycle Inflation is and how to crush it before it crushes your revenue
The presentation was a sneak peek at an in-depth report that will be released in November.
Customer Stories
But there was so much more to learn, delivered straight from our innovative customers.
Here’s a quick look at five of today’s amazing customer sessions:
Armis: Leading the Next Generation of BDRs
Whether you call them BDRs, SDRs, or Growth Ops, these professionals are the link between sales and marketing.
Angela Frackowiak, Senior Director of Global Growth Operations at Armis, had this to say about the role:
“It’s extremely important that you have a well-defined title and role and that maps all the way back up to the goals that sales and marketing have for your business. That clarity is what’s most important, not necessarily where we sit in the business, whether we report to sales or marketing or exactly what our titles are. It’s that partnership and clear goal that matters the most.”
In her presentation, she shared her experience and advice for BDR management, starting with the importance of diversity in hiring to bring fresh perspectives and solutions.
Frackowiak said you want “a really good mix of people — people who have different educational backgrounds, different socioeconomic backgrounds, who look different, who believe different things — but who can come together collaboratively and solve problems together.”
The most successful BDR teams incorporate:
- Ongoing communication
- One-on-one coaching
- Peer-to-peer sharing of best practices
Finally, she discussed how managers must equip BDRs with tools that support their teams. Platforms like 6sense reduce some of the noise BDRs experience daily to enable them to thrive.
“It’s all about people, process, technology…your personal touch, your ability to connect with your reps and bring out the best in them.”
Textio: Hitting the Reset Button on 6sense Strategy
Purchasing new technology doesn’t guarantee immediate wins. In fact, sometimes it can exacerbate challenges. Just ask Jackie Wylie and Ashley Evans, Textio’s Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Content Strategist, respectively.
The team introduced 6sense at the beginning of 2023 with high hopes. By Q3, they were noticing low win rates, low quota attainment, and low conversions. They were stumped — shouldn’t everything be magically fixed?
Wylie was faced with reality: “No SaaS tool is magic. It is not enough to buy 6sense and roll it out and give everyone a license. You have to have a coordinated plan across marketing and sales if you’re expecting it to be a success.”
So, it was back to the drawing board. The team set three goals to hit by the end of the year:
- 30% of target accounts reach the opportunity stage
- Improve conversion rates from opportunity to qualified pipeline
- Sales and marketing work together to solve pipeline challenges
With input from employees and data from their CRM, the team set to create a criteria for target accounts. These were segmented further using profile fit and intent data from 6sense.
Sales and marketing collaborated to determine relevant messaging and content to engage this refined list of accounts, which was delivered in three campaigns:
- One-to-one: Campaigns personalized by account
- One-to-few: Accounts grouped and personalized by industry
- One-to-many: Accounts in the awareness and consideration phases
After launch, weekly meetings between stakeholders continued. Ongoing collaboration and regular reporting helped identify successes and areas of improvement.
This initiative is still a work in progress, but this more personalized approach has been effective in moving leads through the sales funnel. As Evans said, “With 6sense software, we’re able to be more intentional with who we’re targeting.”
Aprimo: No, AI isn’t Going to Replace You
In her session, Elicia Roman, ABM Manager at Aprimo, introduced us to Zoe, a punctual, attentive, and skilled SDR.
Here’s the catch — Zoe isn’t a real person. She’s an AI assistant.
“Zoe follows up immediately and intelligently holds one-to-one conversations. This not only saves our sales representatives time — it also ensures that every single lead receives prompt attention,” Roman said.
Roman discussed how AI, specifically 6sense’s Conversational Email, is a crucial tool for marketers to achieve the level of personalization audiences now expect. Zoe responds to prospects 24/7 and passes hot leads to sales colleagues.
Using Conversational Email, Zoe automatically:
- Sends event invites and follow-ups
- Recaptures opportunities
- Re-engages cold leads
The re-engagement strategy’s wins include:
- 49% email open rate
- 279 saved hours
- $400K in open pipeline
With technology as an ally, we can all be more effective. AI allows us to automate routine tasks, engage with leads promptly, and craft tailored messaging that resonates with audiences.
“It’s not about replacing human interaction but enhancing it. By fully embracing this approach, we were able to use Conversational Email to achieve a seemingly simple goal of doing more,” Roman concluded.
BILL: Make ABM Work for Your SMB
BILL’s Talmage Egan (Director of Demand Gen) and Tucker Stoffers (Senior Director of Growth Marketing) took an interesting approach when determining whether ABM was the right solution for them: They asked ChatGPT.
The AI told them that ABM typically works best for companies with long, complex sales cycles — the opposite of their short and simple sales cycles. But the AI also mentioned that ABM works great for large, targetable markets.
With a TAM of over 30 million SMBs, they knew BILL could be more efficient in finding and engaging high-quality accounts.
Their approach involved two important elements:
- Automation
- High-touch personalization
6sense predictive models take data from first- and third-party sources to identify which accounts are considering what products — as well as where they are in the buying journey.
The data was used to automatically segment accounts and push leads to sales for timely outreach.
Predictive models also uncovered new opportunities.
“It shined a light on some areas where we didn’t realize we were winning and that gave us whole new verticals, whole new categories to go after,” Stoffers explained. “And we could go in feeling confident. We weren’t just sticking our finger in the air and taking a guess. We had data that said we could go into these new areas and we could win.”
Armed with these insights, they went after strong-fit accounts with a high-touch, multi-channel campaign that had three stages:
- Warm: custom display ads, landing pages, emails, and more
- Nurture: multiple direct mail pieces sent to different buying team members
- Sales outreach: personalized email, SMS, and LinkedIn messages
The results?
- 4X improvement in account-to-opportunity conversion rate quarter-over-quarter
- 88% improvement in ABM-generated pipeline
Ivanti: Get to Your Customers Before the Competition Does
Not-so-breaking news: Customer retention is critical to your bottom line. It costs far less than new customer acquisition, and also leads to greater loyalty and revenue.
Krista Becker, Ivanti’s Director of Global Digital Marketing, and Michael Goldwater, Director of Enterprise Business Development for the Americas, identified competition as a key reason for customer churn at Ivanti.
They launched a retention program, using competitive intent signals from 6sense as a driver for re-engagement.
The program helped:
- Identify at-risk customers
- Alert relevant teams
- Take proactive measures to re-engage these accounts
Ivanti first needed to identify which accounts were showing signs of leaving. To do so, the team mapped competitive brands and products, and created 6sense keywords focused on competitors and their products. It was determined that 15-20% of Ivanti’s customer accounts were actively researching competitive brands at any given time.
Knowing who these customers are and what alternatives they’re looking for enabled the Ivanti team to assemble a comprehensive and proactive customer retention strategy with multi-channel touchpoints, including direct outreach from the account team, email, and paid media.
Becker said, “This is a great way for us to get in front of those eyeballs, and make sure we are staying top of mind.”
The team hopes to reach their goal of getting customer churn down to 10%.
“Everybody knows ARR (annual recurring revenue) is key to company valuation if you’re a SaaS business,” said Goldwater. “So, what we’ve done here is make sure we have everything in line to put ourselves in the best position possible.”
More to come!
Tomorrow, we’ll be announcing the winners of this year’s Breakthrough Awards, celebrating customers who took their B2B effectiveness to a new level.
Thanks to all who joined us this week in Frisco. We’re awed by the enthusiasm and support of our customers!
