- How has the pandemic impacted the way B2B marketers operate?
The pandemic has brought upon unprecedented changes that have made a lasting impact on audience behavior and targeting. And, as a result of these changes, shifting to a digital-only mindset to meet key decision-makers in a work-from-home (WFH) environment is required. Sales teams crave marketing support, and that need has only increased as potential prospects are spending a majority of their time at home. Many B2B marketers and sales teams have been forced to completely rethink their partnership as the alignment of the two organizational structures is critical to succeed. The challenging climate of 2020 has also produced an even greater need to prove the effectiveness of advertising efforts and provide actionable results.
- What is person-based advertising, and why should B2B marketers implement this strategy in their account-based marketing (ABM) efforts?
With the existing ABM approach, marketers target massive amounts of people within a company with disruptive, irrelevant ads instead of reaching actual decision-makers in a target buying group. Thus, their ads get lost and fail to produce any real leads or drive sales. Most ABM programs are not very efficient because ads are not getting seen by relevant and appropriate audiences.
Person-based advertising completely revolutionizes traditional account-based marketing. By shifting from low-resolution ABM to high-resolution ABM, a person-based advertising solution helps marketers reach actual decision-makers and not just an account. This approach is a game changer because it empowers marketers to know exactly who they’re connecting with and what type of content is resonating with the person that’s receiving it.
Marketers should implement a people-based approach to advertising because it solves the attribution problem and is truly actionable. This precise form of B2B advertising gives marketers the ability to put engaging content in front of interested decision-makers at a time when they’re open to receiving the ad.
- Why is aligning marketing and sales teams critical for B2B advertising, and how does person-based advertising play a role?
A challenge that B2B marketers often face when trying to drive enterprise leads is aligning with sales on who exactly needs to be targeted. Too often communication gets lost in blanket outreach simply because the target was not clearly defined, or marketers use tools that don’t allow for specific engagement. Marketers might be able to land near the target but fail to land directly on it. As a result, a businesses’ ability to increase their sales leads or generate new ones is negatively impacted. To effectively target potential leads at enterprise companies, a cross-functional partnership between sales and marketing needs to be established. A strong collaboration between the two departments gives marketers the ability to pin-point decision makers and allows sales to leverage marketing efforts throughout each stage of the funnel, resulting in increased leads and ROI.
- Can you give an example of how Influ2’s person-based advertising technology helped a client overcome their marketing challenges? And, what was unique about this effort?
Absolutely — Let’s take Nvidia, who we recently presented with at the B2B Marketing Exchange virtual conference. We worked with the company to help them drive qualified accounts into the hands of sales and reach qualified leads. Doing so, enables sales conversations from start to finish and blurs the lines between sales and marketing. We knew that a person-based approach would solve the challenges Nvidia faced. Connecting with actual decision-makers versus accounts and targeting at the individual level with the right message at the right time and place would cut through the noise of irrelevant ads to increase leads and enhance sales. Leveraging the Influ2 platform, Nvidia was able to adjust their marketing efforts to support sales and create one revenue operations cycle. By tailoring ads to a specific person, capturing behavior, understanding intent and measuring engagement at the level of the individual person, our platform allowed Nvidia to engage with the exact people they wanted to reach, drive conversations and ultimately, drive sales. This effort was unique because instead of relying on “spray and pray” marketing, with our help, Nvidia adopted an account orchestration approach and delivered relevant experiences through person-based ads, tracked engagement at every stage of the buyer’s journey and drove automated qualified leads to sales to ultimately increase overall revenue.
- How did Influ2 use high-resolution ABM to help Nvidia improve their B2B marketing strategy? What were the results from the campaign?
With high-resolution ABM, Nvidia was able to expand beyond a target account and interact with specific decision-makers. Our high-resolution solutions offer personalized messaging, so Nvidia was able to consistently communicate with an interested audience with a message that would resonate on the platforms they spend the most time.
For a fraction of the amount of work Nvidia invested in their previous ABM approach, under the person-based marketing model driven by Influ2, they were able to actually measure the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns with high precision. In terms of the performance after conducting two B2B advertising campaigns, Nvidia was able to reach over 28,000 targets and 10,000 accounts. At the engagement level, they automated orchestrations to get 273 engaged individuals in the hands of their sales organization through automated plays. They were able to engage with accounts that held $64.66 billion in revenue, and in turn, achieved an 89% match rate. With Influ2’s engagement, Nvidia diversified their intent data. They not only targeted specific individuals with the right experiences, but they actually scored intent data based on how the targets interacted with the ads and ran super retargeting at the individual level as they came to the site engaged to keep the ball rolling forward.
Bio
Dmitri Lisitski is co-founder and CEO of Influ2, the first person-based advertising platform that empowers B2B marketers to connect directly with chosen decision-makers. A serial entrepreneur with 20 years experience in online marketing and advertising, Dmitri has successfully launched, managed and advanced multiple IT-powered companies in the U.S. and EU markets, including BonusTec (which was sold to GlobalLogic) and ThickButtons. Prior to Influ2, Dmitri was Global Head of Delivery & Services at Gett. He holds Executive MBAs from Columbia Business School and London Business School.
