Jen Leaver on Creating Interest and Influence for ABM Within Your Company

Summary

In this episode of Real ABM our guest is Jen Leaver, the Senior Global ABM Director at Bazaarvoice. Jen talks through her journey of creating interest and influence for ABM at Bazaarvoice. Jen starts by talking through how ABM as a strategy is worth pursuing because of its effectiveness. Once the success was seen, Jen took time to reeducate teams through stage-based campaigns to help look at accounts through a different lens. Her next step was focusing on strategic, one to few and one to one campaigns to hone in on the real needs and wants of the clients.

Jen talks about ABM not being a one size fits all approach. You have to take time to listen and understand what the clients are looking for, what the shareholders are looking for, and trying to find that middle ground that lets you operate in a sustainable place of success and backing from the company. Measuring success in ABM looks like part marketing source, part feedback. The reason ABM is so successful as a strategy is creating personalized experiences throughout the sales journey. And never forget to look back and celebrate your wins, even the ones early on.

“A lot of times when people get started with ABM, they want to get right into the numbers, the revenue, what is this going to drive? But I really think that celebrating those early milestones is an opportunity that’s missed a lot of the time too.”

– Jen Leaver

Key Insights

Starting up ABM within an existing company can add different levels of challenges then you would find if you started ABM from scratch. In order to be successful, you have to reeducate and train entire teams to process and think through what they do in an entirely new light. Creating a custom plan to re educate, retrain, and still get people excited is tough, but later down the line it can completely reinvigorate the entire company.
Measuring success with ABM takes looking at the entire picture being painted to really bring understanding. You can look at the marketing source for part of the story, but the rest of the story is found in the experiences of the clients. It takes Marketing partnering with Sales, being aligned in their goals and mission, to bring long-term success.
ABM is meant for the strategy to evolve over time, not to stay stagnant. The first step in your approach may be one of the departments, whether that is one to many or one to one, but creating a baseline is only the start. Create the baseline to gain understanding and feel, then begin to add in multiple levels of contact, maintain the customer base and customize the experience to what you are trying to achieve.

Major Takeaways

Nick Bennett

Co-host

Jen talks about a layer that not everyone has to think through with their ABM strategy, which is working with stakeholders to get them bought in on the process as well. It takes humility to create an ABM strategy that not only succeeds but also lifts the company up and partners with the short and long-term goals of the stakeholders. And that can be tough at first, but it is a fine line that if you keep following it, leads to success.

Pete Lorenco

Co-host

Jen is living proof of how to start generating excitement about ABM within a company from the ground level. It takes dedication and time to figure out what you need to do to succeed, but once you start to figure those basic pieces of the formula, the rest of the company wants in on it. ABM done right can redefine success and unify teams across the company in a way no other strategy can.

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Real ABM is a video podcast series for B2B marketing professionals who are looking to use ABM strategies to drive revenue. In each episode, we cover specific ABM plays and remove the b.s., fluff, and vendor subliminal messages. By tuning into the ABM Series, you’ll learn how to develop a custom ABM strategy, implement specific ABM tactics and standout as a marketer by generating revenue for your company.

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