Brand, Content, and ABM
Anthony sits down with Chris Moody to talk about how brand marketing, content marketing, and ABM all work better together.
Well, Chris, I'm such a big believer in brand and thought leadership as a
function of driving
revenue and really has been the core premise of the work that I was doing as a
marketer
at GainSight.
And now, with audience plus, I'm kind of betting my career on the fact that
brand is
a driver of growth and not just that, that it's an achievable reality for B2B
marketing
teams.
Curious just from your perspective, you can share just a bit of your journey
with brand
as not this sort of isolated cost center, but fundamentally as a way to grow
companies.
Yeah, I think it's a great question, first of all.
It brings to mind the fights of brand versus demand and the things that we've
all lived
over our careers.
Most of my career have actually been more on the demand side.
So through college, I was obsessed with brand, I figured out web design, tried
to pitch an
idea to Yahoo, called Yahoo Yearbooks.
So if Yahoo's watching, shout out Yahoo.
They did not like that idea and then Facebook started after that.
So, yeah, it was a good idea.
Facebook was your idea, it's basically what you were saying.
Basically, yeah, but it's all execution, you know, so vaporware.
But I think brand is in everything.
And there's this misnomer that it's the fluffy things and the look and feel.
And I was in content, so the rise of social or as of content, my jobs kind of
followed
all the different waves.
And every single piece was brand.
What you do on video, what you do on paper, what you do in an e-book, what you
do on your
social media, it's all a representation of the brand.
You can't just build a great brand and not tell amazing stories and think it's
going
to work.
So there's been a bit of serendipity throughout my career where I was an
analyst for a while
helping on client side, tons of folks just hearing the same challenges.
And then at demand-based, I joined and go-to-market thought leaderships.
It's your point.
I left a brand leadership role with an awesome team to join as an individual
contributor
to kind of make that same bet and say we need to tell better stories, get our
message out
there, and then fast forward a year that led to leading the brand team and we
're about
to launch a full rebrand.
So we will be living exactly what you're living.
That's awesome.
We know there's a saying that only 5% of your audience is in market for your,
at least
the category of your products and services.
And we as marketers can often neglect the 95% of our audience who may not be in
market,
but they're paying attention.
They're within our ICP.
They're listening.
They're consuming our content.
And my hot take, at least, is that for too long, we've almost like over-indexed
on the
5% at the cost of the 95.
And you have some antiquated playbooks that we've all been running now for two
decades
or so that have really, I think, conditioned us to be thinking in that way.
What's your take on why marketing teams should be engaging out of market but in
ICP folks
who are within our kind of active audience?
Yeah.
First, a bit of a rant.
I do think as marketers, we've chased some things and never actually done them
well.
So to over-indexing on the 5%, I think yes, that is the case definitively.
We have over-indexed on the 5%.
But many have thought they were doing ABM, account-based marketing, and it was
just a
marketing team doing things for sales.
I was like, "Hey, sales, we did this.
That's awesome.
You're going to love us."
And then sales like, "Who the hell are these people?
Why are you giving me this list?"
So the alignment for true account-based marketing hasn't happened in a ton of
organizations.
So I think there is some correction of how we go after the 5%.
Sure.
That should still happen.
So 95%, we don't know who the next buyers are without addressing the 95%.
And we can certainly use all the intelligence we can ingest, all the intel that
we can get
from intent and various different sources.
If we pull that all into one place, it's just what we try to do at demand-based
Many companies are trying to do that.
That should help us identify these will be the next buyers.
And if we're not in front of that, we can start to reverse engineer and back
out all
the data we have from the analyst firms.
We know that they're doing more research before they reach out to us.
We know that it's taking longer for a sales cycle to happen.
We know that the buying committee is getting bigger.
So that's why we're doing buying groups.
All of these approaches, we have to warm up that 95% and use the data we have
to say,
"Hey, of the 95%, if we start to think about the 5%, here's the best way to do
that." Here's what we're going to do for that.
We're going to crush it.
It's going to be marketing and sales.
We're going to work together.
I join calls.
We track marketer to marketer calls at demand-based.
So that's one thing.
We know when we can get on and talk shop and live it and breathe it and be
passionate
about it.
It's in my veins.
I love this.
It's driven me crazy plenty of times, but I still love it.
When we do that, we know it works.
It converts.
We know that it works.
But that's the 5%.
Let's take the next 10% or 15% and figure out what is our go-to-market strategy
for
those folks who we think are the future buyers.
What's the content they need?
What are the pains that they have?
How do we solve those pains?
How do we work to identify them and get there before it's too late?
Or before it...
Well, we'll catch them when they're in the 5%.
That's an ideal scenario, but it's really easy to do accounteering and then
have different
go-to-market plays based on the tier.
And then we can track them side by side by side, which gives us a lot of
visibility
into how it's working, how long it takes, when it fires off and moves from tier
2 to
tier 1.
So yeah, I think it's a huge opportunity.
That's great.
It strikes me that at demand-based, you're literally sitting on a treasure
trove of data
and you deeply believe, of course, in the power of using data to understand who
's in
the 5%, who are the...
I like the use of the 10 to 15% of the 95, which is a helpful kind of framing.
How do you see the intersection of data, whether it's, again, first-party data
or third-party
in content marketing in order to help...
Or I'm curious if there's any anecdotes just from your career in content to
help use data
to inform decisions on the type of content we've produced, on what topics, with
which
creators, how we distribute it, and so on.
One billion percent.
I mean, we should be using the data.
This is something we were talking about internally.
I don't honestly think a lot of content leaders have thought about what they
could
do with the type of data we are using, like collectively, the world, all of us.
Everything that we're using when we're trying to go after prioritized accounts.
We know what they're researching, what they're talking about, what they care
about, who they're
connected to.
We can find co-workers that we have who used to work with them, maybe friends
with them.
I had one outreach to my cousin.
Really?
That would not have happened if she...
Came up as an intense signal.
Well, Sellers said, "Hey, this person's on my list.
They have the same last name."
I said, "That's my cousin.
She's getting married in a couple of weeks.
I will send the best spammy email in the history."
Shout out Addie.
She's getting married.
But yeah, I mean, that stuff happens when we start to think about that.
We're content creators, right?
What are our top performing pieces of content?
Well, Chris, what do you mean when you say top performing?
Is it bringing people to the site?
Is it converting?
Is it turning into an MQL?
Is it MQL to SQL conversion?
Is it Op?
Is it Opti-Close One?
Yes, is the answer.
It's all of those.
But that's how we thought about content then.
If we start to do that now and we try to go through and we think about, "All
right,
we have all of this data, what content should we create to try to expand a
buying group?"
So if we have a key stakeholder and we need to get 10 people to the meeting,
what should
we do?
Yeah.
And when I was an analyst, we called it high value offers, right?
But say someone's researching account-based strategy.
Obviously, that's an intense signal.
We should reach out and have a conversation about account-based strategy.
But what happens at demand-based, if that happens, there are plenty of us who
can talk
about it.
But a lot of times someone will say, "Hey, Chris, this person is a mutual
connection.
You used to be an analyst.
You were on the first ABM Magic Quadrant.
They're researching account-based strategy.
Could I pull you into a meeting?"
And then I have a series of different decks, which is just a form of content,
right?
It's content through another kind of event.
And then we can turn that into a repeatable play.
So content is no different.
I think you can look at the buying signals.
We can look at what content should we have available to deploy when we see
competitive
intent?
Sure.
What content should we have available when someone starts a new CMO or a new CS
O or a
new CRO job?
Like we have these use cases that I don't think a lot of content teams have
actually
said, "Well, how are we prioritizing our accounts for our sellers?"
And then saying, "How do we prioritize our content for our buyers?"
Right.
Because it's there.
We have the data, right?
We're all looking at third-party and first-party data.
We think we're really good at pulling that in and making sense of it at demand-
based.
We have an entire program called DB on DB, which is us using demand-based to
the fullest
of its ability.
And now we have an experts team.
So they're actually working to kind of create things like this.
What would they do if they were practitioner-side?
How do we turn that into content?
We can scale out.
So it's there.
It's at our fingertips.
I just don't think all the content leaders have started to say, "Oh, well, I
might not
be the primary user of a go-to-market platform, account-based platform, revenue
, whatever people
want to call the space."
But it's a signal we should be looking at, especially if it's trusted data,
which we
know that we have.
I stand to benefit from an understanding of the data to help shape kind of how
we can
add value to the company.
Totally.
The key that we hear too is historically content has felt disconnected from
impact because the
inputs to what type of content we should create historically, at least, have
been more what's
going to rank on search effectively.
What's our SEO strategy, which is great and important, but just not alone.
Or what's the CEO telling me to write or create?
Or what's the last idea that I see?
How many people are close to leads?
Exactly.
Like, yeah, the CEO says, "Do more webinars."
Great.
Okay, cool.
We'll go do that.
No, I think that makes a lot of sense.
One of the things I wanted to chat to was about video or media, because I've
noticed
demand-based, honestly, is one of the first movers from the B2B context in
using different
formats of content, different mediums, not just, again, the performance content
for search,
but more editorial content, or maybe you said another way too, beyond the
format, becoming
a publisher of content is something that I would argue y'all are, again, one of
the first
movers on.
How do you see that sort of the transition to embracing media, becoming more of
an audience
builder yourself as a content or brand team, playing out?
Is that something that you guys are leaning into even more?
Yeah, I mean, we have to lean into it even more.
I think we've had some transition like a lot of teams have, where we've almost
had to
look and say, "What is our video strategy now?
What is our overarching content strategy?
What is our overarching go-to-market strategy?"
Yeah.
All the things, they have to work together.
I am allergic to one-offs.
I can't stand one-offs.
One way we're trying to think about it now, the medium has changed as well,
right?
Short form is much more popular than when you and I started in content, and I
still believe
we could sit down for two hours, and if it's the right conversation, folks are
going to
consume that, but we also know that the 30-second clips are going to play well,
and we have to
distribute those.
So when we think about campaigns, brand launches, content launches, pieces we
're developing,
we're not just thinking in one form.
It's not just a webinar, it's not just an e-book.
We have to start thinking about all the different ways we can distribute it,
and we know that
video matters, and it's hard for passion to always come through on the page,
and that's
one reason I love joining calls.
Like, when you live and breathe this, people know.
Totally.
When you join a call, like, you know, you'll, like, yeah, we were on a stage,
right?
Like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm not going to join a
stage,
and then people are like, I can tell you're really passionate about this.
I'm like, good, I appreciate that.
Like, I'm not going to deflect that compliment, deflect the most, but that one
I will take,
because it's true.
Like, I care, I want the profession to do better, and marketing does not always
have the best
perception.
Like, we have chased shiny objects, most of our careers, and my most popular
slide ever
was, you know, what's the next big thing, and then a pause, weighted, yeah,
whatever.
Yeah, people just say buzz words, and then I click, and it's like, the next big
thing
is to stop chasing the next big thing and do our jobs better.
And then you pause and let the eyes turn mean, and then I laugh, and that's my
style.
I don't like doing that.
But it's true, right?
Like, marketing and automation, we ran to the next thing before we mastered it.
Content marketing ran to the next thing.
Social ran to the next thing.
Account-based never even properly defined.
It was a account-based marketing that never works without sales.
Like, ran to the next thing.
Or should we call the category now, run to the next thing?
So video is kind of the same to me.
It will never go away.
It has to be a part of what we do, and every company has personalities that
dazzle with
their audience, and their audience is different, and, you know, this may not be
a client.
You should get them peak design.
They make my phone case.
I have bought way too many accessories to work with my phone case.
Every single one of their products, they have a video with the person who
created it.
Oh, wow.
They're not always the best on camera, but they're hilarious.
And they can tell you all the stories of how they tested it and what didn't
work.
And then as a marketing dork, I'll watch that.
I'm like, "I will pay them $80 for whatever this is."
That can happen in every company.
So the great part about demand-based, I do think they were early to that.
So the team that was responsible for that, John Lieberman, Justin Leiberman,
from the
past, it's great work for us to build a pun.
I think we have to be smart with how we think about video now and hook it into
everything.
Right.
That's the biggest part to me.
When we watch our new brand.
Yeah.
Do we just send people swag?
Right.
I mean, we get this stuff.
What's our water bottle look like?
What's our t-shirt look like?
But what are we going to do?
How do we stretch that into something further?
How do we create something compelling for people to share?
How do we get them to do video?
How do we get us to do video?
How do we summarize the event?
How do we get exact quotes?
What exactly do we get on camera?
There are thousands of videos that can exist under that umbrella that don't all
have to
happen on day one.
But it has to be a cultural thing.
And we're working to make sure that that's instilled into everyone.
And it is a hiring focus too.
We're trying to go heavier on video.
It's something that I've talked about with our CMO and our CEO as well.
So hopefully we can make that even more of a priority going forward.
That's awesome.
Well, look, we're here at Better Together.
And so I'd be remiss not to ask within your own tech stack, the things that you
're using
kind of day in and day out.
What are two or more solutions that in your mind work better together and help
you kind
of achieve your goals?
Sure.
Well, I'll get to me specifically.
But I can say our team lives and breathes and dies with demand base.
Like that's a huge part of what we use.
We use outreach.
There are plenty of great folks in the space.
But there's great integrations there that we can push through.
We have a lot of amazing partners.
Integrations, it's the name of the game.
We have to ingest lots of different intent.
Anyone who serves intent, we have probably worked with them.
Probably do work with them.
So lots of partners.
But one that is actually really important to me now is a somewhat controversial
opinion,
right?
But it's just our swag vendor.
Oh, yeah?
Yes.
And I'm working on building out a swag shop.
We're actually trying to solve various fulfillment issues for how we run new
programs.
So that's working with, you know, we use Sindoso.
So working with our Sindoso lead, how we supply them for things that we may
centrally distribute
with what we produce.
Yeah.
But being extremely creative in every brand touch.
That's awesome.
To make sure that that's represented because that's employees, partners,
customers, prospects,
family members, right?
Yeah, sure.
Like when someone has a baby, what do we do?
Totally.
So we're trying to do a lot of creative programs too.
We've used postal in the past for plenty of those.
But it's trying to be very intentional about what we do.
Not just give people random swag.
We're going to walk out of these doors.
There's going to be a ton of random swag all around this, right?
But it's trying to be very strategic with what represents the brand and what
connects
to everything we're trying to do.
So that's one right now, trying to be better together.
That's awesome.
Love what everyone's doing here.
I'm long swag, by the way.
Like I think the idea of a merch store or whatever for a brand, it's this idea
that
again, there's this relationship between you as the brand.
And then this audience of customers, prospects, family members, just fans,
folks who come
to your events and consume the content.
So I'm ready for a world where every B2B brand has a merch store somewhere on
the site as
well.
Shout out Kyle Lacey.
Yeah.
You referred to Kyle.
Yeah.
It's screaming.
We've done this well multiple times in the past.
We're happy to work with the business you have now.
We're better together.
But who do you use?
Who should we talk to?
Because it is an interesting way we can start to build that into everything we
do where
it's not just a line item on our things.
We have to cross off.
Yeah, not a one off either.
Yeah.
I'd better integrate it in.
Chris, thank you so much for being on the show.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you.