[00:00:00] Craig Premo: Yes, higher quality conversations. And then, you know, we, we saw where, um, a senior leader of a target account, you know, engage with us, download our content, and then about three to four months later, we, we closed a multimillion dollar deal. So even if you say that marketing was only. 1% of of that effort. It was still, you know, a great multiple In terms of ROI.
[00:00:29] Andreea: Welcome to Pioneering Perspectives, a D Creative podcast where we explore marketing insights from regulated industries. Join me as we chat with real professionals navigating these complexities today, uncovering their stories and their savvy strategies for marketing success. Thank you everyone for joining us again on another episode of this marketing podcast.
[00:00:51] Um, I’m super excited to be here with Craig Primo, who is Senior brand Manager at a MN Healthcare. Thanks very much for joining us.
[00:00:59] Craig Premo: Thanks, Andrea. I’m excited to be here and talk a BM.
[00:01:03] Andreea: Yeah. So what is a BM exactly?
[00:01:06] Craig Premo: Well, A BM is shorthand for account based marketing. And it’s, um, basically a concept where you’re flipping the funnel from a normal lead gen type of funnel.
[00:01:17] So normally if you have a lead gen program, you’re just trying to collect as many leads as possible into your pipeline, then qualify them as marketing qualified, then sales qualified that ultimately. Closed business with account-based marketing, though, you’re starting with a defined list of target accounts and what you’re doing is tailoring both your sales and your marketing outreach to those target accounts based on some data that we’ll go into I think later in the call.
[00:01:48] Andreea: Yeah, definitely. So account-based marketing then is really more appropriate for businesses that are, have those really, I don’t, I don’t know, like high value. Clients and leads that they wanna get to, right? Like that’s really what they’re looking for is like, rather than this broader reach where we’re not really sure who our target market is.
[00:02:08] So along those same lines, is it super important to take a step back and really understand who are the accounts you wanna be following before you even get into account based marketing?
[00:02:18] Craig Premo: Yeah, that’s extremely important. You really want to know. What your ICP is, what your ideal customer profile is. And of course that can vary if you have several different service lines, but one of the things that I’ve learned working with A BM is you have to have really close coordination with sales.
[00:02:37] So you have to understand. What their target accounts are, but beyond that, like why, why are they the target accounts? What do they see as the opportunities? And then you can start to look at some intent data from those accounts through account based marketing to see what they’re interested in. Because sometimes it doesn’t match up, you know, what they, what sales thinks that someone is interested in what an account is actually interested in can be two different things.
[00:03:06] Andreea: So in that sense, A A BM might not be appropriate for a business that’s just starting out. It sounds like it’s really something that you have to do traditional lead gen, understand your ICP, understand the intent that they have, and then you can, uh, start jumping into a BM. Is that kind of how, ’cause I think you’re running a pilot right now on IABM, right?
[00:03:27] Craig Premo: Well, we’ve gone past our pilot now. Oh, exciting. So, um, I can share a few details about that, but, um. You’re right. Generally people do start with demand gen or lead gen. Mm-hmm. And you never want to abandon that. So at a MN, we haven’t totally abandoned lead generation activities, so we view account based marketing as a compliment to that.
[00:03:49] I think that, um, couple of. Ways people know it’s maybe time to start looking at account based marketing is one is you actually are getting plenty of top of funnel leads, but they’re stalling out in your sales pipeline. They’re just not moving through. And then the second thing people find is they are lacking intelligence, both competitor intelligence and prospect intelligence.
[00:04:16] So with some A BM platforms, you can start to get a better idea of what. Your target accounts are looking for on your own website as well as sites across the web. And what’s equally important, you can start to look at what your prospects and your current customers are looking for in terms of competitors.
[00:04:35] So, you know, we’ve um, seen that where, you know, we thought we might have a deal and then we start seeing the, you know, the prospects looking at competitors and we know we’ve got to double down.
[00:04:47] Andreea: Yeah, that, and I, I feel like so many businesses feel that pain, especially with B2B, where your sales cycle’s so long.
[00:04:54] You know, it’s like you might have spent almost a year chasing after something and then to just lose it. Um, it sounds like that’s where this is really important. So, um, talk to me a little bit about how you set up your pilot. What came out of that? Um, what are the learnings?
[00:05:08] Craig Premo: Yeah, so. This all started almost three years ago at a uh, a MN, and we started with account-based marketing without the use of a platform.
[00:05:20] So there are platforms out there like Demand-Based Terminus Six Sense, and I’ll go into those later in the conversation. But while I was trying to convince, um. The C-Suite to purchase one of those platforms, we went ahead and started without it. And so what we did was we used ZoomInfo to get some intent data, so it’s not free, but it’s less expensive than the A BM platforms, and that’s where you can start to see, you know, what accounts are looking at your content.
[00:05:54] And get an idea of what their level of intent is, um, towards, you know, a particular service line at a particular point in time so you can start to better identify who’s in market for a particular solution. So, so I think the things that were key to us in terms of getting the pilot started was first I had to get buy-in from a lot of different people in the organization.
[00:06:18] So, you know, I took this first to my marketing director, then we took it to the head of sales, then we took it to the C-suite and just made our case and also established. An ROI calculation going forward, what we thought this, um, program would achieve for us. So once we had that buy-in, then we needed to start working really closely with sales, start to look at their target account lists and, and get a controllable number that we could market to, and we just basically marketed.
[00:06:52] Through various forms of media, um, Google advertising, LinkedIn campaigns, working with sponsored content, but we were defining who we were trying to reach. So it wasn’t, again, that sort of broad funnel based approach. And we were honing in more about what we thought the pain points were for these particular.
[00:07:14] Target accounts. So we started working with that and it’s a slow bill, but we started to see results from that and we started to see actual closed business. So we could take a look at a lead that had downloaded one of our pieces of content through the campaign and then. Three or four months later, that became an account, a a piece of closed business.
[00:07:40] So by tracking that through Salesforce, we were able to see, okay, this is starting to get results. And then about the middle of last year, I was able to, after literally two years of trying, I was able to get our company to purchase Demandbase. And that’s been a real game changer. So, you know, if you’d like, I can talk more about what the platform offers as opposed to trying to work without the platform.
[00:08:06] Andreea: Yeah, absolutely. But before we go into the platform itself, when you were establishing how to build out this account-based marketing strategy, what were the data points that you said These are absolutely critical to have or the functionality? ’cause before you even get to the software, it’s good to really understand your.
[00:08:23] Landscape. Right? Yes. So what was absolutely critical in order to even evaluate the, the software you needed?
[00:08:31] Craig Premo: Well, I think, um, couple of things. One is understanding not only the targeted accounts, but the personas involved. I. So who is the enterprise buying group? So with our solutions, it’s a complex sale.
[00:08:44] It can last up to a couple of years. There can be as many as 13 or 14 people in the enterprise buying group. So it’s important to understand who those stakeholders are and what their various needs and wants are. And then it’s almost like you can put together a matrix of, you can put, let’s say, across the top.
[00:09:07] You can look at all the different personas you need to reach, and then along the side you can look at top of funnel, middle funnel, bottom of funnel, and you can start to see, okay, where am I missing content that I, that I need to fill those gaps? And then it’s a case of, I. Of reaching out where those people are.
[00:09:25] So in some cases, for example, we’re trying to reach Chief Financial officers, so we’re going through the Healthcare Financial Management Association and doing some sponsored content, some advertising with them. So, um, it’s not. As laser focused as it would be when you have the platform, but you, you can start to, to circle in on who you wanna reach.
[00:09:50] Andreea: Perfect. So then you did get the software, um, and then how does that amplify and, or, or speed up what you’re doing? I.
[00:09:57] Craig Premo: Well, it’s really a game changer in a couple of ways. So one is it’s much, much better at collecting and collating intent data than than other platforms I’ve ever used. So it, it’s really great at looking at what content, specific pages, specific content people are consuming on your site and.
[00:10:19] It has a whole network of high quality B2B sites, so it can look and see what they’re looking for across the web. So there you can start to look at intent scores. So you’re scoring intent based on, again, what they’re doing on your site, what they might be looking at. And then you can also do engagement scores, which is more specifically how and how often they’re interacting with your own content.
[00:10:47] So it gives you better signals, you know, in terms of who’s the right person to reach at the right time. And then we can also then target advertising through their display ad network. So what we can do is we know we have, let’s say a particular hospital system X that we want to target. Then we can target specific ads to that specific account.
[00:11:12] And know that we’re, you know, driving specifically to that particular system.
[00:11:19] Andreea: So when you’re mapping all of this out, it sounds like first and foremost, it helps you prioritize what you’re missing, right? Like what content, uh, and, and in that giant roadmap. But then similarly, have you discovered anything new about timing, um, or, or adjusting based on your old way of doing things and this new additional strategy?
[00:11:41] Craig Premo: Well, I think one of the things that we have found is that our business development reps are really high users of the platform, and, um, in a sense they’re, they’re more super users than the salespeople are. Uh, because they see that that value, it helps target their outreach and their, their phone calls to try to get.
[00:12:02] Appointments and meetings set up. So I think it’s, it’s helped that team in particular. And then I think it’s also helped us understand. You know, when is the right time to advertise and what type of advertising? So you can look at things two ways. You can look at an account with low intent and say, well, you know, let’s not worry about them.
[00:12:26] We should just go after the high intent accounts. Or if you feel like you know they are a good fit to your ideal customer profile, run more of an awareness based campaign against that and get, get the engagement and intent. Higher, and then you can start another phase where it’s more direct and maybe it’s a little more, uh, demand driven.
[00:12:48] Andreea: So when you’re running ads, are you talking mostly like LinkedIn ads targeting that specific job title, or are you actually even going as broad as like Google ads and just trying to stick to a geographic area?
[00:12:58] Craig Premo: No, we do more specific than Google ads. So we’ve actually switched away from doing. Google, um, display ads, and with Demandbase, they’re targeting those specific IP addresses of those healthcare systems.
[00:13:12] So it’s, it’s a much more precise targeting, uh, to the point where you could. Totally customize an ad and say, hello, health System X. You know, that might get a little creepy, but you, you can do as much targeting as you need. Um, and then when we compliment that with LinkedIn, we’re still looking at those specific target accounts and then we’re laying layering in the roles because demand base is more, as the name sounds, it’s account based targeting.
[00:13:42] LinkedIn, it’s account and role. And then we also will layer in still some sponsored content types of promotions with healthcare publications. But we are specifying who we want the leads from. So again, it’s not just a general top of funnel. We’re telling them we want leads from, you know, this list of hundred accounts.
[00:14:02] Andreea: Yeah, I think what I really like about this in particular is like, it feels like traditional lead gen. Almost there’s a, there’s a little bit of an element of luck with timing because they need to know they have a problem and that you are a potential solution for whatever problem they have. But if you go more into account-based marketing, then you could actually pre-sell them with a whole educational.
[00:14:26] A campaign that lets them know they have a problem they haven’t even identified yet. They just know something’s not working, but they’re not quite sure what, so have you found that that has opened more doors for you from people that just wouldn’t have talked to you without account-based marketing?
[00:14:42] Craig Premo: Yeah, I think it, it really has.
[00:14:43] I mean, it’s been able to make these conversations more personal and more meaningful to the target. It’s not more of a, you know, how can we help you or, you know, we, we have every solution you could possibly imagine. It’s, it’s really a much more targeted conversation. I think the other area that has been really helpful with is retention and cross sell.
[00:15:07] So. Something that, you know, it’s extremely important that you hold onto your current accounts and that you grow those accounts. So that’s where we’re still using these same techniques. We’re seeing, you know, what service lines of, of AMNs, are they missing? Do they not have, does it match up with what they’re looking for?
[00:15:29] And, you know, how can we bridge that gap?
[00:15:32] Andreea: Interesting. So then when you’re, when you’re building out your A BM marketing. Software and and plan, are you focusing just as much on existing customers and growing out their offer, like upsell, cross-sell, or are you focusing still primarily on new?
[00:15:52] Craig Premo: Well, we basically have teams that separate that out at our company.
[00:15:57] Mm-hmm. So in my role, I’m heavily involved in the retention and cross sell. Mm-hmm. And then brand managers for other specific services. They’re more acquisition. Focused. So I would say if you look at, you know, all the campaigns we’re currently running in Demandbase now, more of them were acquisition focused.
[00:16:19] But for us, just with the makeup of our business, we have a pretty select groups of of accounts that account for a lot of revenue. So, you know, we are just focusing on those relative few.
[00:16:34] Andreea: Interesting. So when you were evaluating Demand Base versus all the other software, how did you make the selection? Was it more based on your needs or was there something about the quality of the platform that really spoke to you?
[00:16:47] Craig Premo: Yeah, we did a really thorough vetting process. You know, we looked at Gartner, we looked at Forrester because they, they rank these platforms and. We ended up looking at the top three at the time, which were demand based Terminus and six sense, and did a lot of due diligence and you know, basically looking at features side by side, trying to compare, trying to compare the value.
[00:17:17] It was a difficult process. It’s, it’s hard to match up. Across these exactly, you know, feature to feature. And, and of course they’ll, I’ll tell you they’ve got something that the other person doesn’t have. But at, at the end of the day, for us, we felt like Demandbase was the best value because it would give us what we need to really get started to get down the road.
[00:17:41] Uh, and it was still pretty user friendly. Um, and it was. Basically in a price point, you know, that we could see getting a return on. So that’s why we ended up going with the demand base in particular.
[00:17:56] Andreea: Now, unique to healthcare, there’s always. Tricks about marketing and sales, what you can and can’t say. How, like we’ve already talked a little bit about how many people are involved in major decisions.
[00:18:09] Um, is there specifically something about account-based marketing that you think uniquely solve some of these issues when you’re looking at healthcare marketing?
[00:18:18] Craig Premo: Well, I think it will really help you identify your enterprise buying group over time. So as you’re advertising and you’re seeing who’s engaging with your.
[00:18:30] Content. Then basically Demandbase does a good job of suggesting who you might wanna reach out to. So since it’s account-based, you know, you’re not gonna absolutely know that Jane Smith visited your site. Um. But it will start to basically triangulate a lot of that information and give you a good idea of, of who you might wanna reach out to.
[00:18:55] And once you integrate with Salesforce and you start to load in all your leads and contacts from Salesforce into demand base, then that does increase the chance that it could actually match to a particular content person or a particular contact.
[00:19:11] Andreea: Interesting. Now, you said you’re still doing the traditional lead gen.
[00:19:15] Are you finding that there’s a skillset difference between the sales teams that thrive better with traditional lead gen versus the ones that thrive more with account based marketing?
[00:19:28] Craig Premo: Well, I think it’s, um, process of education. It’s a wholly different mindset because if you think about. Lead generation.
[00:19:37] It’s all about, well, how many marketing qualified leads are you giving me? Marketing? How many of these are converting? Um, and you know, just how many raw gross leads are you, are you giving me? It’s, it’s all based on those kinds of metrics. And really, leads aren’t really the point here. It’s more engagement.
[00:19:56] So the things that we look at are, you know, how many opportunities do we have within the target accounts? We’re trying. To reach and then how fast are they moving down the pipeline to a close? And you know, we’re still learning, we’re still learning about how all that works. Um, but I think it does take a definite shift in mindset to not just always focus on leads, leads, leads.
[00:20:22] Andreea: Yeah. Especially when. I feel like traditional lead gen definitely gives you that like adrenaline of like, okay, we’ve got someone new in the funnel, and this might be, it’s not about who’s new, it’s about how you expand within the existing relationships you have. So it’s a lot more relationship building than I’d say hunting, which is like more traditional lead gathering.
[00:20:43] Craig Premo: Yeah, I agree. And, and you know, there’s been cases where we’ve generated tons of leads. We’ve had more leads than the business development reps could handle basically. So, um. That generally has not been an issue for us. So it’s it’s time to really start looking at exactly who you, you’re trying to reach and are we getting engagement with those people?
[00:21:04] Andreea: Definitely. Now, are there any resources that you saw were missing as you started migrating over into account-based marketing or any, any gaps that you needed to fill as marketing and sales to make this really thrive the way you needed it to?
[00:21:20] Craig Premo: Well, fortunately from a content perspective we had, we generate a lot of content and so we were pretty well positioned in terms of content across the various stages of the buying process.
[00:21:34] Um, I think that, um, you also need to obviously make sure you’ve got enough budget because you know, you are paying for media at the end of the day, so you need to make sure that you’ve got the budget that you need. Um. I will say it’s pretty cost effective, um, to reach via display advertising versus some other media.
[00:21:57] You know, it’s certainly less expensive if you think about like a, uh, LinkedIn being fairly high price in terms of its cost per lead. That’s, um, a little more efficient I think, which is good. Um, and I think, um, we really. We had to get much better at how we’re tracking data. We have all this data coming in from Demandbase and you have all this data coming in from Salesforce and you, you need a way to tie all that together.
[00:22:32] So this is still a work in process for us. We’ve made great strides, but we’re, you know, working out exactly how, um. Leads end up into Salesforce, how they get handed off, and then how they’re tracked too. And so that’s where, for example, power BI dashboards come into play. We’re able to aggregate a lot of this into one dashboard.
[00:22:56] Andreea: So as you build out account-based marketing, are you still utilizing like lead scoring and, and likelihood to close based on how many display ads they’ve seen, what they’ve downloaded? Or is that more of like old school traditional sales and a BM. Doesn’t really need that particular type of grading system.
[00:23:15] Craig Premo: No. We still are working through our journey stages. So one of the things about an A BM platform is you can set up your journey stages and then you can set those criteria, like we need to have a certain intent score and certain engagement score to move from one stage to the next. And you know, it needs to.
[00:23:35] This needs to happen in order for this to be handed off to the BDRs and not just nurtured. So that’s something that we’re still experimenting with. Like have we set the right parameters or not? Do we need to, to change them? So, um, that’s where again, um, really need to, to link in closely with sales to, and the BDRs.
[00:23:58] Andreea: Yeah. What kind of volumes do you think you need to get that data accurately? Like I know you just said the pilot part of a BM for you is done and now it’s act actually in implementation. But you know, to get to that place of data where you feel really confident that you understand the landscape, like how much volume do you think you need to run through an A BM strategy?
[00:24:22] Craig Premo: Hmm. That’s a tough question. Um, I. Because with the campaigns we’re running, it’s just more based on, you know, the needs that we see. But, okay. Um, I, I think that it is more a process of time, you know, just looking at it across time than strictly volume and, and looking at how. BDRs and sales are able to act upon the information that they’re being given.
[00:24:48] Um, so, um, I don’t see it being a case where you need a ton of volume. You don’t need a, you know, a huge advertising campaigns. You just need the right campaigns, and then you need the salespeople to understand the data that they’re getting. That’s a whole nother aspect of the onboarding process we’ve gone through is, is working very closely with sales and having training sessions for them and and follow ups and giving them resources so they feel comfortable with it.
[00:25:22] Andreea: Is there one thing that stood out in that training program that you’d tell to any sales rep making this shift that they should really pay attention to?
[00:25:31] Craig Premo: Well, I think. Basically with demand base, it gives them a good idea of what accounts they should be reaching out to first. So I, I think with them, I, I would say, you know, don’t try to swallow the whole platform at once.
[00:25:52] There’s a lot of data in there once you start getting in. But it’s, it’s more about, um, just looking at those, looking at intent, looking at engagement, and seeing. Where that points you in terms of who you should be reaching out to when
[00:26:07] Andreea: and as you are incorporating this, you’re obviously reporting up to higher, higher management.
[00:26:14] Um, how have you shifted their view of success from traditional, right? Because with traditional leads, you might be like, oh, we got 10,000 leads. And you know, verse it’s versus like, ab m’s, not like that. So how do you shift how you communicate success so that uh, senior leadership can really understand the value?
[00:26:32] Craig Premo: Well, one of the things that we do is we are able to show, um, the effect of our campaigns in terms of like how many accounts we’ve actually reached out of our target list, and then how many have visited the site, how many have actually clicked on a piece of content. And then, you know, even, um, in enhanced levels of engagement, like if they visited the site a certain number of times in the past seven days or 30 days.
[00:27:00] So, um, that’s been one part of the process is educating them that those are important signals to look at. And then the other part of it is to look at, um, the BDRs. Like how many meetings are they able to get from the target accounts? So before you even. Uh, you know, get to a close. Like is it positively affecting the number of meetings that they’re able to achieve?
[00:27:27] Um, and then from that point on, you know, you’re, you’re just looking at, you know, what, what closed. And there are certain aspects of the campaigns we run where we do get a specific. Person a lead, so to speak, because, for example, with the sponsored content campaigns, so those, as we’re getting a little deeper into the funnel, you know, we’re able to get some very high quality leads to the sales reps, um, that are from the accounts that they want to talk to.
[00:28:02] Yeah.
[00:28:02] Andreea: That’s very cool. I can almost see too that even the sales, uh, communication process would shift, right? Because when you’re leaning a bit more into account based marketing, you can get very specific with that account’s history or details right? In your sales deck versus a bit more like on the lead gen side.
[00:28:23] Yeah, you might. Customize or personalize your deck a little bit, but not to this level. It’s, it’s more of like a, getting into that long-term in-depth relationship versus I know speed dating. I dunno if that’s the right, but that’s kind of how it feels to me. It’s like you’re moving away from speed dating and you’re more like, let’s actually get to know you and talk about what you need in a more specific way.
[00:28:43] Craig Premo: Yeah. And that’s so important, particularly. In our business where these are large ticket items that they’re buying, you know, talent, technology or talent services. So yeah, you, you have to, um, build trust over time. So that’s why, you know, we’re layering in other things besides lead generation and account based marketing.
[00:29:04] We have a very robust thought leadership. Program where we’re putting out original research and surveys. And so, you know, we communicate that to clients and prospects. We put out a quarterly newsletter with insights. Um, you know, so we do those kinds of things to, to educate people. We have a podcast called Elevate Care, where we invite guests from around the spectrum of healthcare.
[00:29:32] So, um, it’s a very much a 360 degree. Program basically to, to really get to the people we’re trying to reach.
[00:29:43] Andreea: Yeah. That, that, that’s definitely a shift in, in how I think traditional BD thinks of how to, how to, it, it does feel a little bit more like putting sales and marketing together and a little closer.
[00:29:54] Mm-hmm. Closely tied rather than them throwing things back and forth over a wall.
[00:29:59] Craig Premo: Yeah. Yeah. Because I certainly had my. Fill with that. Um, before we really started account based marketing, it’s, it was, um, you know, salespeople are very busy people and it’s hard to attract their attention. And so sometimes you just feel like you’re throwing things over the wall and you don’t really know where they line up.
[00:30:18] But I am been really pleased with the adoption, um, of our BDRs and sales teams. They’re engaged with it. Um, I have regular conversations with the head of our. BDRs and you know, looking at how we can fine tune our approach. Uh, so, you know, that’s been really beneficial.
[00:30:39] Andreea: Nice. So any, now that you’ve kind of been through it, is there any recommendations you would make to somebody else in your position at a similar company if they wanted to start introducing a BM?
[00:30:51] Um, you know, where to start. What should they consider? How do they evaluate if this is right for their business? Any learnings?
[00:30:59] Craig Premo: I think one thing to do is, is focus on what I call the one to few campaigns. Mm-hmm. So basically you can do one to one, you can do one to few, or one to many, and with one to few.
[00:31:12] That’s where we started out where if we had this set of accounts, could we identify common pain points? So instead of trying to start out and you know, have five different campaigns, the five different prospects we knew and. In our world, you know, contingent labor cost savings is hugely important that people are trying to cut down on their use of travel nurses and travel ally professionals.
[00:31:39] So we have solutions to help them with that. So that’s where we had specific content developed and we, we got out there to. That list of target accounts and, and started from that point. So, um, you know, start from a, a reasonable perspective where you’ve got a manageable number of, of campaigns. You’re not trying to go from zero to a hundred miles an hour right out of, of the gate.
[00:32:06] Andreea: Yeah. Starting that way is always a, a good idea. Right. With anything that you’re doing. Yeah. Um, how long did you run your pilot for before you officially moved on to it being real?
[00:32:17] Craig Premo: We had three months, we did a three month pilot, and we saw, you know, fantastic results from that. Um, and so that was actually something that, uh, convinced management to go ahead and purchase the platform.
[00:32:31] So we actually did a, a, a pre-purchase pilot and, and that was just a key piece of evidence to show them that, you know, this, this really works.
[00:32:41] Andreea: And when you’re saying like you had exceptional results, was it more. Time to close was getting faster. The conversations the salespeople were having, they were happier with them.
[00:32:51] Like, how would you define success for that little pilot?
[00:32:54] Craig Premo: Well, first of all, a lot more engagement with our content on our website than, uh, a baseline pre-campaign. Um, secondly, yes, higher quality conversations. And then, you know, we, we saw where, uh, a senior leader of a target account. You know, engage with us, download our content, and then about three to four months later, we, we closed a multimillion dollar deal.
[00:33:21] So even if you say that marketing was only 1% of, of that effort, it was still, you know, a great multiple in terms of ROI.
[00:33:32] Andreea: Yeah. I mean, that would convince anyone to buy the software, right? Yeah,
[00:33:36] Craig Premo: exactly.
[00:33:37] Andreea: Perfect. So. As you continue to dive deeper into a BM or, or any kind of marketing, do you, where do you kind of see the future of this going as marketing and sales evolve?
[00:33:49] Craig Premo: Well, I think, um, it definitely, I. Needs to encompass the whole buying cycle and, and life cycle of a client. So you’ll hear people talk about a BX account-based experience because it goes beyond the initial sale. So I think it’s, um, a valuable tool to use to, to stay in touch with your current clients, um, and also.
[00:34:15] Um, make them aware of other services because we have a really broad range of services. So we’ve found in some cases, you know, our current clients don’t know that we do, let’s say language interpretation, for example, for hospital systems. So, um, I think making sure that you’re looking at, at that whole journey, I think is, is really important.
[00:34:37] And then I think also, um, starting to. Focus in as you get your C legs with account-based marketing where you can be a little more targeted. So let’s, let’s actually set up campaigns with a specific set of ads that, that talk to this one system about something. Again, not necessarily, not necessarily saying, hi there, you know, we know you’re looking at us, but it’s, you know, just understanding what they’re looking for and, and tailoring that message to a specific system.
[00:35:09] If the. If the prospect is, is worth enough or if the client is worth retaining, which usually they always are.
[00:35:17] Andreea: Definitely, it’s interesting to look at it from the retention standpoint, like you’re saying, because shifting from a BM to A BX really does mean that that high touch sales should continue in the rest of the organization.
[00:35:31] And I would guess a lot of organizations have been focusing a lot on being a bit more high touch after they’ve got the customer for retention, but now merging those two sides of the business into one. And do you see any real challenges there and shifts in how organizations work so that you can always keep that at high touch for the account?
[00:35:51] Craig Premo: Yeah, I think one of the challenges is there, our account managers who, who handle our current clients, they’re, they’re just swamped with taking care of that business and just taking care of the day to day. Needs of, of the business and, and getting them, um, whatever staff, for example, they, they might need or whatever program, um, maybe they, they need help with, um, a strike that’s going on, for example.
[00:36:15] So, so their whole world is there and in the past they’ve also. Try to introduce other complimentary services, but what we found now is we actually have someone in our organization who is solely focused on that. So it takes some of the burden off of the program managers and, and this other specialized rep is concerned with if, with retention, but he’s, he’s looking at it purely from that focus.
[00:36:45] And so he’s not trying to take care of the day-to-day and cross sell at the same time.
[00:36:52] Andreea: And, and that might be a big part of it is, is identifying in the entire life cycle of your customer, who is the right person to give them that high level experience. Throughout that, you know, first notice, first attention that you exist all the way through lifetime customer, that that raves about you to.
[00:37:12] Friends and family, I guess.
[00:37:13] Craig Premo: Yeah, that’s right. Testimonials and case studies. Yes.
[00:37:18] Andreea: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, perfect. Well, are there any last thoughts you’d wanna share? ’cause I think this is a, a really exciting evolution and, and how marketing can be done, especially with those, those higher ticket clients and customers that are, are so hard to get and I think are only getting harder.
[00:37:35] Craig Premo: Yes. Well, I think one of the exciting developments is just like everything else you’re seeing these platforms start to incorporate, incorporate artificial intelligence more and more. Mm-hmm. And, and use that to, to refine how they’re surfacing prospects for you, um, how they’re surfacing particular accounts.
[00:37:55] So, um, I think that’s a little bit in its infancy in terms of the account based marketing platforms, but I see that. As an area where they’ll be able to really, really strengthen, um, their offering and, and what it can do for a business just to the use of ai.
[00:38:13] Andreea: Yeah. With ai, I feel, I feel like leaning a lot more into those predictive analytics, like just that heavy data load.
[00:38:19] Mm-hmm. So that when you are trying to optimize your time as a human being. The AI can tell you this is where you should focus, or this is where you’re about to lose somebody or, you know, and mm-hmm. And, and kind of get you, so you’re even getting past that like power BI stage, you might not even need that in the future.
[00:38:35] Maybe AI will just tell you what you need.
[00:38:38] Craig Premo: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. No, and I think the whole push to agents and interoperability between platforms with AI is. Exciting. Um, just I’ve, I’ve had a look at a couple platforms recently that can tie in a lot of different, um, aspects, uh, into one area and then you can start to query, um, across those platforms.
[00:39:00] So, um, I’m excited to see where that takes us.
[00:39:03] Andreea: Yeah, definitely. Well, awesome. Thank you so much, Craig. This has been a really interesting conversation. Um, so once again, my guest is Craig Primo. And where can they learn more about you?
[00:39:15] Craig Premo: So I have a, a site and a blog. It’s at brand synco patient.com and as I say that, I realize I probably didn’t make it the easiest URL to understand, but it’s brand synco patient.com.
[00:39:29] And you’ll understand why I chose syncopation when you get to the site.
[00:39:34] Andreea: Well, that’s the end of our episode for today. If you work in a regulated field like medical, legal, or finance and wanna share your own marketing insights, email us at podcast@diacreative.com. And if you’re looking for marketing support, well that’s exactly what we do.
[00:39:48] Visit dia creative.com. Dia a creative.com. Any other info you might need will be in the show notes, including all links mentioned in this episode. Thanks for listening.