Can ABM Strategies Improve Lead Generation?

Tessa Burg: Hello and welcome to another episode of Lead(er) Generation brought to you by Tenlo Radio. Tenlo is now a Mod Op company. To learn more about Mod Op visit M-O-D-O-P.com.

Tessa Burg: Today’s episode is about Enterprise ABM. We’re really excited to have Ryan Elmiger on the show. He is the ABM Lead for the Government Cluster at ServiceNow. Hello Ryan, thanks for joining us.

Ryan Elmiger: Hi Tessa, thanks for having me on.

Tessa Burg: So tell us a little bit about your role at ServiceNow and what is the government cluster?

Ryan Elmiger: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, yeah, my role at ServiceNow. ServiceNow has one of the world’s best ABM marketing practices and I’m very, very fortunate to work with them and work for them.

Ryan Elmiger: So, you know, ABM is an interesting dynamic, it takes on quite a few different variations and terminology as it hits the market. But really it’s kind of broken up into three different areas at ServiceNow. We have a dedicated ABM group that works within the company. There’s three different sections of that.

Ryan Elmiger: The first one is kind of a one-to-one team. So if you think about one-to-one that is kind of the working with large businesses, very, very hyper-personalized campaigns for large business initiatives.

Ryan Elmiger: I work more with what we call one few team and it’s cluster, what we call cluster. So if you think about what that is we try to limit, we try to identify 15 accounts and what we do is we build campaigns around what we call imperatives, okay.

Ryan Elmiger: So if you think about taking a group of accounts, pulling them together, and then we try to identify three imperatives, three initiatives that they’re trying to accomplish within those accounts that are consistent across the board. And so what we do is we build very hyper-personalized targeted campaigns to those accounts that spread throughout all of them.

Ryan Elmiger: Now I work on the government side. So, I focus strictly on the United States government specifically this year, working on the army, the intelligence community, and the department of HHS. Now that can rotate year to year, we try to keep our campaigns about 12, 18 months, but that is what I do for ServiceNow, so.

Tessa Burg: I love the word cluster and how you describe that down to the one-to-few. And it feels a lot like in digital marketing, we’re always trying to be more personalized. How is ABM and that type of go-to-market vehicle in communication different than some of the tools that we’re using in digital marketing?

Ryan Elmiger: Absolutely, account-based marketing you’ll commonly hear for those that do not understand account-based marketing. You’ll hear it best described as it’s not fishing with a net, it’s fishing with a spear. So the idea behind account-based marketing is to really, truly dive deep into the accounts and the segments that you’re trying to target and really go after and really try to move them at a very hyper-personalized level.

Ryan Elmiger: Now it is very different. Again, company to company, I think you can get a variation of definitions that come across for ABM, but it really is in its simplest form, hyper-personalized marketing. That’s what account-based marketing is. It is critical to a business function has been proven to gain and yield higher results, better returns, more engagement. And there really is a practice that is built around the account-based marketing framework that we try to follow at ServiceNow.

Tessa Burg: So I looked at your LinkedIn and I saw that you have spent the majority of your career in digital marketing. So why, or like, what did you do to make this leap into being focused on ABM?

Ryan Elmiger: Well, that’s a really great question. So, digital marketing in marketing in this day and age, digital marketing is a critical aspect of most marketers and what they do. But if you think about account-based marketing, you really need that digital marketing aspect too for a few things. One to really gain insights. So a lot of the work we do you think about the tech stack that companies invest in, you leverage that technology to gain insights. So you build your target segment. You are really capturing and learning what that segment is doing, their activity, what sites they’re visiting, what’s important to them.

Ryan Elmiger: And so, really it’s kind of building that framework from the beginning, researching your customer. On top of that, technology. And again, the growth over the last 10 to 15 years in the tech options, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of options that have been created and used allow us to hyper-personalize our work, right?

Ryan Elmiger: So we’re better able to target. We’re better able to personalize that work and we’re better able to measure the impact of that work. So we’re able to kind of see that activity engagement within accounts. So it’s really truly having that technology is central for the work that we do to get just at a deeper level within an account.

Tessa Burg: If someone wanted to start expanding their digital marketing program and their tools. So what they’re doing on their website or with their content, are there any resources or trainings that you would recommend that they take so that they can more easily prioritize? Okay, this is how I would begin to think about and roll out an ABM program.

Ryan Elmiger: Okay, so I think when we think about account-based marketing, there’s a variety for the methodology behind account-based marketing, for example, there’s SiriusDecisions. SiriusDecisions as an organization that does a lot of training around that ABM methodology at ServiceNow, we follow what we call the ITSMA Framework.

Ryan Elmiger: Really what that does is that builds, that helps us build an understanding of how really from beginning, understanding the customer, creating those workshops, understanding those imperatives, creating and building a team internally to work with that organization and then executing and going to market and then measuring, and making sure you understand the impact.

Ryan Elmiger: Now, if you really think about, you kind of wanna separate the methodology and then the tech stack and the tools, right? So the methodology is important to understand because the technology works within that process, if that makes sense.

Ryan Elmiger: So what’s absolutely incredible is today you have different software solutions. At a prior company, we use 6sense, which is an account-based marketing software platform that really kinds, you know, pulls all of that together, allows you to build segments, allows you to do outreach through advertising and social platforms and personalization.

Ryan Elmiger: And then you think of Demandbase and companies like that, that do very similar work, but they’ve really kind of embraced the account based marketing movement and have built software and technology that really builds all those pieces and parts that we as ABMers look for when building programs.

Ryan Elmiger: So what’s nice about it is all of those companies build a lot of their own training and they deliver their thought leadership to do the work that we do. And then you can have a choice to do it outside of those programs. Sometimes those are cost-prohibitive. So for an organization to kind of adopt the software that size, but you can still do similar work, you have to design your tech stack around it if that makes sense. Did that answer your question, Tessa, as far as kinda the training?

Tessa Burg: So if I visit like 6senses website or Demandbase, is it similar to like a HubSpot where they have free training or videos or content available?

Ryan Elmiger: They do.

Tessa Burg: Oh, that’s awesome.

Ryan Elmiger: Yeah, they absolutely do. I mean, so, but if you think of like, you know, everyone is trying to kind of pull together and kind of expand their solutions so that they can be more robust and compete with some of these larger companies that are pulling together some of these capabilities, but of course. Many of them are really trying to position themselves as thought leaders in the ABM space and helping companies start to build up their ABM battle kit so they can really kind of frame it up in an organization and set themselves up for success. So, yeah, you’ll see that a lot with a lot of these companies.

Tessa Burg: So you mentioned setting up for success and the title of this podcast is Lead(er) Generation.” How does ABM increase either the quality and or the quantity of leads that truly fit the business above and beyond what marketers could expect from doing, the mix of earned and owned media through social and paid search and sort of our normal optimization channels?

Ryan Elmiger: You know, that is another great question. If you really go back to what I said earlier in this session, if you think about fishing with the spear, so the idea is that you’re consistently researching and understanding the accounts that you’re trying to target and the personas within those accounts that you’re trying to target.

Ryan Elmiger: And then on top of that, when you get to a one-to-one level, you’re going even deeper, you’re going beyond persona and you’re going to individuals.

Ryan Elmiger: So what you’re really trying to do is unpack all of those things, those triggers that you know that account is going to have, you’re speaking directly to them. It’s that personalization that is absolutely critical, so if that makes sense.

Ryan Elmiger: So again, you’re personalizing your content based on the research that you’ve done. And then you’re using technology in a way when you think of like leveraging dynamic fields and creating custom landing pages for a customer. So when they come, they see their logo, they see their problem, they see their questions being answered right out of the gate. They’re not general. And I always say, ABMers kind of look from that outside-in perspective.

Ryan Elmiger: A lot of companies today, they’ve got their product, they design their strategy around kind of elevating that product out to market in their way, what they wanna say to that customer where ABM, it doesn’t matter. We care about what the customer cares about. That is absolutely critical.

Ryan Elmiger: Even at ServiceNow, when a conversation comes up that says, hey, I’ve got this product, I wanna put out to market. We say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, is it aligned to the customer imperatives that we know? We’re trying to hit? And those problems that we’re trying to hit? If that’s the case, we will consider that as part of our program. So it’s that deeper level of personalization Tessa.

Tessa Burg: So you’ve hit a few points in there. It’s a program, it has hyper-personalized content. Can you walk us through what an example might look like of what type of content am I seeing and where? And how do you kind of bring that account down to like purchase consideration?

Ryan Elmiger: Got it, got it. Well, it just depends on the goal of the ABM program, what you’re trying to do. So I’m gonna give you a good example of what we just had recently done for the army.

Ryan Elmiger: So for the army, we are fortunate that the army is very transparent on their social channels. They talk about their digital initiatives and their digital strategies and the CIO of the army, Dr. Iyer had published what he called his digital transformation strategy. He put that on and put that out there for the world to see on where he’s going. And that is basically his roadmap for success in the coming years.

Ryan Elmiger: What we did is we took that digital transformation strategy, we exported that, we got our team together internally. We took a look at that strategy and we aligned page-by-page, how ServiceNow can solve the problem that they outlined in their digital strategy. We took that and created an annotated document that really you could pull up. You could take a look at that side-by-side, review that strategy, see how ServiceNow could solve that problem. We hosted that content on our custom landing page for the army. Then we took that content and we of course used all of our channels that are at our disposal that really we know where they are. We leverage that content in a variety of media outlets. We email that content through our sales development representatives, that content is used in meetings and conversations with Dr. Iyer’s entire leadership team. And we use it on our social platform.

Ryan Elmiger: So, basically all of Dr. Iyer’s leadership team can take a look at that and say, wait a minute, they didn’t just send me out, ServiceNow what they do, feature/benefit blast. They understood me. They actually took something I published, they’re shaping it, they’re responding to it, and they’re telling me how they can do it.

Ryan Elmiger: And I just heard yesterday, there was another CIO within the army that saw that content specifically in a presentation. And he said, “Wow, you guys are almost doing my job for me. “I can dissect this upon adoption of ServiceNow, “and I can take that up to the CIO as part of my reporting.”

Ryan Elmiger: So the idea is relationships. So we say in our ABM world is reputation, relationships and revenue. So it’s not all just about revenue. It’s those three Rs that we really focus on. So it depends on the strategy that we’re going after, and that’s how we position ourselves. Does that make sense?

Tessa Burg: It definitely makes sense. And I love that you bring up the concept of these personalized landing pages. I know that one pushback that we get from clients is they don’t want to junk up the site with landing pages. They don’t wanna overspend in content. And I mean, the example you gave is like hyper-personalized content for what is a very, very large account though.

Tessa Burg: So if I’m a business that is selling through major distributors, it makes sense that I would invest that amount of time and that influence. But where do you find that balance of creating a landing page? Can people get to it? Is it navigable? How do they find it? And then going to that level of personalization, do you feel like it’s, like how do you make sure it’s not too much work? I feel like there might be dollar signs going off in people’s heads right now, like, oh, I’m creating landing pages. I’m creating assets that can be used in a presentation. So how do you balance that?

Ryan Elmiger: Well, I think, I mean, really it is a strategy that I think most businesses they really need to think through. And all too often, we try to throw too much at our customers and we don’t archive quick enough. Meaning we will create a page with everything that we feel talks to its subject.

Ryan Elmiger: I mean, if you think about, when we go to Google and we need an answer, how much time do we spend on the fourth and the fifth and the sixth page, right? Not much. We spend time on the first three or four articles that come up. Maybe we skim over the ads a little bit, but we hit the first two or three things that answer our question.

Ryan Elmiger: So when you think about the content that you’re trying to put out to the market, don’t dump it all at once, be thoughtful and strategic about how you put that into the market. Give ’em a little bit at a time, make sure there’s hero assets that are served up, that are relevant for the conversations they are having at that moment in time. And don’t be afraid to let other stuff go or sunset because I heard it a long time ago, we used to use this phrase that, you know, it’s a bed of nails analogy, right?

Ryan Elmiger: So if you, and a lot of us marketers hear that, if we give our customers too much at once, at all times at the wrong time, it’s like laying out a bed of nails, nothing penetrates, right? But you give ’em one, two or three, that are really critical at that point in time, your message gets through.

Tessa Burg: And so you’re using research to align that content to relevancy. Like it’s all about, you know, you saw that on their social media account and then how quickly can you respond? What is that time from I saw the problem or the issue or the initiative and vision of a client to I now have content up that response to it? Like, what’s that process look like? And how long does that take?

Ryan Elmiger: That’s a great point. So, I wish I could say it in a different way. It is a balance.

Ryan Elmiger: So in our ABM process, we do have a workshop that we do at the beginning of the campaign. Our workshops can take six, eight weeks, you know, which has a variety of channels. You interview customers, you do secondary research, you do third-party reaching. You talk to your sales teams, your sales reps, you talk to a variety of folks to really kind of land on those imperatives.

Ryan Elmiger: And those really are those kind of pillars of what the organization is trying to accomplish, and that’s our strategic plan for the year. That’s what we look at on a one-to-few or a cluster side, and when we build a plan and towards that.

Ryan Elmiger: But what that does, if you think about it, if we build a program that’s 12 to 16 months in duration, we all know businesses. We’ve all been in businesses that those plans are made to change, right? Plans are made to change.

Ryan Elmiger: So ideally you have those plans that will kind of carry out throughout the organization. And you really kind of hit that mark, but you constantly, every four to six weeks have to come together and really make sure that the account is still on target with what you set yourself up in the beginning to hit.

Ryan Elmiger: In a lot of cases, and we are installing this practice. We’re testing that in the army right now, we’re doing quarterly pivot calls, where we pull all the sales teams together. We talk about the roadmap that we’ve planned, what we have intended for the account coming up. And we talk about any thematic areas that have popped up in conversations that we need to dig deeper in. And if we have to pivot to really meet the customer where we are, we do that. We figure out a way to shift our budget and shift our strategy so we can really hit the customer where they are.

Tessa Burg: So you’re not solving big problems. I mean, you’re not solving small problems, you’re solving majorly big problems. So it’s not like you just see someone has an issue, you’re seeing they have a strategic vision. And we know what the challenges are to meet that vision and creating content around that. Tell me a little bit how you measure the success of those initiatives. You said that every four to six weeks you’re coming together, what metrics are you looking at to say, here’s what resonated, here’s what didn’t?

Ryan Elmiger: Yeah, you know, measurement is critical. And when you go back to technology and you think about, set up your metrics for success in the beginning of the campaign, what ultimately are you trying to measure? You have some qualitative and quantitative parts of that that come through, right? But the technology allows us to not only capture engagement.

Ryan Elmiger: So for example, within the account, we’ve identified key stakeholders that we’re trying to reach, right? The technology that we leverage allows us to track the engagement of those individuals within that account, with that content that we have created, right? So there is that very specific engagement measurement.

Ryan Elmiger: Then you talk about obviously we don’t close. We’re not on our side. On the marketing side, our sales team, they take the ball down the field from the last quarter of the field. So opportunities created, net new conversations that have come as far as that outreach, deals that have moved quicker with more confidence. Those are all, you gotta capture those in a variety of forms.

Ryan Elmiger: And again, some of it is done by data, and some of it is anecdotal through conversations with your sales team. But what I love about the ABM practice is we are in a constant cadence with our sales partners. We are constantly talking about the accounts that we’ve targeted. We constantly talk about the content that we’ve created and how it’s being used, right? So you’re constantly measuring how you are moving the needle within the account, again, reputation. Reputation, revenue, and relationships. And how are we moving those needles forward.

Tessa Burg: Some of what you’re describing sounds a little bit like almost insight sales. Do you leverage insight sales teams or how is sort of that constant communication and alignment different than what you would see in insight sales team do at an organization?

Ryan Elmiger: You know, what I love about the ABM practice is you do feel like you’re part of the sales organization to go to your question about using insight sales. We have sales development reps at ServiceNow. And so if you think about field reps, so SDR is an insight sales, you’ve got, they’re pretty close in a lot of ways, right? But if you think of your field reps, your field reps are busy. They’re out meeting with customers, they’ve got reports and quote at a meeting, they’re closing deals. They’re doing all, but those SDR and the insight sales side, I mean, they’re typically at their desk, right? They’re not in cars, not out. They’re a phenomenal partner in this entire process of taking that message and making sure it hits that audience that you’re trying to reach.

Ryan Elmiger: And so the strategy is pulling, making sure that team, sales and marketing are not working in separate funnels. You know, they’re not working in silos, but that messaging that you’re bringing to market is consistent.

Ryan Elmiger: You know, I was really excited this past week. We had our quarterly federal team meeting, and it was so nice to see our vice president of federal marketing pull up the message, the account-based marketing program and message that we’ve created and really echoed how that unity and that uniform message is going to market. So they’re not working separate, we’re working together. We’re all one team, which is what makes ABM so powerful.

Tessa Burg: Yeah, I mean, that’s like the dream company.

Ryan Elmiger: It is, it is. And I think marketing organizations, I think you say kind of sales and marketing are kind of cats and dogs at times, you got that brother-sister relationship. We gotta kind of come together.

Ryan Elmiger: In an ABM front, there’s this empathy on sales that we’ve just learned them. We know how they tick. We know what they’re, we’re in all their team meetings and their conversations. We hear their world. And I encourage marketers. I always encourage marketers that don’t have regular conversations with their sales team and aren’t invited to those sales calls to talk about the accounts, to listen-in and understand that world of the sales team and how they’re engaging with the accounts. Because there often is that disconnect that we see as marketers if we don’t do that. We create messaging that doesn’t resonate. We recreate tools that they don’t use. We use technology in a way that can disrupt a deal. You know, that’s already in motion that we didn’t even know was going. So I think coming together as sales and marketing is one of the most critical things you can do, so.

Tessa Burg: I agree, and that is such a great suggestion to have marketers be a part of that process and just listen, ’cause research done in isolation definitely contributes to the disconnect. So you mentioned earlier that insight sales is one of your favorite channels for delivering that perfect message. Do you have any other favorite channels that you’ve seen be really successful at reaching the right person with the right message?

Ryan Elmiger: You know, it’s such a tough answer. I mean, when you really have a sales team engaging in that, they’re my favorite channel to be honest with you, because when they are bought in on the work that you’re doing and the content that you’re creating and they are able to use that as part of their world, I mean, they’re the front lines, they’re in these conversations with customer every day.

Ryan Elmiger: Now, so that’s, I mean, when it comes to current accounts and accounts that we own, and we work with right now in a current state that we’re trying to expand or grow or retain, depending on, sales is my favorite channel.

Ryan Elmiger: But when you think about net new especially, when you think about white space, when you turn that or green fields, whatever you wanna call it. I mean, I’m not an email, I struggle with, you know, and today’s it’s so oversaturated in so many ways, not saying it doesn’t have its purpose and its role, you know, it’s important, but diversifying, like if you think about social media, we’re starting to test things on the ABM front where we’re using InMail and we’re thinking conversational ads, for example, and really using we’re gonna be testing those. We’re just building that now.

Ryan Elmiger: So I don’t have as much at ServiceNow, I don’t know what the metrics are just yet, but I’m excited about it because it’s been proven that’s really, it kind of breaks through and it’s conversational in nature, it’s personalized, it fits the ABM kind of mold and model that we try to shoot for. So we’re really excited about I know there’s been success there in our business. I haven’t, I’m about six months in here at ServiceNow, but it is again, think of how to leverage that LinkedIn network. You know what I mean? And instead of just throwing an ad out there, think about how to use that messaging within the platform and personalizing at a deeper level. So that’s one of my favorites.

Ryan Elmiger: That was a really long-winded answer to get where you were going, but I think they all have their purpose, like you have to change things up. I mean, direct mail. I mean, whoever thought direct mails coming back in so many ways, you know what I mean? But it does. Is there a digital aspect to that? Absolutely, I mean, one of, when you think about tools like in a previous role, we had a direct mail platform called postal.io. Postal.io was synced up with all the CRMs that was able to deploy, got engagement. You’ve got all that technology that you can embed within a print piece and bring back in to show engagement within a stakeholder. You know, the direct mail is not just an old way of doing things there’s digital aspects too to that tool. So diversify is what I’m trying to say, but make sure it’s personal. Make sure it’s personalized.

Tessa Burg: So there’s this concept of “Create Once, “Publish Everywhere” hence you have, when we’re thinking about diversifying our channels and using that content, do you have a favorite kind of content type that you’ve seen resonate really well with your target accounts or be the content type that you see sales teams kind of gravitate towards the most that they wanna use, that they know will really help move an account closer to purchase?

Ryan Elmiger: I’m a video fan. Let’s just put it that way. I think humans are naturally a little bit lazy and I think a video just, it really encapsulates. If it’s done right, if the messaging spot on, and we gotta think about the duration of that. But if you really sit down with as cheesy as infomercials can be at times, you know, for whatever reason you hang in there for that three to five to seven minutes, that they really go through their bit.

Ryan Elmiger: And, you know, if you really think about some of the video production and work that you do, they’re have a high energy, they keep you engaged. They’re identifying problems that we have, you wouldn’t hang in there if you didn’t, but I’m a big video fan. I think that you can use that in a variety of ways, it can be delivered in a variety of platforms, so it’s flexible and it tells a story very quick in your way. So you don’t leave as much open for interpretation.

Tessa Burg: No, that’s fantastic. I also really like videos. We were just watching one on different mechanisms you can use in social for targeting and along the lines of LinkedIn. I don’t know if you looked at LinkedIn newsletters?

Ryan Elmiger: I haven’t spent a whole lot of time on LinkedIn newsletters, but I should sounds like, right?

Tessa Burg: Yes. Yeah, it’s very interesting ’cause it kind of blends email and InMail and your LinkedIn network together, but it also gives you the opportunity to get more visibility with people you haven’t met yet.

Ryan Elmiger: Oh, interesting.

Tessa Burg: Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Elmiger: Fantastic, fantastic.

Tessa Burg: Yeah, and that’s one where I feel like we–

Ryan Elmiger: Oh yeah, I can write that down right now, how’s that?

Tessa Burg: Yeah, right it sound. When you link back to that video content. You know, again, so you’re bringing them from a place in the networks to a place where you now you’re telling your story your way that could we lead to some interesting paths, which is actually my next question. So when we think about scoring, how does that happen in an ABM program? Scoring and identifying the quality of the leads?

Ryan Elmiger: The leads or the… So you’re talking more kind of on the backside once you’ve engaged versus on the front side and selection. Is that what you’re just to be?

Tessa Burg: I guess I was thinking maybe ’cause I was thinking from the standpoint of the newsletters, if you got introduced to someone new and they did come in, like how do you vet if they’re the right fit for your program or do you put them somewhere else? Like, do they go to a different program?

Ryan Elmiger: Oh, that’s a, yeah. I mean scoring, ah! Boy that I feel like I could talk about this topic for days. So I mean, every business has to look at, you know, when they’re really kind of pulling that scoring model together, especially once there’s engagement, you really gotta really think hard. I mean, so many salespeople will sit there and say, “We get so much thrown over the fence.” I mean, I’ve heard that three times this week so much has that’s been thrown over the fence that has been scored. You know, that really to me isn’t relevant. It’s not ready, it’s not warm. It’s not ready to engage within my opinion.

Ryan Elmiger: So you really gotta set that up on the front side. I mean, I’d tell you ServiceNow’s marketing organization is top notch. I haven’t seen anything like it in my professional career. It’s wonderful.

Ryan Elmiger: But definitely on the front side again, when you talk about that sales alignment, it’s really talking about what do we consider as a sales qualified or a marketing qualified? Marketing qualified is for marketing to have that conversation of what do we wanna kick over the fence and what do we want to keep recirculating in that marketing engine to get them to a warm enough level?

Ryan Elmiger: But sales folks, I mean, they know. I mean, when they wanna trial, they wanna demo, they wanna sample, they wanna conversation. It’s really as simple as that, they wanna quote that’s ready, you know? Yeah, but just because they downloaded a white paper, that shouldn’t be something that a salesperson gets served over their direction, right. That is a marketing qualified, they’re showing intent, they’re showing engagement. So like keep ’em on the hook until they’re at a point where they wanna have a conversation. So that makes sense? That’s better?

Tessa Burg: Yeah.

Ryan Elmiger: I think it’s that one of the biggest challenges that marketing organizations, their leadership from bottom-up is how many leads have you generated, right? But sometimes sales qualified leads are less, but if they’re better, there’s more of a narrative that goes with them. Just showing a volume of crappy leads doesn’t serve an organization really well.

Tessa Burg: No, no, it does not.

Ryan Elmiger: Right.

Tessa Burg: Yeah. So this has been full of just juicy little nuggets. So I really appreciate you coming onto the show and taking the time to talk about Enterprise ABM. Before we go, if people wanted to get in touch with you, where could they find you?

Ryan Elmiger: Best place to go is LinkedIn, definitely just search Ryan Elmiger on LinkedIn, look for this face here. I’m right on screen. But that is the best place to reach me if you’d have any questions. I love these types of conversations. We as marketers, we’re a tight knit network and we need to help each other unless you’re a competitor. That’s we won’t talk to you then, but no. Okay, but we’re all trying to help each other get smarter and better what we do because at the end of the day, I think we’re trying to help evolve marketing and again, the digital space, it changes every other day. So, if you’re helping each other understand those tools and new tools that have come out and new resources and how you’re using them, I think us sharing is a critical thing, so.

Tessa Burg: Well, thank you very much, Ryan. I know for myself, I’m very excited to pitch the idea of doing an ABM workshop internally and with our clients, because that sounds like such a great way just to kick off that alignment relationship and really dig deep into how are we solving our target audience’s problems and what does that personalized approach to content delivery look like? So.

Ryan Elmiger: Appreciated, absolutely.

Tessa Burg: Yeah.

Ryan Elmiger: That’s exciting. It’s exciting. I love hearing it because, again, I think ABM is one of them most misunderstood terms. I think, you know, folks, that certain marketing organizations say, yeah, we do ABM. Well, just because you’re marketing to an account, doesn’t mean that’s account, it’s marketing. The practice, it’s a methodology, it truly is. So, if I put a pitch out there for ITSMA, I think they’re one of the best organizations. They pretty much coined the ABM terminology. Just look ’em up, they’ve got a host full of resources. They’ve got courses. They’ve got incredible group to get a true ABM program stood up within an organization.

Tessa Burg: That’s fantastic. So it’s ITSMA.

Ryan Elmiger: ITSMA, you got it.

Tessa Burg: What does it stand for?

Ryan Elmiger: Oh my goodness. I knew you were gonna probably ask that question, so I fail that one, but you know, it has a whole, it has something that goes with it, but I don’t know that either. We just all know it’s ITSMA.

Tessa Burg: People can Google it.

Ryan Elmiger: Long time, they’re incredible.

Tessa Burg: Perfect. Well, thank you, Ryan. And for everyone else, if you wanna hear more episodes from “Leader Generation” visit Tenlo.com, click on podcasts. The transcript of this episode will be there. So you can see all the resources that Ryan mentioned today, including ITSMA and there’s ABM and digital marketing episodes at Tenlo.com. All right, thanks for the conversation, Ryan. I hope we get to chat again soon.

Ryan Elmiger: All right, thank you, Tessa.