Interview With Rhonda Wunderlin

hi this is Bob Samuels founder tech
connector tech connector is a
marketplace and campaign manager
platform of Best of Breed account based
marketing lead generation solutions
we’ve partnered with the serious
decision summit to bring you wisdom from
leading account based marketing thought
leaders to that end I’m happy to
introduce you to Ron dear Wunderland
senior vice president of performance
marketing at Quest X a leading b2b
publisher ron has been able to utilize
her experience across marketing sales
and finance to implement best practices
solutions Rhonda it’s a pleasure to
speak with you how are you today doing
great thanks for spending some time with
me excellent so we’re at serious
decisions and it’s one of my favorite
events and I get to meet a lot of cool
people with fun ideas and and ABM is the
big topic of the day and Rhonda’s a you
know she’s got a great background and
b2b marketing and Rhonda could you share
a little bit about your background and
what you your background about ABM in
particular yeah sure I think you know
when you say ABM it’s it’s that that
name that everyone’s talking about but
really account based selling has been
around since gosh Miller Heiman
wrote strategic selling 34 years ago and
I think that you know when you look at
all the technology that’s coming out and
everybody is using that term it’s really
a part of marketing modern marketing
whatever you want to call it you know we
went from Legion to demand gen to modern
marketing and I think that when you know
I look at my background and the clients
I’ve worked with I did a lot of
consulting during my elico days working
with clients and then now that I’ve been
probably for the last eight years
working in media all of our clients that
we worked with
you know it has been a transition from
that you know I need leads to I need
quality leads to I need Bant
leads and and even as recently as a year
or two ago we had clients saying they
want advant leads and how do you
actually get that information right yes
somebody on a form and they’re never
gonna give you the right data so I think
there’s a term that I heard gosh it’s
probably been a couple of years ago I
know that serious decisions did a
presentation I tech exchange in 2017 but
it’s the term fire which is fit which is
part of you know I guess part of what
ban is is it’s the right fit but also
you know including intent and recency
and engagement and I think I think that
those four things have really influenced
how we’re able to deliver on what we
call ABM today that makes sense so
instead of bad fire seems to be a we
have in today what’s I think what’s
really changed from back in the you know
Miller Heiman strategic selling days is
that we have that technology the tech
stack the platforms that help us deliver
it we have partners like Bambara Bambara
who can you know through third party
data really start to measure intent and
surge as they call it surge information
and I think back when marketing you know
one of the kind of fundamental
foundational layers of being able to
deliver on it is sales and marketing
alignment and I think that you know we
saw with marketing automation launched
15 years ago
has it been longer my aging myself you
know we really saw the need for sales
and marketing to align for marketing to
be accountable for revenue for BTR’s to
be basically measured by you know deals
that close not just number of leads they
pass over so I think having that
foundation of sales and marketing
alignment have
the technology to help deliver on fire
we’ll call it and and then also with you
know AI and predictive analytics really
being able to determine what are those
targeted accounts and what are the you
know the individuals and those companies
that are making the buying decisions or
make up the buying team it makes sense
so it’s it’s combining a lot of
different types of technology and and
segmentation figuring out who to reach
how to reach them then you have all
different personas I guess the further
buying committee it’s not just one
person you’re reaching out to right
which you know is part of the challenge
but again with our thousands of new
technologies that come in you know your
ability to map-21 develop and deliver
content based on personas that are part
of the buying committee and then be able
to track through engagement not just on
you know with your own content and your
own kind of marketing campaigns but
what’s engagement on those topics off
your site and with other organizations
to really hone in on who’s in that kind
of buying timeframe so that sales can
really prioritize who they are engaging
with make sense so combining your first
party information about the person as
and then combining what they’re doing
outside your scope it’s a great
combination and and people are like I
said people are demanding more and so
you just have to be very very you got to
be better than what’s out there so it’s
always a challenge and it’s always you
need to be keep getting better and
better with it with the targeting and
the messaging and and so forth so it’s
it’s an exciting time worried right now
I also think you know there’s still a
lot of education needed I mean there’s
certainly the you know forerunners you
know the first people who adopted
marketing automation
you know first clients initial clients
of demand base when ABM started becoming
a thing but there’s still there’s a lot
of organizations and you know in various
industries that are still kind of
looking for just for leads just for
quantity so I think you know education
is kind of key to educating it’s a good
point and and a lot of people think they
can just go buy an ABM system and then
there they go they’re ready to go and
they’ve got their ABM but it’s not so
easy and it’s not I mean and it seems
like ABM is more of a philosophy or its
it should be in all campaigns it’s all
it’s just the way to reach out and
target the companies than the accounts
that have the most perspective success I
think it you know it definitely has
become more sophisticated I mean back
again you know in my ellika days 15
years ago or so when we talked to
clients it was really moving them
through this journey of you know going
from batch and blast to and truly the
second tier was to be more targeted by
account or industry you know like we’re
going to talk to these industries
differently than we talked to these
other industries about our value
proposition but then to get to account
based to one-on-one so I still believe I
mean I know and b2b there is a buying
committee and you are selling to an
account and being able to aggregate the
engagement across and the individuals
within an account can tell you kind of
their I guess where they are in the
buying process but you’re still mark in
the end you’re still marketing to
individuals and being able to you know
obtain that data and be relevant based
on what we were previously talking about
by persona whether it’s a you know
decision maker a stake holder and
influence her I think is key and with
today’s technology I think we’re more
able to deliver on that makes sense and
I know quest-x you’re dealing with a lot
of different industries and different
sorts of people in those industries are
you finding different industries are
embracing ABM more than others that you
have different approaches for each each
type of industry yeah I think
it’s the approach in their appetite for
for spending money on the approach so
definitely you know are more
sophisticated industries healthcare
biotech Pharma telecom those those
industries and large companies are very
focused on basically getting leads who
fit that fire definition you know that
they’re engaged that they’re you know
their intent behavior is reflective of
where they are in a decision-making
process I think some of some of the
blant book brands excuse me are
properties that are slower to adopt or
you know those like health care I’m
sorry not health care like beauty and
spa travel hospitality those are just a
little bit slower to kind of get on the
bandwagon now just standpoint at the
least it makes sense so so what kind of
interesting things have you seen that
that clients are doing or what you’re
doing for clients as far as ABM and what
any successes that you can share I think
yeah some of our successes primarily
have been in telecom and I think in in
our kind of electronics group that that
is growing and it’s that they’re they’re
really demanding specific job types and
job levels and specific accounts that
they’re targeting to support their ABM
strategy and so one of the things were
able to bring to the table is you know
with our audience who’s engaged with our
editorial content we have that first
party data on kind of what their needs
and desires are and what topics they’re
interested in and so we can extend kind
of our advertisers on behalf of our
advertisers we can extend our reach off
of our website through account based
marketing campaigns but by integrating
that first party in third-party data and
identifying look-alikes and
and overlaying that intent data on there
to prioritize who’s in market that makes
sense very cool so what kind of you
mentioned BOM Bora any other
technologies that you’ve seen that are
very helpful in the ABM process because
you’ve also mentioned some data
companies and contacts and so forth well
actually net line we are using that line
to for some account based campaigns that
have proven to be very successful and
then we’re working very closely with
adaptive and live ramp
you know adaptive to really make sure
that we don’t waste money on our ABM
campaigns so some of you know by really
closely monitoring the campaign as it’s
running and optimizing it has really
proven to be effective so for example we
may be spending a lot of money in
getting a lot of impressions but maybe
the impressions from IBM aren’t
converting so we’ll remove that from the
campaign and focus on some of the other
companies and and target you know
impressions there that are actually
clicking through and converting so we’re
doing a lot of that kind of work with
adaptive and then with live ramp pushing
out on like Instagram and Facebook
campaigns that are really driving
engagement with their own audience
that’s interesting so you’re getting
into multi-channel reach for you’re not
just limiting to just your site I think
you know that is in the end I think what
everybody talks about it but really key
to success is that customer experience
in making sure that you’re you know at
those different points that your
prospects in our case our audience where
they’re engaging and that you provide
that consistent you know look and feel
and they know that oh this was you know
it’s just on their site and and have
that like integrated customer experience
I think it’s really key so it’s kind of
a seamless seamless approach they they
get used to the look and feel of the
beautiful I mean we have seen over and
over again that by having that you know
getting consistent integrated customer
experience it does increase conversions
I’m you know at different points based
on where people are engaging so I guess
it when you have the multi-touch like
that it gets to be tricky as far as
which touch made the difference so as
far as measuring an attribution so forth
do you do you try to get into
attribution with multi-touch like that
you know we don’t because most of the
work we’re doing at least with my team
is on behalf of our clients on sponsors
we do really track and monitor source
like lead source and engagement so we
know where to focus our efforts what
type you know what profiles are
responding on what channels and where we
kind of put more effort based on who
we’re targeting so it’s more kind of
like that versus attribution back to
revenue make sense so when one last
thought is so crystal ball if you were
to picture crystal ball had on where do
you see a BM the things have happened I
mean the last ten years or five years
it’s been it’s so different now what’s
it gonna look like in a year what take a
look like in five years from now gosh I
wish I had a crystal ball I mean if you
just look back over the tent at like
last ten years and the changes that
we’ve seen across sales and marketing
it’s pretty much mind-blowing to me so
it’s so hard to say I do think you know
everybody who talks my day that’s the
other hot topic in the last five years
you know big data small data but I do I
do think probably more integration
across platforms more automation you
know right now I think it’s a little bit
more heavy lifting to overlay that
engagement and intent data so I see kind
of more real-time
access to insights that really drive the
ability to optimize campaigns in the
next couple of years as far as five
years I can’t really say it’s not a fair
question it’s just it’s gonna be
different that’s for sure and it’s not
going away I mean people need need leads
they they want it they’re gonna the more
they can the more they can the more
they’re gonna be asking for very
specific leaves very specific people
very specific timeframe so you got to be
ahead of all that so that’s always a
challenge I guess yeah and I would
probably just say in closing I think you
know we on the receiving end like when
we ourselves get marketed to I think for
us it’s gonna be you know and therefore
for when we’re marketing to our
prospects or audience it’s going to be
really important to be relevant
I heard actually Tribble a Oh in a
luncheon I went to a few years ago used
the word compel event I thought it was
brilliant because we always talk about
relevancy relevancy but it also has to
be compelling it has to be relevant to
me at the time based on where I am in my
decision-making process so yeah I like
that concept compel of it’s compelling
and it’s relevant it’s beautiful
wonderful any and the other thoughts
it’s been it’s it’s I appreciate your
sharing and so if we missed anything now
is the time otherwise I appreciate your
your time now I think I’ve said plenty
but thank you again for for having me on
your on your little podcast thank you
it’s a pleasure and I look forward to
talking again soon take care thanks bye