Evolving Nurture Strategies

Evolving Nurture Strategies

Join Claire Pitman-Massie and Hannah Maltby as they explore key trends in the B2B marketing landscape, specifically focusing on the evolution of nurturing strategies.

Guests

Hannah Maltby, Head of Campaigns and ABM at The Access Group

Claire Pitman-Massie, Vice President of Field and Digital Marketing, EMEA for ForgeRock

Tom Gatten - [00:00 - 00:07]

let's begin by doing a, doing some introductions. So Claire, perhaps you would start. Please just give us a sentence on yourself.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [00:07 - 00:24]

Yeah, sure. So I'm Claire Pitman Massey, and I am the vice president of Field Digital and Channel Marketing for Aimia at forgerock. And we are an identity and access management provider.

Tom Gatten - [00:24 - 00:29]

Thank you very much. Claire Hanna. Perhaps you would introduce yourself. Yeah.

Hannah Maltby - [00:29 - 00:41]

So I'm Hannah Maltby, and I'm currently the head of campaigns and ABM at Redgate Software, which provides database solutions for IT professionals.

Tom Gatten - [00:41 - 02:31]

Thank you. And my name is Tom Gatton and I'm the founder and chief executive at Ads Act, a new B2B ad platform. So today we're going to be discussing the evolving nature of nurture as a complex, complex sentence to say. So we're going to be talking about how nurture used to be in B2B, how it might be changing at the moment, and what nurture is going to look like in five years time. Um, of course nurture is a broad term and what we're describing is what happens to someone once we've had some sort of interaction with them, not defining the total addressable market, not looking at an ICP or running ad campaigns to a broad audiences that we think are a good fit, but we don't know yet. This is people that have had some sort of interaction but are clearly not yet sales. Um, within that there of course encompasses human interactions, what the sales team do, what the team might be doing. Um, and then also things that are purely controlled by marketing such as display advertising, retargeting on search or display. Email and pretty much every every other channel that we can describe. Account based marketing is also, I would argue, a sort of a subset of nurture because you're deciding in advance who you're going to be be targeting and then designing content and then deciding on the channels that you're going to be that you're going to be using or working in concert. So let's just kick off by talking about change how how nurture might be changing right now. So let me start with you, Hannah. How do you think in the course of your career, nurturing strategies have have changed?

Hannah Maltby - [02:31 - 03:31]

Yeah. So I think the key thing for me is to when I think of nurture, the role is really to drive engagement and drive urgency. And the key idea is we're top of mind, which means we're using the channels where people are spending their time and we're standing out, which means we're being creative. And I think traditionally those attributes were much more associated to B2C marketing and B2B B2C nurture tracks. But what we've seen kind of over time is a huge increase in different channels like influencer marketing or Reddit and YouTube rather than just LinkedIn. And then the whole kind of B2B doesn't have to be boring movement, which is really bridging the gap kind of on the creativity front.

Tom Gatten - [03:31 - 04:23]

Yeah. So when you say B to C has known this for a while. Are you I suppose you're talking about the concept that a B2C brand is super happy that that a person is engaging with related content even if they're not buying. So they might be quite happy that like Facebook for example, I mean, poor example because they're not selling to consumers but. In a way, they're delighted that someone's engaging with their content, even if they're not actually purchasing something directly from Facebook. And guess that's a bit related. You might be a B2B brand might now mean would say this is probably certainly still evolving. I agree. But there are certainly many B2B companies that would be measuring things like engagement from good fit prospects on things like Reddit community groups.

Hannah Maltby - [04:23 - 04:23]

Claire Pitman-Massie - [04:23 - 05:51]

Thanks, Hannah. And and add to that. And I think you're absolutely right. And I think the B2B certainly technology marketing spec has a lot that it can learn from B to C, I mean, their nurture, if you like, right the way through the sales cycle is around customer loyalty and retention. You know, they want people to go back to their brand and buy more. And I think that's where they've got it right. And I think from my own experience looking at nurture and I feel like it's it's always the afterthought, you know, we've we've marketeers have gone out and they've they've gathered up these amazing interactions or leads or mqls, whatever you label you want to put on it for the salespeople to follow up. And then if they're not quite ready, we go, Oh, we've got to put them in a nurture stream. And that nurture stream is very one dimensional, you know, sort of singular channel. And we don't think about the round. And I think, you know, has it has nurture developed and what are the lessons we can learn? I think we could we as technology marketeers could look towards the B2C market and go, mm, that's, that's good. Back to Hannah's point, creative, innovative, you know, multi-channel and, and all about driving that engagement and urgency. So I think there's a big opportunity there.

Tom Gatten - [05:51 - 06:37]

I think often we can learn a lot from luxury, especially within B2C. Yeah. As in as in luxury B2C, because they also have the challenge of wanting not to advertise to most people. And but then the people that they are targeting like a hotel will remember that or, you know, they will note down that you ate the green apples and you didn't eat the red apples. And so next time you come back, they'll only put green apples. You know, this is kind of literally nurture sort of from a food and water and kind of comfort point of view. But the level of information that a hotel might have on thousands of guests is probably better than most B2B companies have on thousands of prospects, even though the prospects are going to be spending.

Hannah Maltby - [06:37 - 07:31]

Although generally it also comes down to, you know, everyone talks about being customer first and the luxury market is a really good example where they have to be because the customer is paying a really high price point and all of that stuff. Um, but actually the reality is a lot of our nurture tracks are very much governed by what we want to say when we want to say it. And, and that's the consequence of that is this linear kind of model. And actually if you think about what the customer needs and when they need it, how you make sure it's relevant, then you, you, you get this kind of you're adding value in your nurture, first off. So it's going to be more effective. But also you're kind of evolving the way we nurture and that kind of moving from that linear model.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [07:31 - 08:12]

Yeah, and I totally agree. Hannah And I think, you know, this is where we've seen that evolution into ABM. And even what we do at Forge Rock is I call it one to fewer really bad grammar, but you know, not a one to few, but fewer, you know, a very tiny subset of maybe 5 or 6 like minded vertical based accounts that we want to to target. And I think that very that customer first really comes into play there. And and I've certainly scribbled down, right, I'm going to go away and look at luxury B2C brands and see how they do it and steal it from myself. I think that's that's key.

Tom Gatten - [08:12 - 08:15]

They have a similar sized audience.

Hannah Maltby - [08:15 - 09:14]

Yeah. I also wonder whether there's something in the decision making process is is quite different in in B2B like typically longer more structured bigger buying committee. Um and I think whereas previously B2B marketing and and therefore the nurture part of that used to be quite logical and feature benefit heavy B2C was more emotive. And I think that's really changing because when the decision making process is becoming more complex, logic isn't enough anymore. You need to think about the impact of that decision on the buyer's reputation. Does it give them more time with their kids? Does it reduce stress like? And I think that's where this whole kind of I know there's two camps of people. Some love the term, some hate it. But this kind of human to human marketing. Yes. And how do you reflect that in your nurturing?

Claire Pitman-Massie - [09:14 - 10:27]

And I think you bring up a really good point, Hannah. I mean, we've been looking at, you know, trying to get human to human or business to human more in our very top of the funnel, that very first touch engagement. And I don't feel that we've actually cascaded that through the through the the whole engagement cycle, you know, cradle to the grave. And I think, you know, bringing up that what they're actually needing and how it's going to benefit their business and the and the complexity of the buying cycle is key because you've got to focus on the business outcomes. And we and we say that everybody says it, but how many people actually do it? You know, if you if you were to strip back and put out a whole nurture campaign on a table, how much of that content would really be focused on what are the business outcomes that this organization wants to achieve? And and then taking that back into your messaging and taking that into your nurture and your top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel tactics, I think that's where you see that evolution coming through. And right not just for for nurture, but also right from first point engagement to customer engagement.

Tom Gatten - [10:27 - 11:00]

Maybe super interesting if we could find someone that had worked at the super luxury consumer end to talk about buying committees. Because I wonder if if you're selling something like a luxury yacht, you might not I don't know. You might not just be influencing one person, you might be selling to a family or even an extended family. And it would be really interesting to know whether they use a similar sort of, okay, this person is going to be driven by the numbers. You know, this is how efficient this is and this person is going to be driven by, I don't know, the little lace net curtains on this.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [11:00 - 11:05]

But I don't think you get lace curtains in a luxury yacht.

Tom Gatten - [11:05 - 11:06]

Net curtains.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [11:06 - 11:07]

To be fair.

Tom Gatten - [11:07 - 11:12]

I'm thinking of a Yeah. Floating tower block or something. Anyway, but I think that.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [11:12 - 11:25]

Would be interesting and that would be an, I think for all your listeners that would be an interesting podcast is, you know, how do we compare? Are there lessons to be learned from the luxury B2C market that we can take into the technology marketing that.

Tom Gatten - [11:25 - 12:10]

Maybe they do badly as well, but don't know, just reckon there's probably, you know, in areas with really big concentrations of luxury goods like northern Italy, for example, I reckon there's probably a lot of depth of experience about how to do that. We'll see. Um, okay. So let me, let me ask about practical anecdotes, shall we say. So we're thinking about what effect nurture can have on the full funnel approach. So basically we're talking about ultimately the bottom line. Um, can you give us any examples of really good or bad nurturing practices you've seen, either at your own organization or at someone else's that has therefore then significantly impacted conversion rates all the way through to revenue, etcetera?

Claire Pitman-Massie - [12:10 - 12:11]

Hannah Maltby - [12:11 - 13:05]

So I've got, um, I've got a good example to share. Um, so if we think about using nurture as a way of driving action, um, we, we run a lot of small scale Redgate hosted events, um, and we've used retargeting and nurturing to market to anyone who has either visited that event page and not registered or has visited content or engaged with content that's going to be covered in more detail at that event. And it's really helped drive signups. Um, and, and I think that's a really key part is that they've, they've done something, they've shown some intent. But you need to have this kind of urgency or this key milestone that they need to act upon. And, and a face to face event is a really good way of doing that. Yeah.

Tom Gatten - [13:05 - 14:07]

That that's really great isn't it? When they register and then don't attend. Yeah, it's a really good thing. Yeah. Because Yeah. As you say, they, they've got something very compelling which in this case is a time I was speaking with someone ages ago who ran a very large waste collection company and they created this get a quote online on their website. It was extremely compelling because people could in theory, go on there and immediately. But like the event, the point wasn't necessarily to get people all the way through to the end of that process. And they asked so many questions that at some point they would ask what percentage of your waste is cardboard or something and people wouldn't be able to answer, and then they'd drop out of the process. But for them, that was really great because it showed them what they knew, what they didn't know. They captured their email address at the beginning and then they knew exactly how to nurture them going forward. And as you say, if you can see that this person's registered for this event. And consume this share of this content, but not this. You kind of end up knowing what they know, what they don't know. Yeah.

Hannah Maltby - [14:07 - 14:50]

I think that's key. You've got to use. Obviously we kind of plan nurtures in a linear way and and that's the right approach because you can't plan for kind of every route and eventuality. Um, but you have to use your nurture track to understand how buyers are actually behaving across the funnel and where nurturing could have the most impact. And, and I think we get into a habit of we've created this nurture, it's ticking on in the background and everyone kind of leaves it to do its job. But really understanding kind of like reviewing it, testing it, pivoting it I think is really key.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [14:50 - 16:24]

Yeah. And I think I've got quite a nice example of that particular point, Hannah, where we went through a real refresh of our nurture at this time last year actually, and, and it was your classic email once a week or every ten days, you know, and it was click to download or visit this or that you know the call to action and and we hadn't really done quite a good investigation on it. I would say we hadn't really done our jobs properly. And so we just stripped it back and then we started to look at, you know, what were they engaging with, What content was it maybe an infographic at the first or second touch, but then maybe it was a longer paper at, you know, at the fourth or fifth touch. And then we we were able to use that intelligence, you know, So we, we played with it a bit and then we just took a step back after, you know, say 1690 days. I think we ran it for a quarter after 90 days, took a step back and said, okay, what does the data tell us? What, you know, we've actually built a nurture program that I think a number of years ago I read serious decisions, probably said it was about 9 to 12 touches. But actually what we're seeing with our, um, uh, engagement and our contacts and leads is that they don't they drop off. So we actually we're seeing the most engagement between touch one and touch four, and this is what they're consuming and they're consuming it here. And this is, you know, so you have to add that data intelligence on top and refine and refine. Exactly.

Tom Gatten - [16:24 - 16:28]

It's about. Yeah. What what have they done during that time? What have they. Yeah.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [16:28 - 17:09]

And that's constantly evolving because then you'll run it for a couple of months and you think, oh my goodness, I've got no to crack. Check us out, We're just brilliant. And then something will happen and it'll just go completely off the wall. So you have to go back and refine it again. You know, it's almost like a quarterly, maybe not a as much as a quarterly, maybe four months, five months period of cycle. Um, you know, and, and then review it. But again, segmentation comes into play and I know we're probably talk about that later, but that is really key, you know, are you sending the right stuff to the right people in the right way at the right time and encouraging them to engage with you as opposed to them just hitting delete?

Tom Gatten - [17:09 - 18:00]

Another thing that can really throw you off in designing nurture programs I think is having the wrong people in, in, in the nurture funnel, you know, so like if a if the sales funnel is like a human Gullit or whatever, if you put little poison, you know, pills in the top, then you might get really good at getting engagement from people that are not going to be your customers, you know, might refine and refine how to get people to engage and more and more engagement. But very often people don't want to say no, they don't want to unsubscribe. That would be rude. They don't want to say no to coming to an event that would be rude. You don't want to say no to a salesperson that wants to have a call because that would be rude. But then from the other side, you're seeing all this engagement and then people are dropping off at the end or somewhere. And you're thinking, well, and I should have been in at the top, I suppose. Yeah.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [18:00 - 19:42]

And that plays really strongly to your segmentation and your targeting, you know, and and that, you know, not everyone fits one nurture track. You've got to really think. And what we talked about earlier about, um, you know, how they're consuming your content. What they're interested in is a vertical message, right? Is a persona message, right? Is it, you know, the way that you're overlaying your multi-channel? Is that right? And I think that's an interesting area to, to discuss as well as part of nurture. I think historically it's just been email after email after email after email. And I think now it's time we can be inventive and innovative and look at multichannel and we we. Sorry. No, I was just going to say we did an experiment and my head of digital did an experiment a couple of months ago where we had had a content syndication program running very top of the funnel to to a particular set of accounts and personas that we wanted to engage with. So. Greenfield And, and so we find that when our internal sales team called them, they weren't quite ready. They were still self serving and, you know, self-educating. And so we then obviously set up, you know, a small nurture program to them. We ran that and it wasn't really quite engaging because it was email based, very linear. And then we overlaid social LinkedIn social targeting onto it with the same message and as they were receiving in the email and it just the conversion rate, I wouldn't say it went through the roof, but it dramatically increased. So I think that multi-layering.

Tom Gatten - [19:42 - 19:46]

Just the fact that it's multi, yeah, just the fact that there's more than one channel. Yeah.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [19:46 - 19:48]

Absolutely.

Tom Gatten - [19:48 - 20:10]

Because yeah, very frequently you would think of these things. I because I'm not very good at this. You're much better at this. I would think of it in a in separately and think, well, okay, here's my nurture program. Then I'm going to be doing something else on LinkedIn. If they overlap, it's okay. But really you're saying no, no. If you integrate, if you make some effort to actually integrate those messages when they're going out, it's much more effective.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [20:10 - 20:12]

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Hannah Maltby - [20:12 - 20:24]

And I think sales are a really important part of that. And I think often we think of channels as being marketing channels, but sales is, um.

Tom Gatten - [20:24 - 20:25]

Human retargeting.

Hannah Maltby - [20:25 - 20:31]

Absolutely key channel for us, um, and, and fundamental.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [20:31 - 21:12]

I think, you know, Hannah, that's really interesting because like you said, we've kind of ran traditional nurture just stays away. It's a marketing function, as you say, and you might bring the sales in depending the sales development reps in and depending on where they sit in the organization. But um, I think having sales and certainly as we move towards like an ABM model, that cradle to the grave, top of the funnel right the way through, I think sales have to be really engaged there with your ABM head on then. Hannah, would you how have you found your engagement with sales? Not not in in the nurture per se, at your organization.

Hannah Maltby - [21:12 - 22:59]

Yeah. So it's a difficult one because I whilst I think sales is a absolutely fundamental channel for us and we should absolutely be aligned, um, equally nurturing is very hard to quantify and demonstrate the value and sales should be focused on activities that are going to generate pipeline and revenue. Um, and, and so for me, part of creating sales and marketing alignment and a big part of ABM is helping sales identify who are the people who are best placed to be nurtured by sales. Um, and, and where can marketing take on a role of nurturing to support sales? So a really good example of that is we have peak seasons, event seasons where sales are flooded with all these leads and actually a lot of those leads might not be in market or sales ready, but we've got this lead follow up process. And so that's where marketing can come in and nurture those leads that are probably earlier stage, um, and free up sales time to focus on the leads that are actually going to convert. And on the flip side, we'll run kind of outbound campaigns. Um, and a key part of the campaign process is, um, sales enablement, resources for sales to post content on LinkedIn or blog posts or email footers and all of that stuff.

Tom Gatten - [22:59 - 23:13]

So that that should allow to, to, to Claire's point, that should allow the sales people to be saying the same things as the email nurtures the same thing as the social touch, same thing as the display ads. Yeah. Yeah, it should. I think it's twofold there.

Hannah Maltby - [23:13 - 23:43]

By doing that, they're obviously nurturing people, um, who are engaging with them on LinkedIn or on their newsfeed or whatever, but they're also building their credibility in our problem space. And so then there's this real kind of correlation between we're making you a credible, um, kind of person and that is going to have an impact on your ability to, to generate pipeline. So it's, it's a kind of win win scenario.

Tom Gatten - [23:43 - 24:07]

Either of you ever tried in ABM or any other or just general sales and, you know, go to market creating little pods? Like have you done that? You see, you have like a content writer perhaps, or a marketing, marketing, whatever. That's whatever that is. And then an SDR and a salesperson and all in one little. Yeah, Yeah.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [24:07 - 24:41]

So we, we do it slightly different. Well, slightly differently, but it's still a pod because that's the way our Forge Rock sales organization is aligned. So you have a major account exec, senior senior sales person, and then they're aligned to sales development rep and maybe an account exec as well, depending on the on the vertical. And then marketing then kind of sits as well as overlaying for the whole of the region, if you like, or the and then they also aligned to to the pods so and so.

Tom Gatten - [24:41 - 24:44]

Marketing that's aligned to. Yeah. Okay that's.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [24:44 - 26:31]

There. Yeah. So perfect example. And you referenced ABM there. So what we were doing the other day was we had a financial services pod they highlighted for retail banks that are looking to improve their customer identity and access management offerings out to their customers, for want of a better word. And we're basically putting together an ABM program. So we use the intelligence. And this is where it's really key. And I think this is where we need to start bringing this into nurture tracks as well, is using the intelligence that the field sales have around those accounts, building the messaging. And we also bring in, you know, one of our solution marketing guys as well on the journey. So bringing building those messaging, those messages, defining the personas, asking the questions, why are we targeting this account? You know, where are they on their journey, their buyer's journey, And and refining that go to market then, and what channels are we going to use? And then marketing them builds what I call a straw man, which is we build a plan, we agree the KPIs, we agree that, you know, what does success look like? You know, it's not just pipeline and and opportunity. That absolutely is key. But where are we looking for a breadth and depth across our organization? How are we going to measure engagement? You know, and we sign up to it and then we go execute. So and and then refine it, you know, let it run and then refine it. And where we're starting to get to now is it's all been very digitally led to this point. But now we're starting to look at stakeholder events to what Hannah's doing and as well as just kind of going to that organization and saying, hey, you've got this issue. Claire Pitman-Massie - [26:31 - 26:38]

We've been you've been engaging with us. Let us come in and do an art of the possible for you. Let us tell you how that could look.

Tom Gatten - [26:38 - 26:41]

And when you say digitally led, what exactly do you mean?

Claire Pitman-Massie - [26:41 - 26:52]

So the use of LinkedIn and mostly mostly social and then emails. And once we have them within our within our network and because a lot.

Tom Gatten - [26:52 - 26:58]

Of it's still sometimes people sending individual messages on LinkedIn or email, you just mean the interactions and.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [26:58 - 27:27]

The targeting. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because you know, if you're looking at particularly a greenfield account, you don't have those people within your database already. You've got to go and get them. I talk about taking them, meeting them at the dance, you know, at the disco, you've got to get into the nightclub, then you've got to have a little dance with them, you know, and show them some moves and get them interested before you can actually invite them out for dinner. Yeah, that's my analogy. Totally wrong.

Tom Gatten - [27:27 - 27:31]

Do it. I'm sure we have an interesting analogy there around nurture. Yeah. Okay. Cool.

Hannah Maltby - [27:31 - 27:47]

Think to add to to that, I think the pod model works really well. Um, and, but I think the key thing is having a clear focus. So where, where it's worked well for us is having a specific vertical like financial.

Tom Gatten - [27:47 - 27:52]

Financial services or even financial services between 50 and 100 million revenue.

Hannah Maltby - [27:52 - 29:17]

And then. Exactly, exactly. And then also thinking about, um, kind of trends and challenges and kind of get it, using it as a feedback loop, but also using it to identify potential, um, kind of channels or opportunities. So an example for that might be, um, there, there's a really interesting stat from Gartner that says something like over 90% of customers consult two or more sources of advocacy before making a purchase. And so we have an advocacy program at Redgate called Redgate, and those advocates will create video testimonials. They'll do Gartner peer reviews. They'll, um, like. Often kind of volunteer to speak at an event or write a blog post. And again, that's sort of pod environment can be a really good way of saying actually sales rep, you've got a ton of accounts in finance. Is there anyone in those accounts that you think would be a good friend of Redgate for us, or are there kind of key challenges in in those accounts where we should be reaching out to other friends of Redgate to create content that's going to unblock you? Well.

Tom Gatten - [29:17 - 29:33]

I was thinking exactly that, that surely these little pods should be repositories of sort of informal knowledge created by a group that should then make nurture way better because as you say, you can then pull from bottom up and top of funnel down and and.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [29:33 - 30:29]

And it's also not just for your the geo that you're working in. You know, you can take that knowledge and then apply it into the other into the other countries. For example, we've done that on some of the insurance stuff that we've been doing in Germany. It's very relevant, very pertinent to them. It's driven by this two piece of compliance. But actually the messages are the challenges that the insurance companies are facing are the same there as they are in the Nordics, you know, in Ireland, in the US, whatever. You can take that if you if you can capture those nuggets of intelligence, you know, they're so wealthy that you can just spawn that, you know, with a little bit of tweaking and a little bit of nuances out across the globe. And it and it helps you be more efficient and productive and, you know, taking those lessons out into the wild.

Tom Gatten - [30:29 - 31:29]

Yeah. So there's obviously there's a potential downside then to the pod structure if they keep that knowledge in that group of four people and don't share it. But there is also this advantage. Don't know why I keep going back to this analogy of the hotel, but you know, you imagine a chain of hotels within a single hotel. You've got a group of four people that get to know a particular group of guests really, really, really well. It might not all of this might be written down, but they pass it between another and, yeah, you get extra benefits. Yeah. Okay. All right. So let's talk about linear and non-linear. So we've also we've talked about this a little bit already, I think. I mean when you think about non-linear, it might reflect what I've just said. So those kind of informal social. Natural strategies just happen. If you put human beings on a task to get to know some people. Um, but how would you see? What would you see, Hannah as, as linear versus nonlinear nurturing? And what are some of the advantages? Disadvantages, maybe.

Hannah Maltby - [31:29 - 32:15]

Yeah. So I think the key thing is nonlinear is mostly, um, allowing people to self serve. Um, and so thinking about what people need at different stages of the cycle of the sales cycle or the buying journey. Um, and creating relevant content. Um, making sure that your website is really easy to navigate, making sure that your signposting to things that you might kind of assume to be a follow on piece of content. Um, doing some retargeting work, but mostly allowing people to self serve and, and um. Kind of create their own path.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [32:15 - 34:05]

And I think that's quite interesting. You know, when we, when we thought about when I thought about linear and non-linear, I was just thinking of that more of the journey that it's very at the minute certainly for me. And I think, you know, in many of the, the, the B2B tech environments that I'm aware of, you know, nurture is we've got the lead and they're not quite ready to buy. Stick them in a nurture track. And it's like like I said earlier, email after email after email after email. And I look at linear, linear, non-linear. So linear is you're going to get a very base level response. You're going to get a very base level engagement and think about everything in the same way. How would I react to myself? I go into my personal email and I just delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, even on, you know, LinkedIn. And but then this goes back to Hannah's original point about being innovative. Looking at you know, our luxury B2C market, you know, what are they doing? And, you know, bringing in the different tactics. Did something the other day and I saw a wonderful piece of direct mail just, you know, so targeted to 4 or 5 people within one organisation and direct mail. So hard to do now because of GDPR and work from home and all those different challenges. But actually, if you can do it, just really write a very small number of people, very, very targeted. It can be a beautiful thing, you know, and it could really work and it's non-linear. So I think you've got to look at nurture and put engagement with the individual at the core and say, okay, bringing in what Hannah said about self service and letting them do it themselves, but actually giving it in a multifaceted way, a multi-channel way. Claire Pitman-Massie - [34:05 - 34:20]

So they see the message on their LinkedIn, they see the message in the email, they maybe get something through the post. And I think that's where we have to become innovative, but that is not scalable at the hundreds of thousands of people. You know that sometimes.

Tom Gatten - [34:20 - 34:30]

And any anecdotes then have any kind of good examples of super interesting non-linear stuff that you've seen. So obviously that was, that was a good example of the direct mail.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [34:30 - 34:56]

For me personally, not of the non linear because we haven't had the opportunity to do it. I think just that that awareness when we did that content syndication, that overlay of, of um, uh paid social on top that LinkedIn targeting that opened my eyes a bit more to the impact on the conversion rate. And but I think I need to go away and have some time and build it and to be very precise about it.

Hannah Maltby - [34:56 - 35:55]

I hope this isn't too anti nurture for a nurture podcast, but actually I was thinking maybe we just focus too much of our efforts on nurturing people that just aren't ready to buy and and we don't have to do that now. We've got an amazing suite of intent based marketing tools. We use six sensor redgate, but there's obviously a ton of other ones available. And and actually, maybe there's something in if you invest your time in building advocates in making sure your organic stuff is top notch, in making sure that you've got really great content, don't nurture anyone they're not ready to buy, which is why they're not engaging with your your emails and your content. Just target the people that are in market and invest more.

Tom Gatten - [35:55 - 35:56]

Time for people.

Tom Gatten - [35:56 - 35:57]

Yeah, and.

Tom Gatten - [35:57 - 36:01]

You can have a more expensive experience, but for a smaller number of people. Yeah.

Hannah Maltby - [36:01 - 36:27]

And then justify your sales and marketing efforts because actually you're focusing your resources and your time and all the things that you're doing to personalize that approach. Based on information you've built up over time and based on the fact that you have a better level of certainty that they're actually going to convert and your nurture is actually going to be worthwhile.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [36:27 - 37:46]

Yeah. And Hannah, you just reminded me you brought up a brilliant, brilliant point there. And I was lucky enough to have the team at an offsite the other week and we were talking about nurture. We were looking at our conversion rate and it was under naught point percent, you know, And I go and think about the amount of effort, the content writing that goes in that looking at where people are, you know, all the investigation. And I just go, why are we bothering? It doesn't yeah, it doesn't really cost us anything to send it because we use Marketo, you know, out through Salesforce. It's just more resource. Why are we bothering? And I think I love your analogy, Hannah, why people can do it themselves. They're in market and I was at a conference this time last year and the head of B2B and business at HSBC stood up and she said, and this is a stat, not her stat, but she mentioned a stat of only 2% of your total addressable market will be in market in any 30 day period. Yeah. And then you extrapolate that to the large enterprises that we deal with, you know, that's an even smaller number. So I'm with you, Hannah, you know. Without going anti nurture and actually I wouldn't call it anti nurture. I'd actually call it smart nurture. Yeah.

Hannah Maltby - [37:46 - 39:17]

So in my team we have our kind of global campaign managers that focus on top of funnel activities, kind of top and middle of funnel. And then our regional teams are working in close collaboration with sales on kind of more bottom of the funnel and conversion activities and our, um. Uh, engagement programs and our kind of nurture tracks have always sat within global campaigns. Um, and, and actually at the moment we're looking at, um, do we use the newsletters that we've got um, to kind of do that top of funnel nurture. Um, and you can be more personalised with web personalization and I, and there's loads of things we can do to make sure that that's more relevant and, and should those kind of engagement programmes, those kind of, um, more solution based nurture tracks, really, if we're splitting the funnel in the way that we are, they should sit within the regional teams and they should be part of the bottom of the funnel campaigns. And is there actually even a need for them because our campaigns should be um, kind of providing that coverage and doing that role. Um, and the regional teams are just working, um, or primarily working on, um, in-market accounts. Um, so yeah.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [39:17 - 39:31]

Interesting concept. I like this idea. Let's go. Anti-nurture. Smart nurture. We're not going to call it Anti-nurture anymore, Hannah. We're going to call it smart nurture. Start a.

Hannah Maltby - [39:31 - 39:32]

New movement.

Tom Gatten - [39:32 - 39:33]

It's always much.

Tom Gatten - [39:33 - 39:51]

Easier to work out what you would do for a smaller group of people, isn't it? It's. It's very hard to start thinking, how am I going to creatively nurture a thousand people in an interesting way? But everyone, everyone can get in a room and think about how can I hug this smaller group of people closer?

Tom Gatten - [39:51 - 39:52]

Yeah, but also think.

Hannah Maltby - [39:52 - 40:38]

About, um, how you want to be nurtured. Like you said earlier, Claire And I'm exactly the same. You get all these emails sent into your inbox and you don't even, like glance at them. You just delete, delete, delete. And that's because we've signed up for a white paper or something at some point, but we've got absolutely zero interest in their solution. So at the point that the brand pops up and I'm actually ready to buy, um, I'll probably read the email, but for now, like you're wasting your time. Like I might see you at a trade show and be like, Oh yeah, I remember seeing a good bit of content from you, but it's still not the right time. Like we should be thinking about how we like to buy and yeah, and mimicking some of that.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [40:38 - 41:16]

Yeah. Think, I think then that also, you know, there's the other challenge and you mentioned it very early on in, in in this session Hannah was front of mind you know that old adage that if you're not in front of people, how do they remember you? And if we all back away and say, right, we're not going to email you, we're not going to do you know, we're going to put our our efforts into organic and, and, you know, um, building a great advocacy program and building great websites and having great signposting, how do we keep that front of mind that that's, that will be the.

Tom Gatten - [41:16 - 41:38]

Yeah, it probably, it probably works. Redgate because of the enormous brand power of Redgate because it wouldn't necessarily work forever. But obviously people generally need to do brand awareness and things. It's just about judgement. When you decide someone's in nurture, if they, if you've got their email, maybe they're not, you know, but if they've downloaded six things and visited whatever and they've, you know, then start.

Hannah Maltby - [41:38 - 42:19]

But I think it comes back as well to kind of having that really strong brand brand identity brand narrative what you stand for like of those things. I think when when we're kind of marketing spend is being reduced and all of that stuff, it's very easy to to stop doing all of those things because you can't it's very hard to quantify the impact of that on pipeline, actually. Um, it's, it's that kind of those stories and the narratives that really, um, have an impact and keep you top of mind and differentiate you and um.

Tom Gatten - [42:19 - 42:26]

So I guess brand brand awareness, it kind of is a form of nurture. Yeah, it's designed to be less annoying I suppose, isn't it?

Tom Gatten - [42:26 - 42:27]

Yeah. Yeah. But then again.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [42:27 - 43:22]

If you, if you layer over it, I think as we as marketers are getting smarter where it's not that kind of spawn, that great kind of spray and pray mentality anymore, certainly within the B2B marketing. And I think that that brand awareness again, you can segment that down very to very little, you know, very small group either at a client level or a persona level. And as long as you're doing brand awareness to the right people, then as a softer approach, then that takes away that massive, big spend that, you know, you you have to do. You traditionally have had to do. So that's where that maybe keeps you in front of mind. So that's that nice balance between keeping the lights on, if you like, for the brand awareness and then then moving into smart nurture, which is intent based and intelligent based and interest based.

Tom Gatten - [43:22 - 44:22]

Um, all right, let's talk about tailoring versus simplifying offerings. I've had a couple of different people put two opposing thoughts on this recently, nurture emails that are mentioning your name that are written by GPT four based on your text in your LinkedIn profile. They're just too creepy. They're just too weird. Actually, what works best sometimes is something that. Uh, is written to a group. Clearly written to a group of people. It tells you that there is a group there. You know, it tells you that there is a group that this brand is speaking with that they believe will have certain interests. And therefore, I want to be part of that group. If they're personalizing to the level of an individual, then sometimes it can feel, yeah, creepy, but also perhaps a bit uncool as well. Um, how do you think about tailoring nurture versus trying to simplify, strip things back, come across more straightforward?

Claire Pitman-Massie - [44:22 - 45:49]

So, I think. I like the tailoring approach because I agree with you. It can almost come across as being insincere as well, you know. But but by tailoring, if it's done really well, it is. Um. It's totally relevant to the individual. So I think you're more likely to get engagement and had a really good example sent to me the other day of that where it was a Hello Adam. It was to my to, to my solutions marketing guy and hello Adam. And it actually referenced something that he had looked at, you know, or you've shown or heard you speak at this event. I can't remember the detail, but it was very personal. And now again, not scalable from a from a nurturing perspective. So I do prefer I, I would naturally flow that way. And without getting creepy, as you say, Tom And, but equally, I like the idea of um, you know, the, the smaller groups where, hey, you, you all were at X or you were and, you know, I, I heard you speak at what whatever way you want to frame it and could really work as well because it means that you're not singling someone out but you still add that layer of personalization, but you add some knowledge into it. I don't know. What would your view, Hannah, be?

Hannah Maltby - [45:49 - 47:50]

Yeah. So I think, I mean, everyone's been in the situation, haven't they, where they've talked about something and then the next minute they've had an ad pop up on their phone for what they've talked about. And so there's this general awareness of everything is being tracked and everything's being monitored and everyone has information about you. Um, so I think it's becoming less creepy. Equally, I think it's important. So you should be relevant. Like I personally tend to agree to sending kind of agree to my cookies and things like that because I think I'd much rather someone sent me something that actually was based on what I'm looking at and all of that stuff. But I think you've got to get the tone right and you've got to be very clear that you are marketing and then you layer on top of that with more of a personal kind of I've seen your LinkedIn and I've, I've seen kind of I've done my research on you from a sales perspective, and I think that's where you strike the balance. And I also think there's a level of, um, so redgate we have a kind of hybrid approach. So we have one to many, one to few and 1 to 1 ABM campaigns. Um, so for example, we might have these kind of programmatic one to many campaigns, um, for people that are showing signs of intent for a particular solution. Um, and they're, they're tailored, but they're fairly generic because they're kind of on mass, um. But you can either use that as the foundation for something more personalized and tailor that, or you can build upon that and you can send those out, but also send a one to few campaign that kind of pulls out even more key features. Hannah Maltby - [47:50 - 47:55]

So I think you can do bits of both. Tom Gatten - [47:55 - 48:21]

What is it best to. Is it best for your first touch with someone that hasn't heard of you to be thought leadership wise? Or can that sometimes, you know, you were saying, Claire, be clear that it is marketing. Is it best perhaps to sometimes approach people and say, we think you're a great fit? This is what we do, and then then nurture them. Maybe after that if they engage or is there not a good answer to that? I don't know.

Tom Gatten - [48:21 - 48:23]

Yeah. Well, we.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [48:23 - 49:28]

Um, at Forge Rock, a good example of that was our original nurture streams, and they were what we call the Triple Crown. So they were the forester. MQ The critical capabilities, the Magic Quadrant and the wave. I think the Forrester wave and those were our three nurture assets. So that would have been to someone who hasn't come into the the Forge rock environment through event or content, whatever way and, and not ready to buy. And then they would go into the nurture stream and the consumption was really good. And I think there for someone who wasn't aware of Forge Rock or as aware knew of the name, but wasn't really too, um, aware of exactly what we could do and wasn't really quite in market then having those, what I call credibility points worked really well because it kind of said, look, you know, um, we're a serious player in the and Siam markets. This is where, you know, the people that you kind of talk to.

Tom Gatten - [49:28 - 49:32]

So they're like, okay, I'm going to pay attention to whatever they've got to say next, whatever it is.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [49:32 - 49:55]

Yeah, exactly. And it just gives them that, you know, that, that warm feeling that, um, you know, you are dealing with a, with a, a, a proper company and in inverted commas, but a serious company that actually knows what they're doing and is up there with probably others that you're that you've maybe heard more of and and are potentially looking at.

Hannah Maltby - [49:55 - 51:00]

I am. I attended a Sixth Sense conference a while ago and they have recently started doing something really cool, which we haven't tried yet at Redgate. But I think it's a really interesting concept, which is peer to peer nurturing. So they their target market is marketing and sales professionals. And so if a CMO comes in and they will be put on a nurturing track with content from the Sixth Sense CMO saying if you have like a PR manager, it's the email nurture is from the PR manager. And I think maybe that's a really good way of saying, yes, this is a marketing nurture. Yes, we're tailoring it, but we're doing it based on our role and what we know and and we feel your pain points and we know where you're coming from. Yeah. And I think that's a really, really cool approach.

Tom Gatten - [51:00 - 51:01]

Yeah, that's a very.

Tom Gatten - [51:01 - 51:14]

It's, I mean, this is something that salespeople often use a team to sell and they'll have, yeah, they'll loop in the CEO to speak with their CEO and but yeah it's applying it to marketing. It sounds very sensible.

Claire Pitman-Massie - [51:14 - 51:18]

Yeah that is really that's really nice. I like.

Tom Gatten - [51:18 - 51:19]

That. Yeah, it's cool.

Tom Gatten - [51:19 - 51:36]

Okay. All right, look, we're coming to the end now. I really appreciate your time. We haven't managed to cover everything, but we have had a wonderful, very interesting discussion with lots and lots of things that I'd love to follow up on and do in the future with you guys. So thank you so much.