Performance Marketing Q&A with Gary Skidmore, CEO of Aberdeen Group
“Performance marketing requires a precise understanding of where to spend your valuable resources along with what to do to accelerate engagement.” – Gary Skidmore
The ABM.report recently spoke with Gary Skidmore, the CEO of the Aberdeen Group, and asked him to share his insights on lead velocity and marketing performance. Gary has a well-established track-record of innovation in marketing acceleration from his time as a small business entrepreneur, global company executive and currently as CEO at the Aberdeen Group.
Here are his thoughts on what he’s seen work when it comes to sales and marketing speed.
What do you see as major impediments to marketing performance and ultimately more leads?
Simply put, marketers continue to get bogged down when they don’t have a clear understanding of who their best customers are, how they think and then what type of information might be most useful for them. When it comes to understanding customers, clarity helps to focus all marketing acceleration efforts (and related lead quantity and quality) on the things that matter to your customer. That’s a good thing.
How are leading companies addressing the issue of performance and velocity?
We see, from our Aberdeen Group research, that many companies continue to invest in data, predictive tools, content and other marketing technologies to try and solve the issue of performance. However, one of the problems is that while all these tools are great, they usually don't work unless you have some level of integration. For example, data is needed, but how do you align that data by segment with a message? Then, once you identify a trending message, how do you ensure that the content you’re creating actually gets noticed and can drive engagement fast. Best-in-class companies are ones that are integrating data, targeting, messaging and content into one continuous workflow.
What new innovations are making the scene to help marketers get results faster?
There are a number of companies that have launched over the last 12 to 24 months that address data and content discreetly. Regarding data tools, many of these new platforms talk about how you might “predict” who’s about to purchase. The content and messaging tools might also give you the ability to create and distribute content more readily internally and externally. However, as mentioned above, sometimes these individual technologies don’t go far enough.
Where does Aberdeen play in helping clients improve their marketing velocity?
We’re a company spending the majority of our time building solutions that integrate advanced data, machine learning and aligned content to help companies know who to approach first and what to say to them to drive accelerated engagement. Our data and content platform, Lead Essentials, does just that by aligning the best in-market accounts with content that is guaranteed to get them to engage. We've integrated these important functions into one platform and workflow. We’re changing the way marketing works and speeding up the process and related effectiveness significantly. In other words, more conversion and more leads, faster.
Who are your current customers and how does one take advantage of your solutions (both end users and partners)?
Lead Essentials, as well as our other products and services are right for just about any mid to large-size B2B organization. We don't just help organizations find more leads, we give them a fuller picture of who they are, how to reach them and how to get them engaged. We offer a SAAS model with our integrated data and content solution, as well as other ways to engage with us for more custom work. We are aggressively looking for ways to partner with other like-minded technology, data or content providers to help fuel their businesses with our unique data and content assets. To find out more about Aberdeen, visit us at
www.aberdeenservices.com
About Aberdeen Group
Aberdeen Group is a technology and services company that helps tech sales and marketing executives distill smart data science into actionable moments. Aberdeen helps companies win through their unique targeting capabilities (using the CI Technology Data Set), advanced analytics using their own innovative proprietary and public data sources, and their original and research based content engine.
For more information on Aberdeen’s leading data and content platform,
Lead Essentials, check out the demo here. If you’re looking for ideas, check out the Aberdeen
idea book, chock full of ways that you can use our data and content for your own marketing programs.
You may also be interested in Aberdeen’s latest
Guidebook on Account-Based Targeting. Find out new ways to think about what accounts need to be in your account-based sales and marketing programs. Enjoy!