Although some marketers are still learning about account-based marketing these days, Peter Herbert, the VP of Marketing at Terminus, has been an advocate for ABM for quite some time. Before joining Terminus as a “Terminator” in June of 2017, Peter and his team won SiriusDecisions ABM Program of the Year. He was also named a Terminus ABM Superhero.
Peter does a little bit of everything at Terminus to help his entire go-to-market team succeed at hyper-targeting their best fit accounts – including traditional marketing activities such as demand gen, content, marketing ops, and product and customer marketing, as well as supporting customer success and advising prospects on ABM strategies. He even works closely with the Terminus product team to give a marketer’s perspective on creating engagement with the right people in target accounts.
Terminus itself is ingrained in ABM, as it’s an account-based software purpose-built for B2B marketers to help drive demand to the best-fit accounts in their market. Due to the focus that it takes to champion ABM, Peter works across the organization so everyone is aligned as #OneTeam.
“I think every new marketer I talk to has a different puzzle. They’re trying to figure out how they can evolve, innovate and get better business results, and be part of contributing revenue to their company.” – Peter Herbert, VP of Marketing at Terminus
At Terminus, the Future of B2B Marketing is Account-Based
Marketing has many different lenses to look through. Some companies are just starting out in building their marketing program, while others have long-established programs and campaigns. Because of this, one of the biggest challenges that Peter faces in his role is showing how ABM can help a wide variety of marketers and their sales counterparts grow their businesses.
“I think every new marketer I talk to has a different puzzle. They’re trying to figure out how they can evolve, innovate and get better business results, and be part of contributing revenue to their company. And between trying to be a great marketing team and be a great help to our fellow account-based marketers, there’s plenty of opportunity to innovate and help others do the same,” Peter explained.
Still, as Peter explained further, it’s very hard to argue with benefits of ABM, whether you call it more relevant and personalized marketing, or just plain great B2B marketing. At the end of the day, an ABM strategy really accomplishes two major things that every business struggles with:
- Aligning sales and marketing teams, and …
- Getting your business a seat at the table with your best-fit accounts faster
It’s also really easy for Peter to love working at Terminus since everyone on his team is already a big proponent of ABM. And, the “Terminators” are very passionate about using ABM to help their customers succeed with Terminus’ account-based advertising and web analytics solutions.
“There’s just an incredible focus at Terminus on helping our customers and marketers overcome their challenges and step up in their organizations to be leaders of the revenue machine,” Peter said.
“EverString helped us understand intent and fit in order to drive more intelligent, relevant campaigns. When you start putting together the data and the ability to execute on that data in one workflow, it’s really successful.” – Peter Herbert
It’s All About Creating Revenue Heroes
Creating a plan around account-based marketing is one thing – in a sense, it’s your foundation. Staying accountable to that plan is what comes next, and that’s where sales-marketing alignment becomes a crucial part of Terminus’ revenue growth strategy. Peter explained that based on his experiences and those of colleagues, marketing often feels like they are tasked with top-of-funnel activities, while sales usually feels responsible for follow-through. However, at Terminus, having a “one-team” mentality has really helped them to overcome those typical sales-marketing misalignment hurdles.
“What’s great about Terminus in particular is when we establish target accounts we are all on the same page. Everybody understands why we chose those accounts. Marketing does its piece. Sales and sales dev play their roles, but we are orchestrating our efforts as one machine that is greater than the sum of its parts,” Peter explained. “I love that we all feel like a cohesive team. Our Chief Revenue Officer, Todd McCormick, and I make quick decisions, we’re totally aligned, and our people are all one revenue team. The best part is, our approach works, we’re growing fast, and it’s a lot of fun to win together.”
Account selection is huge when it comes to ABM strategies. Traditionally, sales and marketing teams relied on lists and manual selection – but according to Peter, that process was unsustainable, inaccurate, and time-consuming. Part of his enablement roadmap involved predictive solutions that relied on data to help target accounts faster. However, Peter wanted a platform that was hands-on and agile – and this is where EverString entered the picture.
How EverString Helps Terminus Boost ABM
In order to target accounts faster, Peter looked to EverString to help his team really quickly create a predictive model based on the data that Terminus controls and operates within the platform. EverString’s recent partnership with intent data provider Bombora was also of interest to Peter and his team, as they had been using EverString and Bombora side-by-side prior to the integration. With both of these use cases, EverString helped Terminus develop more meaningful content and strategies for its target audiences.
“EverString helped us understand intent and fit in order to drive more intelligent, relevant campaigns. When you start putting together the data and the ability to execute on that data in one workflow, it’s really successful,” Peter explained. Peter’s secret formula for ABM goes as follows: Fit + Intent + Engagement.
- Fit technology = EverString
- Intent technology = Bombora
- Engagement technology = Terminus, Uberflip, Vidyard, and SalesLoft
The ability to convert accounts was also a part of EverString that really proved a lot of worth for Peter’s team. And the best part? Peter is able to see the deep insights he needs to create those campaigns really quickly – making his investment in the platform worth it. Since Peter is new to Terminus, the minimal amount of training required to get his team up-to-speed with EverString has also been a key differentiator.
“EverString is nailing it with its hands-on platform that gives marketers and sales deep insights. It’s a big part of the engine that drives our efficiency and growth.” – Peter Herbert
“We have been able to engage and target from a campaign perspective in a smarter way, which means you’re spending less money to get a better result,” Peter concluded. “If we want to be great marketers, we have to target the right accounts. And getting a tool that can do that quickly was really important to me. I’ve used EverString and Bombora before and was extremely confident that it was a game changer for Terminus as well.”
Though predictive and AI-powered solutions are still new for a lot of marketers, Peter said his experience with EverString was easy to understand from the get-go. Even though it’s important to have accurate data in a powerful platform like EverString, it’s also crucial for sales and marketing SaaS solutions to be practical for the day-to-day too. Fortunately, EverString delivered on both fronts for Terminus:
“There are a couple of things for marketers that are hard. It’s hard to understand whether the hype is real. And I think with some of the predictive tools, it’s hard to see how it’s going to work for your organization. I’ve never felt that with EverString, since most of the revenue my teams have influenced at two companies come from accounts EverString determined were high fit. EverString is nailing it with its hands-on platform that gives marketers and sales deep insights. It’s a big part of the engine that drives our efficiency and growth.”
Read more about how Terminus is changing the ABM game for B2B by following Peter on Twitter and LinkedIn.
If you want to learn more about how you can champion ABM techniques with EverString, try the platform out with our free 7-day trial.