ON24, Inc. (ONTF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to ON24's B2B marketing chat series, where we sit down with marketing leaders all over Asia Pacific digging into trends, innovations, what's working, what's not, and it's our time as marketers to sit back, grab a coffee or relax and simply talk shop. My name is Tim Johnston. I'm the Senior Director of Marketing here for ON24 in Asia Pacific region, and I'm delighted to be your host and thank you so much for being here with us today. We've got a very exciting topic to discuss today. But before we get into that, I do want to start with some quick housekeeping. Today, you guys are in the ON24 platform, which means that you can minimize and maximize the screens in front of you. Those windows are front of you to suit your viewing preferences. We love a good Q&A and an interactive audience here. So please get those questions in throughout today's discussion. I'll keep an eye on that queue there, and make sure that we surface those into today's event. After all, this event is all about you guys and your learning. So please get those questions in. You'll see a ask-a-question box there just underneath the media player, you can put those n along the way. We've also made a whole bunch of ABM-related resources available to you. We've got some e-books and guides that you'll find in the related content section. And finally, we're going to have some fun today. We've got a survey. We're going to give away some prices as well, and we'd love feedback. We want to keep a finger on the pulse as it relates to this subject today. So please fill out the survey throughout today's event, and you will go into the draw to win 1 or 3 $50 [indiscernible], very exciting. I'm not sure who approved that. But ON24, we'll be sharing much for the rest of the week. So all right. So what are we talking about today? In today's discussion, we'll be talking about the building blocks of a regional ABM strategy. And we've divided Iris Chan, a marketing leader over at Autodesk to discuss ON24's ABM. Now Iris runs demand and ABM programs across Asia Pacific region is a fantastic B2B marketer with a wealth of experience. And it's a long-term good friend of us here at ON24 and myself personally. So Iris, really happy to have you here with the show. Welcome, and thanks for being here.

Thank you so much, Tim, for the warm welcome. I am really thrilled. It's been a while since both of us have shared a virtual stage together, and I am just absolutely really excited to be part of this program today. So thank you so much for having me.

Awesome. Yes, I'm excited as well. So ABM, it's a hot topic. It's discussed on many stages around the region. I hear this topic discussed at almost every B2B event that I go to, and it's really great to have the opportunity to talk to people who have successfully got an ABM program off the ground and working for the business. So I'm really excited to dig in with you today. But let's start with a bit of an introduction as to who Autodesk is and what it is exactly that you do over there?

Yes. So for Autodesk, some of you may know us as having a very long, rich history of being in the design software space where we provide software technology for architects and engineers to design wonderful structures and buildings. And now Autodesk has actually expanded its portfolio to serve the construction and infrastructure sectors. So within the Autodesk mothership, I'm leading the demand generation and account-based marketing for Asia Pacific region as part of the Autodesk Construction Solutions team. We are a growth engine within the broader Autodesk organization, and we are a Software-as-a-Service business model. Within this team, I lead a small group of marketers, focusing on digital marketing programs to drive inbound lead pipeline acceleration as well as account-based marketing.

Nice little agreement that you've got there. And as I understand it, you're 6, next 7 months into the role so far. And this conversation is really around your ABM initiatives, which I know is a core focus of you -- for you over there. So let's start the past conversation around just where did you start from an ABM perspective? What did it look like when you joined? And where is it now?

Yes. When I joined Autodesk 8 months ago, within the Construction Solutions business, ABM was still very much in a nascent phase especially for the Asia Pacific region, whereas our counterparts in the U.S., they've already built the practice and had it running for much longer. So they've built up quite a bit of momentum there. So my immediate focus and charter was to actually set up the strategy and plan that's specific for the APAC market. And as you know, with APAC, we have a very diverse region. There are dozens of countries and all at different stages of market maturity. There are also different dynamics within those markets. So yes, it's trying to build out a strategy that's going to work across the different diverse segments and geographies that we're dealing with within Asia Pacific.

Yes. Absolutely. No easy task there, just counting the markets alone across Asia Pac and how many we're going to accommodate for, so certainly not something you achieved in the first 6 months anyway. I'm sure you've got a long-term view as to what ABM will look like for the years to come. So -- but a key ingredient to an ABM strategy, as we all know, is a strong sort of collaboration partnership with the sales team. Can you share a little bit more about what did that look like initially as you joined the company? And maybe a little bit about how you guys go about selecting accounts for Autodesk to focus on.

Yes. And that's a great question there, Tim. I think I was really fortunate in a sense that there is already a buy-in from the sales organization when I joined. There is a genuine desire to work together and really look at how we can take a much more account-focused account-based approach when it comes to engaging the key accounts that the organization is looking at. So we've basically got a really close collaboration with the sales team, we're moving in lockstep. And it's a 2-way collaboration. So the sales organization will come to the table with their ideas, their thoughts, what they really want to see, what are the desired outcomes. And from there, we would support and we will work together, work shop it. We'll jointly identify a workable set of accounts to look at an ABM effort. And in particular, just on a one-to-many ABM scenario, I think the account selection tends to be quite data-driven. So we -- from a marketing standpoint, we will be drawing upon market data insights and try identify a set of accounts that have common attributes and we would work with the sales team to get their validation and prioritization from within the cluster. So I would say the account selection and identification is very much bidirectional and it is quite situational as well because for different organizations, you might be looking at ABM from an industry angle, you could be looking at it from just identifying a cluster of accounts that share common attributes. And it could be any other way of slicing and dicing and coming out with that short list of accounts to work with, and it could be a big list or a smaller list. So typically, the sales team would already have a short list of target accounts and marketing would come to the party. We will share account entail and we would have intent data to back things up to help really drill down to a smaller set of accounts that would form a target audience for an ABM campaign.

Yes. I like that. And we'll certainly dig into that a little further. Just on that sort of topic of sales and marketing, it sounds like you've got a really nice sort of partnership over there with the local teams. Just thinking about for those organizations that has matured and maybe things are gelling as best as we -- or as we hope they would. Do you have any advice or tips for audience today as to what are some of those things or interactions you're having with the sales team to help with that alignment? Any advice you can share with the audience today?

Yes. I think there are three approaches to look at in terms of driving closer alignment between sales and marketing teams. The first one will be to really identify or define those shared goals and metrics that would measure the success. So there is a shared accountability. I think where things tend to break down between the two teams from a communication standpoint or even from a day-to-day collaboration standpoint is typically due to the fact that both teams have different metrics, different KPIs and different goals that they're chasing. And so as a result, they're kind of moving in different directions. So to try and align the teams, the first step is to look at those shared objectives, those shared goals and how do you measure them that would be common to both teams and create that kind of joint accountability model together. The other area that I think will be really good to look at is having shared visibility into the entire buyer journey. And this is an ongoing source of frustration for a lot of marketers, right? We would generate leads and we would hand them off to sales teams. And oftentimes, we lose sight of what happens when a lead becomes an opportunity in the CRM, and it becomes a bit of a black hole. So being able to gain greater visibility to the rest of the sales process or the buying journey right up to the time when the deal is closed becomes quite critical. And there are software tools and platforms today that would enable account teams to share content with the prospects and customers and give that kind of visibility to the marketing organization, knowing what kind of content the sales teams are sharing with the prospects during the sales cycle can make a huge difference in terms of driving the results and also try to measure how marketing is contributing to pipeline outcomes. So again, that will bring the two teams closer together when sales is able to see that marketing is making very tangible contribution to the pipeline development and to the final results of the pipeline. And last but not least, I think really being able to look at content consistency and giving a consistent experience to the buyer is really important, and that's the kind of the connective tissue that brings the two teams together, if you're able to identify a way to help the sales teams customize content that marketing produces and make sure that there is a consistent to the prospect, then they have also a consistent by journey and by experience, and this is all contributing to that alignment as well.

Yes, good. I like it. At the top of the conversation, we were talking -- you mentioned that there was already a global ABM sort of framework in place. And I hear this quite often with marketers leveraging or adopting from either a center of excellence that exists in Europe or the U.S. It sounds like you had a U.S. headquarters that had a framework already. As you're going to that beginning phase of adopting something that already existed as you entered this role, what were some of the nuances that you saw when trying to adopt that sort of U.S. framework and apply it to the Asia Pacific market?

Yes, you're spot on there, Tim. It's definitely not a lift and shift situation. As I mentioned, the U.S. region is very different from the APAC markets. They are pretty much a single market, and we've got a very diverse region here. So I would say the U.S. playbook did not fit us 100%. We definitely had to do quite a bit of customization around that. And a great example that comes to mind is also with the tools and some of the platforms that are being used with ABM execution in different markets. So there might be, for example, some ABM advertising platforms. And with those types of platforms, they would do account matching, for example. And if you're working with a technology provider that may not have a very strong coverage of Asia Pacific companies, then you may run into a situation where those platforms or those technology providers may not work as well for you in this region. So I think definitely, there needs to be customization and there needs to be a much more localized approach to selecting the right kind of services or technologies to support the ABM execution.

Yes. Interesting. I mean, I have also witnessed some of these black holes when it comes to some technology, when it either comes to account identification or selection. You're quite right, particularly as you reach deeper into Asia and we recently did some work in Japan, and we realized there were some pretty big holes in some of these service offerings that some of these technology companies had to offer in this space. But interesting points that you make. So let's get a little bit closer to home then. You had this U.S. framework that you probably cherry-pick the things that you like and things that were probably a good idea and things that would probably work here. But tell us a little bit more about the framework that you've designed here for Asia Pac and just give us a bird's eye view as to what that looks like?

Yes, absolutely. So at a very high level, what I've done working with the team within the APAC region was to look at three pillars within account-based marketing, and this should be no surprise to a lot of the practitioners out there for ABM. We had three buckets we're looking at one-to-one, one-to-few and one to many. And this is obviously very similar to the kind of classifications you might see with organizations like ITSMA and Forrester, where they do talk about these three pillars of ABM. So we're adopting a very similar model. What I do want to call out though is there are different schools of thought around the ABM pillars. And I think in some recent marketing -- B2B marketing conferences that has been a subject of intense debate, whether one to many ABM that flavor of ABM, is that truly ABM? And is that the right definition for ABM? And I think there are different perspectives around that. For me and my perspective is that there is a time and place for one to many ABM. It's definitely a valid form of ABM. And it really depends on the scenario that you're in and the kind of company you're working for because every organization is different. Not every organization would have the same budget levels, the same resource levels to be able to execute one-to-one and one-to-few ABMs. And it also depends on the stage of development for that particular company and the kind of business objectives that you're trying to drive and the revenue goals that you're trying to drive. So it may necessitate a one to many treatments and approach depending on the stage of development you're at in the organization. So I would say, if you're a marketer, an ABM marketer and you're looking at one to many as one of the motions is definitely want to consider depending on your situation. And so for us, we are taking these three pillars and treating them slightly differently. So with our one-to-one and one-to-few motions, we have them largely sitting with a field marketing organization in country, for example, with Australia and New Zealand versus Asia, because we believe that with the field marketing managers, they're very, very close to the field sales and they're dealing with these accounts on a day in, day out basis. So it would make more sense for them to have that very intense relationship with one-to-one and one-to-few target accounts. Whereas for our team we are focusing much more on the one to many motion and utilizing a multichannel approach to engage those accounts, whether it's intent data, advertising or using direct marketing, so on and so forth. But the main takeaway there is that you would be able to resource the one-to-one, one-to-few and one to many differently based on the structure of your team for your organization.

Yes. I like that extension to, I guess, enable the field marketers to execute on those one-to-one. And I think that's a great idea. I think the one-to-one is obviously very resource-intense and that's a great way to scale that point. We do have a question here actually from the audience. Thank you for getting this in. This one is from Rebecca, and it's more around the selection of the one-to-one. Rebecca asked, what is the balance between new and existing sort of customers within that framework? Is the one-to-one more for a new customer position or is it for the growth of existing customers? What does that look like for you?

Yes. That's a great question there. I think one-to-one and one-to-few definitely tends to become more important when you are trying to drive account grown within existing customers. And if you want to look at upsell, cross-sell, building out making the account much more sticky with the organization and getting greater footprint. So that's definitely true. Having said that, I think there's a play for one-to-one and one-to-few for some of the really top prospects that you're trying to pursue. So -- but I would say, yes, the one-to-one and one-to-few scenario we're predominantly looking at trying to balance between the top prospects as well as those existing customers where we do see the need to expand and grow within the account itself. And I'm sure you'll notice that in a lot of organizations out there, they're practicing one-to-one and one-to-few ABM, they tend to have a very strong leaning towards trying to build out and try to deepen the relationship with existing accounts.

Yes, I agree with that. I'm thinking about that question with our own practices here at ON24. I think it's a pretty healthy blend. We have two different teams. One is a growth team for existing customers and a team for acquisition. And both of those teams are asked for ABM support. So we need to have a pretty healthy balance between those account selections, but very different plays and maybe different content offers for the respective audiences there.

Yes. And if I may add to that, Tim, just to jump in there. I think for the one-to-many motion around ABM, there are a lot -- there are actually a lot of scenarios where that would lend itself very well to acquisition scenarios where you're trying to actually really acquire new customers. If you're at that stage where you're doing more of that versus account growth and expanding within existing customers. You may find that the one-to-many motion will be a little more applicable in those scenarios.

Yes, I agree. I think that's a good point. Then there is a related question here from Fiona Lee. Her question is somewhat related to the subject we're talking here is, is there a rule of thumb that you use with the sales team like how many accounts are too many? I think Fiona is referring to that one-to-one motion. Generally, do you have a real thumb of how many accounts can be serviced by marketing? I guess that probably depends on the size of your team and how you resource. But what does it look like for you? How many would sit within that one-to-one bucket?

I think it will be good. There's no sort of like definitive number, in my opinion, it really varies organization to organization. But typically, you would be looking at your top 10 and top 20 and really focusing around that. That would be my take on it when it comes to the one-one scenario.

Yes. Yes, not too dissimilar. I think we stretched a little further and probably have -- if we have 10 or so reps here in region, we've typically asked them to select 5 of those key priorities, and we'd focus on those for the front half of the year or back half of the year or a set period of time, sometimes they're always on sort of engagement strategies. But other times, it's for a set period, particularly if it's an acquisition lands and there is not a strong level of certainty behind a selection. But it's a great question. So keep bringing those through, and I'll keep surfacing them up. There's a couple more questions that we'll get to at the back end. I see all these questions coming through. But let's talk about this idea of scaling as well because many marketers find that ABM, particularly in its one-to-one format, it's quite a resource intense, cost intense, it's very labor-intense in many ways. But how do you think about scaling your ABM program? I think you've given us a sense of a flavor with your field marketing team and how you're enabling them. But how do you think more broadly about scaling ABM for Autodesk?

Yes. Just building off the earlier point that I made around having the one-to-one and one-to-few motion for ABM sitting with the field marketing managers. One of the approaches we've taken is to actually enable the field marketing teams, and we do that in the form of ABM in a box or ABM catalog kind of a concept. Think of it almost like a lack of a better word, it's like a menu. So there would be certain programs or campaigns even events that sort of thing where we can build out a framework, we can build out a model that's very easy to execute. We'll have a playbook around it, and we'll have templates so on and so forth, very, very detailed guides. And we will create these catalogs that allow the field marketing managers to go in there and they can pick and choose a completely bespoke combination of activities, and then that becomes their ABM program or a campaign for a specific one-to-one or one-to-few accounts that they are targeting. So I think that's one of the approaches we've taken to help scale because it's going to be a lot of time and effort to reinvent the wheel every single time. If we can gain economies of scale by identifying some service providers or even some programs that have areas where it can be shared across multiple programs, multiple teams, even multiple markets, then we can make that available to the field marketing managers, we can help them to make it a lot easier to execute by having a step-by-step execution playbook. So they don't have to go away and try and think about something from ground up every single time. They already have a template to work off, and they can still have the freedom and the flexibility as well as the full control to customize it however they want. But by having these baseline and base templates and the catalog available, it's almost like a bit of a concierge and it helps them to get there faster and to accelerate and get to market faster because these days, it's all about time to market. So yes, that's the approach we're taking for scaling.

Makes sense. Rob is asking a question around what does the field marketing manager actually do. Can you give a little bit more context as to what they're doing there?

With the field marketing managers, without going into a whole lot of detail, because they are looking at very specific geographic markets, to give you an example to be Australia and New Zealand, they will be working very closely with the sales team to engage those key accounts that are part of the ABM target and program. They would also be involved in some of the brand building within those specific markets as well as doing field events like sponsoring trade shows, conferences as well as having relationships with local industry influencers and alliances such as associations such as councils even government agencies that are local to that market and have an impact or influence on how the industry is progressing and evolving. So our field marketing managers have deep relationships in those areas.

Yes. That makes sense. So it sounds like you've got a good framework in place and that we only need to start with a framework and something that you've localized. Let's talk about -- because I think technology is also a key aspect to bring in some of this strategy to life. What sort of technology or tell some of the key technologies that you've used to adopt and bring to life here in Asia Pac?

Yes. Again, another good question there, Tim. I think when it comes to technology for ABM, the one thing I do want to call out, and again, this is from my standpoint as well. I think it's very important not to get hung up about the tech stack because the truth is and the reality is a lot of the technologies and tools will be actually common across ABM or even what we would be seeing as conventional demand generation programs. Forrester analysts, they basically advocated that ABM and demand generation would actually converge in the next few years. And they went even as far as to predict that by 2024, ABM will fade way, and 50% of the B2B organizations in this study, envision a future where demand generation and ABM will share people, processes and tools. And they, in fact, see these elements as being inseparable across the two functions. So I think the key takeaway there is that don't think about ABM as having a separate set of tools like a separate tech stack or a separate set of processes. It could very well be very similar to what is conventionally demand generation activity is just that you would have differing degrees of personalization. You would customize the experiences differently. You would also be potentially deploying a different combination of tactics and channels within the respective programs, whether it's ABM or a much broader demand generation program. And over time, these elements are all going to converge closer and closer together, you'll see that demand generation activities, a good demand gen program should absolutely have account-based elements and considerations in there. It shouldn't be just about an individual lead. So I think -- that's the #1 foundational concept that I would like everyone to remember when they think about ABM technology. In terms of the technology aspect of it just to drill down to that element around personalization and so on. We have been utilizing different tools. We look at intent data providers, so they help to pick up signals, buying signals in the broader audience across the web. So that helps us to identify high-intent high propensity accounts to narrow down towards. We also look at utilizing those types of technology providers to do more personalized engagements and advertising, for example. We also look at platforms that help us drive direct marketing, and this could be utilizing either digital vouchers or even personalized packages being sent to the target audience. So there are a lot of these types of tools. And last but not least, probably my personal favorite is around a virtual events and a virtual experience platform like ON24. So being able to literally find the right kind of digital experience and make sure it's very tailored for the cluster of ABM accounts, it would be critically important. If you're doing an ABM program and it involves some sort of an executive roundtable, you want to be able to identify and select the right platform to be able to deliver that very intimate immersive digital experience and interactive experience for the crowd because it's not a big one-to-many kind of scenario. It is basically a much more focused group. So picking the right technology to engage the audience becomes absolutely crucial.

Yes. I agree with many that you've -- these technologies to help service some very valuable data points as well for us from intent to engagement. I know a lot of -- just thinking about your different buckets and your one-to-many strategies as well. I know when it comes to identifying the right sort of accounts to focus on, many are leaning into engagement tools as well, things like webinars and virtual event is a way to identify clusters of interest. It's something that we do here at ON24 as well where we look for those sort of buying signals, that first-party data that we get from our audiences to understand are there emerging accounts that we should be talking to because they are -- they're showing maybe challenges or pain points that we think we can solve or maybe showing a high level of engagement with our broader programming. So I know there's many different use cases for the data that comes out of some of these technologies as well. But I think it's a key ingredient to the data to fuel some of these strategies. So I know you're talking about this convergence of ABM and demand gen. And I've heard the same B2B marketing, ABM is really just great B2B marketing to a degree. And I think that encapsulates what you're talking about. But where we do have that need to bring on local technologies, maybe some of these references you made earlier in the conversation about U.S. models, not working in U.S. technology is not necessarily working for the Asia Pacific market. How do you go about getting buy into localize some of this tech stack, whether it's ABM or demand gen, what are some of the key considerations? Because I know you've made a few purchases recently.

Yes. Again, that's a very pertinent point in terms of how do you identify and then get the local leaders to buy and to investing in certain technologies or services that are much more resonant within the APAC market. I can share a couple of the experiences that I went through. The first one is really around identifying a different set of use cases from the incumbent technology or platform that you have. And if you find that the use case is not well served by your existing technology platform, you should absolutely be looking at what can we do to find a much more localized solution. So that was definitely the experience that I went through. We identified the key use cases. A great example would be our existing events platform was much more of a broader kind of a webinar style approach, and we needed a platform that would cater to a more intimate immersive interactive event experience for a smaller group of audiences, especially within ABM execution. So that's one example of how we can work with your marketing operations team to look at. Are there alternative technologies and solutions out there that could address the different use cases that you might have, which could be different from other markets. The other piece that's really important to keep in mind is around the ROI and being able to demonstrate measurable results. So I was looking at with the platform that we're interested to procure or to bring on board, we went to look at what are some of the measurable results that they were able to achieve with their other clients. And I also drew upon some of my previous experiences working in previous organizations where I actually saw a 20% uplift in the speed to book meetings, for example, or 60% acceleration in meeting success rates and all of those sorts of things. We were able to take those data points and form part and help to build out a very strong business case for change. Last but not least, I think it's important to look at customers that are very similar to yourself with the target vendor or target solution provider that you have in mind because if they're predominantly dealing with for example, smaller organizations and if you're a large enterprise, then it may not be the right fit. So it's important to look at their existing customer portfolio and try to identify like-for-like customer references within their organization, and you could absolutely surface that to your stakeholders and highlight the fact that similar organizations have these types of technologies. So it's important to be able to play in the same level playing field or to be able to have comparable kinds of platforms with the kind of quality that you're looking for. So I think those are some pointers I could definitely share in terms of building out the business case for making a change.

Yes. I think that's good advice. And one of the areas that I was going to naturally go into, but we've got a bit of an influx of questions here, Iris. So let's see how many of these we can take on the fly. But one of the questions I was going to ask you around is with your ABM program, how are you measuring success? And you're 6, 7 months in now, what does the next 6 months look like? What will success look like in the next 6 months? But couple of audience questions. Hopefully, we can nail that in one response here. But yes, what are you measuring over there?

Yes. That's a very, very important aspect of ABM. So in terms of measuring success, we're definitely looking at pipeline what is the marketing influence pipeline from the ABM activities. We're also looking at the influence revenue. So the kind of the opportunities that were closed and with one and what the value translates to. The other aspect in terms of measuring success is deal velocity. So ABM is actually an incredibly powerful tool for accelerating pipeline and progressing deals. So it's one of those things that you could measure is the deal velocity. Has it helped to move a deal from Stage 2 to Stage 3 in a much shorter time frame, for example, right? So that's something to consider. And last but not least, have a look at the deal size, right? So ABM have done well should help you to actually increase the deal value and increase the deal size. So take a look at your average deal sizes, ACDs and all of those things and look at how ABM programs that are associated with those deals are helping to increase the deal value.

Yes. I think all good metrics to focus on. You've got those points of visibility in your funnel. There's a related question here, which is around all these metrics are great. Ultimately, the north stars of how we measure are our actions resulting in output that the business cares about. How do you know if you're moving in the right direction? I think this is a really good question from Shane. In the early stage, how do you know if you're moving in the right direction? Are there metrics that you look at to measure overall account health or account engagement? Any comments on that? Because I think that's a really good point. Ultimately, it comes down to account selection right and the confidence in their account selection, but then it's the messaging, the content that you're serving up the offers to drive engagement. What are some of those earlier metrics that you're looking about over there?

Yes. That's an excellent point because ABM is actually a longer-term kind of approach and strategy. So you may not see some immediate overnight successes. But the way to kind of act as a barometer or some key indicators that you're headed in the right direction would be to look at how you're growing the number of contacts within a target account that you have with -- as part of the ABM program that you're driving, especially when you're looking at the one-to-one and one-to-few, you want to see, has there been an increase in the number of contacts you've been able to engage within this one single account. So that's #1. #2, you want to look at the level of seniority and decision-making authority within that set of contacts. So for example, you have been able to through your ABM efforts, grow the number of contacts within a key target account 3x, let's use hypothetical numbers here, 10 to 30, for example, Then you want to look at what's the ratio between the decision-maker level type of contact versus the influencers or even the general -- more general users. So if you're getting an increasing number of decision-makers being engaged and they are being added to your database or your engagement programs and your sales reps are getting greater success in talking and having conversations with these decision maker executive level type of contact that's a very strong indication that you're headed in the right direction. So I would say, have a look at the number of contacts and also look at the job level or decision-making levels of the contacts as well.

Yes, I think, yes, your dura focus around some good metrics to look at. I think one thing that I'd add that I know the team does here locally is looking at those 50 accounts and really drawing a light or an area of focus in where they're actually engaging with us. So if you got a list of accounts and the list of contacts within those, how do we expose what those points of engagement are, whether it is downloads or visits to our websites, so attendance in a webinar and key challenges may be identified in those webinars. There's a lot of data points that we can service behind the engagement of that. And we always look at how frequently are some of those key accounts focus engaging with us, not only just behind some of those key strategies or key tactics that we have to engage them specifically, but also what else are they doing in the broader ecosystem. So that could also include some data -- some third-party data from 6sense as an example, as to are they in market? Are they market ready? What are they obviously doing outside of the properties that we can measure as well? So there's lots of different ways to put a finger on the pulse, but you get a pretty good sense if you can highlight those areas of engagement and match that back to contact within an account that's typically how we look at it at a broader level. Lots of questions here, Iris. I don't know how we're going to get through all these. There's a couple of people asking around recommendations for agencies that everything that you're talking about today, Iris is it all in-house? I think it is. Or are you leveraging a B2B agency in the region?

It's a combination. So we do have agencies that we tap into. It has been largely in-house, but we are also supported by a very robust tech stack. So we do have technology providers that would help us with getting some of the key account insights, intent data, which I mentioned earlier. So I think it's basically a combination of technology and service providers, working with our existing digital agency and making sure there are synergies across the demand generation efforts. And then last but not least, obviously, drawing upon our in-house resources and talent as well.

It sounds like a bit of a combination. And Jonathan, I'm happy to make some recommendations for agencies that I've seen working well in this space. So I can reach out to you after the event and share some advice there. Lots of question. There's one here an interesting one, which is probably derived from the discussion we're having earlier. But how would you start an ABM play with a net new account is what Kelvin is asking. Any thoughts on that one, Iris?

Yes, I think that's a really great question. I suppose we need to make some assumptions here when the audience is asking about net new is that like net new prospects with no previous engagement. If that is the case, then obviously, the approach would be a little bit different from when we're talking about net new in a sense that maybe you're trying to position a new set of solutions and they have maybe purchased something else in your portfolio. So I'm going to assume that it's talking about completely white space. You haven't had any prior contact with the -- with that particular organization and probably no real connections in the organization with the key buyer committee. How do you go about doing it. I'll share something from not necessarily my current role, but just some of my previous experiences working on ABM campaigns. We've done a similar thing when we were trying to crack into a new geographic market in a previous organization that I worked with. So we did not actually have any prior engagement or relationship with a target account or accounts in this -- in this instance, it was a small set of target organizations. So how do we go about actually trying to break the ice or crack the code? We did that by actually engaging the help of third-party alliances and partners. So nobody knows like your organization, what it does, there's that lack of that awareness at that stage, assuming then it's going to be very difficult to start that conversation or engagement because maybe they have not been familiar with your brand per se. So that's where the third-party partnerships come into play and become really critical. So we engaged in industry organization that had a lot of credibility, great reputation with the target by a group that we were dealing with. They have been in that industry forever. They're a very strong influencer and very highly respected. So we work with them to organize activities together and really leverage their pool, their influence to bring the right people into the room. And we found that it worked really well. It also gave the target contact or the target buyer the confidence that they are dealing with a credible organization. And that partnership was just really synergistic. We brought in our respective expertise and value to the table, and it made the prospect feel like, hey, I'm getting a lot of new insights and I'm getting a lot of value out of this engagement. So I would strongly encourage you to think about these industry partnerships, think about your industry associations, think about organizations or even publications that have a very strong influence in the sector that you're trying to -- on that organization that you're trying to engage and look at what's the best way to utilize these third-party experts and third-party alliances and partnerships to help you crack into that account. And partners come into play as well. There might be organizations that already have a footprint in that account. And if there's a synergy between your product or service with that the partner organization, that's a great way to get referred in or get an introduction as well. And you could see joint marketing programs to drive that.

Yes. Sorry, guys, if we don't get to all these questions, there's quite a few coming through. So we will make sure that we do get back to you after this event as well, we've run out of time. But there's a few questions around account selection, which I think you've addressed just selecting the right accounts. I think you're leaning more into intent data. Anything you want to add to that? That's maybe a quick response there.

I think one of the things that it's important to keep in mind is that ABM is a long-tail play. So don't expect instant results. And one of the things that when you're looking at engaging accounts, it's important to have a certain baseline around timelines and aligning expectations with your sales stakeholders when you run an ABM program, it may not be instantly you're going to get the outcomes and results straight away. It could be a certain length of time before the things start to bear fruit. So I think that's something to keep in mind when you're looking at ABM programs and not to suddenly switch out your target audiences too quickly just because maybe in the initial month you're not seeing the immediate returns yet. So that would be my caution there and a recommendation.

There's another question more orientated around the content side of this. And just Lauren is asking around this idea of what typically works best as a content strategy? What do you lead with? Is it that providing value? Is it insight space content? And the part 2 of this question is, when is the right time to shift to maybe a more aggressive or harder call to action? I think, is the question that she's asking, but what sort of content do you lead? You've covered this in some of the other questions, but do you have a response for Lauren?

Yes. I would say, Lauren, one of the things you want to look at is utilizing account insights and any kind of -- if you're dealing with a cluster with some common attributes, if they're part of the same segment or they're at a certain stage in buying journeys or customer journeys, whatever the common attribute might be, right? When you're looking at the accounts, you have to draw out some of the insights and utilize those insights to build your content strategy. So if you are able to identify those data points and have really useful insights, then you can shape a piece of content that would appeal to the needs of that target audience based on the research that has been done. And that piece of content can take many shape or forms depending on who your target audiences, which industry they're in, they might consume content differently. So I won't go too much into what sort of format because that differs case by case. But the key takeaway is having insights-driven content is extremely important. If they're seeing that you're bringing something new to the table, you're sharing new insights that they didn't know before or are you telling them a new approach or surfacing some new opportunities that they didn't think about or highlighting some risks that they need to be aware of. And it's very, very tailored to the environment that they're familiar with their universe, then you have a better chance of engaging them. So this is all about how personalized and how customized you can get with the target audience when it comes to content. I've always found that studies, marketing, market research pieces resonate really well. And I've also found that even having events that are virtual engagements in a very focused setting and bringing the right subject matter experts to share those insights could be very useful. Now you might ask me, Iris, that doesn't sound dramatically different from a demand generation campaign? And my answer to you is, yes, it doesn't because ABM is not about, oh, it's a separate practice, and we use a separate set of tactics, separate set of campaign activities, it's not like that. ABM is actually about looking at the level of customization, the level of personalization and how do you make the content as relevant or the messaging as relevant as possible to that very specific account or audience that you have, and you can deploy any combination of activities, whether it's virtual events, whether it's even like advertising or content marketing, all of those tactics that you would normally use for a demand generation campaign, you can deploy them in varying degrees or at different stages and varying levels of personalization to an ABM audience.

Yes. Yes. Well, makes sense. I think that's really good. The -- look, we are getting very close to time, and I know there are still so many questions unanswered here. So I want to make sure that we connect with you after the event. We will make sure we do that. But I'm going to end on this one last question. What is it one thing that's going to make ABM stick within your organization? What have you learned? Tell us the one thing that we should leave our audience with today?

It's really hard to share one thing, I might just share three if I'm allowed to. I think the first key takeaway is -- the first key takeaway is really around not getting hung up about the technology behind the ABM piece. It doesn't have to be, as I mentioned, doesn't have to be a completely separate tech stack or set of processes. The key is really around your content, your message and more importantly, the experience that you're giving your target audience within the ABM play, how do you tailor that? How do you personalize it and to what extent do you personalize it. So that's #1. #2, start small and grow build up over time. So don't try to boil the ocean. You don't have to have the most comprehensive set of tools or you don't necessarily need to have like this massive set of team members to do that. You can actually start small and grow. And last but not least, find your clusters, I like to use the word clusters. It doesn't have to be one-to-one or one-to-few ABM. As marketers, we are empowered to be as creative as possible. We can deviate from what's generally the theory and the rule book, we can experiment and do what works for us because at the end of the day, the pros into putting around the results and the pipeline versus, oh, does that align to a specific ABM framework or theory, right? It's more about the practical execution. And hey, if it delivers the results that your sales stakeholders are looking for, then that's a win for you. So don't be afraid to try something different, not necessarily seen as a conventional way of -- or what the theoretical folks talk about how ABM should be done. Be bold to experiment, be bold to scale and not every organization has the same level of budgets and resources. So you can absolutely be creative in the way you deploy resources to make things happen or utilize a limited budget to make things happen. So sometimes less is more. So yes, that would be my recommendation.

Very good. Lots of golden nuggets in today's conversation. So Iris, I do want to thank you so much for your time, giving us a little bit of a peak behind the curtains as to what's happening in the ABM world at Autodesk. I really appreciate everything that you shared today. And I think there's some great questions from the audience, which is always a signal that you've hit the right note. So thank you again for being here today. And as we wrap up, I do want to encourage our audience to complete our survey that we have available. We still have those giveaways which we'll announce the winners post event today. If you're looking to develop and further progress some of your ABM strategies and tactics, ON24 has a suite of solutions that can also help with some of this. So we are offering a demo, which should be to the left-hand side. I'll just highlight that on the left-hand side of your screen now, which would love you to check out and see if we can help you with any of your initiatives. But for now, I'd like to thank you all for attending. Thank you for all the engagement and hopefully, we'll see you at the next B2B marketing chat in a couple of weeks' time. So thank you again. We'll see you next time.

Thank you, everyone. Have a great day.